The Gift of the Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, Speaking in Tongues and Prophecy, Part 5

Acts 21:3 When we came in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left, we kept sailing to Syria and landed at Tyre; for there the ship was to unload its cargo. 4 After looking up the disciples, we stayed there seven days; and they kept telling Paul through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem. ... 8 On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and entering the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we stayed with him. 9 Now this man had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses. 10 As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 And coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, "This is what the Holy Spirit says: 'In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'" 12 When we had heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem.

These two passages, again show an aspect of “normal” in the church of the New Testament. It has been speculated whether God was trying to deflect Paul from his plans – which would lead to years of imprisonment – or was letting Paul know in advance where Paul was being led by God. I'll leave that speculation for other people and times. What is relevant here is that prophecy was a normal and valuable part of the over-all life of the church. Further, one of the arguments Cessationists advance is that speaking in tongues and prophecy are “revelatory gifts” and, with the completion of the New Testament, there is no need for further revelation and hence no need for “revelatory gifts”. The New Testament does make this distinction between “revelatory gifts” and “non-revelatory gifts”. “Revelatory” can be a useful adjective in describing some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (e.g. in a teaching context), but Cessationists (some, at least) have crafted a doctrine from this adjective. That problem aside, there is a further problem with the argument. It assumes that prophecy was used to reveal Scripture. While that was partly (but far from entirely) true of Old Testament prophets, the book of Revelation is the only book in the New Testament that is a prophetic revelation. These passages, together with Acts 11, identify a prophet, Agabus, and mention four others, the daughters of Philip the evangelist; Acts 13 vaguely mentions others, but without identifying them. For Agabus, Acts mentions but two instances of what I believe should have been a much more extensive ministry for him to be called a prophet. I suppose my opinion is open to quibble (not reasonably, I think), but the New Testament identifies Philip's daughters as prophets, but not a word of their prophecies has been recorded – not by direct quote (ala Acts 21:11), not by indirect quote (ala Acts 11:28). My opinion is that if prophecy functioned in the New Testament era church to reveal Scripture, the New Testament would have a book of Agabus and another book recording the prophecies of the daughters of Philip. So, not only is this “revelatory gifts” argument based on a distinction Scripture does not make, its premise – that New Testament prophecy revealed Scripture – is largely false.