Prophetic Ministry
What is prophetic ministry?
When our bodies are sick and we go to God to get well
again, He has His medicine and His health professionals to dispense that
medicine. The person might be a “worker
of miracles” and His prescription a miracle.
He might also use a medical practitioner who will prescribe medicine to
make us well.
Among the people of God historically, prophets have
been God’s spiritual health professionals.
Their role is that of bearer of God’s diagnosis and prescription for the
health of the Body.
As a general principle, we can say that during times
of ‘health’ when the Body is not rebelling and is flowing in the Spirit, the
ministry of the prophet concerns itself principally with guidance and
direction. An obedient people can
enquire of the prophet “should we do so-and-so?”; “should we go down this track or that
one?”. The prophets’ ministry is to an
obedient people of God what a coach’s ministry is to a healthy, fit athlete. The prophets’ ministry is to a disobedient
people of God what the coach’s ministry is to an unfit, flabby, out of shape
athlete.
For a moment, consider two scriptures:
“Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are
tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass
away. For we know in part and we
prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.” (1 Corinthians 13:8-10)
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Ecclesia
and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with
water through the word (rhema), and to present her to himself as a radiant ecclesia,
without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27)
It is fairly safe to suggest from these that when the Ecclesia
is “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless”,
prophecy will no longer be necessary because “perfection” [maturity,
conpletion] has come.
This suggests to me several things:
ü As
long as the Ecclesia has wrinkles, spots, stains or blemishes, God will have
His prophets who will sit in His council, see and hear (Jeremiah 23:18) and
then go and speak.
The suggestion that the Ecclesia will have these
deficiencies until we get to glory is to make light of Jesus’ prayer of John 17
and to make nonsense out of scriptures like Ephesians 4:13-16 and 5:25-27.
ü Prophets
have the unenviable task of being bearers of what sounds and looks like bad
news. Consequently, it remains true that
the people of God always “kill” the prophets and persecute those God
sends. (Refer Luke 13:34).
Imagine someone you know who is sick going to the
doctor and finding out what ails them.
The doctor gives them a
prescription and they go to the Chemist but instead of paying for the
medicine and taking it to get well, they
bash the chemist and return to shoot the doctor. Such people have some form of mental illness
and would in all probability be regarded as criminals – at best, criminally
insane.
This is what happens to the prophets among the people
of God. The fact that it happens itself
proves the need of the very ministry God sent them to bring.
For the ill person, to go on blissfully ignorant of
illness may seem ‘good’ but it will eventually catch up with them. What seems good is in fact bad news. For that same ill person, the ‘bad news’ of
diagnosis and the bad taste of the prescription are actually ‘good news’ for
his/her health.
So many times prophets are accused of being ‘negative’
and the bearers of bad news when the truth is their spiritual diagnosis and
prescription (‘bad news’) is actually good news for the Body - if the
Body will listen and act.
This demonstrates the first aspect of prophetic
ministry in the Ecclesia: spiritual diagnosis.
Terry Virgo describes this aspect of prophetic
ministry as the prophet’s voice coming “like an axe to the root of our
problems... The prophet has the incisive clarity of vision that cuts through
clutter and searches out motives and intentions like a probing laser beam. He forces us to ask uncomfortable questions
that lead to uncomfortable answers. He
causes the leaders to re-examine the church’s activities in the light of the
principles which he shows them.” (Restoration
in the Church, Kingsway, London
A second aspect is that of “speaking things
into existence” or declaring things
which are not as though they are and seeing them come about.
This aspect of prophetic ministry is revealed to us in
Isaiah 44:24-26 where God declares, “I am the Lord ... who carries out the
words of His servants and fulfils the predictions of His messengers.” When holy men and women live in His presence,
sit in His council and look and listen, God sends them out with His
message. It is contrary to His nature to
then turn that message into a falsehood and deceive or mock his servant the
prophet. Jeremiah accused God of doing
just that (Jer 20) and God proved otherwise.
This predictive aspect of prophetic ministry is
also seen in the New Testament in the ministry of Agabus (Acts 21:10-14). Terry Virgo says of this type of prophetic
ministry: “it is not human manipulation that [leads] us along, but the Living
God.” (Ibid, p. 116)
A third key aspect of prophetic ministry is
that of encouragement. This is
illustrated for us in the ministry of the prophet Nathan to David recorded in 2
Samuel 7.
First, Nathan ministers to David. Then during the night God ministers to
Nathan, correcting the guidance he had given David. Next, Nathan ministers to David “all the
words of this entire revelation.” And what was David’s response? He “went in and sat before the Lord”
and ministered to Him and prayed a “contrite heart” kind of prayer.
It is significant that Samuel records David’s
victories immediately after he records this instance of prophetic ministry and
his response to it. In chapter 8 he
records: “In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued
them...” And he defeated Moab
Again quoting Terry Virgo: “Some prophetic ministry
paints a large vision of what is going to happen, inspiring us to new acts of
faith and delivering us from the commonplace.
We come to under-stand that the church has a glorious destiny. ‘The
mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the
mountains, and be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to
it’ (Isaiah 2:2). We excitedly press
on through the pressures as a prophetic people”
(Ibid. p. 116)
This type of prophetic ministry is
further illustrated for us in the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah to
leaders such as Joshua and Zerubbabel during the restoration program
recorded for us in Nehemiah.
The How of Prophetic Ministry
Ephesians 4 tells us that the risen Jesus has given to
the people of God prophets who, along with others, are given for the prepation of
the people for works of ministry that God has for them.
“Some have tried”, as Terry Virgo says, “to dismiss
the prophet by arguing that he is simply a preacher or teacher, but the lists
of gifts in Ephesians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 12:28 and Romans 12:6-7 are
consistent in differentiating between them.
Why does the Holy Spirit record them as different if they are simply the
same gift? And what are we missing in the church without their ministry?” (Ibid.
p. 114)
Of those who do accept the role and ministry of the
prophet today, many still insist on a pyramid-type structure of local ecclesia
leadership and the prophet comes further down the ladder than the local
‘Pastor’, Elders or Deacons. As long as
we maintain these structures and ideas, the prophetic ministry we ‘hear’ will
be of limited benefit to us because often the word the prophet has for us
concerns these very structures and ideas.
What the scriptures do suggest, I believe, is a
mutually submitted and accountable circle of “elders” among whom are ones given
to the Church by Jesus to be apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists and
shepherds. When this is so, prophetic ministry
can become an integral part of the life of a local assembly. However, if we insist on having a ‘head
honcho’, almost invariably, it will be the one with prophetic ministry who is
the first to be squeezed out — because he challenges our very leadership and
organisational structures.
At the local congregation level then, we must give
the prophet room to move — not just in bringing individual words (many
times, these are not prophecies as such, but words or knowledge or words of
wisdom), but the whole local ecclesia must itself be exposed to the prophetic
ministry.
In the ‘Apostolic Ministry’ section, I outlined what I
see as a linkage between three threes: three types of knowledge (experiential,
intellectual and intuitive), three things called ‘the word’ (logos, scripture
and rhema), and the leadership functions of apostle, prophet and teacher. Each of these is a critical and essential
element in the process of the kingdom of God being proclaimed and entered into,
and the Body of Christ being transformed, degree by degree, into the image and
maturity of Christ. In this, the apostle
is the pioneer, the vanguard movement.
His emphasis is logos and experiential knowledge.
However, the prophet comes, as always, with the
perspective of eternity; with intuitive knowledge and the rhema of God; to
reveal things in the Spirit; to expose; to exhort; to be like a hammer and like
pruning shears and like a surgeon’s scalpel; to be like an x-ray machine both
on our inner workings and the workings of the Spirit of God; to bring insight
and resolution.
And listening to a prophet won’t be like listening
to a teacher. The prophet will often
sound unbalanced — because he will sound like he has only one message. He does not attempt to be balanced. Rather, his burden will be that the present
issue is being understood and resolved.
The Roving Prophet
In this day — when the prophets are only just
beginning to be accepted as prophets; and when many local assemblies are not at
the point I have described above — God uses what I call the roving
prophet. He is not simply a part of a
local ecclesia leadership circle.
Instead, he moves from place to place.
You might say that the whole
Body of Christ is his congregation.
Scripture also shows us this. It affirms that in the broad, general arena,
God has an order and He is calling us today, through the prophets, to restore
that order.
“Now you are one body and each one of you is a part of
it. And in the ecclesia God has
appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third
teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing,
those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those
speaking in different kinds of tongues.” - 1
Corinthians 12:27-28
The absence of pastor and evangelist from this ‘order’
is interesting, to say the least. But
that aside, clearly the restoration of God’s “order” of things as revealed
through Paul does not suggest that these are levels of personal
authority. I suggest, rather, that they
are levels of ministry importance to the Body of Christ as she moves forward
together, in the Spirit, towards her glorious destiny as the perfect bride of
the Son.
[I also susggest that “workers of miracles, also
those having gifts of healing” in fact describes the new, true evangelists
and that “those having gifts of healing, those able to help others” describes
the new, true pastors.]
Prophetic ministry is indispensible to the people of
God and the only real question we need to ask is: will we accept the prophet AS A
PROPHET? Will we accept the
prophet without having to label him/her ‘Pastor so-and-so’? Will we accept the prophet without caving in
to our felt need to demonstrate to the congregation that we too have this gift
— so we don’t really need to listen to him/her?!
When we accept the prophet AS A PROPHET, we
receive a prophet’s reward (Matthew 10:41 ).
What is a ‘Prophet’s Reward’
First, it is the prophet’s
presence. When we honour a prophet as a
prophet and accept the ministry, he/she can be with us — and even come back! —
without the pain of rejection.
Second, it is the blessing of
God. When we accept the prophet’s
ministry and begin resolving the relevant issues, our obedience encourages the
Spirit to stay among us. Rejection of
the prophet’s ministry encourages Him to gradually depart. [Note ICHABOD of 1 Samuel 4:21-22 and the
departing of the glory of God from the temple in Ezekiel 9 to 11]
Third, not only does our
obedience encourage the Spirit to stay, it puts us in line to receive the
promises of God relating to the prophecy, and to receive the actual fulfillment
of the prophecy.
Conclusion
ü Prophetic
ministry enlarges our expectation of the immediate presence of God.
ü It
changes us so we begin to grasp God’s intention for the Ecclesia and so we can
become a “prophetic people”. Short-term
problems no longer dominate our thinking and prevent necessary change.
ü It
enlightens us to the purpose and destination of the spiritual renewal we find
oursleves in.
ü It
cuts through the layers of rubble to reveal motives and intentions.
ü It
forces us to ask uncomfortable questions that lead to uncomfortable answers.
ü It
causes us to re-consider our activities and programs in the light of the
principles the prophet reveals.
ü It
exposes weakness and need so that it can be changed.
ü It
increases our resolve to be obedient to God’s revealed will regardless of the
implications.
ü It
lifts our eyes from the small, the local and the parochial to the large, the
universal and the national.
ü It
brings clarity to the business of “understanding seasons”.
ü It
helps prevent us from being side-tracked with present worries and relative
trivialities.
ü It
impacts our lifestyles and forces us to re-assess our values (rather like the
pearl merchant I mentioned earlier).
ü It
can so affect ecclesia life that the assembly itself becomes a prophetic voice
to the nation.
We are clearly in a time of the restoration of true
prophetic ministry to the ecclesia. We
need to make room for it — and for the prophet himself. After all, he is a man too and needs our
fellowship and support and encouragement as any other does.
I venture to ask: how can we afford to go without
prophetic ministry?
Terry Virgo makes the point well: “Without the
prophet, the local church will lack the vision, motivation and faith to fulfil
its God-given role. When a purely
pastoral foundation is laid in a local church, that company will fail to be
truly charismatic even if many become Spirit-filled, speak in tongues and sing
new choruses.
“The prophet must not be invited simply to excite the
people occasionally, but to equip the saints to produce the fruit of his own
ministry in their lives. He will see
where death has crept into a situation and where discouragement has resulted in
the congregation simply going through the motions without any expectation.” (Ibid. pp. 114-115)
But prophetic ministry, like any other ministry in the
Ecclesia, cannot — AND MUST NOT — be controlled by men seeking to bring it
under the umbrella of 'my church' and 'my vision' — or even 'our church' and
'our vision'.
Both the Ecclesia and the vision belong to Jesus. At best, we are under-shepherds of God’s
flock. We are also “unprofitable
servants” who have only done our duty (Luke 17:10 ). But we have
had the enormous privilege of waiting on Him.
And, as the scripture says, thus “we will run and not be weary; we
will walk and not faint”.
One final word from apostle
Peter: “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is of one’s
own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but
men, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God.”
(2 Peter 1:20-21)
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