How Prophets and Exhorters Work Together

WARNING LABEL: This post contains some radical ideas that many on both sides of the table are not going to like. The sum total of what is offered here is boiled down to two things.
1) What are you going to trust? The gift, as many do, or the giver, as few do?
2) Are your strength, your hardwiring, and your gift on the altar of Romans 12:1-2 and Revelation 12:11?
Is it possible for this combination to work together?
I think it is.
Let me explain.
I have several friends who are Exhorters, and several friends who are Prophets.
The Prophet and the Exhorter don’t always get along.
Usually this is due to the Exhorter and the Prophet having different goals, and radically different foci (plural of focus) from one another, in addition to having radically different personalities.
However, let me explain a situation where a Prophet and an Exhorter get along radically well.
The Prophet is left-brained and analytical and very principle-oriented. He enjoys looking at complex situations, unraveling dozens of situations, and looking for a set of options as solutions to the problems at hand. He walks in a heavy authority to push things and break things down in the area of deliverance, warfare, and inner healing. He also enjoys creating new things that work and working with those people that are abjectly broken and do not have a sense of dignity at all.
The Exhorter, on the other hand, was raised to be relational. Except this Exhorter very early on, learned the value of relying not on his gift, but on his Giver. He learned, intuitively that, while he could use his influence with others to control and manipulate them to get his way, it was not satisfying, and thus made a decision to not to ever lift the sword or the knife to stab others in the back. For years, he watched as other Exhorters did this to him, his friends, and his family. He learned quickly how to be kind and gentle with others, even though he was hardwired with a great deal of intensity, and was capable of being very strong in will.
When they came together as friends, they became a powerful force, because both of their gifts were submitted to the L-rd, and both gifts were made secondary in dependence to both friend’s commitment to the L-rd.
Earlier yesterday, I posted a portion of a conversation that I had had with a very close friend. He told me a couple of things with respect to spiritual gifts in general and Redemptive gifts in particular. He said that what gets the Exhorter into trouble (and this applies to all of the other Redemptive gifts) is the reliance on their gift as their strength to do a great deal of good, because…
IF they fall into the trap of relying on their gift, rather than the Giver…
THEN the same gift, hardwiring, and bent that leads them to work great good, also will eventually lead them to garner favor in such a way that they end up engaging in abusive behavior, exploitation of others, etc.
I then replied that we needed to rely on the Scriptures, instead of our natural gifts.
He corrected me, and I saw then immediately where the conversation was going. He said, “no you can’t, because Prophets do that. They take the principles and rely on those, and at some point they hurt others because they rely on the Principles to accomplish their tasks of solving problems, and then break relationships as a result of doing so”.
“No, instead we really need to remember that we need to learn how to lay down our gifts and surrender them completely to the service of the L-rd, and we need to learn how to not trust in our gift, whether it our capacity to leverage relationships, as the Exhorter does, or our capacity to leverage Scripture, as the Prophet does, and instead place our trust in and reliance on the L-rd himself.
It is rare for a someone with any gift to take that gift and submit the operation of that gift to the desire and decisions of the L-rd.
What he said next, blew me away. “Most Exhorters, for whatever reason, don’t submit their gift back to the L-rd. They rely on their influence with others to get their agendas done…”
I then finished the thought, “When they need to submit the operation of their gifts to the L-rd and work to get His job done.”
He replied, “bingo.”
He then said, “you on the other hand, did I ever tell you what the L-rd told me early on in our relationship?”
I replied, “no, you did not.”
He said, “the L-rd told me specifically, ‘you can trust him. He will never stab you in the back’.”
You see, early on, I had made an internal commitment that I was going to lean hard on the L-rd, no matter what, and that my interest was never in what I was gifted to do, but rather in what He wanted.
And as a result, whenever an opportunity came up where I could use my gift, it was always a question or a sense of, “is this use of my gift honoring or dishonoring of G-d? Is this how he would want me to flow or not?” That set of questioning and thinking saved me from a lot of heartache.
And in this maze of detecting what my Redemptive Gift was, I learned very early on how to set myself to do the right thing. And I front-loaded my life with that sort of thinking. It is just natural for me to think in this given way.
I was so confused for so many years about my gift, because I was very relational and very integrated.
NOTE: The correct adjectival form of the noun “integrity” is not “integrous”, but rather “integrated”. It carries the idea of “singleness of purpose and drive”.
I was a Prophet, and a Teacher, and a Mercy. And now I know who I am.
Early on in my life, I embraced a preference for the hard truth, come hell or high water; a desire for bald-faced honesty; radical devotion for the plans of G-d; and no matter the cost, an outright refusal to stab anyone in the back, ever, for any reason.
When Exhorters observe those behaviors of backstabbing, dis-integration, slandering, and accusation ruining relationships, church fabric, and relational dynamics, and they instead are given to bringing relationships to a high place of integrity, then they make a commitment to embrace the hard work of walking uprightly as best they can and relying on the L-rd to show them how to interact with others.
As I grew later in life and flowered socially, I learned the heavy influence I had on others in terms of relationships, and the power I had to control and leverage those relationships.
In the town where I grew up, I saw this unhealthy dynamic of control used to affect everything from the red lights to the power structure in the local churches and every thing in between.
So, I resisted that dynamic.
And now I recognize the presence in me that drives me to HUNT mercilessly for reality, even when I don’t get the Principle of Sowing and Reaping right.
I did not share that truth until this point in the post for one simple reason: I didn’t want you to read this post through a perceived bias. I did not want you to think, “oh, he is a Prophet. Oh, he is an Exhorter. So now I am going to read this post with these lenses on”, and so miss something you could have gotten by not having those adjudicating lenses on.
I value the three principles that pertain to the Exhorter gift for three reasons:
1) I do not put stock in, and stedfastly refuse to put stock into, my hardwiring until He tells me to put stock into it. That is the first manifestation of the Exhorter’s Principle: Pain and Suffering.
2) I do not leverage unless He tells me to leverage that strength. When He says to sow I sow. That way, the Second manifestation of the Exhorter’s Principle, the Principle of Sowing and Reaping, can take place.
3) I have seen what it looks like when a whole town, that I know is an Exhorter community, refuses to embrace reality and becomes so concerned with its own presentation that it will exploit people, and I refuse to embrace that non-Reality. That is a hardcore embrace of the principle of Reality that enables what is real to flow.
And for the sake of my Husband, who is an Exhorter, I love my people.
And I only recognized all of this, because a high-functioning Prophet, who is not an ass, and who was delivered from petit mal epilepsy, decided he was going to point out to me the places where I have dignity, call them good, celebrate them, and remind me of them.
Most Exhorters have in their lives, Prophets. (I worded this sentence specifically this way on purpose for emphasis)
But most Exhorters do not have in their lives, Prophets who are willing to set the ideological mindset down for a moment in order to speak to them with dignity about their reality and when they do something really good.
By the converse, most Prophets have in their lives, Exhorters.
But most Prophets do not have in their lives, Exhorters who are willing to set aside their capacity to leverage in order pay the price to eradicate the desire to backstab.
And guess what, Exhorters and Prophets?
If you want to see your friendship excel, you have to be willing to on the one side, not trust in your capacity to leverage Scripture in order to protect you and on the other side, not trust in your leveraging of relationships in order to protect you. It will be rough on both sides of the equation.
Prophets cannot trust in their ability to work with ideology. Exhorters cannot trust in their ability to work with relationships.
There is only one place to put your trust in. And that is the place that Scripture calls the Word of G-d in Hebrews 4.
And it is not Scripture, though Scripture is important.
The placed that Scripture calls the Word of G-d in Hebrews 4:12, if you read the context of Hebrews 4:12, is the Word of G-d from John 1.
Jesus is the Word of G-d. He is the Logos of G-d.
Those who refuse to make the L-rd himself their protector and defender are not really willing to make the Prophet-Exhorter relationship work.
I know that sounds hard, but both Prophets and Exhorters have to be willing to embrace pain and discomfort and be willing to not let their legitimacy rest in the fact that they can….
On the Prophet side of the Equation…that they can use the Principles called Scripture to solve problems and fix things…doing those things that create paradigms.
On the Exhorter side of the Equation…that they can use their pull in human relationships to solve problems and fix things….doing those things that give them influence in relationships as an end in itself.
This is not about Prophet’s agenda, or Exhorter’s agenda.
This is about an agenda and a group of men and women that are συνεσταύρωμαι together with Christ. TOGETHER with Christ.
I have a best friend who is a Prophet precisely because this dynamic was the concrete of the foundation between us.
For 14 years, while I was being sexually assaulted by the Jezebel Spirit, when my influence with other human beings was hit-or-miss, I was developing a hidden life with the L-rd. I was learning about how much He loved me.
Prophet, it is not about being able to have influence with principles and ideology through the Bible. It is not about being able to solve problems and fix things. If you make yourself first good at doing that, if you pour yourself into being able to solve problems and fix things, and if you devote your firstfruits to solving problems and fixing things, and the Bible, then you will develop and intimate relationships with “solving problems and fixing things” and the Bible. And “solving problems and fixing things” doesn’t provide a good shoulder to cry on late at night. And having a relationships with the Bible that does not also embrace the Man the Bible speaks out, the Word of G-d HIMSELF, means you have a relationship with a book. Jesus is the Word of G-d: get that (John 1:1-14, Hebrews 4:12, 4:1-11, 4:13-16)! And in that context and only in that context, can you rightly embrace the Bible as the Word of G-d (“every word of G-d proves true”). It is the Man who is the Word speaks His own word that proves true. The Word Spoke the light that flows from Him into existence. The light did not speak the Word into existence.
Exhorter, it is not about being able to influence humans to fix your problems or even to advance your agenda or an agenda that is really good. With whom can you find solace when you feel powerlessness and a victim mindset encroaching on your turf (I could just as easily speak this to the Prophets in my life). If you devote yourself to relationships and intimacy with those horizontal to you, and give your firstfruits to those who are other humans, then you will have intimacy with human beings, and they will be the ones who are forced to comfort you AT ALL TIMES. If you give your firstfruits to “people want and need to be around me” then that is what will be your reaping and resource. And sometimes, humans do not want to comfort other humans. So, to whom can you run when ALL of your human capital, firstfruits, and relationships fall apart?
It’s the Word HIMSELF to whom you can run.
So, sharing some of my personal pain with the Exhorter crowd. When the Exhorter cannot influence others, then the Exhorter has a number of things to which he can run.
But the price of having this relationship is steep, and we are reminded of this daily, and requires a lot of unwavering commitment to keep swords sheathed.
This is why I put such a premium on trusting Prophets, weird it may be for many Prophets and Exhorters to hear, because David, not anyone else, is the benchmark for what a Prophet looks like, just as his wife, Wendy is the benchmark for what a Mercy looks like.
And while he is typical Prophet problem-solver, he is not verbal-expressive, and very left-brained, and before he runs with his gift, he runs after the Giver.
And it is a beautiful thing when that 1st/4th gift interaction begins to work.
But there is a cost and a lot of hard work, and it requires the destruction of cynicism.