If I Were a Corinthian, What Would I Do?

In my last post, I pointed out that while the charismatics want to find proof for their modern practices in the Corinthian letters, there is, in fact, nothing in those letters to suggest that prophecy is any less revelatory or in any way different than it has been throughout Biblical history. This being the case, any prophecy today must likewise be considered on equal par with Biblical revelation. That is not a place my Reformed Charismatic brethren want to go, however.

I attempted in that post to briefly cover all of the references to prophecy in 1 Corinthians so as to demonstrate their continuity with the rest of Scripture. In doing so, I accidentally missed a few (likely due to the hour) and will briefly take them up here because I know some of my brothers are really struggling with this issue.

“For we know in part and we prophesy in part;” 1Cor. 13:9

I covered this here.

“Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.” 1Cor. 14:1

“Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy; and greater is one who prophesies than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may receive edifying.” 1Cor. 14:5

“Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues.” 1Cor. 14:39

These three verses are significant because they all promote the desire to prophesy. They all seem to be saying, “Don’t you see what a wonderful thing prophecy is. You should all be doing it.” Further, 14:39 seems to say that what I am doing by discouraging prophecy is actually sin.

Put yourself in the shoes of a Corinthian for a moment.

You are living during the early days of the Apostles. You have no Bible. You’ve spent time with a preacher named Paul, but are feeling “unfed” without him. The Holy Spirit is gifting you, but you are struggling with how to deal with your plethora of prophets. Add to this that you’ve got a church to run, worship services to conduct, and your current pastor has no idea what to preach!

So someone writes to Paul for help.

Paul says that is precisely why the Spirit is gifting you in these ways, to help you. He wants you to know His Word and so He is providing that Word via prophets, so that your church might be established.

“Yes, Paul, but have you been to our church? Sheer looniness! That’s why we keep telling people not to prophesy.”

“No,” replies Paul, “don’t tell them not to prophesy. Rather, encourage them. Eagerly desire that God would bring His word to you through his prophets. Let them prophesy, but do all things decently and in order. Let the elders weed out the false prophets from the true prophets as has always been done. And don’t worry about the craziness, things won’t always be like this. Prophecy is not forever. Transitionary times are always tricky. But God will not allow his church to fall. ”

While I have taken liberties with Paul’s words here, I am not suggesting anything different than what Paul does in his letter. Rather than seeing Corinthians as a manual for modern Pentecostalism, we need to understand it in it’s original context, the Apostolic age. Corinthians was a corrective for the misuse of attestory and revelatory signs, signs which cease to occur by the very next books written in each of our New Testaments. (What more proof do we need of cessation than the obvious cessation which occurs in Scripture itself?)

The question I have for my brothers in the opposite camp is this, “Why do we need continuing revelation when we have the complete Word of God? What is there to be gained by going back and recovering the practices at Corinth? Isn’t this to say that the Scripture is not sufficient?”

I, likewise, plan to address this present day phenomenon in a future post in my Gift of Cessation series.