Utumishi Blog

Just type “prophecy” into Google and you will come up with hundreds of thousands of sites. Most of it completely bonkers. When is prophecy authentic? Do we need it? What’s it for? There are a lot of things that could be said on the subject but four questions spring to mind as particularly important ones to ask:

1. What exactly do you mean by prophecy? Sometimes our confusions and debates over this issue come down to different vocabulary and church cultures. What you call prophecy I might call a word of knowledge or a word of wisdom or a burden or a hunch. Some people might say “God said to me” while others might describe the same experience as “A picture came into my mind” or “I feel that the things I’ve been reading in the Bible recently and certain circumstances and conversations are all pushing me in this certain direction.”  In some ways it doesn’t matter too much but it can lead to confusion or, at its worst, putting a feeling on the same level of authority as the Bible.
2. How does it fit with the biblical picture of prophecy and of the Christian life? There’s massive variety in the content and form of biblical prophecy but it is interesting that in the New Testament the few prophecies that we have recorded are more often warnings of suffering than promises of blessing. Agabus prophecied famine (Acts 11:28) and persecution (Acts 21:11). The prophecies to the churches (Rev. 2-3) contain more rebuke than affirmation. Jeremiah warned of false prophets declaring “Peace, peace” and “It shall be well with you” (Jer. 6:14; 23:16-17).
3. Does it glorify Jesus? This is absolutely crucial. The Spirit of prophecy is the breath of Jesus, his self-revelation (Rev. 19:10) just as the Jesus is the Word of God, the Father’s self-revelation (John 1:1). The Spirit’s desire, in prophecy as in every other utterance he inspires, is not to exalt man but to humble man and exalt Jesus (John 16:7-14). Is the prophecy I’m hearing giving me a vision of me-and-my-prosperity or of the Jesus of the Bible, the risen crucified Lord, the Lamb who was slain?
4. Is the Bible enough for you? Often our seeking after ‘new words from God’ comes from a spiritual restlessness and lack of faith in the Bible as the completely sufficient Word of God. When we are not enjoying the amazing feast of soul-satisfying, life-giving words in these 1200 pages, when we fail to see new and wonderful pictures of Jesus in this Word each day, when we are not resting in the wonderful promises there that He will be with us and sustain us and carry us through all the pains and uncertainties of life to an unspeakably wonderful eternity, when we are not content with Jesus’ words written for us then inevitably we will start seeking after other food, other pictures and other promises. There may well be authentic prophecy in our time and in our churches – we pray that it would be Jesus-exalting and true to the reality of following him in the way of the cross – but we do not need it. We have The Faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Let us rejoice in that.

P.S. For what it’s worth (and I wouldn’t go to the stake for this) my personal understanding is that prophecy, as a fully inspired communication, a) will continue in the church until the day we see Jesus face to face (1 Cor. 13:8-12); b) is probably quite rare (just as miraculous healings are happening today but much less frequently than in the times of the apostles); c) seems to function mainly as a kind of naming or framing of contemporary situations  with Old Testament images and metaphors (e.g. Rev. 11:8) so as to move the heart of the hearers to flee idolatry and run to Christ (I’ve done some research on this summarised here). But I may be wrong on this – what I’d want to underline is point 4. above.