Category Archives: Holy Spirit

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Should prophecies always be positive?—1 Corinthians 14:3. Part 2

Some people may want prophecies to be positive to guard against abuses, though this is subject to its own abuses (see part 1). Others, however, may prophesy positively as a way of expressing faith.

Prophecy as positive confession?

Some may insist on prophesying only positively as a vestige of an emphasis on positive confession (a more distinctive emphasis in some earlier charismatic circles). When the New Testament speaks of “confessing” something other than sin, however (Mark 1:5; James 5:16; 1 John 1:9), it usually refers to Christ’s followers confessing Christ (e.g., Matt 10:32; Rom 10:9-10; Phil 2:11; 1 John 2:23; 4:2-3, 15; 2 John 7; Rev 3:5). The one exception familiar to me is a more specific confession of faith in Heb 11:13: some heroes of the faith confessed that they were outsiders to this world, because they awaited the promised New Jerusalem to come (11:16). If we examine biblical proverbs about the tongue together as a whole rather than speculating about some verses in isolation, it is clear that Proverbs also speaks not about “confessing” something to make it happen but about how we speak affects others and our relationships with them.

Of course we should speak and live like those who believe what God has spoken! And of course we should pray in faith in God’s grace and power—why waste words praying if we’re not trusting God to hear us? But that’s not the same as confessing something as an intended act of faith that God will do it and calling that prophecy. “Who speaks and it comes to pass, if the Lord has not commanded it?” (Lam 3:37). That limitation is surely implicit even in Mark 11:23 (“whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and hurled into the sea,’ 
 it will happen for them”). If you don’t believe me, go test it empirically on some mountain and see what happens, especially if there’s not been any seismic activity there recently.

 

Faith is only as good as its object. God is absolutely trustworthy. His voice is absolutely trustworthy. Our hearing 
 well, most of us do need to mature in that. Our fallibility limits both our prophesying and our teaching. “For we know only partially and we prophesy only partially” (1 Cor 13:9).

When the Bible talks about humility, that principle should invite attention to being epistemically humble too. I was quite impressed with my knowledge in my 20s. I know far more in my 50s, but also am far more aware of how much I have yet to learn. Hopefully by my 200s, I will know fully as I am known; what I know now is very limited compared to that future knowledge.

Recognizing true prophecy

There are some who are specially gifted in hearing God’s voice, have cultivated that gift, and walk humbly before God. Mesfin, a brother from Ethiopia, did not know that I was a writer. Yet he prophesied to me about two big books that I would write, the second larger than the first. Since I was already working on my Acts commentary (which turned out to be 4500 pages) and could not imagine writing a book larger than that, I was confident that he was at least partly mistaken. Only later did I discover that my miracles book (merely 1100 pages) would be completed and published before the Acts commentary. Similarly, three people in Congo who did not know each other independently prophesied to MĂ©dine Moussounga, who later became my wife, that she would marry a white man with a big ministry. I am glad to be married to her, but my whiteness was not something that I arranged.

Conversely, on some major personal decisions (such as whom to marry), it is not always easy for us to hear God clearly. Sometimes, in fact, our personal biases can get in the way (e.g., as in whom to marry—did I mention that?) It helps when wisdom and whatever ways we have learned to hear the Lord line up. But the issue of personal guidance better belongs to a different post, so I mention it here just to reinforce what most of us already know: God is infallible, but God is not who we are.

 

True prophecy must be consistent with Spirit-inspired Scripture and led by the same Spirit who inspired Scripture. The biblical gift does not always tell people what they want to hear. If we’re just learning to hear God’s voice, if we don’t have mentors like Samuel or Elisha (who supervised some younger prophets in the OT), and if we don’t have the safety net of other first-generation hearers of God for peer review (as in 1 Cor 14:29), some messages remain fairly safe.

If it’s truly biblical, it’s good. (If you feel like God is telling someone that he loves them, there’s no risk of getting that one wrong.) If it’s an appropriately encouraging word spoken in a timely way, it’s good (Prov 15:23; 25:11). If it exalts Jesus and builds people up in faith in him, it’s good. If it draws people to Christ, it’s good. But of course, such words can be Spirit-led without even calling them prophecy, or without us always even being conscious that the Spirit’s fruit moves us to such words.

But for beginners in hearing God’s voice, such basic discernment is a great place to start, allowing us to “test” our own words (cf. 1 Cor 14:29). And for brothers and sisters striving to serve the Lord, most such words will indeed encourage and strengthen them. May we have encouraging words all the more!

Nevertheless, a rule that limits all prophecy, or even all exhortation, to what sounds encouraging runs the risk of missing larger divine warnings if judgment or suffering lies on the horizon (cf. Jer 28:6-9). This was a serious mistake of most prophets in Jeremiah’s day. “They have healed the wound of my people flippantly, declaring, ‘Peace! Peace!’—when there is no peace” (Jer 6:14; 8:11). Biblical prophets sometimes told people where their lost donkeys were. But we had better not lose sight of the bigger picture—because what lies on the horizon will impact many of us.

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Should prophecies always be positive?—1 Corinthians 14:3

When as a young Christian I attended a Pentecostal college, a beloved administrator warned me that prophecies should always be positive. That did not match all the prophecies I read about in the Bible.

It also did not match all the prophecies I had given; for example, I had felt led to warn one Christian friend who was living unmarried with their partner that they knew better and that God was displeased. That is actually a very tame way of putting it. The message was more like, “Because you have esteemed the Lord lightly, you are lightly esteemed. Because you have dishonored the Lord, the Lord will dishonor you,” etc. I felt awful delivering that message to a friend, and I felt that I was not allowed even to stay for tea; I had to leave right after delivering the message. Had it been anything but that I felt the Lord leading me to do it, I would have talked it over with my friend in a friendlier way. (Soon after that they did quit living together—after the partner disappeared with some of my friend’s property.)

But some of the ideas about prophecy at this training school were formulated, I think, in understandable reaction against stories about a recent movement that abused prophecies and prophesied falsely and harmfully. In any case, one of the ideas was that you should never prophesy to individuals (despite how common that was in the Bible), and another was that prophecies should always be encouraging.

New Testament prophecy is for encouragement—always?

The administrator supported his position with 1 Cor 14:3, which declares that prophecy is for “strengthening, encouraging and comfort” (NIV), “edification and exhortation and consolation” (NASB), or “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” (NRSV, a translation that didn’t yet exist back then). The second Greek term can include an appeal or (as in the NASB) exhortation as well as comfort, but the idea is generally positive. Paul probably did expect mostly positive prophecy for the Corinthian house church gatherings.

At the same time, the prophetic process could not have been entirely positive. Prophetically gifted persons were to collectively evaluate the prophecies (1 Cor 14:29), which would probably mean that not all prophecies would pass muster. Even when spoken in an encouraging way, such corrections may not have felt entirely positive to some of those whose prophecies were not confirmed by their peers. Often in 1 Corinthians, Paul himself corrects the church, and believes that his own (apostolic) authority is greater than that of the local church prophets (14:37-38). And ideally, prophecy included revealing people’s secret sins (1 Cor 14:24-25)—although one had certainly better be sure one has genuinely heard from the Lord before trying something like that. (Even if one is right about the sins, blurting them out is not always the most effective way to bring restoration; cf. Gal 6:1.)

A couple of the clearest samples of prophecy recorded in the New Testament are the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2—3 (what “the Spirit says to the churches”) and Agabus’s prophecy to Paul in Acts 21:11. The prophecy in Acts 21:11 was that Paul was going to be bound in Jerusalem. This was not very encouraging news, but it was consistent with what the Spirit had been saying to Paul in other cities as well (20:23; cf. 21:4).

Two letters to churches in Revelation were quite comforting; both were to persecuted churches, although one was told that the Lord would deliver them from their trial, whereas the other (Smyrna, in Rev 2:10) was encouraged to be faithful to death. Meanwhile, the other five churches received varying degrees of reproofs, two or three of them rather severe. (As an aside, those who claim that prophecy should never claim, “Thus says the Lord,” also overlook these same most explicit passages of prophecy in the NT. But again, one had better be sure before one frames a message in those terms. The more we claim to speak for the Lord, the stricter our judgment if we are wrong; that is true even with the gift of teaching—James 3:1. Ouch.)

Guarding against immaturity

Some circles that insist that all prophecies must be positive may intend this limitation as a precaution against those who are immature in the gift harming people with harsh messages. If you’re going to make a mistake in a setting where prophecy can’t be quickly tested, it seems better for it to be harmless. To be truly harmless, though, it shouldn’t promise blessing to the wicked any more than God’s disfavor on the righteous (Prov 24:24; Isa 3:10-11). And Samuel was probably fairly immature in prophecy when, in his first experience of it as a boy, he was sent with a harsh message to the high priest who was raising him (1 Sam 3:11-14). Although Eli believed him (3:18), and I confess to envying Samuel’s clarity in hearing from God (3:19), I would not want to have been in Samuel’s sandals right then.

It is true that we should seek to encourage people with our words whenever possible—that is definitely a good rule of thumb for what is normal (cf. Prov 12:18; 15:1, 4; 25:15; Eph 4:29; Col 4:6). But if you’re going to be arrested in Jerusalem it might be helpful to know that in advance (Acts 21:11), and if your church’s lampstand is going to be removed if the church fails to repent of its lovelessness (Rev 2:5), it’s better to know that so we can respond. In fact, if we fail to warn people to turn from genuinely sinful ways, their blood is on our head (Ezek 3:18-20; 33:6-8; Acts 20:26-27).

Some people, however, may prophesy only positively as a way of expressing their faith. Is this biblical? I will address this question in part 2.

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The Future is Now: Prophetic Empowerment in the Last Days—Acts 2:17-18

When God pours out the Spirit in Acts 2, hearers recognize some of the languages in which Jesus’s followers are (presumably rather loudly) praising God. In Acts 2:16-21, Peter begins to explain this marvelous event in light of God’s earlier promises. He quotes from Joel 2:28-32, while also paraphrasing as needed (as was the custom) to highlight key points. In context, Joel announces the restoration of God’s people; Peter thus adjusts Joel’s “afterward” to “in the last days.” If Luke regards this occasion as already part of the “last days,” he must also view all subsequent events as “last days” as well.

For Luke, then, the future has invaded history: God’s promised restoration has already begun to dawn; “the kingdom of God has come to you” (Luke 11:20). Other early Christians spoke of the Spirit as the first fruits or first installment of our future inheritance (Rom. 8:23; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5). The Spirit provides a foretaste of the future age, when God makes everything new (1 Cor. 2:9-10; cf. 2 Cor. 5:17). Because we have tasted the life of the future, nothing in the present can ever be the same for us again. As citizens of a new age, we must work, like Jesus, to bring divine wholeness into the brokenness of the present age.

Because Joel speaks of prophesying, visions and dreams, Peter understands that the promise is also about prophetic empowerment. Even more frequently than in earlier Scripture, early Judaism often associated the Spirit with prophecy, but to make sure that no one misses the point, Peter adds in another line (the final line of Acts 2:18): “and they shall prophesy.” The Spirit empowers God’s servants to speak for God just as did the prophets of old. A wise preacher or witness may well tremble at the awesome task of speaking God’s message; but our confidence can be in God’s ability to touch hearts rather than in ourselves.

In the writings of the biblical prophets, the promise of the Spirit was for the time of the end, the time of Israel’s restoration (note in context Isa 11:2; 32:15; 59:21; 61:1; Ezek 11:19; 36:27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28-29). That is why the disciples suspected that God would even restore the kingdom immediately (Acts 1:6-8).

The Spirit brings into our lives a foretaste of the future age, so we can work for God’s kingdom here and now. If this broken world cannot see in the church at least a foretaste of God’s promised restoration, we have settled for too little. Let us, like the first disciples (Acts 1:14), pray for God to empower, transform, and renew us by his Spirit (Luke 11:13).

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The Point of Speaking in Tongues in Acts 2

Pentecost (Acts 2:1) was a significant festival in the Jewish calendar, offering the first fruits of grain to the Lord (Lev. 23:16). Its significance in this narrative, however, may be especially that it was one of the major pilgrimage festivals, when Jewish people who lived all over the world came back to visit Jerusalem. This sets the stage for the experience of the Spirit that will drive the church in Acts across all cultural barriers.

The narrative opens with God’s people in unity (Acts 2:1). They have been praying together (1:14), and prayer often precedes the coming of the Spirit in Luke-Acts (Luke 3:21-22; 11:13; Acts 4:31; 8:15).

Suddenly, they experience signs of the Spirit. The first two signs touch key senses, hearing and sight. They evoke biblical theophanies, perhaps also as foretastes of the future age. First, they hear a wind, perhaps prefiguring the promised wind of God’s Spirit that would bring new life to God’s people in Ezekiel 37:9-14. Second, they witness the appearance of fire, which was often associated with future judgment (cf. Luke 3:9, 16-17).

The third sign, however—speaking in tongues—is the most important of the three. This is clear because it occurs again at two other outpourings of the Spirit in Acts, although no one present on those occasions recognizes the languages spoken (Acts 10:46; 19:6). On this first occasion, though, their experience is also important because some people do recognize the languages and it therefore forms the bridge to Peter’s sermon. The crowds hear this sound (2:6) and ask what this phenomenon means (2:12). Peter goes on to explain that this tongues-speaking means that the promised time of the Spirit has dawned (2:16-18).

Since tongues-speaking represents an example of the prophetic outpouring of the Spirit in “the last days” (2:17), we should no more suppose that tongues have ceased than that prophecy has ceased, and we should no more suppose that prophecy has ceased than that the last days have now been supplanted by days later than last days that are no longer “last”! If we take the Bible seriously, it makes no sense to deny that God who poured the Spirit out (2:17-18) has now poured the Spirit back, or that we no longer need the Spirit empowering us for evangelism (1:8) so long as the task of reaching the ends of the earth still remains to be fulfilled. Of course, when that task has been fulfilled, and our mission is complete, Jesus will return (Matt 24:14; Rom 11:25-27; 2 Pet 3:9-12). We will no longer need these gifts that provide windows on God because we will know him even as we are known (1 Cor 13:8-13).

What is speaking in tongues in Acts? It seems quite implausible that Paul would use related wording to describe a gift of the Spirit only by coincidence. Both Luke and Paul refer to the Spirit enabling worship in unlearned speech (Acts 2:11; 10:46; 1 Cor 14:2, 14-17). In 1 Cor 12:10; 14:2, 13, 18-19, however, only God understands the speech, unless someone present is divinely gifted with the understanding (the gift of interpretation). What matters for Paul is not the linguistic element, but that one’s heart communicates with God. Likewise, in Acts 10:46; 19:6, apparently no one present understands the language.

Acts 2 seems to reflect a special situation for this first outpouring of the Spirit, in which God inspires the worship in languages that will be recognized by the many foreign Jewish hearers on this occasion. There have been subsequent occasions of languages being recognized by someone present (see e.g., Del Tarr, The Foolishness of God: A Linguist Looks at the Mystery of Tongues [Springfield, Mo.: Access, 2010]; Jordan Daniel May, Global Witnesses to Pentecost: The Testimony of “Other Tongues” [Cleveland, Tenn.: CPT Press, 2013]). That is not, however, the normal purpose of tongues in the Bible or subsequently.

Yet Luke has a special reason to highlight this special occurrence of recognized tongues in Acts 2. Luke’s “thesis statement” for Acts is Acts 1:8: the Spirit empowers witnesses for Jesus to the ends of the earth. (The witnesses are in the first case “the eleven and those who were with them” in Luke 24:33, but they become a model for the continuing mission of the church, since the spread of the good news must continue to the ends of the earth, far beyond the conclusion of Acts 28.)

In another major programmatic statement for Acts, the Spirit inspires all believers to speak prophetically for God (2:17-18), a last-days gift (2:17) that continues for subsequent generations (2:38-39). Although this wide potential for prophetic speech continues in Acts in the narrower sense (11:27; 13:1; 19:6; 21:9-10; cf. 1 Cor 14:5, 31), all believers, including those who think that other gifts have ceased, at the very least must surely depend on the Spirit in our witness for Christ.

But where does tongues (2:4) fit on the spectrum of witness (1:8) and prophecy (2:17-18)? How do tongues fulfill Joel’s promise of God’s people being able to prophesy (2:17-18)? Like witness and prophecy in the narrower sense, worship in tongues is speech for God and moved by the Spirit of God. Nor is it simply a random example of this sort of speech; Luke’s narrative highlights in Acts 2 a particular dimension about tongues-speaking that is distinctive: it portends the mission to the ends of the earth (1:8).

What greater sign of the purpose of Spirit-empowerment, stated in 1:8, could God offer on the day of Pentecost than for God to empower his people to worship in other people’s languages? That is, God signifies right from the start that the Spirit empowers us for our mission to the ends of the earth. The Book of Acts then provides further examples of God continuing to empower new and unexpected groups of believers, who thereby become colaborers in the mission (8:14-17; 9:17; 10:44-48; 13:52; 19:6).

Various groups of Christians today debate how many Christians should speak in tongues, but all of us can appreciate what tongues on the first Pentecost most of all means for us: God has empowered his church to reach all peoples. Until that mission is complete, let us continue to call on him for his power to use us. This is a prayer that he is sure to answer (Luke 11:13).