“Whatsoever things are . . . lovely . . . think on these things.” Philippians 4:8
Good News; Bad News
By Foy Valentine, Founding Editor
Today I have some good news and some bad news.
It has to do with prophets, prophethood, and prophesying.
First the good news.
Prophets are folks who forthtell the word of the Lord; and the world is everlastingly in need of authentic forthtellers for God. No pussyfooting. No hemming and hawing. No equivocating. No cost counting. No testing of the wind to see which way it is blowing. No poll taking. No mealy-mouthing. Just a clear, "Thus saith the Lord." Prophets are true believers who share Amos` unnuanced conviction:
The lion has roared, who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy?
But now the bad news.
Prophets are everlastingly causing trouble.
They rock the boat. They challenge the status quo. They upset the apple cart. They mess up the establishment`s equilibrium. They disturb the peace. And sometimes they get carried away.
It seems that nearly everybody with a pulse read Umberto Eco`s The Name of the Rose when it was first published some twenty years ago. Those who did not read the book seem to have seen the movie. As for my own tardy, dilatory, procrastinating self, I have not seen the movie and only a few days ago broke down and bought the book.
Set somewhere in central Europe during what many of us understand to be the Dark Ages, the plot of this intriguing novel is focused on a huge monastery housing the greatest library in Christendom. Terrible things have been happening there including murders most foul. A wise and uncannily observant senior Brother named William from Britain has been called to come in and solve the mystery of the murders. Within a few short days after his much-heralded arrival at the monastery, the plot thickens, the murders multiply, and the monastery itself, including the marvelous library, is finally torched and utterly destroyed by a disastrous fire. It seems that a trusted and earnest Brother named Jorge had been so concerned about potential heresies that he feared were leading some of the other Brothers astray that he killed them and then, to keep still others from the heresies he believed the books to contain, burned down the library itself.
William, with his young companion, Adso, watched the terrible conflagration as it consumed the priceless books. The Sherlock Holmes-like William philosophized as they watched the tragedy`s denouement:
"It was the greatest library in Christendom," William said. "Now," he added,"the Antichrist is truly at hand, because no learning will hinder him any more. For that matter, we have seen his face tonight."
"Whose face," I asked, dazed.
"Jorge, I mean. In that face, deformed by hatred of philosophy, I saw for the first time the portrait of the Antichrist, who does come from the tribe of Judas, as his heralds have it, or from a far country. The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth as the heretic is born from the saint and the possessed from the seer. Fear prophets, Adso, and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them. Jorge did a diabolical thing because he loved his truth so lewdly that he dared anything in order to destroy falsehood . . . . The only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for truth."
So, the bad news is that prophethood, unseasoned by grace can be disastrous. True believers, like today`s Fundamentalists, can love their "truth so lewdly" that they come to believe that their end of resisting falsehood, or what they deem to be falsehood, justifies their use of any means, no matter how bad.
To further complicate matters for us simple folks, sometimes false prophets come along to deceive us, lead us astray, and mess up our minds. It is necessary for us to be alert, on guard, always testing them to determine for ourselves whether or not their bold assertions, "Thus saith the Lord," are authentic. Nobody ever said life with liberty in Christ would be easy. Living under Christ`s marvelous "law of liberty," to use James` felicitous phrase, requires eternal vigilance. As the Bible says, we are to "try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 Jn. 4:1). Hear! Hear!
The true prophet`s "thus saith the Lord" is a vitally important forthtelling of God`s message related to truth and justice, righteousness and peace, honesty and integrity. Without this word we would all be infinitely poorer. Consider:
Abraham was a prophet (Gen. 20:7).
Moses was a prophet (Deut. 34:10).
John the Baptist was a prophet (Mt. 11:4).
Jesus was a prophet (Mt. 21:11).
And, yes, so were Miriam (Exod. 15:20), Deborah (Jdg. 4:4), Huldah (1 Kgs. 22:14), Noadiah (Neh. 6:14), Anna (Lk. 2:36), and the evangelist Philip`s four virgin daughters (Acts 21:9)-gasp . . . prophetesses, attesting to God`s evenhandedness at the point of gender. No, Almighty God is no respecter of persons.
In these latter days I have become increasingly convinced that the much touted concept of the priesthood of all believers brought into world-changing flower by the Reformers and the Reformation needs to be buttressed and fulfilled, rounded out and completed, by a recovery of the profound spiritual insight encompassed in a doctrine of the prophethood of all believers.
When the spirit of God "rested on" the seventy elders in the Jewish exodus from Egypt, "they prophesied." And when the spirit of God rested also on Eldad and Medad who had remained behind, they too "prophesied in the camp." A young man ran to Moses and told on them. Aaron said to Moses, "Forbid them." Moses responded, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord`s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them" (Num. 11:24-30).
This passionate prayer of Moses found its answer in the Messiah`s advent. Peter said in the most famous Christian sermon ever preached, "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams . . . and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Acts 2:16-21).
As Christians have learned to glory in the priesthood of all believers, so we can come to glory in the prophethood of all believers for when
The Lord God has spoken,
Who can but prophesy?
