John Talada
I would like to consider the word prophet for a few minutes.
In hearing the word certain things will come to mind. The human mind associates
a word with concepts instilled from a wide variety of sources. For the
Christian believer at least some of these ideas associated with the word
prophet should come from the Bible. Names like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah and
Daniel instantly come to my mind. However, from the world we also have received
other associations with this term. For instance, we might think of Nostradamus,
Edgar Cayce, psychics, fortune-tellers, etc. They are as much a part of
contemporary usage as the Biblical figures. Along with all these things come
the doctrinal aspects of the term that come from one's religious affiliation.
Mormons, for example, have a specific notion of prophet that is considerably
different from that of someone in an Afro-American Pentecostal congregation. On
the other hand most Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians hold doctrines that
have relegated the role of prophet to the dustbin of history. All these
associations work together to form one's concept of what a prophet is in our
minds. In this study I would like to focus the attention on what the word
prophet means in a Biblical sense and use that perspective to view the role of
the prophet in the modern Assembly.
Considering the fluid nature of language and meaning we
could expect that there existed some changes in the use of the term even in the
Bible. This is an important point in understanding the prophet and his role
among God's people and in the world. There are a couple of questions that may
help us bring the question into focus. First we might ask, "Are there
things that all Biblical prophets have in common?" This will help
coordinate what is pertinent in the study so that it does not get lost in the
details. Secondly, we might ask, "Do differences exist between the role of
a prophet and the act of prophesying?" This question gives greater focus
to the role of the prophet. For instance, it eliminates the need of seeing
everyone that speaks a word of prophecy as a prophet.
It is a major project to consider all the prophets of the
Bible for there are two specific groups that must be addressed: the literary
and the non-literary prophets. In other words, in the Bible we find the
prophets who were known for what they wrote down as prophecy (i.e. Isaiah,
Jeremiah, etc.) and those who did not record any of these things for posterity
(i.e. Elijah, Samuel, etc.). It is only in this point that they should be
considered differently. In the written historical records of the Old Testament
we find mention of Elijah and Elisha. However, it is their actions rather than
their words that mark them out as prophets. This brings up a fundamental point
regarding Biblical prophets - they are more than merely passive mouthpieces for
God. They are more than the words that they spoke or recorded. Neither Elijah
nor Elisha said much that would be considered prophecy according to the
traditional understanding of prophecy. Nevertheless Elijah is noted as one of
Israel's greatest prophets.
In addressing the
first question it may be helpful to look at Elijah. Nothing is recorded of
Elijah's call as prophet. Clearly he was already called and ordained as a
prophet before he is first mentioned in 1 Kings 17:1. "Elijah the
Tishbite... said to Ahab, "As Yahweh lives, the God of Israel whom I
serve, there will be neither dew nor rain these years except at my order."
[The Jerusalem Bible] Only a madman would make such an outrageous statement.
Who can control the weather? Elijah was not a madman and he could not control
the weather. He did not possess supernatural powers. However he was able to
speak from a position of divine authority. This divine authority is one of the
things that all prophets of Yahweh have in common. Is this authority unlimited
and to be used at the discretion of the man? The answer is "No" in
both cases. As a prophet Elijah had the authority to order both the beginning
and ending of a drought. As a man he did not have the power to bring it to
pass. This distinction must be noted. The prophet is given divine authority
within limits and under direct order of God. It was not an authority that he
could use for his own purpose.
How does the prophet receive this divine authority? We are
not given the circumstances of Elijah's calling to prophetic ministry. It must
be understood, however, that he was called and ordained as a prophet of Yahweh.
Only God is able to call and ordain in such a way. The call and ordination of a
prophet requires absolute submission to God. There is no doubt that the prophet
at times experienced weaknesses and moral failures in his personal life but he
remains submissive to God. Elijah's weakness is revealed in 1 Kings 19:3 - 16.
However, even through this he maintained this divine authority. Therefore we
can conclude that this authority is not only from God but it is also intimately
related to the submissiveness of the one called to his God. It is possible to
be totally submissive to God without being a prophet but one cannot be a
prophet without being totally submissive to His will. It is Yahweh that
initiates the call of a prophet.
The call to prophetic ministry is clearly revealed in the
case of Jeremiah. "Then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, 'Before I
formed you in the belly, I knew you; and before you came forth from the womb I
sanctified you - I ordained you a prophet to the nations'." [Jeremiah 1:5]
Yahweh had plans for Jeremiah before he was born. This does not mean that
Jeremiah was a prophet when he was born but rather Yahweh knew that Jeremiah
would grow up to serve as His prophet. This is Jeremiah's call to prophetic
ministry. It is quite simple: "I ordained you as a prophet to the nations".
One could argue that he was a prophet even when he was born but divine
authority means nothing until one is aware of it. Also one cannot be truly
submissive to God until he is consciously aware of His existence. Jeremiah was
called while yet a young man. The important thing to note is that it is Yahweh
that calls and ordains him.
Divine authority is
always played off the reality of the human condition in the life of the
prophet. The prophet is always aware that power is of God. This tension is
often revealed in the Scriptural accounts of their lives. For instance, Elijah,
when living with the widow, struggled with the death of her son. (Cf. 1 Kings
17:18 - 23) Elijah knew that he could not give life to this child but he knew
that God could and that God had given him authority to act in His name.
Jeremiah also knew that God had given him authority to speak in His name but
there were a number of times when the prophet just wanted to run when his life
was threatened. Jeremiah cried out, "Why did I come forth from the womb
only to see toil and sorrow - that my days should be consumed with shame?"
[Cf. Jeremiah 20:14 - 18] The prophet does not cease being a man with all the
weaknesses and temptations that accompany that station in the world. Yet he
remains submissive to God's will.
Perhaps the most important point in understanding the
prophetic role is his sympathy with the divine pathos. This distinguishes him
in heart from all others. It is fundamental to the prophetic ministry. Divine
pathos is God's feelings regarding mankind. Aristotle referred to three aspects
of communication: logos, ethos and pathos. Logos refers to the purpose or
reasoning of one toward another; ethos refers to how one responds to another
and pathos refers to how one feels toward another. The role of the prophet
primarily concerns how God reveals His feelings to man. We must, however, be
careful that God's feelings in some way become confused with human emotion. It
is not difficult to see expressions that are similar to human emotion applied
to God. For instance, He is said to love and seek after His people. The
emotional ties of husband to wife and father to child are often used
metaphorically to express the relationship between God and His people. He is
also mentioned many times as being angry with them. These expressions of the
divine pathos are not only revealed through the words and actions of the
prophets but they are also deeply felt in the heart of the prophet. It may be
said that the prophet's heart beats at one with that of God. The prophet loves
what God loves and hates what God hates.
This is very important in understanding the prophets in
order to separate in our understanding the difference between prophetic
utterance and a man's opinion. For the most part the prophet's life was so wrapped
up in God that the identities were hard to distinguish. It is difficult at
times to tell when it is the prophet speaking a conscious word that he has
received from his God or if it is Yahweh speaking through the man. When the
prophet speaks a word from Yahweh it is not the prophet's opinion couched in
some spiritual format - it is the word of Yahweh. Rejection of the prophet's
word therefore is a rejection of God's word. This is a very sobering thought.
When Jeremiah stood at the gate early in the morning and spoke to the people
about judgment upon Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, the people saw
a man but the words were nonetheless God's.
It should be understood, of course, that the prophet did not
lose entirely his identity or have no emotional content of his own. Elijah was
a man of his time and place with an identity and personality distinctly his
own. Perhaps it is here that we are able to see the real beauty of the
prophetic role. They all had these things in common: they were called and
ordained solely through God; they possessed divine authority limited only by
the purpose of God, spiritually they were subject to no one but God, and they
were in sympathy with the divine pathos. Though each of the prophets had these
things in common, they were also all distinct characters. They were products of
their culture as all men are but first and foremost they were men of God.
In a sense the prophets were representative of what all
God's people should be. Moses at one point during the wilderness journey
exclaimed, "If only the whole people of Yahweh were prophets, and Yahweh
gave His Spirit to them all!" [Numbers 11:29, The Jerusalem Bible] I
believe that Moses recognized the basis of prophetic ministry and saw that this
is what Yahweh would have for all His people. They should be men of God that
were products of their culture yet totally submissive to Yahweh. They should
know that they are called and ordained of God as a holy people with divine
authority to act within the limits of God's purpose. They should recognize that
spiritually they are subject to no one in this world but the Almighty God.
Lastly they should love what God loves and hate what God hates.
The supreme example of a prophet is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the prophet like Moses whom Yahweh would raise up from their midst. [Cf.
Deuteronomy 18:15, 18] All these things and more are found in Him. There are
many times when we recognize in Him what are usually called "words of
prophecy" but the words are only a portion of the prophetic ministry. In
Him we see the perfect example of what God would have men to be. In Him we see
the epitome of human potential. If we truly wish to understand the role of the
prophet in the world we should look at the life of our Lord Jesus.
The second question was this, ""Do differences
exist between the role of a prophet and the act of prophesying?" After
looking at the role of the prophet in this way we can conclude that there are
differences between them. One stark example comes to mind from the Gospels. In
John 11:49 - 52 the apostle records the prophetic statement of Caiaphas the
high priest of Israel. He truly prophesied in the position of high priest but I
do not think that anyone would call him a prophet. It was an isolated instance
of one prophesying. In the epistles of Paul we find instances of him
prophesying, (e.g. 1 Thessalonians 4:15 - 18) but it is not usually understood
that Paul served in the role of a prophet. In fact, Paul probably prophesied
more than Agabus who is actually called a prophet. This may only seem so
because we have more access to Paul's acts and words than Agabus or others. But
is there a difference between the role of prophet and the act of prophesying?
I believe that the difference is brought out in the New
Testament writings. In Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians he writes,
"But he that prophesies speaks to men for edification, exhortation and
comfort." [1 Corinthians 14:3] This is the purpose of prophesying. However
when this is compared to the actions of Agabus the prophet as found in Acts
21:10 and 11 a question pops out at us, "In what way did the words and
actions of Agabus edify, exhort or bring comfort to the apostle Paul?"
This man is called a prophet and his actions were in the capacity of a prophet
but they were not what Paul refers to as prophesying in 1 Corinthians. I
believe that this distinction must be recognized. Paul suggests that all
believers seek the gift of prophecy but this does not mean that all will be
prophets. This gets a little confusing in Paul's writings because he uses the
term prophets to refer to one that prophesies. However this conflation cannot
be held consistently without misinterpreting the prophetic role in the Bible.
In doing this we would have to call Caiaphas a prophet.
Let us look at another statement of Paul's regarding
prophets and prophesying. In 1 Corinthians 14:32 the apostle writes, "the
spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets". It is difficult to
interpret this with certainty without either saying nothing about prophets in
the sense that we have looked at them, or interpreting the word prophet in two
ways in this epistle. It is Paul that refers to the role of prophet as a gift
to God's people. [Cf. Ephesians 4:11] Is it possible then that he uses the term
in both ways in this epistle? It is possible but not likely. If he does then
this verse may refer to the spirits of those who prophesy being subject to
those who serve as prophets. However, given the context of 1 Corinthians, he is
probably saying something much more basic. Those that prophesy need to find
agreement with others that prophesy.
I had a personal experience that might serve to demonstrate
Paul's point in this epistle. A local preacher that clearly did not want me
attending her congregation came to my home one afternoon. I was surprised
because she made it clear that she wanted me to stay away from "her
flock". She quickly came to the point, "I was praying and God said to
me that you are a wolf in sheep's clothing who has come to destroy the
flock". I was dumbfounded and could only respond, "Well, if that is
true then God is lying to one of us." Clearly this woman claimed to
prophesy in the name of the Lord. Yet were her words edifying, encouraging or
comforting? I did not think so at the time. I was hurt. Was she a prophet? If
so, she was a false one because I never did any harm to "her flock".
It is very possible to use God as one's authority rather than speaking with
divine authority. This can make for very dangerous situations in a congregation.
In this passage the apostle is giving them a rule by which they can judge words
of prophecy.
I believe that we do find in Scripture the role of a prophet
in both the Old and the New Testaments. The prophet is not a fortuneteller or
one that is a passive mouthpiece for God. The prophet is chosen by God, speaks
with the authority of God in complete submission to His will. The prophet is
also one that is in sympathy with the divine pathos. Are there prophets today
in the Assembly of God's people in Christ? There has to be. The apostle Paul
calls them a gift to the Assembly. They serve a valuable purpose among God's
people. In the prophets of today the believer can hear the heartbeat of Yahweh
our God in Jesus Christ.