It is not just pastors and teachers that need to be humble, self-aware, and teachable, as I wrote in the previous post. When Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:20, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt,” he is pointing out a very common human tendency.
Prophecies in the Bible are only rarely predictions of the future. Instead, prophecies are most often about the future consequences of what is happening now. Cause and effect. If/then statements.
“If you keep on behaving like that, you will have trouble, so you need to repent, turn away from your awful behavior, and return to following God’s ways.” That is the message of nearly every prophet in the Bible. “Be reconciled to God, by changing how you live. Live with righteousness and justice. God’s heart beats for the oppressed, and so therefore to be reconciled with God means that we are people who also seek to eradicate injustice and oppression in the world.”
What I’m getting at is this: Prophets speak truth to people.
You know what that makes prophets?
Hated. Disliked. Marginalized.
When you get that phone call from a prophet, you see their name on your phone and you think “Shoot, what did I do now?” When you get that email or text message from a prophet, you think, “I just want to delete this without reading it.”
Because prophets speak the truth to us, truth that we usually don’t want to hear because it is about how we are behaving poorly or thinking wrongly, we can treat prophets and their prophecies with contempt.
Prophets are not popular. Jeremiah, for example, regularly had his life threatened.
It is difficult, very difficult, to place yourself humbly before the word of a prophet and say, “Thank you, I needed that. I am sorry for my behavior.” Like Zacchaeus who divested himself of his wealth, giving it to those he had cheated and overtaxed.
It is much, much easier to treat a prophet’s rebuke and accountability with contempt, saying, “That prophet doesn’t know what they are talking about. What they are saying does not describe me. They clearly got it wrong. They are not hearing from God.”
But true prophets usually don’t have it wrong. Instead, we probably don’t like what the prophet is saying because what they are saying is true, and we just don’t want to admit it because it means we need to change.
Therefore, we need prophets in our lives. Prophets are people who have the gift of being able to speak the truth in love. That last word, “love,” is key. Prophets, you must speak the truth in love, and with all the fruit of the Spirit, especially gentleness and kindness, because you know that it is very difficult for people to receive the news that they might need to change their ways.
A spoonful of sugar, Mary Poppins wisely sang, helps the medicine go down.
The word of prophets really is medicine. We need it. Don’t hold it in contempt, don’t despise it, but welcome the word of prophets, honestly and truly engage it. Because prophets help us find reconciliation with God and others. Who is the prophet in your life?
Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 