The Nature of Prophecy ...continued

The scope and types of Prophecy

There are many types of prophecy and the scope of prophecy is enormous, far greater than the writer could hope to cover. I have categorised prophecy in the following two dimensions:

scope - the recipients of the message
·type - the different kinds of prophecy.

It is important not to get too hung up about discerning the difference and the identifying of the scope and types is purely an exercise. To illustrate this I recall a story that explains that categorising gifts is not necessary and can be quite harmful if the debate becomes more important than the message.

There were three elderly men sitting on the front row of a church, when suddenly, a young man mounted the platform and spoke a message.

The first elderly man said, "This is a prophecy."
The second elderly man said, "No, no this is a word of knowledge."
The third elderly man said, "You are both wrong this is a word of wisdom."

A heated argument ensued and all three old men died. The young man had said, "The building is on fire, no one is able to extinguish the flames and everyone who remains will die. Please leave the building. Follow me through the back door."

The point of the story is that it is better to obey the message than enter the debate about the type of gift.

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