Sixth, related to the above is 1 Corinthians 14:37-38,
where Paul writes: “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he
should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.
If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.” Paul is clearly
claiming a divine authority for his words that he is just as obviously denying
to the Corinthians. “According to Paul, the words of the prophets at Corinth
were not and could not have been sufficiently authoritative to show Paul to be
wrong” (Grudem, 68).
And yet Paul believed the prophecy at Corinth to be a
good and helpful gift of God, for he immediately thereafter exhorts the
Corinthians once again to “earnestly desire to prophesy” (v. 39)! Paul
obviously believed that the spiritual gift of congregational prophecy that
operated at a lower level of authority than did the apostolic, canonical,
expression of it was still extremely valuable to the church.
First all, Paul is not directing his comments to the ideal
of prophecy, or the content of prophecy. Nor is Paul directing his comments at
the authority of prophetic words. In addition, Paul is not directing these
comments at prophecy alone. His comments here are directed at everything he has
just said. It is a solemn warning by the apostle that people that ignore his
words are ignoring the commandment of the Lord. The closest thing we can say
about how this command relates to prophecy is that it concerns the format and
order for how it was to proceed in the ancient Corinthian Church. In addition,
this command also applied to the use of the gift of languages or tongues in
that Church. The truth is that this chapter is completely disregarded by nearly
every Pentecostal church in existence. I can say without hesitation or exaggeration
that I never witnessed a Pentecostal church or pastor that actually submitted
to these plain teachings given to Corinth. Pentecostals and Charismatics claim
that this does not apply to the supernatural “prayer language.” And in so
doing, they reduce Paul’s commands to meaningless nonsense and logical absurdities. Storm and Grudem are simply wrong that Paul’s instructions place
his command over the actual content of first-century prophetic utterances. It
does nothing of the sort.
Seventh, although I don’t have space to provide an
extensive exegetical explanation of Acts 21, I believe we see in this narrative
a perfect example of how people (the disciples at Tyre) could prophesy by the
Spirit and yet not do so infallibly or at a level equal to Scripture. Their
misguided, but sincere, application of this revelation was to tell Paul
("through the Spirit," v. 4) not to go to Jerusalem, counsel which he
directly disobeyed (cf. Acts 20:22).
There is nothing in the text to lead us to believe that
these individuals were prophesying to Paul by the Lord, not to go to Jerusalem.
If we look at Acts 20:23, Paul says the Holy Spirit is testifying to him in
every city that bonds and afflictions await him. We see this played out in
21:4. These men knew by the Spirit, what was waiting for Paul in Jerusalem.
They did not want this for Paul and tried to persuade him not to go near
Jerusalem. However, just a few verses later, we see a different kind of event.
We see Agabus prophesying that the Jews will certainly be responsible for his
eventual captivity and the response of the brethren is the same as v. 4. They
beg Paul not to go. Nowhere does God warn Paul directly not to go. After all,
the Holy Spirit has told him all along what is going to happen to him. To
understand this as the Holy Spirit commanding him not to go is simply wrong.
There is no language in the text that demonstrates that Paul received any
commands from the Lord that he disobeyed.
The Spirit’s role is best seen as informing them of those
coming hardships for the apostle. Their very natural reaction was to urge him
not to go. Their failure to deter him only heightens the emphasis on Paul’s
firm conviction that God was leading him to Jerusalem and had a purpose for him
there.[1]
The fact is that the prophecy given by Agabus was realized.
Everything the Spirit warned Paul about concerning his future actually came to
pass. There was no false-prophecy as some like to claim. There was no
disobedience on Paul’s part as others wish to claim. Paul was told that he was
going into bonds and that great suffering awaited him. It happened just as God
told Paul it would happen. If only modern Charismatics and Pentecostals
experienced the same phenomena the ancient Church experienced, perhaps this
conversation would be more stimulating. As it stands, what we see are men like
Grudem and Storms stretching the text beyond its exegetical limits in order to
read it through the modern, Charismatic grid. Thus far, Storms has failed to
establish the validity of a single one of his points. He has three more
opportunities to gain some traction.
[1] John B.
Polhill, Acts, vol. 26, The New
American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 433.
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