# "...but especially that you may prophesy." 1cor 14:1b



## Bladestunner316 (Sep 26, 2005)

1 Cor 14:1




> 1 Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may *prophesy*.



How do I understand the meaning of prophecy in this verse? I know Prophecy mean's to _foretell_. If the _sign gifts_ have ceased today or since the time of the apostles how do I apply this to my life and to the church today? 

In Christ,
Blade


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## heartoflesh (Sep 26, 2005)

I'm not sure if this will address the practical part of your question, "how do I apply this to my life", but I actually just started reading D.A. Carson's _Showing the Spirit, 1987_, (from which I also extracted my new, nifty signature quote!  ) and I will share a few of the salient passages. Carson is not a cessationist, and basically aligns himself with Grudem on the subject, with a few reservations. His thesis is basically that prophecy in the NT must be distinguished from prophecy in the OT, especially in authority status, and that NT prophecy, while revelatory, is not a form of authoritative revelation that threatens the canon of Scripture.

....For Paul, the legitimate heirs and successors of the Old Testament prophets, so far as their authority status was concerned, were not New Testament prophets, but the apostles.... (pg. 94)

.....Once a prophet was tested and approved in the Old Testament, God's people were morally bound to obey him. To disobey such a prophet was to oppose God. If a prophet speaking in the name of God was shown to be in error, the official sanction was death. But once a prophet is acknowledged as true, there is no trace of repeated checks on the _content_ of his oracle. By contrast, New Testament prophets are to have their oracles carefully _weighed_ (1 Cor. 14:29; so also 1 Thess. 5:19-21). The word _diakrino_ suggests that the prophecy be _evaluated_, not simply accepted as totally true or totally false. The presupposition is that any one New Testament prophetic oracle is expected to be _mixed_ in quality, and the wheat must be separated from the chaff. Moreover, there is no hint of excommunication as the threatened sanction if the prophet occasionally does not live up to his mark. More importantly, Paul places the authority of Christian prophets _under his own_ (1 Cor. 14:37-38); and to contravene apostolic authority may eventually bring enormous threat (see 1 Cor. 4:21; 2 Cor. 10:11; 13:1-10; 1 Tim. 1:20) (pg. 94-95)

...New Testament prophecy, by contrast with that of the Old, cuts a very low profile. The Thessalonians actually have to be told not to treat prophecies with contempt (1 Thess. 5:20); and in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul has to advance the cause of prophecy above the cause of tongues. There are only two passages in the Pauline correspondence where prophets stand in more exalted company, Ephesians 2:20 and 3:5. The former is crucial: the church, we are told, is built on the foundation of the apostles _and prophets_. In an extended treatment, Grudem argues that the construction means "the apostles who are prophets"; certainly the New Testament writers sometimes view the apostles as prophets (see 1 Cor. 13:9; 14:6; and possibly Rev. 1:3, if the traditional authorship is correct). There are difficulties with this view that he himself acknowledges; but his lengthy discussion demonstrates, at the least, how complex is the detailed exegesis of that verse, and how cautious our deductions should be under _any_ interpretation of it. If we conclude, against Grudem, that the "prophets" in question here enjoy a role with the apostles in providing the revelatory foundation for Christianity (although that is not quite what is said), we must hasten to admit that this is an anomalous use of "prophets" in the New Testament. It is as illegitimate for Gaffin to use this verse as the controlling factor in his understanding of the New Testament gift of prophecy as it would be to conclude from Titus 1:12 ("Even one of their own prophets has said, 'Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons' ") that New Testament prophets were pagan poets from Crete. (pg. 96-97)

....There are instances of prophecies in Acts that are viewed as genuinely from God yet having something less than the authority status of an Old Testament prophecy. Perhaps most startling is Acts 21:4 where certain disciples "by means of the Spirit"-- almost certainly a signal of prophecy, see 11:28-- tell Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Paul goes anyway, -persuaded that he is being prompted by the Spirit to visit the city. Perhaps, as Grudem suggests, these prophets had received some revelation about the apostle's impending sufferings, and _interpreted_ them to mean Paul should not go. Whatever the case, the prophecy, so far as Paul was concerned, needed evaluating, and, in the form he received it from them, rejecting. The prophecy of Agabus in Acts 21:10-11 stipulates that the Jews in Jerusalem would bind the man who owns Paul's girdle and hand him over to the Gentiles. Strictly speaking, however, in the event itself, Paul was not bound by the Jews but by the Romans; and the Jews did not hand Paul over to the Romans, but sought to kill him with mob violence, prompting a rescue by the Romans. I can think of no reported Old Testament prophet whose prophecies are so wrong on the details. (pg. 97-98)

....The constraints placed on prophecy in this chapter (1 Cor. 14)-- make it clear that the gift of prophecy stands considerably tamed. Moreover, it is precisely because prophecy operates at this lower level of authority that Paul can encourage women to pray and prophesy in public under the constraints of 1 Cor. 11 (whatever they mean), while forbidding them to exercise an authoritative teaching role over men (1 Tim. 2:11ff) or to evaluate the content of the prophecies (1 Cor. 14:33b-36) (Pg. 98)


_And finally from the last chapter of the book....._


....when Paul presupposes in 1 Corinthians 14:30 that the gift of prophecy depends on revelation, we are not limited to a form of authoritative revelation that threatens the finality of the canon. To argue in such a way is to confuse the terminology of Protestant systematic theology with the terminology of the Scripture writers. The prophecy Paul has in mind is revelatory and Spirit-prompted, and it may, as Turner and others suggest, deal largely with questions of application of gospel truth (though there is no biblical restriction along such lines). None of this means it is necessarily authoritative, infallible, or canon-threatening. Such prophecies must still be evaluated, and they are principally submissive to the apostle and his gospel. (pg.163-164)


....there may be reason to suppose that noncharismatic wings of the contemporary church may still enjoy some use of "prophecy" without calling it that. Calvin seems to be open to the possibility. Commenting on "prophets" in Ephesians 4:11, he suggests they are "those who excelled by special revelation"; and then he adds, "none such now exist, _or they are less manifest"_. In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:28-31, he suggests that "prophets" refers to those who are skillful at making known God's will, primarily by applying prophecies, threats, promises, and the teaching of Scripture. He then goes on to acknowledge he may be wrong, for it is difficult to be certain when such gifts or offices have been kept from the church for so long a time, _except for traces or shades of them still to be found._ (pg. 168)


There is obviously much more that Carson says on the subject, and I have only highlighted a few of the salient passages. Of course, his constant interaction with other scholars is intense (a little too intense for me, frankly). There is a section in the last chapter where he interacts with Geerhardus Vos on his view of revelation that is especially intense. A little beyond me. All in all, a good book, and good food for thought.

Still haven't made of my mind on cessationism!

~Rick

[Edited on 9-26-2005 by Rick Larson]


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## Me Died Blue (Sep 26, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Bladestunner316_
> 1 Cor 14:1
> 
> 
> ...



Foretelling is simply one subset of prophecy, which is _divine instruction_ for God's people. Thus, biblical prophecy was about issues pertaining to the Church at the time no less (and in fact even _more_) than it was about the future.

Since that gift has now ceased, it has the same relevance to us today as does something like the observance of what the role and nature of an apostle was; and that is to show us what was going on at that time in redemptive history. Meditation on the nature and giving of prophecy sheds essential light on how the apostles were bringing God's message to the world at the beginning of the New Testament Church, and it also informs us on the objective, divine nature of the inspiration of Scripture.

For example, the fact that prophecy (which is God-breathed by nature) was such a key part of the New Testament Church's founding can serve as an inspiration to us today that God is always behind the work of the Church. Furthermore, we are reminded of the certainty we have in the pure words of Scripture by the standard of perfection that was applied to biblical prophecy: "But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die" (Deut. 18:20).


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## Steve Owen (Sep 26, 2005)

The quotation from Don Carson which Rick quoted is wretchedly bad exegesis, being based on three words in the NIV translation of 1Cor 14:29 which are not found in *any* Greek (or Latin!) manuscript, and on a very questionable interpretation of Eph 2:20. He also needs to be *very * careful about saying that the Holy Spirit got a few things wrong through Agabus!

To prophesy is to tell forth God's word. The OT and NT prophets spoke the words that God gave them, and so should we. But the Canon of Scripture being now completed, we speak forth God's written word that He has given us. 

This was the understanding of just about everybody until the Pentecostal Movement began. Any number of charismatics have bought the _Banner of Truth_ 'Puritan Paperback' edition of Perkins' _The Art of Prophecy_ only to find that it is a book on preaching. The early Puritans used to meet together for 'Prophecyings' which we would now call Housegroups or Bible studies.


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## larryjf (Sep 27, 2005)

Rev 19:10 - "...the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."


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