The Simplest Kind of Prophecy
Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts and especially that you may prophesy.
1 Corinthians 14:1 (NRSV)
Recently I got to attend a conference about the empowerment of the Spirit in the life of believers. There were a lot of perspectives and presentations that I would describe as out of our context (or even comfort zone), but I attended on the basis of relationship and maintained an open mind and heart toward what might be gleaned from the time with new friends and faces. “A mature Christian is easily edified,” I once heard someone say. Maturity often eludes me, but I thought that in this space I might find a moment of growth in patience and discernment.
Of particular emphasis throughout the conference was the 1 Corinthians 14 passage concerning spiritual gifts, in particular prophecy. Growing up, the manifestations of the Spirit seemed to shake the foundations of the charismatic church my family attended. I can recall the boldness of preachers and leaders in charging forward to share what the Spirit had revealed to them in prayer about people, ministries, and culture. There were many services where I felt my heart race as the presence of God moved in such tangible ways. Joy, laughter, tears, shouts of praise. I might not have been able to articulate it then, but I knew God was alive because I could see life in that sanctuary, week after week.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. For all the richness of experience, I also grew up at a time where the manifestations of the Spirit would come to surpass the presence of the Spirit. Gift chasers would mold services and manufacture moments to seemingly snatch the prize from the Giver. And as a congregation dwindled, the desperation grew. Nostalgia set in. And perhaps most painfully, a baton was passed to spirits formed by the expectation that God was more present in the movement and the frenzy than He was in the stillness and the quiet.
At least that’s how I remember it. I was already moving toward a season of adolescent rebellion, so growing up in places where the experience of God boiled down to familiar plays and strategies only helped me dive deeper into cynicism and wandering.
When I eventually found my way back into a church community, serving in a ministry during my college years, I ran to the movement many have dubbed “Young, Restless, and Reformed.” I was drawn to the strength of apologetics as a witness in a changing secular environment. My mind voraciously devoured theology and history. And my high horse grew large from the sanctimonious nourishment.
It was stepping into worship leading that helped me tether the separation of mind and heart that had unknowingly been cemented in my faith. I felt once again the joy of the Spirit’s manifest presence in the beauty of corporate worship. But I didn’t leave my mind behind in enjoying this newfound passion. The more I studied worship, eventually continuing in my seminary education, the deeper the experience with the Spirit became.
Writer Jean-Jacques von Allmen called this the movement of “primary” and “secondary” theology. It’s how formation works in us. We first experience Jesus as the Spirit leads us to him. We then turn to the richness of Scripture and theological tradition to understand what has happened to us and what is happening in us. Returning back to worship, we find the experience deepening, which inspires further study. The cycle continues as we follow Jesus closer and closer to the life he purchased for us on the cross.
I think all my ministry since grasping this has been about pulling together the joy of experiencing the way of Christ and the profound depths of the truth of Christ. It has broadened my perspective of how biblically directed worship shapes the body and how the experience of worship inspires and mobilizes the body for mission.
Now admittedly, prophecy can be a very sticky subject among Christians, for good reasons. Even continuationists can fear its potential for misuse and manipulation. Unfortunately, that has led many to ignore prophecy outright or worse, to avoid any openness to the Spirit’s movements (and interruptions) in our gatherings. The bathtub remains empty in many of our services. It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. The “earnest seeking” of 1 Corinthians 14 can remain an invitation to formative experience in an environment of grace. I yearn for that, truth be told.
So, there in that conference, with my theological brain chasing all kinds of rabbit trails, I waited for a nugget of theological wisdom that might deepen my experience of Jesus and strengthen my commitment to him. I wanted to be easily edified. And that’s when I heard it, ironically not a word for corporate gatherings but one for the monasteries of our homes, as Ronald Rolheiser calls them:
Do you earnestly seek to prophesy? Start at home, with your wife and your kids! I try daily to ask myself this: “If Jesus walked into this room and sat at this table, what would he say to the people I love the most in this world?” That’s where I begin.
There is a reputation among people who claim to be prophets or prophetic for strangeness or outright lunacy. Some of that is caricature. Some of it is well earned. But here was a word of the deepest sobriety, an invitation to not only know the voice of the Shepherd, but to understand his heart and speak confidently from the well spring of his love.
This is the kind of prophetic speech that edifies, encourages, and transforms. It speaks light and life into places we cherish as the Spirit works in us to do what he alone can do. And it can impact not only our homes and families, but as we hear and internalize and carry the words of our present King, it can transform communities, cities, and cultures too. For all its complexity and controversy among believers, prophecy can begin from the simplest place: the love of God in us. And at the end of the day, what believer wouldn’t earnestly seek that?
- Caleb Saenz
