Prophecy
... Your sons
and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Acts 2:17
A prophecy is basically
a message from God, of any kind. When we prophesy we speak on God's behalf
what God has for us to say. What kind of messages does God give people
to speak for him?
Who can
prophesy? Look at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 14:31. What does that
imply?
What
is the difference between someone who prophesies, and a prophet? Look at
1 Samuel 9:9 and 1 Kings 22:7.
What
is the overall purpose of prophecy? What is it for? Think about the purpose
of all the gifts and look at Revelation 19:10.
1 Corinthians
14:3
Looking at these verses,
what things are prophecies given for?
In verse
31 of this chapter, it says that one reason for prophecy is so that everyone
may be "instructed." What kind of prophecy (message from God) do you think
this refers to?
In the
previous two studies we looked at two other gifts that can have a prophetic
nature - a message of wisdom (such as advice), and a message of knowledge
(information, such as news). Look at 1 Corinthians 14:24-25. What type
of prophecy is used here, and why is it effective?
What
other types of prophecy can you think of?
Look
at Deuteronomy 18:21-22. What is an important reason for predictions in
prophecies? What other reasons do you think there might be for the future
to be revealed?
We've
seen that prophecy is used for strengthening, encouragement, comfort, instruction/direction
and conviction. There is one other type of prophecy used for a lot of these
purposes. Many of the prophets God sent before John the Baptist had this
kind of message, and so do the messages to the seven churches at the beginning
of the Revelation of Christ. Can you think what it is? How might this fit
with the pruposes of prophecy we've looked at?
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