The Gift of Prophecy

Question 4048.

The gift of prophecy is one of the most discussed and most misunderstood of all the gifts the Spirit gives to the church, and I want to take my time with it. Some believers treat every passing impression as a word from the Lord, while others are convinced that genuine prophecy stopped dead with the last apostle. I find neither view holds up when I sit down with the text and read it slowly.

So let me lay out what I actually believe Scripture teaches about this gift, where it sits among the other gifts, and how a careful congregation can welcome it without losing its head. I write as a continuationist who has watched both the cold suspicion of the gift and the reckless abuse of it, and I am wary of both.

What the gift of prophecy actually is

The gift of prophecy is the Spirit-given ability to speak a message from God for the strengthening, encouragement and comfort of His people. Paul puts it plainly in 1 Corinthians 14:3, where he says the one who prophesies speaks to people “for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.” The Greek noun behind our English word is prophēteia, and it carries the sense of speaking forth on God’s behalf rather than always foretelling the future.

Notice how down to earth that description is. We sometimes imagine prophecy as thunder and lightning, a voice booming over the assembly. Paul instead points to building people up, putting heart back into the discouraged, and bringing comfort to the grieving. That is the ordinary, pastoral shape of the gift of prophecy when it is functioning as God intends.

I take the gift to be a real and present reality in the church, not a relic. The Spirit “apportions to each one individually as he wills” according to 1 Corinthians 12:11, and prophecy stands first in the list Paul commends for the gathered congregation.

Notice too what the gift is not. It is not the same thing as preaching, though good preaching often carries a prophetic edge. It is not fortune telling, and it is not a private hotline that bypasses the ordinary disciplines of prayer and the reading of Scripture. When the New Testament speaks of the gift of prophecy it has in view a word given by the Spirit, for the moment, to strengthen the people of God, and that word always serves the gospel rather than competing with it.

I find it helps people to picture the difference between a foundation and a house built upon it. The apostles and prophets who gave us Scripture were laying the once for all foundation, “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,” as Ephesians 2:20 says. The ongoing gift of prophecy in the local church is something gentler and lower, a word of encouragement built upon that finished foundation, never a new layer of the foundation itself.

Prophecy is never equal to Scripture

Here is the line I will not let anyone blur. The gift of prophecy never stands on the same shelf as the written Word of God. Scripture is theopneustos, breathed out by God, and it is closed and complete. A prophetic word given in a Sunday meeting is something altogether humbler, and it must be weighed.

Paul says exactly that. “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said,” he writes in 1 Corinthians 14:29. You do not weigh Scripture. You submit to it. The fact that prophecy is to be tested tells you immediately that it occupies a lower rung. This is why I am so cautious about the phrase “thus says the Lord” being draped over a person’s hunch.

When someone tells me, “God told me to tell you,” I gently ask them to hold that claim more loosely. A more honest way to speak is, “I think the Lord may be pressing this on me, and I offer it for you to test.” That small change in language has saved a great many people from manipulation dressed up as a word from heaven.

I have watched the damage done when this line is blurred. A confident young man tells a heartbroken woman that God has shown him they are to be married, and because he has wrapped it in the language of revelation she dare not refuse, lest she be fighting God. That is spiritual bullying, and it is exactly what the requirement to weigh prophecy is meant to prevent. A genuine word from the Spirit will never coerce, because the Spirit Himself does not coerce.

The deeper safeguard is a high view of the Bible. If I truly believe that the Scriptures are breathed out by God and entirely sufficient, I will never be tempted to treat a fresh impression as a rival authority. The closed canon is not a cage that shuts God up, it is the riverbank that keeps the living water flowing in a direction that blesses rather than floods. You can read more of my thinking on this in my article on what it means that Scripture is infallible.

Can prophecy still predict the future?

Yes, I believe genuine prediction still happens, though it is not the heart of the gift. The clearest case is Agabus, who “foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world” in Acts 11:28, and it came to pass. Later he warned Paul of the binding that awaited him in Jerusalem. That is predictive content, given through an ordinary believer after Pentecost.

At the same time I treat personal predictive words with great care. Their proper role is usually confirmation of what God has already been saying through Scripture, prayer and wise counsel, not the launching of major life decisions out of nowhere. If a “word” tells you to marry someone, move house, or quit your job, weigh it slowly and never let it override the plain teaching of the Bible.

There is also a sober warning attached to predictive prophecy in the Old Testament that I never forget. “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken,” Deuteronomy 18:22 says. The standard for naming God as the source of a prediction is exact fulfilment, which is why I am so reluctant to let anyone attach the words “thus says the Lord” to a guess about the future.

So when a believer senses something about what is coming, I encourage them to share it humbly and tentatively, and then to wait and watch. If it proves true, give God the glory and take courage. If it does not, no harm has been done, because no one staked the honour of God’s name on it. That patient, unhurried posture is the opposite of the breathless prophetic culture that has wounded so many.

How the gift of prophecy differs from teaching

People often confuse the gift of prophecy with the gift of teaching, and the two really are distinct. Teaching explains and applies what God has already revealed in His Word. Prophecy is a more immediate, Spirit-prompted word for a particular moment and a particular people. Both serve the same Lord, and both are tethered to the same Scripture.

I have known believers with a striking prophetic sensitivity who would make poor teachers, and gifted teachers who rarely if ever bring a prophetic word. That is fine. The body has many parts, and the Spirit distributes as He pleases. You can read more on how these fit together in my piece on the spiritual gifts listed in Scripture.

The two also relate to time in different ways. Teaching unfolds truth that was given long ago and remains true for every generation, so a good sermon on Romans would have nourished believers a hundred years ago and will nourish them a hundred years from now. A prophetic word is far more tied to a moment, to this person in this season facing this trial. Both come from the same Spirit, and the church needs both, but confusing them leads people to expect a teacher to behave like an oracle, or an impression to carry the settled authority of Scripture.

In practice I find that the steady diet of the church should always be the faithful teaching of the Word. Where the gift of prophecy operates, it functions best as seasoning rather than as the main meal, a timely encouragement laid alongside the solid food of doctrine. A congregation fed mostly on impressions and little on Scripture will be excitable but weak, while a congregation fed on Scripture can safely receive the occasional tested prophetic word as a gift.

Order, not chaos, in the gathered church

Whenever prophecy is exercised, 1 Corinthians 14:40 is the governing chapter, and its theme is order. “All things should be done decently and in order,” Paul concludes. The Spirit who gives the gift of prophecy is not the author of confusion. A meeting marked by interruptions, theatrical displays and competing voices is not more spiritual, it is less biblical.

This is also why I keep prophecy plainly subordinate to the public reading and preaching of the Word. The instruction to “test everything” and “hold fast what is good” in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 draws the same boundary. A healthy church can make room for a tested prophetic word while keeping the Scriptures front and centre, and the two never need to compete.

Order, I should add, is not the enemy of the Spirit but the friend of love. Paul gives his instructions about taking turns and waiting and weighing precisely so that “all may learn and all be encouraged,” as 1 Corinthians 14:31 explains. A meeting that descends into competing voices and theatrical interruptions may feel charged, but it leaves the ordinary believer confused and the visitor cold. Genuine spiritual power expresses itself in self control, which is itself listed among the fruit of the Spirit.

I have sat in gatherings where prophecy was practised with real reverence, each contribution offered quietly, written down, weighed by the leaders and then either received or set aside, and the effect was deeply edifying. I have also sat in gatherings where the loudest and most dramatic voice carried the day and no one dared to test anything, and the effect was chaos that drove thoughtful people away. The difference was not the presence or absence of the Spirit but the presence or absence of biblical order.

Guarding against counterfeit prophecy

Counterfeit prophecy is real, and the New Testament expects it. “Many false prophets have gone out into the world,” John warns, and he tells us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” The gift of prophecy and false prophecy can look superficially similar, which is exactly why testing is commanded rather than optional.

How do I test? I ask whether the word agrees with Scripture, whether it exalts Jesus, whether it builds up the church rather than the speaker, and whether the person bringing it walks in humility and submission to the congregation. A word that fails those tests gets set aside without drama, and the person who brought it is loved, not shamed. You may also find my article on dreams, visions and prophecy today helpful here.

So, now what?

If you are in a church where the gift of prophecy is welcomed, welcome it with open eyes. Receive what builds you up, weigh everything, and never surrender your Bible to someone else’s impression. If you are in a church where the gift has been quietly shelved, do not despise it either, for Paul tells us to “earnestly desire” it.

And if you sense the Spirit prompting you with a word for someone, hold it humbly, offer it as something to be tested, and let the Scriptures have the final say. Is your longing really to build up the body, or to be seen as someone who hears from God? That question alone will keep most of us honest.

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

ESV, 1 Corinthians 14:1