Worth Green, Th.M., D.Min.
Last week we saw how God gave the gift of prophets to the church. In Ephesians 4 we read:
“When Christ ascended on high, he gave gifts to me and his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastor-teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry.”
We saw that there were Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. Even Moses, the great Lawgiver was identified as a prophet. (Deut. 34:10
Though we read about him in the New Testament, John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He announced the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah. Jesus himself was known as “the prophet from Nazareth,” (Matthew 21:11) and he was compared to Elijah and to John the Baptist. (Mark 8:28) We saw that there were other New Testament prophets like Agabus, and the four daughters of Philip the Evangelist.
We saw that some prophecy is on a small scale. Agabus predicted Paul would be arrested and bound in Jerusalem. (Acts 21) Jesus predicted that Peter would die an old man, in captivity. (John 21) When Joseph (of Technicolor Dream Coat fame) was in prison, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, he told Pharaoh’s baker that within three days his head would be lifted from him. (Genesis 40:16)
We saw that some prophecy is on a large scale. God appointed Jeremiah “a prophet to the nations,” before he was born, while he was still in his mother’s womb. (Jeremiah 1:5) In Mark 13 Jesus prophesies the end of the present historical age, and the dawn of the eternal Kingdom of God. You can’t get much bigger than that.
To sum up: A prophet hears a Word from God and then speaks it to the people of God, and to the nations. Sometimes the prophet forth-tells the word of God, and the prophecy is directed to a current injustice. As when Dr. King spoke out against segregation in America. Sometimes the prophet foretells the future that is coming to us from God, as when Jeremiah predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Babylonian Captivity, or when John the Baptist announced that Jesus was the Messiah who was to come.
Let me interject a word of caution about predictive prophecy. Scholars tell us that there is a tendency among the prophets to dramatically foreshorten the future. They see something that is to take place many years hence, and speak as if it is to happen in the near future. In Mark 13, Jesus spoke of the end of the age as if it would happen in the lifetime of the first generation of his followers. In 1st Thessalonians chapter 4, Paul spoke if the end of the age would take place while he, himself, was among those who were “still alive at the coming of the Lord.” Jesus, himself, saw the perils of predictive prophecy. In the same passage, when his disciples asked him about the end of the age, and when all he had predicted would take place, he said: “Of that day and hour no man knows, not angels in heaven, or the Son, but the Father only.” (Mark 13:32) St. Paul said that we see in a mirror dimly, and that his prophecy was “in part.”
Interestingly, most predictive prophecy (except that prophecy concerned with the end of the age) is about events that will take place in the very near future. In Matthew 16:33 Jesus said people could read the weather, but could not interpret the signs of the times. The prophet can interpret the signs of the times; and, with the help of God, announce God’s response.
Way back in the 1980 I read a book by John Naisbitt called “Megatrends.” (See Note: 1) He spoke of the ten great trends that were sweeping the world. He identified these trends by reading hundreds of newspapers and magazines from around the world. He found a lot of specifics and reasoned to a general truth or trend. At least 7 or 8 of Naisbitt’s predictions have come true.
In the same way a genuine prophet may look at the way that young people today are more influenced by their peers than by their parents and their elders. He might speak a word of God from the Proverbs saying, “Your friend, and your father’s friend, do not forsake.” (Proverbs 27:10) At our June Men’s Breakfast, David Daggett told us his favorite saying by Dr. King. He said that Dr. King said if every adult in America loved just one child not their own as much as they loved their own, then most of our nation’s problems would disappear. When I was a young man, several of my father’s friends loved me as much as if I were their own. They showed it by showering me with time and attention. I knew that I was blessed by these men, and I knew I was in their debt. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint my father, or my father’s friends. Young people, don’t forsake your parent’s friends. Adults—love children not your own as if they were your own. (This happens at New Philly. I am convinced that is one reason that we have turned out so many truly impressive young adults.)
We have talked about God’s gift of prophets. Now we want to consider God’s gift of prophecy.
According to 1st Corinthians 12:10, the gift of prophecy is for some Christians but not all Christians. I think Paul is here recognizing the fact that some people are more “tuned in” to what is going on in the world, and to what God is doing and saying in the world than others. God gives these people an extraordinary ability to hear and speak God’s Word to the present day. In the church there were certain people who had the gift of prophecy in abundance, and these people came to be known as prophets.
That is not the whole story. In the Bible, both in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, and in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of Prophecy.” In 1st Corinthians 12:3 Paul said that “no man can say that ‘Jesus is Lord’ but by the Holy Spirit.” In Romans 8:9 he says, “Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” In other words, the Holy Spirit is the lowest common denominator of our Christian discipleship. At the very least, all Christians possess the Holy Spirit. That means that, in one sense, all Christians are, prophets.
That is precisely what Peter says in his Pentecostal Sermon in Acts 2. There we read that all the disciples were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. In Jerusalem there were devout Jews visiting from every nation under heaven. Each one heard them speaking in his own native language, and they were amazed and wondered at this miracle of communication, and they began to ask “What does this mean?” But others, mocking, said, “They are filled with new wine.” And Peter stood up and said:
15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day; 16 but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”
If I read this correctly, then “all God’s people are prophets.” When I am in tune with God’s Spirit, I am a prophet. Karl Barth said, “When the Word of God is faithfully preached, God makes himself heard.” Likewise, when you, any of you, are in tune with God’s Spirit, you are a prophet, each of you and all of you.
Now lest you think I have the big head, let me quickly add that those who know they possess the prophetic Spirit must practice humility. Too much pride and hubris can lead to disaster. Preachers can fall into this trap, but so can congregations. Not too many years ago, we had the former pastor of a large Pentecostal church worship with us regularly. I asked him why he worshiped with us. He said, “I love your liturgy. It is filled with the Spirit. So, too, it is refreshing to be in a church where not everyone is trying to be a ramrod prophet.” He went on to tell me that during his active ministry, life was sometimes hard for him, because so many of his members thought himself or herself a prophet, and many of them would come to his office and tell him exactly how the church should be run.
The true power of prophecy lies not in individuals but in the prophetic community. In a prophetic community, everyone gives heed to the word of the apostle, “not to think of (ourselves), more highly than (we) ought to think; but to think with sober judgment.” In the prophetic community, people do not belittle or despise the gifts that they do have. They claim them and use them; but they do not over-reach. They recognize the gifts that they do not have, and they look for them in others. The true prophetic community pays close attention to one another. The proverbs say that iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. So it is with the members of a prophetic community. One person’s faith and action, adds to the faith and action of all the others.
There are still times when God raises up a solitary prophet to speak God’s Word; but the most powerfully application of prophecy is always in community. There is strength in the many.
Now we might well ask the question: What is a prophetic community like? I have been asking that question of many different people since the middle of this past week. Here are the answers I have received; they are obviously partial. More could be added.
1. Philosophers and prophets live in the future. A prophetic community lives from the future that is coming to us in Jesus Christ. A prophetic community is a community concerned with the Kingdom of God that dawned in Jesus. This is not easy. Jesus said, “a prophet is not without honor except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.” (Mark 6:4) That is because a prophet or a prophetic community runs against the grain. During the Civil War most southern preachers preached the curse of Ham and the justice of slavery. The Abolitionists lived in the North.
2. A prophetic community or church is filled with people who seek the truth. Certainly people will seek “the truth as it is in Jesus.” Certainly people will seek the truth of Scripture. But they will not despise truth in any of its forms. Galileo was fond of pointing out that the Bible itself teaches that God wrote two books, the Bible and the Book of nature. Every time the church neglects either, it makes a mistake. On May 24th Nicholas Copernicus was buried for the second time in a Catholic Church in Poland. At one time the body of Copernicus had been taken out of the church because he had taught in his lifetime that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of our solar system. A prophetic community will pay attention to the truth. It will embrace it early and fearlessly.
3. A prophetic community will be an inclusive community. I could speak of race, and gender, and economic station. Paul does elsewhere. But in this passage he speaks of the weak and the strong. He says that God has so composed the human body that the weaker parts are indispensable and that the less presentable parts receive the greater honor. (1st Cor. 12:14-26) He says that the body of Christ, the church, must be the same. The stronger must take care of and listen to the weaker. Let me put this in practical terms. It means that when I speak with and listen to a brother who is somehow “weaker,” I speak and listen as if he were as strong as I. It also means that when I speak with and listen to brother who is somehow stronger, I speak with and listen to him as if I were as strong as he! I am counting on his tolerance. Inclusiveness and tolerance flows both ways. It flows from us, and it flows to us. It flows in all directions.
4. The prophetic community will be a servant community. On Thursday night I asked a group of young people what a prophetic community would look like. A young Methodist said, “It will be a servant community.” Jesus was also a servant. He said, “the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” A prophetic church will reach out to all kinds of people in need and it will serve them. It will show the world that it needs Jesus Christ and his church. I believe that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate, and the ultimate revelation of God. However, given the present climate of the world, we will not win the world as we sit back in our churches and proclaim the superiority of Christ. It will be won as we venture forth in Christ’s love, as servants. We need to make ourselves and our Lord indispensable.
As an aside, I think more and more young people in the world today have become disenchanted with the church by watching their parents. They say, “My parents talk a good game. They talk like Christians, but they don’t act like Christians.” Young people today are saying to all of us who belong to the older generations, “Don’t just talk to me; show me some action!”
5. Finally, and this goes without saying, a prophetic community will be a community of love. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments. “ He said, “A new commandment I give unto you, ‘Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.’” Jesus is not talking about sloppy agape. He is not counseling us to get touch-feely and use grandiose language. He said “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. I think he is describing the kind of sacrificial love that Paul describes in 1st Corinthians 13. Please remember that at the end of the chapter on the Spiritual gifts, St. Paul says, “And I will show you a still more excellent way. “ And then he writes the best treatise on real love that has ever been set to paper. He writes:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:1–13 RSV)
Years ago, I developed a little mission statement of my own about New Philadelphia. It was and is not intended to replace our real mission statement. It went, “Building a New City of Brotherly Love in the Shadow of Calvary.” Let the hearer understand. I said it because we are just down the street from the biggest church in Winston-Salem, appropriately named Calvary. I said it in partial jest, but there is truth in it. Calvary is a great church, but God knows New Philadelphia, too. Philadelphia is Greek for “brotherly love.” We could do no more than build a new community of brotherly (and sisterly) love under the banner of Christ and his Cross. It could certainly be in harmony with our real mission statement:
New Philadelphia seeks to be a caring congregation, worshiping God, and encouraging one another to seek a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, as we follow the lead of the Holy Spirit in Service and in Mission.
Finis
Note 1:
Here are the “megatrends” in a nutshell.
1. Becoming an information society after having been an industrial one
2. From technology being forced into use, to technology being pulled into use where it is appealing to people
3. From a predominantly national economy to one in the global marketplace
4. From short term to long term perspectives
5. From centralization to decentralization*
6. From getting help through institutions like government to self-help*
7. From representative to participative democracy
8. From hierarchies to networking
9. From a northeastern bias to a southwestern one
10. From seeing things as “either/or” to having more choices.
*Some would argue that these are not true, yet. Naisbitt was not necessarily in favor or all of these, but just predicting trends.