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Commentary on "The Prophetic Gift"
Day 1: Sabbath Afternoon, January 3, 2009
This lesson attempts to establish the idea that prophets are part of the life of the church. It further attempts to build a foundation that identifies prophets as ordinary, sinful men and women who nevertheless “walked with God”.
The memory verse for this week is Numbers 12:6 NKJV: “Then He said, ‘Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision; and I speak to him in a dream’”
The commentary asks why the predictions of some people come true and others do not. It continues by stating that Satan “uses false prophecies and prophets to mislead people. But we can take comfort in knowing God has His true prophets to make known His will.”
The last full paragraph says that the people to whom God gave the gift of prophecy “walked with God”, yet were not sinless. “They strove to live in harmony with God’s revealed will. They had a personal relationship with God, and in that context the Lord was able to use them in a special way.”
The E. G. White notes for this lesson are a quotation from Education, p. 63, in which E. G. White editorializes about Moses’ faithfulness to God, his humility, his realization of his weakness and inefficiency, and his belief that God “ruled his life in particular; and in all its details he acknowledge Him. For strength to withstand every temptation he trusted in Him.”
The Teachers Comments, page 19, under the heading “The Student Will”, states these objectives:
- Know: That God speaks to us through other people whom we call prophets.
- Feel: Respect and openness toward prophets and identify with them as fellow human beings.
- Do: Carefully consider the way in which prophets may speak to us and the church.
Problems
This lesson is based on the unsupported assumption that prophets in the tradition of Moses and Abraham are part of the functioning of the church. First, the memory verse, Numbers 12:6, is lifted from a larger context with no explanation. The context was that Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses because he had married a Cushite woman, and they questioned whether God only spoke through Moses. “Has he not spoken through us also?” they asked (Numbers 16:2b, ESV).
God called them to the tent of meeting, appeared in a pillar of cloud, and called Aaron and Miriam forward. He then spoke this week’s memory verse to them. In verse 7 God continued by saying Moses was different from the normal prophet. He spoke to Moses not in visions and dreams but mouth to mouth because Moses was “faithful in all my house”. God then asked, “Why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” God’s anger “was kindled against them, and he departed” (Numbers 12:9, ESV).
When God had departed, Miriam found she was white with leprosy, and God commanded that she be put outside the camp for seven days.
The attempt to use Moses as an example of what church members today can expect from a prophet is disingenuous. First, according to Numbers 12:1-9, Moses was different from a regular prophet. Even though the memory verse (Numbers 12:6) was lifted from the bigger context of God’s anger and discipline against those who spoke against Moses, it describes God’s relationship to “normal” prophets and states that God saw Moses differently. His job was different from that of a “regular” prophet.
Ellen White’s editorial comments about what Moses thought and felt have no basis in Scripture. They are her extrapolations about what she believed Moses was like. The Bible describes Moses’ obedience as well as his disobedience, i.e. his killing the Egyptian, his failure to circumcise his sons, his striking the rock twice, and as God said, “because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel” (Deut. 32:51b) when he and Aaron claimed God’s role and asked the whining Israel, “…shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10b, ESV).
We cannot assume or teach that Moses had any particular emotions, reactions, or feelings that the Bible does not reveal. The Bible reveals not only Moses’ faithfulness but also his disobedience. This lesson seeks to establish Moses as an example of a prophet of God; the biblical evidence, instead, reveals Moses as a unique individual in the history of Israel, one to whom we cannot look for an example of what we are to expect in the church.
Moreover, the lesson’s objectives reveal a goal that is not biblical. Hebrews 1:1,2 say this: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”
Prophets were God’s way of communicating God’s will in Israel before Jesus came. In these last days, God’s will and self-revelation and the understanding of salvation have been revealed through Jesus. This passage in Hebrews leaves no doubt: there is to be no modern day prophet who will bring us any new knowledge of God or of salvation.
New Testament prophets taught the gospel and communicated God’s will to the early church and functioned as part of the foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:20). They speak for God for the purpose of building up the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12). Nowhere does the Bible state or give an example of a New Testament prophet who gave new knowledge of the identity of God, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit, or of how salvation is accomplished. Jesus is God’s final revelation.
Nowhere does the Bible ask us to consider prophets to be a unique gift from God to the church different from those with other spiritual gifts. In fact, Romans 12:6 states that believers have “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us”, and we are all “members one of another”. 1 Corinthians 12:11 further explains that all spiritual gifts “are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” In other words, our spiritual gifts are given according to God’s will, and we are to regard one another as peers and members of the same body.
The second lesson objective of feeling “respect and openness toward prophets” and identifying "with them as fellow human beings” is not part of the reality of the church. All members are sealed and filled with the Holy Spirit. Each member has at least one spiritual gift as God has seen fit to bestow it, and the gift of prophecy is neither more nor less important than any other.
Jesus is the final word of God’s will and purposes; prophecy in the New Testament is for the building up of the body, not for the teaching of new light or further information regarding God and His salvation. Even the goals of this lesson reveal an agenda that is unbiblical.
These lessons are driving toward the goal of presenting E. G. White as one more person in the tradition of biblical prophets, but the Bible clearly eliminates her as a candidate for a true prophet of God. In light of Hebrews 1:1-2, E. G. White and her testimonies cannot be messages from God. She goes beyond and alters the clear teaching of Scripture. She did not function as an inspired or even as a devotional voice in the biblical church which includes all those who are born again. Her venue was specifically Seventh-day Adventism, and she is not a recognized prophetic voice in God’s church.
This day’s lesson attempts to convince readers to see Moses as an example of a true prophet today and to think of prophets with messages of the future as potentially God’s voice to them. The Bible leaves no room for the work of a “modern prophet” with new light from God.
Summary
- Moses is not an example of a “normal” prophet. The memory verse is taken out-of-context and attempts to describe what readers might recognize as a prophet today. The full context, however, describes Moses as unique and reveals God’s punishment of those who slandered him.
- Hebrews 1:1-2 clearly say God spoke through prophets in the past, but in “these last days” He has spoken to us through His Son. There is no place for a modern prophet with new light or “present truth” that is different from that already clearly revealed in the Bible.
- The New Testament gift of prophecy is for the purpose of building up the body of Christ, not for the purpose of giving the church new doctrines, new light, or “present truth”.
Copyright 2008 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised January 5, 2009. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.
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