Prophecy and the prophetic as aspects of Paul’s theology

Abstract

As the earliest documents of Christianity, Paul’s Letters include extensive evidence on prophecy and the prophetic, most particularly in 1 Corinthians 12–14. In view of the influential hypothesis on “the cessation of prophecy” in Ancient Judaism on the one hand and early Jewish and Christian versatility on prophecy on the other, this essay addresses the question what prophecy meant in Paul’s days and how it may be situated as a spiritual gift in Paul’s theology. It reconsiders the cessation hypothesis vis-à-vis Early Judaism, providing caveats on its application to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Flavius Josephus, thereby redressing the Second Temple Jewish context of Christian origins in this respect. The essay provides a contextual reading of key passages (1 Cor 12:4–11, 13:8–13, 14:1–5, 14:20–33a), offering new insights about communal parameters of prophecy by comparing Paul’s ideas with contexts of Judaism, Jewish Hellenism and the Corinthians’ Greek environment.

Are Religious Experiences Immediate Revelations? A Study of Pentecostal Hermeneutics

“…In I Thessalonians 5:19-22, Romans 12:6-8 and I Corinthians 12:28;14:1, prophecy was discussed in the context of unity because spirituality or being filled with the same spirit means unity in the spirit. Prophecies in Paul are associated with intelligibility, wisdom, knowledge, discernment and testing because the prophet's spirit is subject to the prophet (Hogeterp 2018). Further, the notion of second blessings or doctrine of consequence and subsequence extrapolated from the dramatic experience of the Acts of apostles (Ac 2:4), the testimony of the Samaritans (Ac 8:4-19), Cornelius (Ac 10:44-8) and the Ephesian disciples (Ac 19:1-7) do not present a normative model of the charismata for all Christians in all generations.…”

Propagating the fear of witchcraft: Pentecostal prophecies in the new prophetic churches in South Africa

“…It was for the goal of building up the believers and the congregation that Paul encouraged the church at Corinth to pursue prophecy. 42 In fact, the idea of writing the letter to the Corinthians was to address 'disunity, dissensions and factionalism' 43 and prophecy is identified as one of the tools used to achieve this goal. Therefore, 'Paul sees early Christian prophecy as an active and constructive force in the up building of the faith community at Corinth'.…”