“Jesus I Know. Paul I Know. Who are you?” – Part 9

This is the 9^th article in this series. 

Part 1, 

Part 2, 

Part 3, 

Part 4,

Part 5,

Part 6,

Part 7,and

Part 8

Here's the point: Fallible vessels are the conduit for the infallible work of the Spirit and out of necessity must rely on an infallible source to validate their claims.   I can find no direct evidence in the Scripture that would permit an individual believer to claim personal, divine, authoritative guidance. Subjective guidance in the New Testament tends to relate to the ministry of the church rather than to private, personal interests (e.g. Acts 11:27ff).  Paul was very clear that prophecy was important to the development of the New Testament Church.

If we carefully examine the way Paul uses the notion of prophecy, as used in the Church, we must come to the conclusion that IT IS NOT:

1. Equal to the office of prophet.  Prophets have incredible authority and responsibility-they were able to speak and write words that had absolute divine authority. They could say, "Thus says the Lord," and the words that followed were the very words of God. The prophets wrote their words as God's words in Scripture for all time (see Deut. 18:18-20; Num. 22:38; Jer. 1:9; Ezek. 2:7). To disbelieve or disobey a prophet's words, therefore, was to disbelieve or disobey God (Deut. 18:19; 1 Sam. 8:7; 1 Kings 20:36).  And of extreme importance: if a prophet said something that was wrong, the prophet was to be stoned. 

When Paul says, "Let two or three prophets speak and let the others weigh what is said" (I Cor. 14:29), he suggests that they should listen carefully and sift the good from the bad, accepting some and rejecting the rest (this is the implication of the Greek word diakrino here translated "weigh what is said"). We cannot imagine an Old Testament prophet such as Isaiah saying, "Listen to what I say and weigh what is said-sort the good from the bad-sift what you accept from what you should not accept!" If prophecy had absolute divine authority, it would be sin to do this. But here Paul commands that it be done, which suggests that New Testament prophecy did not have the authority of God's very words.

2. Equal to the office of apostle.  In the New Testament we also find people who could speak and write God's very words and have them recorded in Scripture, but we are surprised to find that Jesus no longer calls them "prophets."  He uses a new term, "apostles." The apostles are the New Testament counterpart to the Old Testament prophets (see I Cor. 2:13; 14:37; 2 Cor. 13:3; Gal. 1:8-9,11-12; 2 Thess. 2:13; 4:8,15; 2 Peter 3:2). It is the apostles, not the prophets, who have authority to write the words of New Testament Scripture. When the apostles want to establish their unique authority, they never appeal to the title prophet; they call themselves apostles (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; 9:1-2; 2 Cor. 1: 1; 11: 1213; 12:11-12; Gal. 1: 1; Eph. 1: 1; 1 Peter 1: 1; 2 Peter 1: 1; 3:2).

So the “prophesy” that the apostle Paul refers to is not the inspired words of an apostle.  They are quite different  Paul, writing to Corinth, a church that experienced a great deal of prophecy, 1Corinthians 14: 37,38 claims authority far greater than any prophet at Corinth: "If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized."

3. Equal to the Scriptures.   It might be a given, but if we establish that the words of a true prophet and the words of a true apostle are the very words of God -- indisputable, authoritative and undeniable, then we could easily see that these holy men who were inspired to write the Scripture wrote things that cannot be equated in authority to the “prophesy” that Paul wrote about.  Let’s look at some examples of the lesser authority of this type of prophesy.

In Acts 21:4 (ESV) we read, “⁴ And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.” This seems to be a reference to prophecy directed toward Paul, but Paul disobeyed it! He never would have done this if this prophecy contained God's very words.

In Acts 21:10–11 (ESV), “¹⁰ While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. ¹¹ And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ ”   Agabus prophesied that the Jews at Jerusalem would "bind [Paul] and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles," a prediction that was nearly correct but not quite: The Romans were the ones who bound Paul (v. 33), and the Jews, rather than delivering him voluntarily, tried to kill him, and he had to be rescued by force (v. 32). The prediction was not far off, but it contained inaccuracy in detail that would have called into question the validity of any Old Testament prophet.

There was certainly prophesying in the local congregations in the New Testament. But it did not have authority equal to the prophets,apostles or Scriptures -- and that the authors of Scripture knew this!    


So how do we apply this?  I’ll try to deal with that in the next article.