Unless what they have "received" actually isn't from God but was hard earned by them via being manipulated and so they now pay it forward by manipulating others. I know that God's power comes with His word, so when there is life and something actually happens to the person, then God has definitely spoken to them. People can create an emotional brouhaha, but we can never duplicate God's resurrection power. Never ever. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. God's Word is life to us, His sheep hear His voice, and when He truly does speak, lives are changed. He could speak to the centurion's servant from far away, and that servant got healed. Bam. Done. We can certainly speak into another's lives and give encouragement and such. But, to create life? God alone has the power to bring that to us. He alone reserves the right. Jesus can heal me with one word. So when I look for God to speak to me, I pass by the babbling and yammering and chatter and noise, because my spirit knows who it's looking for and will not rest until it finds its Maker. It's honestly that simple, and difficult, for me.
Woah, hold on a minute there... you mean to say the twaddle they spout isn't actually from God? But they said that a scribe angel visited them with a message from God for them to write down. Surely they wouldn't be telling fibs, would they? It's certainly odd to see something that appears trivial cause someone to start crying like that.
I am pretty sure of that, exceptions excluded, although I can't name someone who is a proven prophet. Isa 30:21 - And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. One of those texts used to encourage this kind of self-suggestion.
If we are all connected, (by The Holy Spirit) and one of us says something to encourage...without even knowing it will, is this not prophesy?
I don't see why it shouldn't be considered prophetic. I think part of the issue is that people who have a prophetic gift, or who sometimes have an insight that is prophetic, aren't anything like the same as a prophet in the OT sense of the word.
I couldn't agree more. The church I attended for a time had an obsession with things being prophetic. They did "prophetic acts" (which might be as simple as waving a sword), and had evenings of "prophetic worship" (as opposed to mundane worship I guess), "prophetic singing", "prophetic study" and so on. The sad thing was they still couldn't pay their rent on time and followed endless "prophets" whose predictions never came true. It's good to recognise when something may be prophetic but, as you quite rightly say, it devalues the word to describe every little thing as prophetic.
I am intrigued what Paul says in 1 Cor 14:29-31 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, Unless I misunderstand, revelation has a higher priority than prophecy, the prophet prophesying should stop in the middle and the attention should go to the person who received a revelation. It strikes me as odd Paul is ordering a prophet to shut up who is speaking through the Holy Spirit. Makes me wonder what was considered a prophet in the days of the early Church and if that matches with our understanding of a prophet. I get the impression a prophet in those days was someone speaking wisdom he learned from the Holy Spirit and thus when the Holy Spirit reveals something new to another person it should be shared immediately. Not sure if I am making sense.
I am trying to figure out if it is one of the two or three prophets that is getting the revelation-- or someone outside of that group? It seems to me a revelation is a confirmation of what is being spoken-- that there has been a benefit.
I think the urge to affiliate things as prophetic comes from an unfulfilled need to experience the supernatural. There's so much pressure on Christians today to validate charismatic ideals. - This is why encouragement isn't just encouragement, its *prophecy*. - Its why plain every day old wisdom isn't wisdom, its prophetic wisdom. - Its why a well timed insight or critique isn't shrewdness, its prophetic discernment. - Its why preposterous extrapolations of every day news are called prophecy and immediately forgotten when not true. - Its why when preposterous extrapolations don't occur, it isn't "bad guess" its prophetic intervention. - Its why so many people become *very* uncomfortable if you ask them if the Bible is the only source of objective truth - Its why people inevitably change the definition of "miraculous" to mean "perfectly mundane" in order to simultaneously hold the idea that miracles are a requirement of the Christian experience. It still disheartens me to see good people twist and writhe to squeeze supernatural out of mundane. How it must torture their sanity that they may go through life never experiencing something supernatural, and how that somehow reflects badly on *THEM*. Consider just releasing yourself from that burden for even a single year. Stop worrying if something is "prophetic" or not. Shut the volume off on anyone asserting themselves as Prophet. If not for you, then for the culture around you, peer pressured to believe the same empty promise.
Yep, it's part of the "look at me, I'm so special" mindset. Except as soon as "look at me" comes into play you stop looking at God, which kind of defeats the point of it all. Yep, especially within the hypercharismatic and uberpentecostal movements. I had a discussion about that with a friend who attended a hypercharismatic church, about how something could be encouraging without being remotely prophetic. I think he got it, eventually. What's really fun is when you get into "prophetic worship" and "prophetic assembly". Don't ask me what they are, I haven't got the faintest prophetic idea. The likes of Bill Johnson who seem to think that miracles are a required part of the Christian life do a huge amount of damage to the body of Christ. Sometimes Christians don't need kooky teachers to lead them down silly paths because they are quite keen to go down the "look at me, I experienced a miracle" path unguided. I remember a lady at a previous church who made a big deal out of an experience she had that essentially consisted of being "divinely guided" to buy new tires for her car from one place rather than another and, wouldn't you know it, they gave her a modest discount for buying two tires at the same time. I'm sure such an undoubted miracle has unbelievers lining up to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, if they can look forward to such stunning events in their lives. I don't feel like I'm under the burden because I can accept that the vast majority of my life is going to be, well, natural. I don't expect to call down fire daily, I don't expect my shadow to heal people as I go about my daily business, I don't think for a minute that "going to high places" and "breaking curses off the land" will accomplish anything useful at all. Maybe you should speak at the kooky hypercharismatic church I attended for a time, until I concluded I simply couldn't endure any more of the silliness.
Wow. I was amazed at how difficult it was for some people to answer, what I thought, was a simple question. I think sometimes we either overthink or over spiritualize things.
The difference between walking in your life without knowing someone needs encouraged, only to by chance, encourage them...later to find, that they had been praying, or in some rut, or without a clue-- then an individual comes along. That is the kind of encouragement I am talking about that I can match to prophesy. No one BUT The Holy Spirit could possibly know what is needed. It can be wisdom, it can be knowledge, but it definatly does not have a pre-set up by someone you know is waiting to hear because they have voiced something to you in advance, or because everyone at some point will be able to relate. Just clarifying, it seems a very big difference than going to a "prophetic meeting" and matching up something to oneself because it "seems" to fit--
Sure, and to be honest I think as soon as something is called a "prophetic meeting" the chances are it's going to be anything but. It's not as if you or I can decide when God is going to speak and, since it's not much of a meeting if the speaker's grand plans are thwarted by God deciding not to dance to someone else's tune, you can be reasonably sure they will fill the space with something that sounds sufficiently spiritual to impress people yet sufficiently vague that lots of people will talk about what great prophetic insights the speaker had for them.