THE USUAL DISCLAIMER: These are just my thoughts, some strongly-worded as they are. I very much appreciate differentiated thoughts from y’all. So, feel free to share those disputes and share as you wish.
The Problem
Something that peeves me about the Charismatic Church on the whole.
If we hunt for a new prophetic word every week for one year, and we never take any time to develop the first word that we get to see if really is true, then we are left with 52 prophetic words that are left untested, or, if tested and approved, they are undeveloped.
Why would G-d do that to us?
Sometimes the prophets need to shut up and let us take the time to develop a word or they need to flat-out reject the word given because it is off-base or tangential to what G-d is doing in them.
Reasons For the Problem: Little Testing, Process, or Proving
Call me crazy (yes, David has said some crazy and off-the-wall things), but I think one of the reasons we have only a 13 percent (Arthur Burk pulled this stat in one of his teachings and he once stated, either to me personally or in one of his other teachings that this stat came from Elijah List) success rate in prophetic ministry is the following lack of discipleship.
We have little to no process of walking with young up-and-coming prophets and prophesiers through a process of testing and proving of words, long-term, combined with a crazy lack of focus. This in part results in an abysmal rate of failed words.
Failure to test and approve words leads to a lack of success in the department of the prophetic. Furthermore, failure to develop what has been tested and approved leads to immaturity in the prophetic. This is why the prophetic giftings critically need the gift of teaching to help them deepen. And the job of those with the office of Prophet are designed
“to nurture the young prophets coming up, and, goodness knows, young prophets coming up could seriously use some nurture.”
Arthur Burk, The Redemptive Gifts of Individuals, Disc 2: Prophet, Cut 1: Three Kinds of Prophet, Timestamp 0:28-0:35 (2000, Sapphire Leadership Group).
Often times, we look at a word through an overly-simplified lens of:
Is it right or is it wrong?
If it is right, we immediately apply it, whether or not it has germinated, flowered, grown, been harvested, and processed. If it is wrong, we burn the word up in the flames and if we are not careful we shut down someone who is learning to operate in gifts the L-rd has given them, and they can become dissuaded from operating ever again (Ephesians 6:5 NIV).
Rather than shutting down a young prophet, it is a good idea to walk with them through a long-term process of seeing if what they are hearing carries a value. Coaching them through some sort of process where they are able to themselves judge what they are hearing. This will help them to deepen what they may be hearing, and also to help develop the words they hear so they can be applied in the life of the local body or community where the words originate.
The Right of Correction and To Whom It Belongs
From here, let’s consider correcting the prophet that is wrong, even the broadly respected voice. If we are not allowed to correct the nonsense that we get from the “prophetic voice” if that voice is wrong, then we are enabling something that is off to flow in our midst.
My thought: slow down and don’t be quick to swallow everything that comes from every big name out there.
Our job in part in receiving words, first and foremost, should come through not the filter of the Scripture, but through the Filter of the Holy Trinity. My own view, no one else’s necessarily, is that we do not worship a book and use a book as our primary filter. Rather we let He Himself, the Word of G-d, filter this stuff. We worship G-d, not a book. The Bible is not the Fourth Member of the Trinity. We listen to Father (Exodus 20:1-20, Son (Revelation 1:15), and Holy Spirit (John 14:26, 1 John 2:27). Truthfully we have gotten away from hearing the Voice of G-d Himself, and we have done a horrid job by saying “the Spirit will line up with the word” and “if it doesn’t line up with the word, throw it out” and we have failed to see that we better run our thoughts through the two way street. We have neglected the other lane. We have in many places rejected the fact that our view of the word on the page had better line up with what G-d himself is saying. Many believers have chosen a hermeneutic that is only the Bible, and reading the bible with our brains, or interpreting words with our natural brains, and many times we have rejected the principle of letting the Holy Trinity read the Bible with us and to help us interpret the text. As a result, we read the text apart from the Spirit, and we let that natural, mental or emotional, feeling or cerebral, heart or brain soulish interpretation govern our view of G-d’s doings, and as a result, we call that which is G-d heretical.
If we have the filter of Scripture for interpreting experience, we need to only do so if we are reading the Scripture and asking He Himself what He means by that statement. We are to read the text in the context of a living, breathing, vibrant relationship with the Holy One of Israel.
Secondly, and only after the Trinity is firmly in place, do we add the filter of Scripture to our interpretation. Because it is only with the vivifying power of the text read in the presence of G-d Himself that we can rightly divide the text, correctly handle it, and rightly apply it to a situation that requires the list found in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
Hunting For the New Word
Further, if we go hunting for a new word from this or that major voice, then we are buying into a pernicious form of welfare Christianity. When we depend on someone to hear for ourselves, when we will not do the work of hearing Him for ourselves, we have opened a bad door up.
Now, granted, let us be reasonable. There are times when we need some outside counsel to help clear up a situation, but those are the exceptions, or, if there is not a curse or covenant or agreement operant, they should be the exception. We do work in community and community can help, but the company of the prophetic community should not be our go-to, or our firstfruits stop. The need to have someone speak to us counsel is not what I have in view. What I have in view is those situations where believers hunt for the word from someone else, or need this or that anointed person to bless them with a word, or else their lives are going to fall apart if this person prophesies over the person on either side of them, but passes by them.
Look, it is entirely possible that the reason that person has passed you by is because the L-rd Himself wants to lay hands Himself on you and prophesy over you.
Just some thoughts, gang.
Be blessed. And I look forward to hearing your thoughts.