From time to time, prophetic words are spoken in church, sometimes to individuals and sometimes to the whole meeting. In the case of a recent word that was shared, some people were not sure what to think of what was said and few had questions. There are principles given in the New Testament about the healthy use of spiritual gifts and especially prophecy which are important for all Christians to understand. In this short message, Pastor David outlines these principles for embracing a healthy prophetic culture in the church, and goes on to bring clarity to the prophetic word that was spoken the previous week. (Unfortunately, there was a fault in the recording so we do not have a copy of the original word).
The backbone of understanding prophecy from a New Testament church context is given in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and especially chapter 14. Every believer receives the gift of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38), and we are encourage to pursue the gifts the Spirit gives, especially to prophesy within the church family (1 Cor. 14:1-4).
Alongside this instruction, we must humbly acknowledge the imperfection of our sensitivity and obedience to the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 13:9) and therefore our need for everything to be tested against the written word of God. Every prophetic word given in the church must be “weighed carefully” by mature believers with a sound knowledge of scripture (1 Cor. 14:29). Paul writes again in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 that all prophecies must be tested against the standard of the Bible. Our response ought to be that we hold on to the good, and treat such words as worthy of attention, but let anything else “fall to the ground”.
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