The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: - Vital Christianity

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• False prophets teach sexual immorality and permissiveness (II Pet. 2:1-3; 14-19).
• A true prophet glorifies God (John 7:11-18) and does God’s will (Mt. 7:15-23).
• Receive a prophet and receive a prophet’s reward (Mt. 10:40-42).
Examples
I Tim. 1:18; 4:14 Special messages for certain individuals.
Acts 11:27-28 Prediction of future events. Their predictions included announcements of
God’s judgements that sometimes fell immediately with unusual results
(Annanias & Sapphira: Acts 5:1-10; 13: 8-11).
Leonard Woodcock points out that “these predictions were not intended to satisfy curiosity
concerning God’s future plans. Rather, they enforced and emphasized the urgency of the
prophetic denunciations of sin and exhortations to righteousness.” 8
Purpose: Proclamation of divine revelation
THE GIFT OF PROPHECY
(Rom. 12:6; I Cor. 12:10; 14:3)
Definition: “The special ability that God gives to certain members of the body of Christ to
receive and communicate an immediate message of God to His people through divinely-anointed
utterance.” 9
“This is not the foretelling of future events, but rather a divine inspiration enabling the
possessor to speak direct messages of the Holy Spirit for the spiritual profit of the
hearers.” 10
Description: The meaning of the Greek word is basically “to speak forth” or “to speak for
another.” Prophecy is therefore the capacity to reveal God’s will to others in the power of the
Holy Spirit by foretelling (accurately predicting the future) and by forthtelling (proclaiming what
the will of God is for the person or body of believers). To prophesy also means to cause the Word
of Scripture to shine. This would refer to expository (“to expose”) preaching and teaching. The
gift of prophecy is set in the context of a meeting for informal worship where each member
contributes “a hymn, a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation” for the
purpose of the “strengthening of the church” (I Cor. 14:26). The terms “revelation” and
“prophecy” are used here synonymously (vs. 29-32) which indicates that prophecy is a brief,
spontaneous statement given under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This seems to be the
main meaning for the gift of prophecy.