You've Been Anointed As Prophet
& the Church needs you.
I learned something fascinating this summer.
As I was preparing to teach my course on the Kingdom of God I was deciding between teaching the Old Testament in our traditional format or by following the TaNaK.
TaNaK = Hebrew Bible
T = Torah = Law
N = Nevi'im = Prophets
K = Ketuvim = Writings
As you can imagine, our traditional format of the Old Testament, which most, if not all, of our Bibles have, is much simpler for us to understand today because it’s what we’ve known. However, I wanted to give the TaNaK a look, given the academic nature of the course.
Here’s what I learned: Daniel is not considered one of the Prophets. The book of Daniel is categorized in the Ketuvim—the writings.
Weird, right?
We’ve grown up knowing he’s a prophet. Why would the Hebrews not include him in the Nevi'im, the Prophetical books?
When I was doing my research, I found a myriad of reasons, but one of them stood out because it tracks with our modern assumptions about prophets.
The reason that stood out? Because he wasn’t crazy.
That’s right.
One of the reasons people have suggested the Hebrews did not include Daniel in the Nevi'im, the Prophets, was because he never went “crazy.”
He wasn’t required to marry a prostitute repeatedly like Hosea.
He didn’t have to march through Israel naked like Isaiah.
He didn’t have to lay on his side for 430 days like Ezekiel.
And therein lies our hesitancy to lean into our calling as prophets in our day. We think that prophets are crazy. We assume we’ll have to grow our hair out and eat bugs like John the Baptist. We believe we’ll have to be on street corners holding signs with cheap microphones, yelling at people who are probably just trying to have a nice, peaceful night.
But, we couldn’t be more wrong.
Biblical evidence for the gift of prophecy
Before I do anything else, I want to point out something important in Paul’s thought process for the church. In the book of 1 Corinthians—as he’s instructing the church on how to operate—he says this:
Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
—1 Corinthians 14:1
In Paul’s view, the gift of prophesy is something all people in the church should earnestly desire. Even more than that, it’s one of the gifts that has a role in leading and equipping the church—
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,”
—Ephesians 4:11-12
But what exactly do prophets do? And what is the gift of prophecy?
Here’s a baseline passage found in 1 Corinthians:
Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
—1 Corinthians 14:29-33
We can deduce the job of a prophet from this passage: Speak God’s message to God’s people.
According to this passage, and others, Prophets:
Teach (1 Corinthians 14)
Encourage (1 Corinthians 14)
Submit their word to God’s Word (1 Corinthians 14)
Build up the body (Ephesians 4)
It’s primarily for the believers (1 Corinthians 14:22)
Speak truth over people (1 Timothy 4:14)
God clearly gives certain Christians the supernatural gift of prophecy to build up the body of Christ. But what about the ordinary, non-prophetical people?
Everyone has a role in prophecy
The book of Acts & Joel has something to say about this:
But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
—Acts 2:16-18
Luke (the writer of Acts) is making a connection to what is happening to the church in the book of Acts to Joel’s prophecy.
Here’s the Word—
When the Spirit shows up, the people will prophesy.
The Spirit is the anointing that empowers God’s people to speak God’s word to others. And it’s clearly not just for pastors—or men.
On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied. While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.
—Acts 21:8-10
There’s overwhelming evidence in the book of Acts that God’s people, whether they are overtly gifted with the spiritual gift of prophecy or not, are instructed to prophesy.
Speak God’s Word… to God’s people.
Some people will do it to build up the church as a whole.
All people will do it to build up individuals within the church.
So how do we do prophesy?
Here are three practical steps you can take to being speaking God’s word to God’s people in normal, everyday life.
1. Read the Bible a lot.
Prophets speak God’s word, not their own words. To speak God’s Word we need to know God’s Word. The more we know God’s Word the more we’re going to be able to encourage and build up others with God’s Word. It’s that simple.
2. Work hard to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.
To speak God’s Word, you need to hear God’s voice. We need to become experts in only saying what God is directing us to say. Which means we need to hear His voice.
Confess sin
Memorize Scripture
Avoid unnecessary phone time
Move slow
Ask the Holy Spirit, “Help me know when I’m hearing your voice. Make me more familiar.”
No one needs a prophet that speaks their own words. It’s unbiblical (2 Peter 1:20-21).
3. Speak & pray by faith
The other day I was able to lead a student to faith in Christ. She prayed a prayer of repentance and faith and afterwards, myself and another staff member prayed over her.
Before I prayed over her I asked the Holy Spirit to lead me in the prayer.
I prayed the Holy Spirit would overwhelm her, fill her up, and lead her. Then I prayed specifically, “Give her the gift of evangelism. I pray she’s able to lead many people to faith in Christ.” 1 Timothy 4:14 was coming to mind.
“Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.”
—1 Timothy 4:14
As soon as we got done praying she began talking about specific friends she knew probably needed to hear the message of Christ. She expressed a deep burden for those friends and other people at our school as well.
I’m not an expert, and you could certainly approach that moment with skepticism, but to me it seemed like she was filled with the Holy Spirit and given a gift of evangelism—which is exactly what I prayed.
There are going to be moments when the Spirit prompts you to pray or encourage others with God’s Word and it may not make sense. It may require faith. It may sound oddly specific. That’s the point. Every Spiritual gift requires us to live by faith—otherwise it wouldn’t be from God.
The moment the Holy Spirit descended upon you, you were anointed to be a prophet. To encourage, to teach, to exhort, and to speak God’s Words to God’s people.
The Church needs you.
—Brandon
Very convicting !