The Manifestation (Charismata) Gift of Prophecy
God desires for all believers to be INFORMED, NOT IGNORANT concerning the manifestation gifts of the Spirit, just as He desires for us to be informed about every other matter of the Spirit realm. Yet, there is perhaps more ignorance regarding this one matter than any other.
One of the remnants ostensibly of the Dark Ages in the Church which is still prevalent in many churches today is the ridiculous hypothesis that ignorance about spiritual matters perceived by some to be potentially erroneous should be totally avoided and that one should emulate the ostriches and bury his head in the sand so as to not even look upon anything which may be unorthodox or different than the traditional beliefs. Many denominational churches still teach that kind of childish and medieval-like behavior even for their adult church members pertaining to the matter of the baptism in the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, and related spiritual matters. Non-Pentecostal/Charismatic preachers and church leaders admonish their parishioners against becoming involved with Charismatic groups with such foolish statements as “you better stay away from those tongue-talkers and those ‘holy-rollers’ and those ‘snake-handlers’ lest some of that what they’ve got might get on you.” The premise of their thinking is that ignorance and avoidance of anything different than the traditional doctrines of that denomination is the way to prevent deception.
Nothing could be further from the Truth! Even the pagan Bereans had more spiritual sense than that, for when they heard the preaching by Paul of “another Way” than what they had known, they “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). The only way to know whether a teaching is true or false is to examine it in the light of Scripture. The deception preventative prescribed by God’s Word is to “Test and prove all things [until you can recognize] what is good; to that hold fast” (1 Thes. 5:21, A.B); and the only way we can test and prove any spiritual matter is by comparing it to Holy Scripture. If God’s Word says it, then it is so.
