How long did God expect prophecy to function in the church?

The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?  (Part 1) from the Spring 2001 issue.

The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?  (Part 2) from the Summer 2001 issue.

The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?  (Part 3) from the Fall 2001 issue.

“The Duration of Prophecy” is Chapter 12 from the 2000 revised edition of The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today by Wayne A. Grudem.

Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion (Minneapolis; Bethany House, 2009), 213 pages, ISBN 9780764203503.

I know this author well. He is my pastor, and I love him. I am 22 years his senior and have been on his pastoral staff since 1995, longer than any other pastor still serving at New Hope Christian Fellowship in Hawaii. New Hope is the largest church in Hawaii with a weekend attendance exceeding 10,000.

When we first started the church in 1995, Wayne taught (and still does) a course on doing ministry at 5:30 on Tuesday morning. Early starts tend to separate the serious student from those less inclined. I took the course three or four times, and learned several things about Wayne: the first was that my Bible came alive as he taught. I saw wonderful things that I had never seen and my Bible’s pages were aglow while class was in session; the second was that Wayne was an unusually disciplined man who started early every day and on every task. I envied his discipline and drive. I still do.

When Wayne started this church, I was his backup speaker, and had a sermon all ready to go should he not be able to preach on any Sunday. I was never needed. He never missed a service. The number of our 90 minute Sunday services rapidly grew to five each weekend – two on Saturday evening and three on Sunday morning. Wayne’s ability to communicate led to invitations to speak beyond our church and he traveled far and wide to satisfy the demands that came his way. He began to write to meet the demands he faced.

I have read all or most of Wayne’s earlier books, and I have listened to him in person, on the radio and television countless times. I probably write 50 articles a year for newspapers and magazines, and the lead thought for most of these comes from something Wayne says on a Sunday morning.

A few years ago, Wayne ended up against the wall. His energy level was zero, and the demands he faced were overwhelming. I knew it was coming, and tried any number of times to suggest or hint at ways to diminish the draining I knew he had to be facing. But like so many of us in our late 40s and early 50s, we can do it all and better than anyone else. I know I felt that way, and I ended up with a stroke at 58, a heart attack at 61 and a triple by-pass at 67.

Leading on Empty is Wayne’s story of how his tank ran dry, and what he did to renew his passion for the Lord and life. Its content is excellent, he writes well, transparently and his principles are applicable to professions and careers beyond the ministry.

Wayne sought professional help and learned many things we really all know but so often ignore. He learned that solitude and silence are where you refine your soul, where you learn the difference between a concern and a responsibility. We must learn to take our concerns to Jesus, and invest our emotions and energies in our responsibilities.

We must settle that for which we are accountable if we are to be significant to others and to ourselves. We need to define what comprises the five percent of our life which only we can do, and then to do those tasks well since the condition of that five percent will determine the validity of the other 95 percent of our effort.

Part 2 of Professor Grudem’s exegetical study of 1 Corinthians 13. The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?

“The Duration of Prophecy” is Chapter 12 from The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today by Wayne A. Grudem.

Objections to This Interpretation

Various objections to this conclusion have been raised, usually by those who hold that the gift of prophecy has ceased in the church and should no longer be used. In this section, we shall examine those objections one at a time. Some of them deal with 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 specifically, and others deal with broader concerns.

1. “This passage does not specify when the gifts will cease”

The first objection to our conclusion above comes from Richard Gaffin’s thoughtful study, Perspectives on Pentecost. While Gaffin agrees that “when the perfect comes” refers to the time of Christ’s return, he does not think that this verse specifies the time of the cessation of certain gifts. He thinks, rather, that Paul is just viewing “the entire period until Christ’s return, without regard to whether or not discontinuities may intervene during the course of this period.”⁴

In fact, Gaffin argues, Paul’s overall purpose is to emphasize the enduring qualities of faith, hope, and love, especially love, and not to specify the time in which certain gifts will cease. He says:

Paul is not intending to specify the time when any particular mode will cease. What he does affirm is the termination of the believer’s present, fragmentary knowledge . . . when “the perfect” comes. The time of the cessation of prophecy and tongues is an open question so far as this passage is concerned and will have to be decided on the basis of other passages and considerations.⁵

In response to this objection it must be said that it does not do justice to the actual words of the text. Evangelicals have rightly insisted (and I know that Gaffin agrees with this) that passages of Scripture are true not only in the main point of each passage, but also in the minor details that are affirmed as well. The main point of the passage may well be that love lasts forever, but another point, and certainly an important one as well, is that verse 10 affirms, not just that these imperfect gifts will cease sometime, but that they will cease “when the perfect comes.” Paul specifies a certain time: “When the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away” (1 Cor. 13:10, rsv). But Gaffin seems to claim that Paul is not actually saying this. Yet the force of the words cannot be avoided by affirming the overall theme of the larger context instead.

Part 1 of Professor Grudem’s exegetical study of 1 Corinthians 13. The Duration of Prophecy: How Long Will Prophecy Be Used in the Church?

“The Duration of Prophecy” is Chapter 12 from The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today by Wayne A. Grudem.

Introduction

Many people reading this study have never seen the gift of prophecy functioning in their local church. In fact, outside of the charismatic movement and certain traditionally Pentecostal denominations, this gift is not now used and has not been used in recent history—for many churches, it has not been used in the history of their denominations.

Why not?

Is the non-use of this gift part of God’s plan for the church? Was this gift only to be used during the New Testament time, then to fade away? Or is this gift still valid for use today, still valuable for the church—and perhaps even necessary if the church is to function the way God intends it to function?

This is the question of the duration of prophecy. Can we solve this question by examining the New Testament? In the New Testament itself, are there indications of how long God expected prophecy to function in the church?

On the one side of this question are charismatic and Pentecostal Christians who continue to use this gift, and who say it is valid for the entire church age.

On the other side are some Reformed and dispensational Christians who say that prophecy was one of the special gifts associated with the foundation of the church at the time of the apostles, and that it was expected to cease functioning at a very early date, either around the time of the deaths of the last apostles or at the time that the writing of the books of New Testament Scripture was complete. Their view is commonly called the cessationist view.

Probably in the middle are most contemporary evangelicals—neither charismatics nor cessationists but still undecided about this question, and wondering if it can be decided clearly.

The Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

This passage is important to the discussion because in it Paul mentions the gift of prophecy as something that is “imperfect,” and then says that what is “imperfect” will “pass away” (1 Cor. 13:10). He even says when this will happen. It will happen “when the perfect comes.” But when is that? And even if we can determine when that is, does that mean Paul had in mind something that would answer this “cessation” question for the church today?