Paul James

What you have correctly described is the function of the New Testament prophet as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 14. The prophetess is someone recognised in your own faith group and the churches who believe that she is a prophetess and invite her to minister in their churches. But this is not to say that her ministry is recognised across all denominations. Therefore there is a reasonable doubt that her ministry is an actual file-fold Prophet ministry because it is not to the whole unified body of Christ, which does not exist in these days.

William Branham may have been recognised as a prophet in his own limited group, but not in the wider body of Christ. Therefore he was not God-appointed according to the criteria of the five-fold ministries, which are for the whole body of Christ. Therefore, not being, or ever have been, part of his particular faith group, I don't have to accept any of his prophecies as being of God or true. Anyone can get up and give prophecies which may appear to come true in some general fashion, but that doesn't mean that the prophecy is anything else than something dreamed up in the guy's own head. It doesn't matter how great the reputation that guy had, it doesn't mean that God has appointed him as a prophet to the nation. Because prophets to the nation passed into history at the death of John the Baptizer, there is no such office as prophet to the nation in the New Testament, and especially in today's divided church denominations.

The criteria for the ministry of Prophet as one of the five-fold ministries is that the body of Christ is one unified church where the ministry would be recognised by all. Such is not the case in today's divided denominational churches. The Scripture does not recognise a "Pentecostal", "Charismatic", or "Baptist" prophet. One denomination can appoint someone they call a "prophet" but it is an appointment by that denomination and cannot be one of the five-fold ministries. So, for example, the Bethel church can appoint and recognise a "prophet", but that does not mean that I have to recognise that person or his prophecies as being Holy Spirit appointed.

That is exactly why every person who has set themselves up in the office or ministry of Prophet to the body of Christ is self-appointed. It is because God does not appoint Prophets today.

Evolution is a sign of man's rebellion against God. If you want to team up with sinful, rebels against God, then don't be surprised at the consequences.

If you want to team up with atheists and their godless lies, then so be it be on your own head!

Try it then. Get appointed as a Prophet to the body of Christ and see how many outside of your own group actually accepts your ministry.

The present day church has a very long way to go before it can be anything like the First Century church.

When the Lord set up the ministry of Prophet in the five fold ministry, the church at the time was one church with no denominational divisions. Therefore the ministries of apostle and prophet were recognised across all the regional churches. This is how the Apostles' ministry was recognised in all the churches they visited. And Paul's letters were distributed and read in all the churches also. Agabus, the prophet was also recognised in all the churches. But when the church formalised, and local bishops took over the authority of their regional churches, so the ministry of apostle and prophet were replaced by the authority of the bishops and when the bishop of Rome took overall leadership of the church, he took over these ministries and incorporated them into his "vicar of Christ" role in "the chair of Peter", making the roles of apostle and prophet redundant. The evangelist role was taken over by the Jesuits, and the local priest became the pastor of his particular church, and the Roman Magisterium took over the teaching role. So, in these days, with all our different movements and denominations, the general role of apostle and prophet cannot exist. There are some denominations that have people with the title "apostle" and "prophet" but they are recognised only within their own denomination, and not across denominations. So, the Pentecostal Apostolic Church in New Zealand has its apostle and prophet, but those ministries are recognised only in that denomination, and not in other Pentecostal or Charismatic churches in New Zealand, and certainly not in any overseas church. We have other mainstream Charismatic denominations who have people recognised as apostles and prophets, and some other denominations, usually in the Charismatic movement, recognise them, but the majority of churches outside of the Charismatic movement don't. So, it is pointless to say that the current ministry or "office" of Apostle or Prophet is God appointed. Any such "office" or ministry is man-appointed and covers a very limited area of influence.

The first recorded people who made 'the light' of the Holy Spirit above the written Scriptures were the Quakers (Society of Friends). So, depending on the "inner light" of the Spirit is not new. I have been "reading" the Puritan divine John Owen on my iPad's very British verbal dictation software. Great for listening last thing at night. He said something very interesting that I had not seen before. He said that the written Scriptures are infallible, but our faith is fallible. I have just started to listen to what he says about the Holy Spirit, and he doesn't encourage people getting "new revelation" that is not already revealed in the Scriptures. I am looking forward to hearing more of what he says about it.

Self spirituality is New Age. The Holy Spirit always speaks through the written Scriptures, because the written Scriptures are authoritative and infallible.

There is no such office as the Prophet in the New Testament. The Prophet in the New Testament is one of the five fold ministries; but because of the many divisions in the body of Christ, and that the New Testament Prophet has to be recognised by the whole body of Christ, that ministry is impossible in these days. So anyone purporting to have the office of Prophet, going around giving prophecies "to the nation" and for the church is a fake, and his prophecies are dreamed up in his own head.

We are dealing with a supernatural enemy who can mimic everything and everyone to the point where many can be, and are deceived. I think we have to be extra careful and vigilant about anything to do with the prophetic. The thing about a counterfeit is that it is so very close to the genuine that it is easy to be fooled. It is not only happening in Christian circles, but Youtube is full of scam-baiting sites that show how widespread internet scamming is and that hundreds of thousands of dollars is being scammed out of unwary people in the US and the UK. These scammers come across as genuine Microsoft technicians willing to fix problems in our computers, and have very "kosher" looking websites to fool people. One of the worst "Christian" scams is the devil appearing in the form of Jesus, or angels, telling the victim that they are someone special and God has a special revelation for them that is not disclosed to "ordinary" Christians. The truth is that Jesus never appears in person to anyone. It is always the devil in disguise, but the appearance is so convincing that people really think they have had a visitation from Jesus Himself. the real Jesus is in heaven at the throne of God and will not appear in person until He comes again. Another "Christian" scam is people visiting heaven, either through a near death experience or in a vision. If the details of each are studied, we see that they are contradictory, which give an important clue that it is fake. The fact is, that when a person goes to heaven, they never come back. Also, Paul describes a person going to the third heaven, but was not permitted to disclose what he saw and heard. Yet these ones who have purported to have visited heaven, go all around describing what they saw, and they make a living out of it through people's curiosity. All these visitations are the devil's scams to make the person think they are special and are better than others. Of course, the devil can produce facsimiles of one's loved ones and friends, because he knows all about them. This is the same as a seance scam where the medium produces the voice of a loved one who has died and is communicating "from the other side". The devil knows how to do that, producing the actual voice of the loved one and many details that are true, because the devil knows about them already. So, in the same vein, we have "prophets" going around advertising themselves as "seers", able to predict all sorts of things about people, and exposing sin, which both God and the devil know about, but the difference is that God has forgiven and forgotten the sins, while the devil brings them up again to sow doubt, confusion and condemnation.

It's not us in ourselves. It is the Holy Spirit within us. Self-spirituality is of the flesh, and Paul said that there was nothing good living in him, that is in his flesh.

It is interesting that you are not prepared to address the fact that Paul spoke in tongues more than anyone, and that his preference was they that all spoke in tongues.

There is no such thing as a "seer" in the New Testament, This is New Age occult mysticism.

I have the Holy Spirit dwelling in me and we have fellowship in the Spirit. But that doesn't mean that I am spiritual in myself. I don't have any sort of mystical "sixth sense". The Holy Spirit always leads me according to the written word. People who say they have some sort of spiritual "sixth sense" are moving into New Age mysticism.

Granted. But the problem is that Paul spoke in tongues more than them all, yet not in church. So, how does that figure?

One can sometimes pick the ones that think they don't need deodorant when they visit the toilet. The are the ones holier than the rest of us, and when we look up to them it gives us a pain in the neck.

I am coming to the opinion that a lot of what is called spirituality in people is more New Age than Biblical. Adam had direct fellowship with God. He didn't need to be spiritual.

The point is, as you well know, that man was created perfect, intelligent, and innocent, until he disobeyed God and fell from what he was created to be. He wasn't some half-intelligent ape-man slowly developing into a full human being.

We all struggle with the flesh as it wars against the Spirit in us. All genuinely converted believers have that struggle. "Nominal" professing Christians don't have that struggle because they are self-satisfied as they are, but are deliberately hiding their favourite sins from everyone, especially those whom they fellowship with in church. One clue is hearing some saying, "I don't sin any more"; or , "I have full victory over sin", or, "I haven't sinned for the last 30 years". This type of comment should raise red flags for those who genuinely love the Lord, hate the presence of sin in their flesh, and struggle with it every day.

There is an indication that as much as 50% of professing Christians are not genuinely converted to Christ, but attend church for social and religious reasons, and their "spirituality" is for outward show, in that they are angels at church but devils for the other six days of the week. This is the principle of the wheat and the tares. It is very difficult to tell the genuine from the fake, because to all intents and purposes, the outward appearance is exactly the same. But God knows the hearts, and He knows who is genuinely converted or not. I agree with you that many dream up their own image of a god that they feel comfortable with so they can retain their favourite and pleasurable sin, instead of forsaking it. These ones can appear to do mighty things for God, cast out demons, and give great prophecies. We see this in the prosperity, wealth gospel movements. But we will see what Jesus' attitude will be to them: "Behold, I never knew you. Depart from Me you workers of iniquity!" Many of those who conjure up in their minds their own image of God (which is idolatry) and follow a jesus other than the Jesus of the Bible, will embrace theistic evolution, because they don't want to subscribe to the God of the Bible who will hold them morally responsible for the way they are living their lives and the retention of their favourite sins which they don't want to forsake.

There have been no new cases for the second day. There is a plan in place to include Australia in our "bubble", when there is the confidence that people can travel to and from both countries without importing or exporting the virus. Also it will be good for restarting our tourist industry if people didn't have to go into a two-week isolation when they arrive. It will be a long time before we will accept people from anywhere else in the world, especially the US where things are still out of control and they will just export the virus back to us again, undoing all our hard work to get it under control. Australia and New Zealand are leading the world in their control of the virus, and it is a shame that the US doesn't follow our example. But then we have more sensible leaders, and we don't have self protesters deliberately rebelling against the restrictions and thereby continuing to infect others, as there are in several places in the grand old US of A!

God never mentioned evolution or any description of that process in the way He created the world. The Scripture says that He spoke it into being and it happened instantly. The Scripture doesn't say that He took the whole 24 hours to do it. It was done during the particular day, and it was done as soon as He spoke it into being. God doesn't have to take millions of years to create a universe and a habitable world. He can do it in a moment of time, and that is how He did it. The reason why He did it instantly on each day, is that He was setting up our seven day week. Sinful, rebellious, unconverted man chooses to dream up an alternative to an all-powerful God creating the whole universe in six instantaneous states and creating man in His own image instead of evolving him from some form of ape-man.