ver.: 19 March 2003
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Prophecy is a sign of God's "nearness and concern", that God is still there with us to build up, tear down, or console (as per 1 Cor 14:3; Isaiah 40). Prophecy serves as God's communication for a particular circumstance (2 Sam 12:7; ; Acts 8:30-35). It can, within that context, offer a view of what is to come -- especially if repentance is not forthcoming. This is true for societies as a whole -- the prophets and apostles of old pronounced judgement on all and called all to righteousness, even the pagans, for societal evil and injustice.
Prophecy is something done within a context, the context of God's Word as revealed in Scripture, centrally the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If it is not within that context and in full accord with it, it is false and not from God, and furthermore will quite likely prove quite evil in its effect. What prophecy can do is to show how in today's living we have set aside the biblical truths and went our own way; it can place into the foreground what we have been avoiding and burn the true way into our hearts. It can convict us of our current path and provide us with new direction; if so, other gifts will follow which will empower the new direction. Now, of course, God can send us new prophecy of the older kind, even new Scripture -- that is strictly up to God. But that would have to be something that the Spirit would convict the Church virtually as a whole about for many generations, and is something that is much different than what we are talking about as the gift of prophecy. (Indeed, those who received the older kind of prophecy as often as not looked upon it more as a curse than a gift.)
Some see the message to the churches in Revelations to be prophetic; perhaps, but that may have been as much an exercise in the teaching office and in apostolic authority. Thw prophetic element is there, though, for the language is that of the prophets.
It may be that much of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer was trying to get at in his Letters and Papers from Prison, with his talk of 'religionless christianity', may have been the notes for a nascent prophecy which never got to its fuller substance and form due to his death. We can't take what he already had written as real prophecy, for it was early in development, more like a brainstorm than a resulting course of action, more like a chick than a hen. Even so, something of a prophetic sort may well have been taking shape, a message for the followers of the God of Abraham and Jesus who would have to try to live faithfully under a victoriously evil Third Reich that would co-opt the organized church, a prophecy that was no longer needed because the Reich lost and thus the horrible context never came to be. Even so, there are still many lessons in it for us.
The Old Testament prophets spoke within the context of their tradition,
using the rich oral and written poetry and stories which were the common
heritage of the Israelites over the milleniums since Abraham, the stuff
from which our Old Testament histories and writings were made. Some of the
prophets were highly-skilled wordsmiths (Habakkuk, for example) and were
even first class poets (Isaiah, for example). Prophets of the Church speak
within the framework of the New Testament apostolic tradition of faith (as
in Romans 12:6). Thus, it is the core of that tradition which can be used to
measure the prophecy's value; for us, Christ and Christ's work are the core
against which all prophecy is measured (;
Matt 7:15-20; 1 Thess 5:20-21; 1 John 4:1-2). The gift of discernment of spirits also comes into play when
judging prophecy.
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To be prophecy in the classic sense, the message must be from God, bearing the effectiveness of the Spirit, and bearing a piece of God's burden over us. It is usually (though not always) directed toward God's people. Dr. Martin Luther King, while not classically a prophet, did teach us a lesson about bearing God's burden. King bore a piece of God's burden on racism and took it not only to Christians but to all people. He had to, because the problem was with all of us. In a nation where the vast majority of people claimed Jesus as their God, the vast majority of people built racism into nearly every part of personal and community life, flying in the face of the gospel which that people claimed to follow. Dr. King put his life on the line -- and lost it -- in order to make sure we got the message. What we do with the message is our own responsibility. In the Old Testament, the prophets often pronounced woes on other nations. That these woes were often communicated before more than just Israelites was implied in their delivery. The idea that prophets spoke their woes explicitly to those woed lies behind the portrayal of Jonah's trip to Nineveh -- if that were not what was expected from a true prophet, the whole scene would've been just too stupid. Amos' trip to the apostate royal temple at Bethel was done in order to deliver warnings of doom to the doorstep of the doom's main cause. By telling the prophecy directly to those involved, it can produce their repentance, which is why the Old Testament prophets prophesied.
The primary passage of Scripture on the gifts of the Spirit deals rather
directly with prophecy: 1 Corinthians 14. Prophecy is highly valued by Paul,
especially over tongues, because of how readily it edifies the church. Paul's
words about his own speaking in tongues ()
should put to rest the idea that he is casting aside tongues; rather it
is a matter of knowing which valuable gift is more valuable, and of recognizing
how the value of the public use of tongues is dependent the gift of interpretation.
Paul's words about how it is better to speak few words that instruct than
it is to say thousands that do not applies not only to the gift of tongues
or prophecy, but also to any Christian's more normal
communication: the primary value is in its edification. And the root
of all such communicating (and everything else) was the subject of Paul's previous chapter, 1
Cor 13 -- love.
a letter on 'burden'
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