Please bare with me …this will be a bit longer than usual.
In 1 Corinthian 12 Paul talks about the Body and many different parts, and how we need them. At the end of the chapter he names the apostle, prophet, teacher and then some gifts of the Spirit. In Ephesians 4 Paul lists what Jesus gave the Body of Christ so that it could be equipped for the work of ministry, the first two being the apostle and the prophet.
Most institutional churches only really recognize 2 maybe 3 (of the 5 listed) and have them in their fellowship. Everyone knows the ‘pastor’ and some know the role of teacher, and even less understand the role of an evangelist. They were all listed and called to “equip” the saints first and foremost before going into all the world. Today I want to look at the most ostracized one on the list … the role of prophet.
Throughout all of recorded scriptural history the prophet is the one role the people always … hate, laugh at, despise, and belittle in both the Old and New Testaments? Why is that? Any prophet can tell you. They are called to deliver the …Truth of things. They are called to reveal the hidden secrets often times that nobody wants known. Or called to deliver what God is asking of them to say to someone …the message usually involves some form repentance and a direction to turn from their wicked ways. These ‘messages’ are rarely accepted right away .. if ever. Then what exactly would be their role in equipping the Body? What would a prophet be for in the New Testament ekklesia / fellowship?
I think the role of the prophet in the fellowship is to help the members learn how to relate, interact, and learn from the Holy Spirit for themselves.To guard the heart of God in that group / fellowship. In fact I think the roles of the 5 are very different than what we have grown up knowing in the institutional church, but that’s another lesson. Today I want to talk about the weird part of the Body, the person called (and equipped / designed by God) to be His prophet for that group / fellowship. I think those designed for this role is way more prevalent than we currently know. But our current structure and system is not set up to recognize, accept, utilize, and learn from them and allow them to learn alongside others with a prophetic gifting. They are just too weird for the “ones” in charge, basically the ‘pastor’ or elder board who sit at the top of the authority pyramid in the structure.
Ever since my ‘event’ and meeting with Him — I have been given a directive to learn what a prophet is. I have looked at the role from Genesis to Revelation — many times over. After almost 50 years of looking, reading, observing, and listening to the Holy Spirit I’ve seen what seems to be some anomalies and traits of these types of individuals. Even before they come to ‘know’ Him and accept Him — they are ‘wired’ differently than the rest of the population. From the science side I think it might have to do with brain chemistry, plus several other physiological factors like electrical resonance and wave frequencies. From the spiritual side they seem to have heightened spiritual senses. It’s like all of us were built to be some type of vehicle like a massive dump truck and others were designed to be a formula 1 car, and all the variations of vehicles in-between. The design for a prophet heavily involves the spiritual realm with abilities and senses. But even if you were designed to be that race car without an top notch driver you will never win a race.
I believe for us to fulfill our created purposes we have to be ‘driven’ / guided / instructed by the One who made us … the Holy Spirit via the Father. That includes everyone not just the prophet. But the prophet’s life is lived so much in the spiritual, they’re just ‘bent’ that way. I believe this is one of the reasons the most of the institutional church remains stuck in 3rd grade spiritually. Their leadership have negated the role of the prophet and not learned how to relate to the Holy Spirit. So their spiritual growth is slow and erratic if at all. Churches can easily grow in numbers — just ‘scratch the ears’ of the people. But real spiritual growth? That’s an entirely different matter. Of course there are those extremely rare groups (Churches) that acknowledge the prophet’s role and accept it and even fewer that want it within their own Body or purposely make a place for it to thrive.
What is your design? What did He create you to do?