Saturday, August 18, 2007

where is proper prophecy

My friend Tassos recently wrote a short piece on Prophecy in The Journal for Biblical Accuracy. His conclusion:
Prophecy is a wonderful gift that most of the time - and this is only my personal experience - is either not used (controlling, rigid meetings) or it is abused (meetings full of confusion and people behaving and acting strangely). This is very sad because as long as it is not there or it is abused a voice of God that God Himself designed for the gatherings of the believers to personally exhort them build them up and comfort them is blocked.

I agree. My experience does not at all align with my theology. Where has all the prophecy gone?

I'll restate, I am not a cessationist. I do not find Biblical support for the ending of da Gifts™. I don not find historical support for the ending of da Gifts™ as cessationists claim. But I do find that history also does not support my understanding of the Biblical charismata - certainly my personal history does not. As with Tassos, I have seen glimpses of it but nothing on the order of what I understand the Biblical record suggests.

And so I ask again, where has all the prophecy gone? I for one am not happy to conclude that God stopped showing up and I'm also not interested in manipulating events to prop up the appearance of His presence.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rick,
Could it be that you DO hear prophecy and just don't recognize it? What are you expecting when you are looking for prophecy? Maybe you are not looking for Biblical prophecy? Are you expecting it to show up in church services? If so, what do you think it would look like?

What if someone in your small group says this, "I think the US is going to hell in a handbasket. If we don't stop all of this abortion soon, God may bring an end to the US as we know it." I think that would be prophecy. What do you think?

I think we often hear prophecy from the wise people in our midst. Maybe we even hear prophecy in blogs. Well, maybe not.

ricki said...

no-blog:

Here it and don't recognize it? Very likely but I suspect not enough to explain the gap versus my expectation.

What am I expecting? I expect sense that God spoke rather than me.

Biblical prophecy? Huh?

Church service? Well, there also but I expect all of the time.

In Sunday service? Many forms but I expect it would not look man made.

If someone in small group said that, the words "I think" indicate they don't think it is God. If they say, "I think God might be saying ..." I'd think, "hmmm, that sounds suspiciously like your personal opinion."

Anonymous said...

Where is prophecy you ask. It is simple, Rick, it is in the bible, have you read it, can't you see it, do you understand it.

Are you looking in the wrong places when the right place is at hand. Us it and you will find prophecy. Ask the Lord for discernment and you will understand.

Expection is not gonna get it, don't rely on it. If you want it, you are going to have to go to the bible to find it. Phoney prophets are all around you, even in you so called small group. Give them no ear. If you want to find out where proper prophecy went, it went no where. It is where it has always been, in the bible. Read it with the Lord's help and you will find and understand proper prophecy.
Take care

ricki said...

Gordon - nice try but my copies of the Bible indicate prophecy will continue. Perhaps we have different versions.

:-)

reftagger