Where Are The Prophets?

This is a difficult one to answer because you both raise good questions but also have some assumptions which are false.

First off, those behind the Protestant Reformation–which is where all the true Protestants spring from I think–believed firmly that the time of prophecy had passed with the original apostles. They cite scripture for that, especially the book of Revelation, which they interpret to say that that book is the final revelation, the final prophecy, and there will be no more before the second coming of Christ. Therefore, most mainline protestant denominations simply don’t believe anyone alive will ever know a prophet.

The Catholics and the Orthodox believe that’s an excessively limited reading of the Book of Revelation, which is hard to interpret anyway, but they do believe that prophecy still happens although it’s been rare since the age of the apostles. That’s why you have the example of, for example, the prophet children of Our Lady of Fatima.

This is one reason why, Kevin, I keep trying to explain to people that it’s very arguable that Bible-only Christians are *not* Protestants, but are rather a distinct strand all by themselves, as fractured as they may be.

As for the term heretic: a heretic is simply one who teaches a false doctrine. If you believe that it is possible to know true from false doctrine, then you must believe there is such a thing as heresy, and you should not be offended by the word. We don’t kill or imprison heretics anymore, but simply identifying someone as one is not persecution and is not a crime.

By the way, the vast majority of Christians still believe there are apostles. In the Catholic and Orthodox and Anglican traditions, bishops are in fact the very direct spiritual descendands of the apostles, whose authority is handed down through the laying of hands upon new bishops, just as was described in the New Testament. This is why Bishops are so important in those traditions; they literally have the authority of apostles. Mainline Protestants also believe their own bishops, or elders (depending on the denominations) are part of that same apostolic succession. Bible-only Christians are sort of all over the map on that question, and so it’s difficult to pinpoint where their beliefs are on that matter.

As for the term heretic: a heretic is simply one who teaches a false doctrine. If you believe that it is possible to know true from false doctrine, then you must believe there is such a thing as heresy, and you should not be offended by the word. We don’t kill or imprison heretics anymore, but simply identifying someone as one is not persecution and is not a crime.

I have to disagree with you on this to a degree. Not that there aren’t such things as heresies, there are, but too often the truth is labeled heresy by those in power.

Yeshua was crucified as a heretic when He was the embodiment of Truth.

The Tanakh is full of examples of prophets, teaching truth, being attacked.

Calling a thing a heresy doesn’t make it so.

But, we’re getting off topic. I’d simply like to know where the prophets are as there is no prophecy stating they’d stop being sent (and there’d have to be according to Amos 3:7), and Yeshua said He’d send prophets.

And those prophets would be persecuted. They may not be killed, as you note, Dean, but Yeshua used the terms he did to both speak directly to His audience and indirectly to us. We wouldn’t exactly greet His prophets with open arms is the bottom line. Why not?

Because we’d think they were heretics.

Satan isn’t going to come to the Church in a guise it’s going to reject. He’s not going to come looking like a heretic. So, in my humble opinion, those the Church calls heretic may be deserving of a closer look.

I don’t know about that, Sean…my parents live next door to a halfway house for schizophrenics, one of whom is an ex-Hitler Youth guy (in his late seventies) who was arrested and sent to this halfway house after he set a field on fire while chanting Heil Hitler. In case anyone is skeptical about the whole magic/occult element (the ‘true’ religion of the original Germanic tribes) of that movement, he spends most of his time drawing runes around the house and talking about the seven spheres of the universe. Because of this, he has attracted a following of half a dozen or so perfectly un-schizophrenic young adults.

Very scary.

One person I can think of that meets that description today is Fred Phelps.

Real prophet he was not.

That’s all I’ll say.

Very careful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Koresh

Sean,

And if God is making sure that events happen a certain way, how does he then hold humans accountable for those events?

A fine question! Which is why I’m not so sure about the Christian doctrine of hell. I’m not willing to throw it out, neither am I’m willing to embrace it wholly.

If I may, I’d like to answer your question with a question:

Do you believe God is completely just?

I find that how you answer that question will determine what kind of answer you’re willing to accept for the actual question you asked.

So, for your actual question I simply say, “I don’t know.” But, I believe that God is a wholly just God and people will be punished or rewarded righteously. Even if I’m not privy to the entirety of God’s methodology at this point in my existence.

But, of course, I’m looking at it from the position that God is a just and loving God first. Then, knowing that, I look at your question. Conversely, it’s entirely possible to take your question first and if one cannot bring together the image of a God that says He’s in control of all things yet still holds man accountable for those events as a just God, I’d certainly understand.

While this is a very interesting question, it’s ultimately fruitless. Pondering it will not make one’s life any better I should think. The Bible spends far more time talking about issues of personal interaction, how to treat other people, than it does with high-minded philosophical ponderance for good reason. A philosophical debate does little to heal the hurt of your fellow man. It doesn’t aid the sick, poor, destitute, or broken. And I’ve never seen a solid philosophical debate bring anyone to God. The combatants typically have already made up their minds when they engage in the debate. They preach to the choir more than anything.

The bible stresses personal relationships because it is those relationships that have the most impact upon what we believe. And we’re far more likely to be open to an idea when spoken from the lips of a person we have such a relationship with than some stranger on a blog.

So, I really try to avoid such things. I know I’m unlikely to convince you of anything you don’t already wish to be convinced of and, heaven forbid, I’m taken to account for pushing you further away from God!

TallDave,

Careful what you ask for.

So you provide me with a list of false prophets and I’m supposed to be careful of… what?

I can call myself the President of the United States of America if I want. Doesn’t mean I am. Likewise, anyone can call themselves a prophet. Heck, other people my call them a prophet too. Doesn’t mean it’s true.

Kevin,

Again thanks for your answer to Shawn. I was getting ready to constrcut some great rebuttal to his assertion, but your post stopped me cold. The two greatest commandments are to love God, and love you neighbor. All the philosophical arguments in the world don’t change that.

Brain,

You’re welcome! But, it also occurs to me that if Shawn’s assertion is correct (I don’t know if Shawn actually believes it or not) then it doesn’t really matter. We’re all equally at the mercy of an unjust deity. So, the argument is pointless. Better to shake your fist at the sun for being hot than to argue the unjustness of a god. It isn’t like your opinion really matters. Most you will get is all the rest of creation agreeing with you then shrugging and saying, “We’re boned anyway.”

Zach,

Being driven town to town is a symptom of being a prophet, not an indicator. Same for “unpopular” views.

Koresh was a false prophet because he professed not just “unpopular” views, he professed unScriptural views. Really, I’m not going to break down Koresh’s doctrinal views or his “prophecies.”

The bottom line is, if it doesn’t line up with Scripture it’s wrong. That’s how you know. And Koresh was so out of line with Scripture I have a hard time believing you’re asking the question with a straight face.

Kevin,

I’m indeed asking with a straight face. I honestly have no idea what Koresh’s views were or anything about the requirements of being a prophet. Similarly I’m probably the last person to be asking this question, but are the teachings of Jesus really that well aligned with the rest of the OT? Otherwise the criteria you lay out seem pretty reasonable to me.

Zach,

<blockquote>

Similarly I’m probably the last person to be asking this question, but are the teachings of Jesus really that well aligned with the rest of the OT?

</blockquote>

ROFLMAO!!!!

That’s a great question. Really, it’s all about who you ask. Jews would say the guy was off his rocker. Muslims would say that, while Jesus wasn’t the Son of God or even crucified, he was a prophet. Christians say the OT clearly point to Jesus both as Messiah and God.

So, really, it’s for you to decide. Read the OT. Read the NT. See for yourself. That’s the best advice I can give you. I personally believe that Jesus is perfectly aligned with the OT but that doesn’t help you.

But volumes and volumes have been written about how Jesus either does or does not fill the OT requirements as Messiah. It’s a huge mess. I say stay away from it and other people’s opinions and look into it yourself. Or, maybe do some research into the Messianic prophecies of the OT and see how the NT lines up with it.

Honestly, your question is far too complex to answer on a humble blog. As I said, volumes and volumes of text have been dedicated to those few simple words: Is Jesus the Messiah of the Old Testament?

If you have more questions please e-mail me and I’d be happy to help as best as I can.

“The accuracy of prophecy presupposes either a deterministic universe where events are fore-ordained or else a directed universe where the free will of ordinary people is superseded by divine will.”

I am not sure that that is true. Lets say that I predict that a friend of mine who is getting heavily into drugs and running with a bad crowd is going to get himself into a lot of trouble. I can be perfectly accurate in that prediction without causing my expectations to be fulfilled.

Sean,

I don’t think “prophecy” is limited to future-telling. In Islam, at least, a prophet is simply one who carries a message from God, whether relating to the future or not. I can’t speak for Judaism or Christianity, but I did not think they had such a limited definition of prophecy either, though I could be wrong.

Anyway, while certain forms of future prediction, such as “x will happen,” may require an assumption of determinism, others do not, such as “if you choose x, then y will be your fate.” It is my understanding that many biblical prophecies related to the future came in that latter form.

The accuracy of prophecy presupposes either a deterministic universe where events are fore-ordained or else a directed universe where the free will of ordinary people is superseded by divine will.

That’s not prophecy at all in my opinion.

A prophecy for example can be accurate on many levels and the seeming apparent expression of the prophecy (the one it seems to overtly imply) can often occur in a manner which was totally unlooked for.

That is to say that a thing can be prophesied and seem to imply one thing at the time it occurs and in actuality will unfold differently than expected and that is because over time things will have changed to such a degree that future circumstances will have made the implications clear in a totally previously unforeseen way.

One might say this about technology for instance. One could prophesy, before it occurs, that a day will come when everyone is able to talk to anyone else anywhere in the world as if they were standing next to one another. Make this prophecy in the era before the telephone, or even the telegraph has been invented and it implies one thing. (We foresee, oh that means the telephone, but only because it has already happened. The telephone did not have to be the one or only expression of that form of communications before it occurred.) Make it in the days right after the invention of the telephone and it implies another thing. Make it in the day of the communicator in Star Trek and it implies the possibility of the cell phone. Make it today and it implies something as yet unforeseen but could very well imply devices, maybe even within our clothes that allow us to discern and transceive signals from people who possess any number of congruent and aligned devices or capabilities, or who are simply entrained to us by common frequency. So a prophecy is never static, it is conditional, both upon the time it is generated, and of the capabilities inherent in the way it can be made real in both the present, and the future. The prophecy has a deterministic element, which may or may not have been grasped from or even received from Divine sources, but the way in which it unfolds is a human matter, or sometimes I conclude form evidence of history a sort of cooperative and mutual set of interactions between God and man.

So in divine prophecy there is always the element of God and the receiving of information and data which is beyond traditional sensory means of gathering intelligence, or at least the intuitive understanding of the implication of what a thing might mean (Divinely speaking, what God might possibly be implying) and yet the way in which that data and information is received and acted upon, and the ways in which that intelligence is interpreted and put into effect depend very much upon the receiver and what his or her capabilities are, in this case, man. I do not want to limit prophecy to linear signal progressions because to a great extent prophecy is one means of shattering linear progressions of information flow, but it is very similar to giving a book to a young child, giving the same book to a teen, then a young adult, then a thirty year old man, and so forth. At each age the book and the information in the book has a different effect depending upon what the reader can grasp (and at ten a reader may, or may not be, less, or more, wise than at some other age), and what capacities they have in making effective use of that information. So the author of the book or the information source (in this case God) determines what information is transmitted, but the reader (in this case man) determines what it received, what that implies, and what, if any, use will be made of that information. Prophecy is a very complex and interactive spiritual, as well as psychological, mental, cultural and historical discipline which has many different implications and is mutlilayered in both intention, and effect. And prophesies, really good ones, can and do often have several different implications all of which can be right to some extent or another, all of which can also have covert implications to one degree or another of things yet to become apparent, or about things that have already occurred and been forgotten. the idea that every prophecy has one fixed and unalterable expression, fixed at only one point in time and space, is I suspect often wrong, and I also suspect that many prophecies have cyclical expressions, perhaps implying one thing in one age and another in another. Or perhaps implying that the same thing might occur over and over with different expression of detail with each new recurrence.

True, and I think I understand your point, simple predictions and simply minded interpretations of what prophesy implies are all too common and often, I think, wrong in the conclusions they draw. Because they limit the parameters by which prophecy often operates. But real prophesy is far from mechanically deterministic in many cases, it is far closer to being quantumly interactive. And one example of this, even in Biblical prophecy can be seen in the fact that almost every prophet, without exception, tended to make the point, somewhere in their writings or along the course of their prophetic career, in speaking to their target audience, or even a larger audience, “change your behavior and you will change the nature of the way events unfold. Keep to your current course, and you will fix events by your own actions.”

That being said though I can see a few reasons for prophets not being readily apparent these days. To be a prophet took a lot of study and effort. Most old testament prophets came out of the judges, the temple, the priesthood (or in rebellion against both) or later from schools of prophecy which were very similar to the later monastic system. People had to study intensely and be aware of many things, most were literate and many were traveled. Moses was apparently highly educated, (in Egypt I might add) many others were as well, almost all from their writings were well aware of both ancient history in their regions and of immediate political and military and historical situations. Even the minor prophets seem to be exceptional men for their era and population groups. Literate, in touch with foreigners or had lived among foreigners (Joseph and Daniel), had extensive networks of contacts, had obviously studied medicine (such as Elijah) and other proto-sciences (in many ways the prophets were a kind of proto-scientist, as later monks and priests in the West would be, though that wasn’t really the intent of their mission, my point is that they were often the Renaissance men of their age) had carefully studied scriptures, and so forth and so on. So it wasn’t a necessarily easy life and most did not just sort of pop up one day and say, “Hey, I’ll be a prophet.” (This does not preclude the case of instantaneous conversion, or the singular precipitating event, but I am saying that with most prophets, like Moses, things had been building through a chain of events, often unnoticed til later, for a very long time.) Many were extremely reluctant to become prophets. Wisdom was a highly prized trait among the prophets and well encouraged, but every wise man knows that telling others what they don’t want to hear is not always a wise ploy, though it may be a very necessary one. Think about it, you’re wise enough to see disaster and damnation coming, but you also know why it is coming, because people are stupid enough either not to care, or because they are intentionally steering themselves in that direction. Interfere and you could get laughed at, ridiculed, run out of town (or your job nowadays) or just as likely, run over. Your wisdom makes you both wise about why things are the way they are, and why that is not likely to change, but you feel compelled to try and do something anyways. That is why so many of the prophets spent so much ink and breath bitching at God, saying such things as, “When for God’s sake is this gonna change,” or “You let this crap go on and what do you expect me to do about it?” or “How long will my people suffer, and how long will I?” and “Come on now, you expect these fools to listen to me of all people?” Not to mention the bitching they did about, “I did what you said and now they’re trying to hang me. Tell me again why I’m doing this?” And I think they had good reason to batch about their current circumstances, just as God, looking at the big picture had good reason to say, this is gonna hurt my little friend but in the end everything is gonna be okay and this isn’t really about you anyhow. So tough it out already. I know the score better than you do kid.

And that is another reason prophets are rare, in any time period. Proclaiming the way things may very well be in the future is not generally, certainly had not been in the past, a popular job, as Kev pointed out. It can piss off all kinds of people, both those who know exactly what you are implying and decided you’re against them, and those who misunderstand what you are saying, and think you’re saying something you’re not. Men generally speaking, no matter what the arena of activity; political, social, cultural, religious, scientific, etc, do not like certain kinds of change, especially when they are not ready for it. It is not like being an entertainer, it is very much like being the opposite of popular in many cases. It’s not high pay, it offers little in the way of job security, it won’t make you the toast of the town, and sometimes you have to fear for your life or the lives of those around you.

I think a third reason, and not one much discussed, is that prophesy has not really disappeared, it has fractured, and infiltrated the secular world as well. Now all kinds of people prophesy about all kinds of things, not just about religious and spiritual matters, but about world affirms of all kinds. My old man asked me a question once, which was, “Why do you think you see so few Einstein’s these days?” Being young I thought it was because they only come around so rarely, which is partially right. But he said, “No, there are so many of them that you hardly notice anyone standing out anymore.” And he was right. In a small pond with few fish the twelve pound catfish is King of all Catches. In an ocean with billions of fish, even the marlin is just one among many.

A fourth reason I think is this. As time progresses and society becomes far, far more complex, culturally, politically, in what it knows and can do, scientifically, technologically, time and events become compressed. Things become so complicated that it is not easy, even among the wisest, to discern movements and likely outcomes or even overall themes in human action and behavior. Prophetic implications could take centuries,even millennia, to unfold in the past, and that was just accepted. Time moved that way for most of human history and still does in some respects. (We are not gods after all, though some think we are, but really we are just super-capable men for our age. But one of our capabilities is to play with time in some respects. through science and technology. Extending it here, but mainly compressing it most places.) People read new things into every prophecy with each new age, and that is only natural. But in our age it is harder and harder to foresee around the curve ahead because we are moving at such an extreme velocity that visions become blurred, and because our trajectories are fluid and unfixed. Sometimes we are moving so fast we cannot make the turn, we’re moving to fast to change course effectively, sometimes so fast that by the time the implications sinks in upon us, we’re already there. Therefore the job of the prophet is harder today, even though most people know far more than at any other point in human history. (Because real prophecy is not about seeing what is obvious, but in seeing what has been overlooked.) But because we are moving so fast, and because there are so many of us, implications become fractured, data becomes scattered, and meaningful information gets lost in the immense pile of intelligence constantly building up around us. Think of how often you go on the internet to gather information and how many sources you are forced to overlook simply because there is so much to take account of, and then think about, in a serious fashion, how much valuable information you probably failed to note because you just didn’t have the time. You probably discounted far more good Intel than you absorbed, not simply because there is so much of it, but because you simply can’t look everywhere. Live in a society where relatively few sources of information exist and it is easy to keep up and to project forward, live in a society of god-like information flow and it’s very hard to keep up much less project forwards, even when you want to and even with God as your ally. There is an inverse relationship in a God technology society, between the speed and efficiency of technological development and information flow, and what can be known and what useful purpose can be put to that information flow by any single individual.

Let me put it this way, if you are receiving information at the Speed of God, then your ability to process and make useful work of that knowledge begins to move in the opposite direction. The closer you get to the Speed at which God can naturally and easily utilize data and information and intelligence, due to your technological sophistication and progress, the less any given individual is able to take utilitarian advantage of that flow. That includes the way prophets could take advantage of what they experience and grasp. (this does not even address the very real concern that it is simply possible to tap into so many sources of information nowadays, that so much data is available on such a wide range of subjects, that the individual human mind is often at a state of bolster effective capacity if not beyond capacity. – Now I’m not degrading prophecy to a mere mental exercise, I’m not, I’m saying the mind has to make use of what it gains and has to have a way of collating and making sense of what it receives, wisdom is not just what we know, but what sense we can make of what we know and how can we use what we know effectively, so whereas prophecy is not an exercise of the mind, the mind helps determine how prophecy can be effectively utilized – So not only is data speed greater, but the sheer bulk and quantity of information is immense, and those two things don’t address quality and utility of information either. Speed. size, and value are immense in our present world, and that is hard on anyone’s capabilities.) And of course if your really moving at the Speed of God then there really wouldn’t be any future would there, because you’d be either moving so fast, or so slow, that there would be no past, present, or future. If you could predict it then it would already be, and already have been by the time you could make the prediction. So at the very highest end of God Technology societies there are no prophets, because time and events have a totally different relationship to each other than a linear progression of unfolding. Of course that is what prophecy is all about anyways, shattering that preconceived method of motion and interpretation for information.

Sorry I talked for so long. Didn’t mean to. The subject just interests me.

Gotta go. Some missionaries are coming to visit our church and it’s my job to shepherd them around.

See you guys later.

Interesting discussion.

My views of prophecy come from Daniel 9, the Seventy Weeks prophecy:

24 “Seventy ’sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, TO SEAL UP VISION AND PROPHECY and to anoint the most holy.

25 “Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ’sevens,’ and sixty-two ’sevens.’

It continues on for a bit, but the general idea is, the Messiah comes, he is ‘cut off’ for our sakes, our sins our forgiven, and then prophecy ceases. So I always assumed that once the early Church was founded and the New Testament was written in its completion, prophecy would slowly die out.

That’s why he said “It is finished” as he died on the cross–God’s great plan for redemption was finally at an end. It’s the climax of the Biblical story. All that was left was the conclusion: tying up a few loose ends, setting up the Church, leaving behind an accurate historical record for later generations, etc. After that the dramatic gifts of the Spirit like prophecy or miracles could die out.

TallDave,

Its really totally incredible that several thousands of years of written (oral) wisdom teachings can be relegated as fable/myth to the second law of thermodynamics (entropy).

Frithjof Schuon suggests:

“One of the keys to the understanding of our true nature and of our ultimate destiny is the fact that the things of this world never measure up to the real range of our intelligence”.

So you wouldn’t follow God if he stopped sending Prophets or issuing miracles, but you would follow a God who would torture billions of people for all eternity simply because they believed the wrong things about Jesus?

Anyway, by citing scripture and nothing but, you can easily come to the conclusion that God stopped sending prophets after the book of Revelation was written. Quite a few–almost all Protestant–Christians believe that wholeheartedly. It was quite common among the Reformationists. Here is a lengthy article on the subject, with ample scriptural citations.

Mind you, I do not actually take this position, nor is it the position of the majority of the world’s orthodox Christians. Although anyone claiming to be a prophet should be held to the highest and most rigorous possible standards.