Help with 1 Cor 14:32

Carl Emerson said:

There was one several years ago and churches of different denominations in one locality were asked to contribute a member who was considered prophetic to a local prophets fellowship. They would seek God together and feed back to the churches what they felt God was saying. Unfortunately the enemy got a sniff of it and the Pastor was run out of town on false accusations. He was one of the best Pastors I ever met and never went back to the ministry as far as I know. The battle is fierce when you rock the boat. I found him on his own weeping during a service in the church office. Satan loves tradition because it has established a largely impotent church. If you travel away form the normal towards biblical forms recorded in Acts, all hell breaks loose. The same applies to Christian community.
That partly explains why I am so passionate about such matters.

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Wow, that's truly too bad. The enemy hates the prophetic and will do anything he can to silence it pervert it, confuse it or discredit it and/or those flowing in it.

Carl Emerson said:

Theologically trained Pastors are gifted in different ways, discernment is often not in their quiver.

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Discerning heresy is in their quiver. Or, at least, it ought to be.

topher694 said:

Wow, that's truly too bad. The enemy hates the prophetic

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The enemy loves prophets. False prophets, that is.

Carl Emerson said:

There is nothing complicated in Prophets being first subject to themselves collectively as the ones best equiped to discern what is His Word.

Anyway most churches have no structure to facilitate the prophetic and this is a tragedy in times of spiritual turbulence and increasing persecution.



The gifts did in fact provide critical input in the New Covenant Scriptures - how else would Revelation be written for example? Was this not prophetic?

And again the implication that complete knowledge is available through the NT ignores the fact that many issues in church and life have no specific mention in Scripture and we need spiritual discernment to establish the right response.

This position reduces the Christian experience to that of New Testament Pharisees who do not hear His voice and this leads to the tragic fact that they didn't recognise Him when He came.

There is no instruction in Scripture that Scripture is to replace the living Word of God. We are foolish to dismiss the need to seek and hear God's Living Word individually and as a church. Sure the Scripture is inspired and provided by Him as a fully reliable reference to measure truth, but for example - to discern whether or not person x has a call to be an astronaut is a matter requiring discernment as neither astronauts or person x have any mention in Scripture.
My dad used to believe that man would never reach the moon as there is no mention man of escaping the earth in Scripture and would that not mean that 'the earth will give up her dead' would be untrue if someone died up there...

Anyway this is a diversion -

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Hi Carl, I think tongues and prophecy became the NT canon since they were God's word. But today's "gifts" are not the same if you look into the matter. Faith comes by hearing the word and many are starving by trying to feed on human words being passed off as God's word.

Carl Emerson said:

Does your theology not allow for the spiritual gifts to be active in this age??

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Some of them, definitely. All of them, perhaps.

Carl Emerson said:

Do you therefore conclude that all claims to exercising such gifts are false?

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I said no such thing. I'm open to the idea that there are genuine prophets out there. But...

1. It is a fact that a great many prophets out there are false prophets (how many times has the Second Coming been predicted for a specific day?). Some people do indeed think that they're all false prophets, and who can blame them for thinking that?

2. It is also a fact that none of the churches who claim to have prophets have a reliable way of sorting out the good from the bad.

3. Having prophets "check each other" certainly doesn't work, because of the possibility that the whole local group of prophets is bad.

4. I get really, really disturbed when alleged prophets resist one of the things that really does work, which is to subordinate alleged prophecy to Scripture. After all, Scripture is infallible.

Carl Emerson said:

So initially I would like those with more than a rudimentary knowledge of Greek grammar to advise on the intended meaning given the grammar and the context of this verse.

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We have achieved that, though. Isn't it good that there are people who know Greek grammar on this thread?

Carl Emerson said:

What would be your reliable way in point 2?

The problem with 4 is how does the prophet submit a 'word' about a coming famine to scripture. How would scripture verify or otherwise such a 'word'?

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Scripture tells us in Deuteronomy 18:20-22: But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

The part in green is about prophecies that contradict God's revelation. In the modern era, we ask a theologically trained pastor if the prophecy contradicts Scripture.

The part in purple relates to prophecies about events. We record the prophecies in a book or in some other way (so that they are not conveniently forgotten), and then later on we check to see if they came true. Any alleged prophet with a false prophecy recorded is a false prophet, and should no longer be permitted to prophesy.

Carl Emerson said:

Well Agabus correctly and publicly predicted a coming famine and so did Joseph.

I think Jesus will use His prophets as He wills.

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Acts of the Apostles 21
10As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: ‘In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’” 12When we had heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem.

In the Old Testament, those who taught serving idols, caring about personal safety, did not show fruits manifesting repentance, would have been stoned to death by God's people, or have leanness sent into their lives, perished through God's wrath. Under the New Covenant, the persons who have their teachings destroyed would themselves survive, but as through flames.

Carl Emerson said:

There is nothing complicated in Prophets being first subject to themselves collectively as the ones best equiped to discern what is His Word.

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After thinking about it for a while - you are right in saying that it could just as well go the other way.

Radagast said:

For far too long, false prophets have given other false prophets the stamp of approval, even when so-called "prophecies" were demonstrably factually incorrect.

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I'm not sure that very many are "demonstrably factually incorrect".

But I've been around charismatic churches for over 40 years and most so called prophecies seem to be just so much fluff.

I sincerely doubt that very many prophecies I've heard over the years were from the mind of the Holy Spirit. Most have just been along the lines of exhortations I could come up with myself if I just wanted to look spiritual to the other folks in the church.

I could be wrong.

But it's a little like a lot of so called tongues. I've heard of signs over more than one "prayer room" that read "Shanda Room".

I speak in tongues my self and I'm not saying it isn't for today or any such thing.

But I doubt very much that "SHANDA" is the Holy Spirit's favorite word and that He begins every other sentence with that word. I also find it not just coincidental that people often make fun of tongues by saying something like "shanda rotie tie my bow tie".

Some tongues are just a learned phenomena people work up in certain denominational settings.

Same can be said for those who supposedly bring prophecies.

Again - I'm not anti charismatic by any stretch of the imagination - quite the opposite.

I'm just sayin.

Ok so I think this is overdue for a real actual example of this in action.

My home church has prophetic teams, from time to time they are invited to minister prophetically at other churches or for special events. During one of these times the group visited a church. Those from the home church who wanted prophetic prayer where gathered in the sanctuary. During ministry one of the members of the prophetic team loudly proclaimed to a man sitting in the from row, "AFFAIRS, AFFAIRS, AFFAIRS!!!"... with the man's wife sitting right next to him. The husband slunk into his chair red-faced, the wife look around wide eyed and shocked.

Now, here's the thing. The man WAS having an affair(s). The entire prophetic team had discerned that as well (and it was later confirmed). However, the word was NOT delivered with the right motivation. Instead of expressing the heart of God, and trying to bring repentance, this person's motivation was to impress their peers and leadership... it was a selfish motivation. The very same word could have been delivered in a way that brought conviction to the man and encouraged him to do what was right without embarrassing him in front of all those people. Something like, "The Lord says you've come to a fork in the road one path leads to dark one to light, son, I'm calling you to do what is right and step into the light" (pardon the rhyme). The man would have absolutely known what it was about, it could bring conviction without embarrassment and called him to repentance at the same time.

Ultimately someone more experienced took over immediately and smoothed over the situation (without compromising God's word). The woman on the team was talked to by her (prophetic) pastor and it was discovered that she was going through some considerable personal issues. She was removed from the teams for a season while she got her personal life in order. She was then put back on the team to observe only for a season. Then partnered with a more experienced person for a season after that.

Now let's look at some of the arguments made here and apply them to the "affairs" prophetic word:

Prophetic subject to teachers of the word... nope. The word was true and God doesn't like affairs.

Prophetic person subject to themselves... nope. This person spoke in order, in turn, didn't interrupt and clearly did not think what they were saying was wrong.

Prophets being subject to Prophets... yep. The others knew the word was true, but because of that they also knew the heart was wrong, the motivation. 1 Corinthians 13 when talking about the proper motivation for using the gifts says: Love is not puffed up (she was showing off "her gift"). Love does not behave rudely (she embarrassed that man AND his wife in order to show off). It does not seek its own (she was trying to impress her peers). But, it took other prophetic people to recognize what was happening and take action to fix it. This is EXACTLY what Paul is describing in 1 Cor 12, 13 & 14 and the problem would not have been exposed if prophetic people where not subject to other prophetic people.

(Incidentally, this situation is the exception. It is very uncommon in this church, but it can still happen)

This is not theory, this is the gifts of the Spirit and 1 Cor 14 in action today.



What I continually find remarkable is how those with no experience in the authentic prophetic can be such experts in the false. In my experience - and this comes not from me, but from someone who many consider the leading prophetic voice in the world today - the best way to combat and expose the false is not to run around trying to point it out everywhere (although there are times and places for it), instead the best way to combat the false is to continually demonstrate the authentic. Yet you have those who cry: false, false, false from the rooftops yet wouldn't know a true prophetic word if it slapped them in the face. And somehow we are supposed to listen to them on how the prophetic works?

Carl Emerson said:

We had a lady prophesy an earthquake in Christchurch on a particular day and it reached National news.
Quite some damage was done to the image of the church as a result.
Waiting for an event to take place or not is too late.
We operate the gifts in a body and mutual submission among the gifted is a dynamic foreign to OT teaching - Had the Fellowship of the Prophets been operating the 'word' would never have got legs.
New Testament teaching trumps Old Testament teaching every time.
We are no longer under law but operate as the Body of Christ in Love, Unity and Mutual Submission. Sadly much of the church has lost sight of this important foundation, so needed for the gifts to operate effectively.

As to weighing a 'word' by contradiction of scripture - yes of course. However often our theologies are not free of the law and we miss the better approach as above.

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Exactly,

1. This is the difference between the prophetic and a Prophet.

2. If this word had been subject to evaluation by seasoned prophets it would have never gotten that far.

I personally know several Prophets quite well and consider them personal friends. I can tell you with certainly that they would never release a word like this without writing it down and submitting it to other prophets first. That doesn't mean that this always happens, but it is how it is supposed to work.

Carl Emerson said:

Changing the structure of church so the prophetic can operate as in the early church.
This means abandoning the top down structure that doesn't allow for 'the least' who may be carrying a prophetic word, to be heard.
It also requires a return to a foundation of unity among believers - essential for the discernment gifts to operate.
If Prophesy was reinstated and a fellowship of the prophets allowed to operate this, may very well result in the church having a 'civil' voice as before.
As for unlocking the meaning of scripture, I am not sure if this is a prophetic function.
What the church mainly needs in this late hour is an ear, through prophesy, to understand what is going on spiritually and early warning regarding the planned attacks that will surely come. This was quite active in the survival of the early church and is becoming more necessary as society crumbles and hatred for the church is allowed to prevail.

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Greetings, Carl.

I stopped at #68 so I have a few posts to read yet to be caught up, but you are definitely on the right track with this post. And here is what you are especially right about: "As for unlocking the meaning of scripture, I am not sure if this is a prophetic function." Very enlightened statement. From my perspective, the best theology being presented to the church today is through the prophets, but it is NOT because this is their gift. It is simply because they are doing a better job than most at interpreting the true utterances of the Spirit, since they readily receive them. But the true authority rests in the hands of those who receive revelation concerning prophetic utterances, and in real time this will be whoever God chooses to use in a congregation. This may often be someone who already operates in a great deal of revelation, such as a strong teacher, a strong pastor, maybe even a strong evangelist etc., but it could be anyone whom the Spirit decides to use in the moment.

Let me explain what I mean. Read the passage again (I suppose NKJV translation will suffice here):

26 How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. 30 But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. 32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. 33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

Who is the authority here? Whoever is being given revelation in the moment. This was not the responsibility of any particular office in the church since he insisted that "each of them" had a psalm, had a teaching, had a revelation, meaning the ability to receive revelation on what the Spirit was saying was not exclusive to anyone in particular.

I read the words of the prophets and own to my knowledge virtually all of the strongest prophetic visions given to the church in our time, and I can tell you from studying their other writings that the prophets are not always correct in their theology. But while I receive revelation on a fairly continual basis, I would not lay claim on being the only one who who would received revelation from the Spirit of God concerning utterances going forth in a congregation, even if it were my own. It is the exclusive choice of the Holy Spirit Himself that determines who will be given revelation at any given moment, and in this moment they become the authority in the room. Why? Because they are the vessel through whom the Holy Spirit is speaking. That authority immediately passes from them the moment revelation is then given to another standing by, to whom additional revelation is given. That authority then passes yet again to another, such as a pastor or leader, if someone interrupts the flow of the Spirit with some false doctrine and/or uninspired interpretation, and/or a false prophecy that is uttered in the flesh. Authority in Christ thus transfers from moment to moment to various members of the congregation depending on what is taking place and what vessel He determines to use for the congregation to receive what needs to be communicated.

Therefore, it is not just other prophets to whom the prophets are subject to, nor is it the leadership alone, even if they are genuinely educated in the scriptures and true revelation from God. But top down structure, especially when church leadership is often not well-founded in scripture (and by this I mean accurate interpretations of scripture) will consistently be highly detriment to the operation of the gifts, and hamper any true move of God before it even gets off the ground.

Your closing statements were profound:

"What the church mainly needs in this late hour is an ear, through prophesy, to understand what is going on spiritually and early warning regarding the planned attacks that will surely come. This was quite active in the survival of the early church and is becoming more necessary as society crumbles and hatred for the church is allowed to prevail."

The bigger question for me is how to inspire the church to even return to operating in genuine gifts, but I suppose that is a conversation for another thread.

Carl Emerson said:

I have been on the forum for over a year and there are various issues that are causing a great divide of opinion - sometimes heated.

One is the interpretation of this verse and the issues around it.

Some see it means each individual prophets spirit is subject to himself. Others say that the spirit of each individual prophet is subject to the other prophets.

29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. 30 But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted; 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets;33 for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

Behind this question is one of authority. Who are these prophetic words subject to? the Pastor, the Teachers, or the Prophets. Some say the Pastor as he is the Father figure in the Church. Some say the Teachers as they must determine if the word is biblical. Some say the Prophets as they are collectively gifted to determine the validity of the presented word. Some say the Elders collectively.

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But let me share something with you that might strengthen your case in interpretation being the domain of the prophets especially. My primary calling is as a teacher, but as an interpreter of dreams and visions I tend to forget that I also move in the prophetic, and this is suddenly causing me to rethink my position on the question at hand. How many with no prophetic giftings whatsoever do we know personally who interpret prophetic utterance accurately? My answer would be none to my knowledge, but I am open to hearing what other people's answers would be, such as @Radagast.

Btw, about your asking for help with the Greek, the structure actually yields the reading, "The spirits of the prophets is being subjected to the prophets." It uses a singular verb to describe a plural noun, which is rather unusual. My best effort to translate the meaning into English is, "When they gather together (collectively), the spirits of the prophets is (collectively) being subjected to the prophets," or in other words, each prophet is being made subject to the spirits of the other prophets as the Spirit leads each in turn, whether in giving utterance or speaking revelation. So this favors the idea that the verse is saying the spirit of each individual prophet is subject to the other prophets.

But I was discussing this with a friend, and what is abundantly clear (in his words) is that "this verse does not set up one in authority over another, or some kind of 'self-policing caste' within the body of Christ." It is the Spirit of God using every man as He wills.

Let me know what you think. I noticed you were on yesterday yet didn't respond, but maybe you were busy with other threads.

God bless, in Christ Jesus
Hidden In Him

Hidden In Him said:

"The spirits of the prophets is being subjected to the prophets." It uses a singular verb to describe a plural noun, which is rather unusual.

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Actually, that's 100% normal for neuter nouns. Neuter plural nouns in Greek take singular verbs. It's one of the many grammatical strangenesses.

Hidden In Him said:

or some kind of 'self-policing caste' within the body of Christ."

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I agree 100%.