Tuesday, January 9, 2024

John Painter and David A. DeSilva on Testing Prophets in the Early Church

  

Testing Prophets in the Early Church

 

The early church experienced a revival of the gift of God’s prophetic spirit. Paul expects that those gathered for worship would experience and share prophetic words, revelations, ecstatic speech (“tongues”), and the translation of such speech (1 Cor. 12:1-11, 27-31; 14:26-33). Such experiences provided encouragement and guidance, and empowering the Christian movement and its mission, but they could also be counterfeited or abused, serving the interests of self-seeking teachers, introducing unorthodox innovations, or perverting the practice of disciples.

 

It became important from the outset to distinguish genuine words spoken in the Spirit from false ones (1 Cor. 14:29; 1 Thess 5:20-21), whether uttered by members of the congregation or by teachers and prophets coming from outside. Matthew preserves a Jesus saying that warns against “false prophets” who speak like genuine disciples but really seek to take advantage of the church (Matt. 7:15-20). The disciples are to examine the results of these prophets’ work in their midst, to determine if they are genuine. Paul warns the Christians in Colossae that visions of angels and the practice of austere lifestyles are not sufficient guarantees against fraud: real authority flows from connection with Christ. John the Elder framed doctrinal tests alongside ethical ones; prophets failing to acknowledge that Jesus was the Christ come in the flesh do not speak from God’s Spirit (1 John 4:1-6).

 

The Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is a manual on Christian ethics, church order, liturgy, and eschatology dating from the late first century or early second century. It contains the most extensive treatment of how to welcome, and how to test, itinerant prophets, Such prophets enjoyed great liberty and authority, but they were not above suspicion. If they used prophetic speech to solicit money or other material assistance for their own use, or if they lingered more than three days at the community’s expense, they were to be shown the communal door. Charismatic endowments were not meal tickets.

 

There were no simple, universal tests: a prophet’s theology, behavior, motives, and fruits could attest either to genuineness or fraud. Prophets were subject to the apostolic faith and the ethics taught and approved within the church, which remained the authoritative norm. Jude provides a window into this process of discernment at work. (John Painter and David A. DeSilva, James and Jude [Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2012], 185)