prophetic ministry

"And they will prophesy."

These are the words which more than any other define the church of Jesus Christ.

On the day when the church came into being, the text for the first sermon was taken from the book of the prophet Joel, a passage which anticipates the outpouring of the Spirit of God on all his people (rather than as it had previously, at best, been, upon only some).

And what will the effect of that utpouring of the Spirit of God be? Well, "your sons and daughters will prophesy," Peter declares, quoting the verses from Joel.

And to make quite sure that the point gets across he repeats the statement a couple of lines later on - adding it in to the text that he's quoting (it's not there in the original): "and they will prophesy."

That's what the church does. That's what she's called to be and to do. To exercise this essentially 'prophetic' ministry. The church is to be, individually and corporately, a prophet.

Now the prophet, properly understood, had two main roles or responsibilities.

The first was prayer.

"He is a prophet and he will pray for you and you will live." That's the first time the word 'prophet' gets used in the Bible (Gen.20.7). It puts down a marker. This is what prophets do. They pray.

They pray for others. And life, life from the Lord, is imparted. People start to live. Or to live again.

I'm one day back from holiday and I've had a series of calls from different folk. Quite strikingly, many of them were looking for me to come and to pray for someone or some situation. That's what prophets do, after all.

Alongside that, there's the task of proclamation.

Prophets had the call of God to bring the word of God to the people of God and to point the whole creation of God to the grace of God in the Son of God.

They were called to proclaim the gospel (in its fullest sense). To articulate the eternal truths of Scripture and to apply those truths to the contemporary world in which they lived.

That was their 'job'. That's what prophets did. It wasn't complicated.

They prayed and they preached. And they did so in a way that no one else was able to do.

Because the Spirit of God was upon them.

And that's what the church was, plainly, right from the start, called to be and do.

"And they will prophesy." They will exercise a prophetic ministry.

They are prophets, and they will pray for you, and you will live.

They are prophets, and they will preach God's Word, and ... well, the intention is always that the life-giving Word of God, declared through the power of the life-giving Spirit of God, should impart the life of God.

I fear that we've far too often lost the sharpness of that focus in our congregational lives, as the church in our land today.

Prayer and preaching. This is what the church is for, in the 'economy' of God. There are loads of worthy and worthwhile things which might be done, which invariably need to be done, and which certainly could be done, by the church - but these are the two tasks which only the church can do.

Pretty early on the church was aware of how easy it always would be to be side-tracked by all sorts of other, worthwhile and necessary things. And their response?

"We will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word." (Acts 6.4).

Simple.

We mustn't lose our focus!