The Monday Muse: Prophecy
My wife’s close friend Rachel came over for dinner tonight. Whenever the two of them get together you can count on some deep discussions. I asked them to help me come up with this week’s question and based on an earlier discussion, this is what they came up with:
Does God still speak through prophetic means?
I can see many paths in this discussion. So thanks to my wife Annie and her friend Rachel for this potentially interesting debate. Now…have at it…but play nice.
2 Comments
burnshead
No, God does not continue to use prophetic means to speak to us.
My understanding is that “prophecy” is a message from God spoken directly to the church at large providing new revelation of Himself. However, if we are to uphold the assertion of Sola Scriptura – that God’s word is self-authenticating and the final authority – any “new” prophecies are immediately called into question.
With scripture as the final authority, any new prophetic revelation is rightly placed under the scrutiny of the Bible. If it does not stand up to what has already been written, then the prophecy is false. If it does stand up to what is written in scripture, then it’s not really a new revelation is it?
Jeff Lash
I think we have to explore the purpose and meaning behind prophecy. Prophecy always has some connection to the coming Christ in the Old Testament. The New Testament reveals Jesus as the Messiah and long awaited Christ. Any prophecy spoken during or after the time of Jesus relates to his second coming. So how are we to judge whether or not prophecy is still legitimate? Under this description, we could still expect to receive valid prophecy. However, the validity of the prophecy was reinforced by the relationship of the prophet. So…we see Paul speaking of Christ’s coming, a future reality. Though we wouldn’t necessarily call him a prophet, his message is validated by the fact that he physically encountered and followed Jesus. So any type of prophetic word within the New Testament seems to hinge on the fact that Jesus had given special authority to his direct disciples, the apostles.
So, it would seem to me that the gift of prophecy was given to the apostles. The apostles spoke and the inspired words comprise many books within the Bible that we hold today. Of course, I’m shooting from the hip on this one but it seems to me that the gift of prophecy ended with the death of the apostles. There is no need for further revelation because Jesus has come and the message of the second coming had been handed down from Jesus to his apostles which we read today in Scripture.