One of great difficulties of interpreting chapters 11 – 14, is we really just aren’t that certain about what “prophecy” and “tongues” were. And the first step to a deeper understanding is admitting our lack of certainty.
It’s been traditionally taught (not just just in the Churches of Christ) that the New Testament prophets were given to fill the gap created by the New Testament not being yet complete. Congregations were equipped with prophets who taught doctrine and such until the canon was completed, and then the gift of prophecy was no longer needed.
Nice theory. Zero scripture to support it. In fact, the scriptures plainly contradict it! After all, no congregation had more prophecy that the church at Corinth. 1 Corinthians is likely the oldest book in the New Testament. But the Corinthian church was filled with prophecy — even the women prophesied in church (chapter 11!) — and the assemblies were evidently filled with so many prophecies that the problem was they kept interrupting each other! — so why did they need Paul to begin writing the New Testament by sending them his first epistle? If the prophets filled in for the missing New Testament, why did Paul have to write them two letters?
Just so, the church in Rome and in Ephesus had prophets, and yet Paul needed to write them letters. Why? Why did the Romans not already know about faith and works? Why did the Ephesians not already know about marriage and the Spirit?
Must a prophet speak like Isaiah?
The problem is that we assume that “prophet” means someone like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Moses or David. And yet it’s clear that the word had a much, much broader meaning. It certainly could include such men, but it could also include Agabus —
(Act 21:10-14 ESV) 10 While we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'” 12 When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 14 And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, “Let the will of the Lord be done.”
The apostle refused to honor the warning of the prophet Agabus. It would have been unthinkable to reject the word of a Moses or an Isaiah. Obviously, Agabus was of a lower prophetic station. In fact, Agabus wasn’t entirely accurate —
The prophecy was not fulfilled in so many words: although the Jews seized Paul, they did not hand him over to the Romans, but rather the Romans rescued him from them, while keeping him in custody.
I. Howard Marshall, Acts: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale NTC 5; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1980), 359-360.
(There are literary reasons for Agabus to have spoken as he did. He creates a strong parallel with the passion of Jesus. But he was not strictly accurate.)
Must prophecy be at the level of scripture?
Another mistake often made with regard to prophecy is to assume that prophecy always carries the same authority as scripture — which is surely a form of prophecy but not the only form. After all, the countless prophecies uttered by the Corinthian prophets were not written down nor were they sufficient to counsel the church to reform its many errors.
Ecstatic speech in the Old Testament
Just so, we read in the Old Testament passages such as,
(1Sa 10:5-7 ESV) 5 After that you shall come to Gibeath-elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines. And there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying. 6 Then the Spirit of the LORD will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man. 7 Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you.
Really? If a group of men are playing instruments, walking together and speaking, what about their speech would let you know that they’re prophesying? Does this mean that they speak in Hebraic poetry, like the Psalms or much of Isaiah? And if this is prophecy, to whom are they speaking? Who hears this prophetic message?
To my ear, it sounds like ecstatic speech — kind of like, you know, tongues — because it surely didn’t sound like someone teaching a Bible class or preaching a sermon.
Or consider this marvelous passage —
(Num 11:25-29 ESV) 25 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it.
26 Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. 27 And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”
Moses chose 70 judges or elders, and God equipped them with the Spirit. Two of the men were late for the meeting and so God gave them the Spirit where they were — “and they prophesied in the camp.” The people could tell they were prophesying — and so there was something distinctive about their speech — not like ordinary speech. And it made some people jealous.
Did they rattle off iambic pentameter like Shakespeare? I mean, what gave them away as prophets? Again, it seems ecstatic.
The text implies that this is ecstatic prophecy, the kind in which men are seized and overpowered by divine spirit (cf. 1 Sam 10:10–13; 19:20–24). The author seems anxious to stress that this is a once-for-all experience associated with their installation in office.
Philip J. Budd, Numbers (Word BC 5; Accordance/Thomas Nelson electronic ed. Waco: Word Books, 1984), 128.
Ecstatic prophecy, or prophecy that appears to proceed from someone in a “possessed” or trancelike state, is known in Israel as well as in the ancient Near East. In Mesopotamia the ecstatic prophet’s title was muhhu, and in Israel the ecstasies often resulted in the prophets being thought of as madmen (see, for example, 1 Sam 19:19–24; Jer 29:26). Here the phenomenon does not result in prophetic messages from the Lord but serves as a sign of the power of God on the elders. In that sense it could be compared to the tongues of fire in the upper room in Acts 2.
John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 148.
As with Saul, the prophecy described here was probably an unintelligible ecstatic utterance, what the New Testament terms speaking in tongues, not the inspired, intelligible speech of the great Old Testament prophets and the unnamed prophets of the early church (1 Kgs 18:29; Acts 21:10–11; 1 Cor. 14).
Gordon J. Wenham, Numbers: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale OTC 4; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1981), 123.
And while the Old Testament speaks of prophecy, it says nothing of tongues — although the other gifts mentioned in 1 Cor 12 are anticipated by the Old Testament. For example, the gifts of knowledge and wisdom echo the language of the gifts given by God to Solomon. The Old Testament speaks of healing. But not tongues — unless we take “prophecy” to sometimes include ecstatic speech and consider the tongues in Corinth to be ecstatic as well.
I feel sure we are called to speak intelligibly and tell others about JESUS who offers salvation to every person. “Tongues” obviously were needed prior to the availability of apostolic writings. Are they needed today? We are urged to tell others about Jesus in understandable words. We are urged to edify one another in intelligible words. We are NOT urged to speak in unknown language.
Why would there not be a need to te people about jesus ha k the. Too ? And yet Paul TD the leadership not to forbid it. Doesn’t seem plausible to me that the message has somehow changed.
There is at least one instance of “tongues” in the OT – when Baalam’s donkey spoke in the language of a man. This would parallel the “tongues” in Acts 2 where the listeners understood what was being said in contrast to “ecstatic speech” that is unintelligible. Since glossa is the usual word for “tongue” or “language,” I am doubtful that “tongues” in the NT were unintelligible ecstatic speech – though some in Corinth may have tried to imitate true tongues by speaking gibberish.
In regards to prophecy the role of the prophet was to be the mouthpeice of God either in telling new revelation of knowledge or in events to come forth and many times both. What we have to deal with and it is a serious issue is that if it is new, then how does it expand what we know, as if what we know needs expanding and we are told what will happen one day, except even Jesus didn’t know the date and time of His own second coming. I could be and is argued that Joseph Smith was a prophet and Mary Baker Eddy was a prophetess, but thier new information was in opposition to most scripture. So it begs the question what purpose does a prophet fulfill today when we have what we need to be a Christian and how do we know the difference?
Enter Gal.1:8 “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” If it agrees with scripture, it is not really new information and if it doesn’t, then it is not scriptural. One of the things we miss is that the early church did not have the letters and gospel all written down and correlated into one book, they had usually singular copies of the letters and many of them didn’t even have these, so prophecy in this context would make sense as a way of putting forth information to those who did not have the written word, but it really doesn’t make sense for us who have the writings of Jesus and the apostles easily at our fingertips.
I’m not sure I understand the concept of “ecstatic” speech or unintelligable, as we know that some were gifted with interpretation to interpret the language of the speaker. If someone speaks spanish to me, I will stare at them and not understand anything and yet this is not an unintelligable language as it can understood by some people. The difference between the tongues in Acts 2 & I Cor.12-14 is that Peter spoke and everybody heard in thier tongue, but in I Cor.12-14 there needed to be an interpreter to translate. The question is: did Peter speak in tongues or did he just speak in his language and God made the hearers understand in thier individual languages? The later makes more sense, so the tongues in I Cor.12-14 were not the same as Acts 2, but possibly the same as Cornelius in Acts 10 where the household spoke in tongues by the Holy Spirit, but it was for a sign to Peter anyways.
In reality we know little and speculate much on what we don’t know.
Dwight wrote, “In regards to prophecy the role of the prophet was to be the mouthpeice of God either in telling new revelation of knowledge or in events to come forth and many times both.”
This is a very limited understanding and does not indicate much about what the NT says about prophets. The only foretelling by a prophet in the NT –besides Jesus, that is–I recall is Agabus’ word to Paul. Ephesians 4 tells us that prophets are given to the body to prepare believers for works of service.
As to prophecy, Paul tells the Corinthians that prophecy is something ALL should seek to do, and that it is for the upbuilding of the saints. The idea that we somehow now know all that God would have us know so we should not expect to prophesy is an idea completely foreign to the scriptures.
As to our speculating about the gift of tongues, I think this is true, but that it is more due to the fact that we are skeptical of anyone who does have this gift, so we talk about it among ourselves instead of asking someone who actually does speak in tongues. I am reminded of being a 13 year old boy talking with other 13 year old boys about sex –speculation, indeed– but never even considering asking the only male I knew well who had actually HAD sex… my dad.
Dwight, I think your last paragraph is very apropos to how prophecy often works. Nothing really “new” in Nathan’s words, other than Nathan demonstrating that David’s secret was known to God, and that God had informed Nathan. Murder has always been a sin, so no new doctrinal ground is covered. Nathan’s prophetic word came in the form of a parable, not a quote from the scriptures or a lecture based on chapter and verse. The point of Nathan’s words was to bring David to repentance, to encourage David to follow God’s path for him. The foretelling was to insure that David understood that when the child died, God had decided this. It was a word intended to be brought back to mind when the prophesied event occurred.
Take this same instance and put it on positive ground. Jack is struggling with feelings of shame after repenting for a sin he committed. A prophetic word may come to Jack about God’s forgiveness setting us free. That word might even refer to “go, and sin no more”, or some other encouragement from scripture. The prophecy might be in visual form, or come as a parable. Either way, it would take something Jack was hiding (from everyone but God) and speak to him about it from God.
Charles, we all are under the prophetic words of the scripture as we all need encouragement and correction. II Tim. 3 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” I think we often read for others, but probably not for ourselves as much as we ought. We want to correct others, but the scriptures are to correct and improve and enlighten the reader as well, if not mostly.
The irony is that even the prophecies in the OT where God damned the nations and Israelites was laid out not by God, but by the nations and Israel in that they knew that if they did not do God’s will that they would be punished and if they did well they would be blessed. This was not something that was prophetic, but how it was to be accomplished was or who would rise up and destroy whom. We in the end decide our destiny by what we do and this doesn’t take prophecy.