The Prophet’s Relationship with God, Responsibilities, and Role
by Unverified Author
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Many people are familiar with the ministries of pastors, teachers, and evangelists, but if we are to have everything that the Lord wants us to have as his Body, we must understand the ministries of apostles and prophets and encourage their function in the Church. A previous Contender article dealt with the ministry of the apostle. This article will explore the ministry of the prophet.
To better understand the role of the prophet in the Church, the Body of Christ, it is necessary to understand the prophet in the Old Testament. This is due to the fundamental principle of biblical study that if God does something or states something in the Old Testament, it is to be considered as true and consistent unless He tells us that He has changed it. For example, in Exodus God tells us not to take His name in vain. He never repeats that command in the New Testament, yet we dare not disregard it. If the command were not still valid, God would have told us. In contrast, in the Old Testament God allowed men to have more than one wife (Ex. 21:10, etc.), but in the New Testament God changes and tells us something different, which is that each man is to have “his own” wife, and each woman “her own” husband (1 Cor. 7:2). There is no New Testament verse that indicates that the ministry of a prophet will be any different today than it was in the Old Testament, so we are on solid ground biblically when we study the Old Testament to find out more about the ministry of a prophet.
Understanding the various Greek and Hebrew words that are translated “prophet” or “seer” helps us understand both what a prophet is and how God works with them. By far the most common word translated “prophet” in the Old Testament is nabiy, which means “spokesman.” First and foremost, the prophet is a “spokesman” for God. The prophet must be able to hear the voice of God and bring God’s words to the world.
Soon after Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, God stopped talking openly to mankind and chose specific individuals through whom He would communicate, and this was common knowledge. The first use of “prophet” in the Bible is in Genesis 20:7, when God spoke in a dream to Abimelech king of Gerar and identified Abraham as a prophet. Abimelech did not say, “What is a prophet?” He knew exactly what a prophet was, because God had made it clear that prophets were people who could hear His voice and communicate it to others.
The Greek word translated “prophet,” prophetes, also shows that prophets are God’s chosen spokesmen. Prophetes is found in Greek writings as early as the 600s BC, and it is related to the verb meaning “to publicly speak forth or make known.” The oldest occurrence of the word in Greek writings that we have today relates to a prophetic utterance at the oracle of Zeus at Dodona. So ancient Greek language and culture confirms what the Hebrew language communicates, which is that even ancient pagan people realized that the words of the gods needed to be spoken forth and made known, and that there were special people the gods chose for this purpose. The New Testament use of prophetes, or prophet, is in line with that and means “one who, moved by the Spirit of God and hence his organ or spokesman, solemnly declares to men what he has received…” (Thayer’s Lexicon).
In spite of the fact that prophets provided a vital function in the Old Testament, the need for them today has been questioned because of the presence of the gift of holy spirit in every Christian. On the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2), God began to unveil something He had hidden from mankind (and the Devil)—the Administration of God’s Grace (Eph. 3:2). Today, in the Administration of Grace, the Lord Jesus Christ seals every born again person with holy spirit (Eph. 1:13). This means that every Christian has the ability to hear from God and prophesy, and indeed, that is what Peter said on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:17 and 18 Cp. 1 Cor. 14:5 and 24). Some believers thus reason that because every believer can prophesy, prophets are no longer necessary. However, a more detailed study reveals that simply is not the case.
To understand prophets and prophecy in the Church today, we must clearly distinguish between the ministry of a prophet and the manifestation of prophecy. The manifestation of prophecy (sometimes miscalled “the gift of prophecy”) is one of the nine manifestations of the gift of holy spirit that every Christian can operate (1 Cor. 12:7-10). In contrast, the ministry of a prophet is a specific calling of the Lord on a person’s life. Every Christian can operate the manifestation of prophecy, and chooses whether or not to do so (although many people never get to make that choice because they have never been taught how to do it or even that they can do it).
That is not the case with the ministry of a prophet. Just as with any other ministry, such as an apostle or evangelist, a prophet is specifically called by God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The call to be a prophet is a job assignment, given to someone independent of his choice. Whether or not someone has the ministry of a prophet is God’s choice (in the Grace Administration, the Lord’s choice). The Old Testament scriptures make this very clear. Isaiah knew he was called from birth: “Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name” (Isa. 49:1b). Amos describes the call of God upon his life: “I was neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’” (Amos 7:14 and 15).
The book of Acts confirms what Ephesians and Corinthians state doctrinally, that the Lord selects and specifically calls some men and women to be prophets, his special spokesmen. Prophets were important in the establishment of the church at Antioch, the first church of which it was recorded that it was composed of both Jews and Gentiles (Acts 11:27). It was the prophet Agabus who foretold that there would be a severe famine in the Roman world (which happened during the reign of Claudius Caesar and is documented in secular Roman history). The prophets were vital in getting the revelation from the Lord to set Paul and Barnabas apart and send them on their first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-4). The prophets Judas and Silas are specifically mentioned as exhorting and confirming the disciples in Antioch (Acts 15:32). It was Agabus the prophet who so graphically portrayed what would happen to Paul in Jerusalem (Acts 21:10 and 11). In fact, the only foretelling in Acts is given either by prophets or by Peter or Paul.
The book of Acts and the Church Epistles show clearly that the Lord still works through called prophets. These men and women are not “just another believer” because every Christian can prophesy, as some have stated. They are the Lord’s chosen vessels, charged with being spokesmen for God and the Lord Jesus, just as they were in the Old Testament. Once we Christians understand that the ministry of a prophet is the Lord’s doing, and that they are very important to the health and well being of the Church, we should be very interested in recognizing who are the prophets the Lord has called, and what can we do to help them in their job of being special spokesmen so that we can have the word of the Lord among us in a more powerful way.
Knowing that there is a difference between the manifestation of prophecy and the ministry of a prophet, we need to understand how that difference plays out in the Church. All true words of prophecy are “as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4 KJV). They come from God or the Lord Jesus Christ, never from the speaker’s mind. This is true of both the manifestation of prophecy and of prophetic words by someone with the ministry of a prophet. In the manifestation of prophecy, the Lord limits himself to giving words of “strengthening, encouragement, and comfort” (1 Cor. 14:3), but that is not the case with the ministry of a prophet. Called prophets speak the message the Lord gives them, whatever it may be. The difference between the manifestation of prophecy and the ministry of a prophet explains why the Lord still has prophets (Eph. 4:11) and why God elevates them in the Church today (“And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets…” 1 Cor. 12:28).
When the prophet speaks the message that God gives him to speak, it can be as varied as God wants it to be. This is an important point, because often people try to put God in a box and decide what a prophetic message should look like, as if we could tell God what to say. It is beyond the scope of this article to categorize all the types of things that God has spoken through prophets, but they range from great blessings to harsh curses, and from detailing the past to describing the future.
Although many people associate prophecy only with foretelling the future, there are many prophecies in the Bible that are about the past or the present. Abraham, for example, is called a prophet, but there is no record that he ever spoke of the future. A quick reading of the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets will show that there are huge sections of prophetic utterances that do not mention the future at all. Many are about what God did in the past for His now unthankful people, while other prophecies are about God’s opinion of His people’s activities at that current time. Isaiah 1, for example, opens with how Judah had rejected God and as a result was desolate with its cities burned to the ground. Worse, God was so upset that He would not accept their sacrifices or hear their prayers. Rather than “foretelling,” we could call this “forthtelling” by a prophet.
Prophets speak what they hear from the Lord, as is emphasized by another Old Testament Hebrew word sometimes translated “prophet.” Nataph means “to drop, drip, or distill,” and its uses include rain distilling and dripping from the sky, words that “drop” out of someone’s mouth, and wine dripping from the mountains in Paradise. Although prophets are called upon to “drop” words where and when God demands, the more obvious thing we learn from nataph is that God drops His words upon the prophet. It means, as Strong’s Concordance says, “to speak by inspiration.” This means that the message the prophet brings is not his own message, but the Lord’s words, and furthermore it implies that many times the prophet may not know much of the message when he starts prophesying, but that the words “drop” upon him, i.e., he speaks them as he gets them from God.
Just as the prophetic word “drops” to the prophet by revelation and can be as varied as God needs it to be, a prophet is called upon to play whatever role God needs filled. Joseph’s prophetic ability helped him rule Egypt. Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh and liberated an enslaved people. Miriam took up her tambourine and led a victory dance, singing praises after the Egyptian army was swallowed up in the Red Sea. Deborah judged Israel, called them to war against their oppressors, appointed military leadership and gave them the Lord’s battle plan. Samuel stood against idolatry, judged Israel, appointed and advised Saul, rebuked his disobedience, and anointed David as his successor. Gad and Nathan advised and directed David. Nathan’s confrontation saved David’s prophetic ministry. After being confronted and repenting, David got the revelation for many of the Psalms, and by revelation drew up the plans for the Temple. Elijah called Israel back to God in a time when it was dominated by Jezebel’s false prophets. He anointed and trained Elisha, who continued the tradition of Samuel and raised up a company of prophets. The list of prophets and what God asked them to do and say goes on and on. However, no matter how varied their message or personal experience, they all contributed to God’s plan of reconciliation and redemption while facing differing degrees of trials, derision, and turmoil.
Two other words in the Old Testament that help us understand how God works in prophets are both translated “seer.” One is raah, which means “to see” (as with the eye) and the other is chozeh, which means “one who has a vision.” By virtue of the gift of holy spirit upon them and the revelation they received from God, prophets “saw” things that other people could not see. This was very apparent to the people around them, who used the term “seer” for the practical reason that they could see the otherwise unknowable things that God showed them. A prophet could “see” into the future (Dan. 2:29-45), or into someone’s heart (Ezek. 14:3).
The word “seer” has another overtone as well. Although there are well documented times when God spoke audibly to prophets, it seems that by far His more common means of communication was some sort of vision, often in a dream. Although it would be ideal if every dream and vision were crystal clear and self-explanatory, the biblical record shows that such is not the case. The method and content of the visions and dreams of the Lord are his business, and their meanings are not always clear to us. Although the tendency of most people is to blame the prophet for any unclear dream or revelation (and it is true that sin certainly can cloud clear revelations from the Lord), this blame is often misplaced. The Lord can be perfectly clear when he wants to be, as many Old and New Testament records attest, but sometime he is not.
Many biblical records show that the Lord is purposely unclear. In Numbers 12:8 God said He spoke to prophets in riddles. Proverbs 25:2 says it is the glory of God to conceal things. Furthermore, the Bible has records of prophets receiving visions and revelations they did not understand. For example, Daniel did not understand the meaning of what he heard (Dan. 12:8), Zechariah was shown a vision that he did not understand (Zech. 1:18), and Peter did not grasp what the Lord was trying to communicate by showing him the sheet full of unclean animals. He argued with the Lord about it, and ended up “wondering about the meaning of the vision” (Acts 10:17).
There seem to be two primary reasons why the Lord is sometimes purposely unclear. One is to drive people into deeper and more intimate communication with him. Remember, the reason anyone gets any revelation in the first place is that the Lord loves us, wants to help and bless us, and wants a relationship with us. But he does not want to be thought of as a vending machine for revelation into which we pop our request, get the answer, and go our way. Rather, he wants us to have a relationship with him, to get to know him, and love him back. How does a mother feel when she works hard to make a nice dinner and her kids come in and scarf it down in two minutes (without even saying “Thank you”) so they can watch a TV show? The Lord wants our love via a relationship with us. When we receive unclear revelation, we are driven deeper and deeper into his heart as we seek understanding. We want to know what the Lord means, and we need to go to him for the information.
The second reason why God and the Lord are sometimes unclear when they give a revelation or a vision is that it causes people to work together. The Lord is very desirous that his people work together, so he often gives out the “revelation pie” in pieces, so people have to get together in order to see the whole pie. This is very clear from the Bible itself, as there are many biblical topics that can be understood only by gleaning pertinent information from several different books. Similarly, prophets often have insights about the prophetic revelation of another prophet, which sheds light on the original revelation. A study of the Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, etc., shows that many of them lived at the same time, and although their prophecies overlapped in many ways, each had important information that was a part of the total picture God wanted to communicate. This is still true today, the Lord giving a message through one prophet that is confirmed and developed by another.
Another reason why the Lord promotes community and communication among prophets is the need for them to grow and develop in their walk and communication with him. Being around other prophets helps a younger or less mature prophet grow and understand the revelation he or she is receiving. As early as the time of Samuel, prophets were companying together (1 Sam. 10:5), and Samuel is sometimes credited with starting what has been called “the school of the prophets.”
Realizing that prophets need to grow and mature in their walk with God helps us better understand how to relate to them, and also why the Lord says that prophets are to “weigh carefully” each other’s words (1 Cor. 14:29). It is important to understand that even mature prophets can be wrong, or appear wrong, in what they say. For that reason, accountability to other prophets and to the Body of Christ is very important. The prophetic minister must have the courage to deliver God’s message but also recognize that he or she does not stand alone. The goal of the prophet is not to tear down but to recover and build up. Building up the Body of Christ is a formidable goal that can be accomplished only by cooperation with and accountability to other believers. Prophets, while calling others to account, must also be accountable. In that light, every prophet must realize that he or she is engaged in a spiritual battle, and the primary weapon of that warfare is the Word of God. The Lord’s prophets must strive to prophesy and interpret dreams and visions in accordance with the written Word of God, understanding that at times we “see through a glass darkly.”
It is common to hear people say that the true test of a prophet is whether or not his words come to pass, but that is only one part of a much more complex picture. Prophecy is almost always conditional in nature. Therefore, if someone gets a prophetic warning and then changes his heart and actions, the prophecy often goes unfulfilled. Was Jonah a false prophet because Nineveh was not destroyed (Jonah 3:4)? Was Nathan a false prophet because he foretold that God would establish Solomon’s kingdom, when eventually God tore it away from him because of his sin (1 Kings 11:11)? Because there are many reasons that a prophecy may not come to pass, foretelling something that does not come to pass does not automatically make someone a false prophet. Sadly, the NIV reads that a prophet whose prophecy does not come to pass must “be put to death” (Deut. 18:20). But the Hebrew text reads like the KJV, saying that he “shall die.” It is God’s job to judge the heart and prophecy of those whose prophecies do not come true, but the people are not to be afraid of them (Deut. 18:22).
On the other hand, if a prophet foretells something that does come to pass, he is not necessarily a “true” prophet. For example, Deuteronomy 13 gives the case of a prophet who foretells something that does come to pass, but then he uses his influence to lead people away from the true God. That prophet was “evil” and was to be executed (idolatry was punishable by death under OT law, but it was rarely carried out—Ex. 22:20). Balaam is another example of someone whose prophecies were true, but who was “false” in his heart and stood against God (Num. 31:8 and 16; Deut. 23:4 and 5; 2 Pet. 2:15; Rev. 2:14).
In light of the above, we see that a “true” prophet was not true just because every prophecy he gave came out letter perfect, nor was a “false” prophet false because he gave prophecies that did not come true. Rather, someone who followed after God’s heart was true, and someone who spurned God and turned to idols, money, power, etc., was false. Because people who are true in their heart toward God can still be influenced by their flesh and give inaccurate prophecies, prophets are told to “weigh carefully” the prophetic words of others. There is safety in a multitude of prophets.
Clearly, it is of the utmost importance that a prophet maintains a holy and obedient lifestyle. A prophet’s life must be anchored in prayer, and remain focused on the hope, even when the task at hand seems hopeless. All this requires determination and discipline. A prophet must have the courage to deliver God’s message no matter what the content. Because the fallen nature of man is constantly bringing him downward, a good portion of a prophet’s work comes in the form of reproof and correction, as is evident from the prophetic books in Scripture.
The sin nature of man still exerts a strong influence, which is why there is so much reproof and correction even in the Church Epistles. Speaking words of reproof and correction is rarely easy. The heavy nature of many prophetic utterances is why the word of the Lord was often called a “burden.” For example, the KJV reads: “The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi” (Mal. 1:1); “The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite” (Nahum 1:1); “The burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see” (Hab. 1:1); “The burden of the word of the LORD…” (Zech 9:1). Sadly, the NIV and many other more modern versions say “oracle” or some other similar translation, but “burden” is the proper translation. 1
The prophet must also develop the wisdom to deliver his message the way the Lord would have it delivered. This means that he or she must work hard to have the heart of the Lord for the people. Because prophetic utterances can have a huge impact on the one receiving the message, it is very important that the prophet deliver the message with the same heart as the Lord would if he were here personally. That does not mean that the message will always be gentle (“Get behind me, Satan!” was hardly gentle), but is does mean that it should be delivered the way the Lord would have delivered it.
Since prophets are chosen by the Lord Jesus to deliver his words to the Church, there is an ongoing need for the ministry of the prophet in the modern church. It is important for Christians to pray and ask the Lord to continue to add prophets to the Church so that we can have more godly words and wisdom as it applies to specific situations. Thankfully, in these times it seems that the Lord is calling more of his people to prophetic ministry to accomplish his plan.