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The Apostolic and Prophetic Foundation
The word “prophet” is the English transliteration of the Greek word prophetes. It basically means “one who speaks on behalf of another.” To be a prophet of God is to be His personal spokesman.
As we shall see, God requires more from His spokesmen than simply conveying His words. The prophet’s ministry has to do with proclaiming His heart. What He is feeling and experiencing must be revealed. Therefore, He must bring those called to represent Him as prophets into harmony with His holy character. His priority is that all who minister in His name would be like Him. When there is a lack of conformity to His likeness, even accurate words will not only fall short of revealing Him in the way He desires, they may even misrepresent Him. This is no light matter.
It is an awesome privilege to bear the word of the Lord. Therefore, God’s spokesmen must have their lives and messages integrated. History reveals that He often speaks as much through one’s actions as He does through one’s words. It is probably safe to say that the prophet’s life is the major part of the message he is sent to convey. God is revealed in a holy life.
When we consider the prophets in Scripture, one thing becomes clear. These men paid great prices for the burdens they carried. Hosea knew the unfaithfulness of his wife so that he might understand God’s heart concerning Israel’s unfaithfulness to Him. Ezekiel saw his wife die and was forbidden by the Lord to mourn in order that he might be a sign to the people. Jeremiah was rejected by his own home town and became the object of an assassination plot. The words these men brought from the Lord were expensive beyond human capacity to bear apart from grace.
Prophets saw their whole lives altered that they might become fit vessels to reveal God’s heart. Truly the prophet’s ministry and the bearing of the heart of God cannot be confused with simply having the gift of prophecy or the word of knowledge.
Today we see many bringing prophetic words to the local church, receiving words of knowledge and ministering personal words of prophecy for individuals as well. Such ministry can be a great blessing to God’s people. Clearly though, the function of a prophet, while incorporating these, will embody a great deal more.
While there have been many attempts to stereotype the prophet’s ministry, the Scriptures reveal that they are as diverse a bunch of folks as any other group in God’s kingdom. Elijah did many signs and wonders; John the Baptist did none. Isaiah prophesied in the king’s court; Ezekiel was sent to the captives in Babylon. Jeremiah, a prophet to the nations, stayed home; Jonah, a prophet to Israel, was sent to a foreign city. The majority of king David’s prophetic ministry found expression in song; Daniel seemed to articulate his prophetic words to the people of God only through writing. Moses commanded the people to destroy their enemies and take the promised land; Jeremiah counseled them to submit to Babylon and walk away from the land. Each prophet was unique and made a distinct contribution to the outworking of God’s purpose on earth.
While prophets are unique, they will also have much in common. Their calling is to come into God’s presence and receive His burden for His people. Their concern is primarily that the person and word of God be revealed in the Church. They are grieved and stirred to speak up when they see the Lord’s people satisfied without the manifest presence of God in their midst, settling for ritual or traditional “ruts.” The prophetic burden on their hearts leads them to upset the status quo.
Consider the prophet Amos as he served as God’s spokesman to confront the religious system of his day:
I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water....
This is a clear call to stop playing games and to begin bearing fruit for God. Only a deep hunger for God’s manifest presence can bring true fruitfulness.
He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit....
(Jn. 15:5)
Prophets can seem a threat to those who are prone to systemize and program church life. Human tendency is to organize rather than allow the Lord to direct His people. The prophetic ministry is needed to keep churches from reflecting its leaders more than Jesus.
Whenever a group begins to resemble an organization more than an organism, the trumpet’s call of a prophet’s warning should sound. “Where is the Spirit of God in all this?” At that point either the prophet will be silenced and the system preserved, or the prophet will be heard and change will take place. Unfortunately, it is sometimes easier to get rid of prophets than to change.
One mark of prophets is that they often just do not fit much of the religious world. Perhaps it is because of the unique grace of God on their lives that they are not able to fit. When God called a man in Scripture to be a prophet, it was to more than simply a ministry of bringing words to people. It was to a life of both intimacy with the Lord and persecution from those who were comfortable with their own religious life.
Prophets brought the imminence of God to His people. When a prophet spoke, the Lord could no longer be thought of as far off. His burden could no longer be relegated to another time or to another people. Men were brought face to face with issues through the power of God and could not ignore them. To reject the prophet was to reject the One who had sent him.
It is precisely because of this anointing to bring the immediacy of God and His purpose to the people that prophets can miss His timing concerning the very events they foresee. Unless a prophet has a clear word from God concerning exact dates (Jer. 25:11 - 12), he must guard his words very carefully. Often the clearer a prophet sees something in the Spirit, the sooner he might tend to think it will come to pass. He can often be wrong in this.
The prophets in Scripture were not so much concerned with predicting exact dates and times. They were to bring the immediacy of the future into the present and thereby stir the people to respond to God in their circumstances. This would then prepare them for the future.
As a matter of fact, sometimes God had His spokesmen communicate the certainty of a coming event by speaking of it in the past tense (e.g., Is. 53). Hence, if they were not careful, it would be easy for them to look to their past while God was in fact pointing to the future. This is why prophets must differentiate between the word of the Lord and their interpretation of that word (i.e., their thoughts regarding God’s intent when He spoke, concerning what the fulfillment of the word will actually look like as well as how it is to be properly applied, and what the correct response is both individually and corporately, etc.).
It is not necessarily the prophet’s responsibility to interpret what he has prophesied. If he does, he must distinguish between the word and his explanation of it. His primary responsibility is to simply bring what God has shown or spoken to him as accurately as possible (leaving nothing out; adding nothing to it).
…knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
The idea that the prophet’s interpretation of his own prophecy is of more value than anyone else’s is quite dangerous. He could bring a valid word that all agree is from the Lord, but then introduce his own desires and theology into the picture and begin to move the church in a wrong direction.
To elevate the speaker’s interpretation of God’s intent above what other men are sensing is to move the prophet toward a place of unaccountability. While God gives the task of evaluating both the content (Is it biblical? Is it from God or from the speaker’s own thoughts?) and spirit (Does it reflect God’s heart or simply the prophesier’s own emotions?) of the prophet’s ministry to other prophets and spiritual men in the church (1 Cor. 14:29; 2:15), who is to determine how it is to be interpreted? God has given His Holy Spirit to His Church for this very purpose. Each member must hear His voice. Prophetically gifted believers and elders may summarize what they believe the Spirit is speaking to His people. They may also sense a corporate direction for the fellowship to take based on prophetic input. However, each individual must respond to God’s personal application of His word to their life. There will be different emphases for each and different responses from each. A directive word to the whole church must be evaluated by the overseers (e.g., “We need to respond to this.” or “Let us wait on God concerning this.” or “We need further confirmation before we act on this.”).
Of course, there will be times when the word will require an immediate response from all present. One example of this would be a word from the Lord for all present to humble themselves in His presence. Sometimes, the response of the hearers will be affected by the way in which the prophesier delivers the word. It must come from a pure heart filled with the Lord’s deep concern for those listening. A wrong motivation will “muddy” the word and cause confusion, and perhaps even produce the opposite of God’s original intent.
At this juncture it is important to recognize two distinct types of prophets. Consider the following quote from one of the many recent books on prophetic ministry.
We have much to learn about the different types of prophets - some are “seers” who prophesy according to visions, dreams or other revelation knowledge they have received; others are what I would call the “nabi” prophet, from the Hebrew word for prophet that means “to bubble forth.” A nabi prophet knows in part and prophesies in part; most of the time...it is like looking “through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:9, 12).
The author goes on to say that he is a “nabi type” prophet.
I see the thoughts about to be expressed in words only microseconds before they are spoken - just enough time to decide whether I have faith to speak it, whether I am using the proper phrasing, and whether it would be wise to speak what I am perceiving (1 Cor. 14:32; Rom. 12:6).[16]
As we have said, the prophet must differentiate between God’s word and his interpretation of it. God has sent His Holy Spirit to reveal to us how prophecy is to be applied. This is true also in the case of a seer’s ministry. However, in his case, the correct interpretation of what he has seen often is the word of the Lord. In other words, the seer will see (that’s why they are called seers) visions and dreams that are often highly symbolic.[17] At such times, what he views is not in itself the complete message. Rather, it points to truth that God wants to reveal. John the apostle was a seer. The Lord said to him,
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia....” Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands.
The lampstands were not in themselves the message. They symbolized something else.
...and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.
When the Lord revealed to John what the lampstands represented, He was also showing us an important lesson for understanding visions and dreams. We must turn to Him and wait upon Him for the correct interpretation of what we have seen. What He then speaks to us is the word of the Lord. If we then prophesy this word, we must be careful to differentiate between what God has spoken and our interpretation of it (i.e., our opinions concerning its fulfillment, God’s intent, its application, the church’s response, etc.).
While the elders are called to oversee the flock, they must honor the Lord’s headship in the outworking of what He has spoken. We will only fully realize what the final corporate picture looks like when we get there! It is important to understand that God will have many surprises in store for the prophets as well as everyone else when predictive words come to pass and the fulfillment does not look at all like any of us thought!
Lord, bring to pass what You have seen from all eternity. Establish Your purpose. Jesus, increase our capacity to see more clearly the difference between what was in Your heart and our interpretation of what You meant when You spoke to us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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