Prophets

The English word "prophet" is a transliteration, an English word constructed to be similar to the original Greek word, of prophetes (Strongs Number G4396),which can mean either a for-teller, or a forth-teller of the Divine will. The Kittel and Friedrich Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says the word's prefix, pro, had in the original sense in Greek, "one who proclaims," although the idea of "one who predicts" also occurred.

The idea of "one speaking with/from Divine stimulus" covers both divinely-enabled foretelling of future events and "forth-telling", authoritatively declaring previously-revealed divine truths, and praising/glorifying God in an ecstatic manner.

Examples of Old Testament prophesy manifesting as ecstatic behavior are 1 Sam 10.9 and 1 Sam 19.20-24 where the Holy Spirit caused King Saul to prophesy and thereby hindered his efforts to pursue the fugitive David.

Examples of prophesy as fore-telling, predicting the future, are too numerous to mention. For example, the list in the Nave's Topical Bible of Old Testament Messianic prophesies, e.g. those about the future earthly ministry of Jesus, the Christ, contains 75 Old Testament references. Dt 18.22 informs the Israelites that true prophets of God engaged in foretelling the future will make prophesies which reliably come true.

The prophetic role of "forth-telling", authoritatively declaring previously received Divine truth, is also seen in the Old Testament. For example, Dt 13.1-5 warns the Israelites against believing a prophet who declares a so-called "truth" which does not agree with what they already received, such as calling them to follow other Gods.

The three prophetic activities, ecstatic behavior, foretelling future events, and forth-telling previously established Divine truth is seen in early Church history recorded in the New Testament and gradually devolves to only the third "forth-telling" role as the Church is established and God's revelation of His Word is completed.

Ecstatic behavior is seen on the Day of Pentecost and at least two other events when the Holy Spirit provided a miraculous ability for believers to speak a known and verifiable language they had not previously learned. At Pentecost this miracle, similar to the one God performed at Babel when He caused people to abruptly begin speaking different languages they had not previously learned (Gen 11.7-9) enabled believers to suddenly begin praising God in 15 different languages, verified by observers who were able to recognize the languages being spoken (Ac 2.4-12). The Holy Spirit used this miracle, impossible to counterfeit because of the use of known languages others could verify, to prove the three different groups of people all comprising the one Church:

1. Jews and Jewish proselytes (Ac 2).
2. Gentiles (Ac 10.44-46, undoubtedly the Jews with Peter heard the believers in the Gentile Cornelius' household praising God in the Hebrew language which the Jews knew the Gentiles could not have learned).
3. "Old Testament" Jews believing in God and willing to repent according to the baptism preached by John the Baptist, but previously ignorant of salvation by grace through faith in the Messiah (Ac 19.1-7).

"For-telling", prophesying the future, continued until God finished providing all of His Word. The final, or last set of prophesies of future events is the eschatological prophesies of end time events God inspired the Apostle John to record near the end of the first century A.D. This record appears in what is now the final, 66th book of the Bible, the Revelation.

While ecstatic and fore-telling forms of prophesy had specific purposes and Biblically-documented occurrences which conform to those purposes (formation of the Church and completion of divine delivery of the Word), and a history of cessation of those prophetic forms consistent with the completion of those purposes, the third prophetic form, "forth-telling", authoritatively declaring what the received Word says, continues.

That the "fortelling" prophetic ministry did not continue throughout Church history can be seen in Peter's warning to the Church in 2 Pet 2.1 (ESV), "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." In Peter's day the prophetic ministry of "forth-telling" was already being equated with teaching: presenting the Word and explaining it. If the prophetic ministry of foretelling were to continue Peter would have used the same term in the verse, and would have said something like, "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false prophets among you ..." But instead he used the word pseudodidaskalos, false teachers, to refer to the only prophetic activity which would persist into the Church's future: "forth-telling" the Word.