I understand he didn’t have enough time to fully explain his position on the contemporary practice of Word of Knowledge and Prophecy, but I would like to pitch in that these practices, when ‘encouraged’ in a church, lead people to speak from their imaginations believing they are hearing from the Spirit, and being scared about quenching the Spirit if they have some intrusive imaginative thought about a prophecy and don’t voice it. I have personally been in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches where there was this pressure to activate prophecy, where leaders said to people ‘let’s do it now, if something comes to you say it’ and it led to various problems. Some of this includes taking the Lord’s name in vain and declaring things over people that did not turn out to be true, and the flip side is training the congregation to be unable to make difficult decisions based on wisdom, wise counsel and discernment but instead encouraging people to rely on signs and prophetic words to sway them this way or the other according to hints and whispers. Spiritualising decision making to the point where they believe that they might be disobedient to God by simply acting without having heard some special revelation of God’s plan for their lives if they are unsure about a big decision. Or they will interpret hardship as a sign of God’s closing a door, so if they try something and it doesn’t initially work out, it is interpreted as a sign from God not to pursue whatever that thing was. The use of modern day prophecy is dangerous to people’s faith in the trustworthiness of God because it elevates human words over the sovereign will of God. I’m not saying that God can’t still deliver audible messages to individuals if he chooses. But I think we need to look to biblical models of this where he speaks audibly in clear, accurate, specific ways which are clearly understood and confirmed. Vague words of knowledge do little except lead the congregation to inordinately value unconfirmed advice that may or may not be from God.
this was incredibly encouraging (and super thought provoking). thank you, Jon & Guy 🔥
Yes! This explains much
I understand he didn’t have enough time to fully explain his position on the contemporary practice of Word of Knowledge and Prophecy, but I would like to pitch in that these practices, when ‘encouraged’ in a church, lead people to speak from their imaginations believing they are hearing from the Spirit, and being scared about quenching the Spirit if they have some intrusive imaginative thought about a prophecy and don’t voice it. I have personally been in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches where there was this pressure to activate prophecy, where leaders said to people ‘let’s do it now, if something comes to you say it’ and it led to various problems. Some of this includes taking the Lord’s name in vain and declaring things over people that did not turn out to be true, and the flip side is training the congregation to be unable to make difficult decisions based on wisdom, wise counsel and discernment but instead encouraging people to rely on signs and prophetic words to sway them this way or the other according to hints and whispers. Spiritualising decision making to the point where they believe that they might be disobedient to God by simply acting without having heard some special revelation of God’s plan for their lives if they are unsure about a big decision. Or they will interpret hardship as a sign of God’s closing a door, so if they try something and it doesn’t initially work out, it is interpreted as a sign from God not to pursue whatever that thing was. The use of modern day prophecy is dangerous to people’s faith in the trustworthiness of God because it elevates human words over the sovereign will of God. I’m not saying that God can’t still deliver audible messages to individuals if he chooses. But I think we need to look to biblical models of this where he speaks audibly in clear, accurate, specific ways which are clearly understood and confirmed. Vague words of knowledge do little except lead the congregation to inordinately value unconfirmed advice that may or may not be from God.