SOME GENERAL THOUGHTS ON PROPHECY FROM SCRIPTURE - A LOOK AT PROPHECY, PART 2 OF 5

Belshazzer's Feast, Rembrandt

As we look at prophecy, I'd like to start off with certain observations of prophets and prophecy from the Bible. After all, we need to see what the Biblical record points to as far as prophets if we want to know if prophecy is a part of the church today.

So here are my observations.

1. Prophecy is not a synonym of foretelling. Yes, prophets do have prophecies in the future, but their ministry is at least as much forth-telling. 
2. Deuteronomy 18:20-22 gives an indicator that a prophet of God would have a 100% record in foretelling, and if it fails to come to pass, he's not of God. (Jeremiah 28:7-9 is similar, focusing on prophets of peace.) However, fulfilled prophecy is not proof of the prophet being of God: Deuteronomy 13:1-5 mentions a prophet whose prediction is true but whose message is false.
3. There's a difference in the book orders of the Jewish Tanakh and our Old Testament. The former divides the books into the Law, the Prophets and the Writings (or the Psalms, which is the first book of the Writings); the latter has the Law, historical books, poetic (wisdom) books and prophetic books. The Tanakh classifies some of the books we consider historical to be written by prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings). Also, Daniel is placed in the Writings. Why? While Daniel's book was prophetic, he did not exercise the role of prophet to Israel as the other prophets did.
4. No prophet ever applied for the job. God called them. Some didn't want the job (Moses, Jonah), and Jeremiah wanted to quit, but God was the one who called them. There were schools of the prophets, but nobody from those schools were named, and only one actually did something (1 Kings 20). Likewise, the prophets were not authorities themselves, but spokespeople for and servants of the ultimate Sovereign.
   
5. God chose women as well as men, though they were a minority. However, there was Deborah (Judges 4-5), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-22; 2 Chronicles 34:22-28), Anna (Luke 2:36-38), and the four daughters of Phillip the Evangelist (Acts 21:9). The prophecy of the coming of the Spirit in Joel 2:28-32 says "Your sons and your daughters will prophesy." 
6. Approximately one fourth of Scripture was prophetic when it was written. Much of that has been fulfilled; the rest is yet to be fulfilled. How does this compare with holy books of other religions? Well, none of the others have future prophecies. It's like God was saying that fulfilled prophecy was a test of the speaker being of God, and then giving a lot of items to test and say the Bible is of God.
7. The purpose of Spiritual gifts is primarily the local church