John Piper has been sharing a series of short videos on him speaking about the gifts of the Spirit. The first was on tongues. I now want to share what he had to say on prophecy. Here are some excerpts to whet your appetite:
“I have been significantly influenced by Wayne Grudem’s book on prophecy . . .I think our tendency is to despise what the New Testament treats as prophecy . . . Prophecy in the New Testament doesn’t seem to have the same scripture quality, inerrant, inspiration and authority . . . you don’t go up to Isaiah and say I am going to test what you say . . . but you do do that with New Testament prophecy. . . Prophecy in the New Testament seems to be down a notch from prophecy in the old testament and is exposed to testing. . . God brining something to mind that you would not otherwise have thought of in the moment for the sake of upbuilding, encouragement, consolation. . . the way I personally appropriate this for myself . . . I pray as I am sitting there, God grant me a gift of prophecy in this preaching . . . bring to my mind things about yourself, and about this text, and about the truth, and about this people that I will be able to say in such a way that they will pierce with unusual, I might say, prophetic power into their lives. . . it happens very regularly that people say “have you been reading my mail, you looked at me and you said” I didn’t even know that I was looking at you . . . I was preaching on small groups . . .and I looked to my left and said “you might be working on the 34th floor of the IDS tower, maybe you should call people together and have a small group. . . a woman comes up afterwards and said “I work on that floor and I have been praying about whether to start a small group.”
. . . there are people who have abused the gift of prophecy by delivering their thoughts in a way that puts the other person in an impossible situation . . . frankly in my experience I am tempted to despise prophesyings because they have been abused . . . I was trying to help my people to be pursuing the spirit, not just cautiously open . . . the bible says “earnestly desire.” . . . The Bible says don’t despise them, be careful and discerning.”
Watch the video here:
https://vimeo.com/57007870I have previously written on prophecy, here are some of the links:
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