In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 20, Paul writes, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt.”
Prophecies? What prophecies? In this letter Paul has mentioned the second coming of Jesus numerous times. At the end of each chapter, in fact.
There has been a fairly influential interpretation of various biblical passages that equates the idea of prophecies with future events, and especially with the second coming of Jesus. I’ve talked about that quite a bit over the years on the blog, including in this 1st Thessalonians series because, as I just said, Paul talks about Jesus’ second coming 1st Thessalonians. So I’m not going to rehash that. Suffice it to say, Jesus is coming again, we don’t know, we can’t know when, and Jesus himself said that the posture he prefers us to take is to be ready at all times.
But I no longer believe that the vast majority of biblical prophecies are predicting future events. I also no longer agree with what I was taught in Bible college about how to interpret the book of Revelation. Because of that, what Paul writes here is very convicting to me. Don’t treat prophecies with contempt. If I’m being honest, though, I can treat prophecies with contempt.
That is why Paul’s words here in verse 20 are convicting to me. I can think that the interpretation of prophecy from my heritage is so incorrect that I can disdain those who currently believe in it, though I myself was one of those who believed strongly in it for years. I can treat prophecies with contempt. Contempt is always unbecoming of Christians.
Even if a person believes something that is obviously out of line with Scripture, even if they are acting obviously out of line with the Fruit of the Spirit, holding contempt in our hearts has no place in the life of a disciple of Jesus.
Clearly, Paul is talking about those instances when we direct our contempt toward teaching. Toward doctrine. I will talk about that in a future post this week. First, we need to understand contempt, because in those times when we have contempt for a message, we almost always also have contempt for the messenger. What I’m getting at is that while Paul says, “Do not hold prophecies in contempt,” it is a super short leap to “Do not hold prophets in contempt.”
What is contempt? I’ll attempt to answer that question in the next post, and give a suggestion for how we can overcome contempt.
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Engaging Scripture 