Prophets and Prophecy Today
by Jeremy Groves
Prophecy has been the core of my ministry expression since God called me to ministry. Prophecy was the spiritual gift I cut my teeth on, and I have spent years studying and learning from the Scriptures, as well as from my own mistakes. I am passionate about the voice of God.
I have had the privilege of training many believers in partnering with the Holy Spirit in the prophetic ministry, including hosting a school of the prophets in 2022, where we trained budding prophetic fivefold ministers.
Our God is an ever-present and ever-speaking God. He longs to know and be known. In John 17:3, the Apostle John records Jesus declaring, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (NIV, 1973/2011)
To know God is to experience Him in the fullness of who He is. Not just through the written Word but through the experience of His Spirit, which he has poured out in these last days to all who would yield to His love and pursue Him in an intimate relationship.
When we yield to His love, demonstrated through His Son and expressed through His Spirit, we are forever changed and etched into His likeness.
Every healthy relationship has one specific element that affects all the other elements that comprise the relationship: good communication. Every relationship requires healthy and intimate communication to develop and grow stronger.
God wrote this into our DNA because He shares this fundamental desire, communication with humanity. Through His voice, he draws, saves, builds, teaches, comforts, and sends us into partnership with Himself.
God’s voice is the key ingredient that empowers us to draw life from His Spirit and flood ourselves with His love.
This writing examines the central aspect of our relationship with the Eternal One and its diverse expressions of ministry, with a particular focus on prophets and prophecy in today's context.
We will delve into the core heartbeat of prophecy, its varied expressions, potential abuses, and how to avoid them, as well as the role of a prophet in a New Testament context, including how to identify them and their functions within the Body of Christ.
Let us go on a journey together as we discover God’s wonderful voice today and how He speaks to us and through us to reconcile a broken world to his redeeming love.
The New Covenant Experience of the Spirit of God
Randy Clark wrote a profound comment in his book, “The Essential Guide to the Power of the Holy Spirit: God’s Miraculous Gifts at Work Today,” where he penned, “The Holy Spirit does not exclusively belong to ivory-tower theologians; He is not a mere doctrine to be studied, but a divine person to be experienced and known.” (2015, p. 14)
Through this comment, Clark illustrates that the experience of God is meant for all who are in a covenant relationship with Him, not just the “spiritually elite.”
God desires to lead us into an ever-increasing experience of His personhood. As we experience Him, we are transfigured into His likeness. I call this truth “transformational intimacy.”
God desires to be intimate with us and longs to be “one” with us. Jesus expressed this desire as He prayed to His Father in John 17:20-23 before He was arrested and crucified:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (NIV, 1973/2011)
Many draw their understanding of our relationship with God through Old Covenant paradigms. They relate to Him through rules and regulations, and man-empowered attempts to live holy, showing no mercy or grace for others who fall short of the standard, even though they could not keep it themselves.
The Old Covenant was a system of rituals and sacrifices designed to restore broken humanity to a relationship with a Holy God.
The sacrificial system that God established helped cover sin, allowing us to dwell amid His divine presence. However, the blood of bulls and goats was not enough to change us from within.
This system could only clean the outside of the cup while leaving the inside dirty and corroded, unable to hold pure water without polluting it.
The Old Covenant was established at Mount Sinai in the wilderness after Israel rejected God's voice and asked for a mediator instead.
This was not God’s ultimate desire. He desired intimate relational authority within man, guided and empowered by His voice. He spoke to our forefathers, guiding them by His voice.
Abraham was led out from his family to establish a new way of living, a faith-based way of living, guided by the voice of the One True God and not by blind dependency on lifeless idols.
Noah was guided to build an Ark to save a seed of humanity so we could start anew. Jacob was shown the heavens and became the patriarch who would fulfill a multi-generational promise given to his grandfather Abraham.
Joseph followed his voice through the ups and downs of his life until he was promoted to the most powerful man in all of Egypt as Pharaoh’s second-in-command, which ultimately became a strategic positioning by God to save the budding Israelite people.
On and on, I could show you Old Testament realities of a partial experience of the Spirit where God revealed His heart to humanity as a desire to speak to us and to by faith, believe Him and follow Him, discovering His nature and character along the way as we are conformed to His image through loving obedience.
The law was given to Israel after they rejected that reality. They were rules and regulations given to serve as tutors to the Israelites, teaching them that they could never live a holy, intimate life in covenant union with God without His Spirit being their source.
Zechariah 4:6 echoes this reality, declaring, “So he said to me, ‘This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” (NIV, 1973/2011)
Throughout the ages, humanity has demonstrated that it cannot live up to the Holy standard God set for them if they desire to live in covenant with Him.
Without His voice giving us life, we will fall to sin and its twisted desires within us. We will follow the voice of the stranger because his voice feeds the darkness that we yielded ourselves to in the fall.
Living holy when we are born corrupted by darkness and death is impossible. His voice is the light that breaks into darkness, revealing the truth of who we are and simultaneously providing the grace to become the reality of what He declares.
Within every promise is the seed of grace that will bring about its fulfillment, and by faith, we nurture it until it fully blooms. God’s prophetic voice to us is our very source of life.
The Garden of Eden showed this. When Adam and Eve continued in faithfulness to God's voice, they flourished; but when they yielded to the voice of a deceiver, they floundered, severing themselves from the life source Himself.
They spiritually died when they no longer received the indwelling injection of life through abiding in His voice, the tree of life. They chose to listen to their own voices, which are now twisted by the nature of the deceiver.
This has been the state of man ever since. Following the stranger’s voice led to humanity's demise; now we have the opportunity to once again follow the voice of life into a covenantal, transformational experience of God’s life-giving Spirit through the blood of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
Continuationism versus Cessationism – The Debate of the Ages
Despite what many people may think, cessationism did not originate during the Protestant Reformation. It gained prominence during the Reformation due to the Catholic church’s position.
The Catholic leaders used the miracles to confirm their doctrine and claim apostolic succession from the original apostles.
This, of course, is an error, and the Protestant leaders were appalled at this and adopted the now-defined position of cessationism, which believes that the gifts of the Spirit and the offices of apostles and prophets ceased either after the apostles died or at the canonization of the Bible.
However, I would like to say that cessationism has its roots in second-temple Judaism and the Hellenistic influences it encountered. In that era, the Pharisees emerged as a grassroots movement seeking to revive the original Hebraic worldview embodied in the Torah.
Their arch-rivals, the Sadducees, were receptive to the Greek-originated Hellenistic influence, and they moved towards logic and reason, rejecting the supernatural.
At the same time, the Pharisees endeavored to hold tightly to the Word of God. While they believed in the supernatural, no prophets existed for over 400 years.
You could say the faith of many began to wax cold as they continued to wait for the coming of the Messiah while under Roman occupation. They held tightly to the Word of God but acted very skeptical of anyone who arose claiming to hear God.
Jesus was the living expression of the Torah, but their tradition, at the cost of relationship, blinded their eyes so that when the Messiah came, they missed it.
They held on so tightly to what they feared losing that when the One who embodied what they held onto stood before them, they did not recognize Him. When you do not have the voice of God speaking into your life, you will inevitably build monuments of tradition that celebrate a former day while minimizing expectations for the present day.
This could lead to the belief that God no longer does those things. That He does not speak or intervene. It would be tempting to memorialize His voice in the Word and reject anything aside from what is written.
While the present voice of God will never contradict His Word, God speaks in many ways aside from the written form. In my opinion, cessationism is primarily an experiential doctrine.
No scriptures support the ceasing of miracles or the expression of the gifts and offices of the New Covenant experience of the Spirit. I grew up in a cessationist environment and experienced the prophetic dimension of the Holy Spirit without knowing what it was.
God did not seem to be bound by our tradition. I have been prophesying ever since, and I trace this to a relational encounter of surrender in place of a dry doctrine in place because of a lack thereof.
You can trace aspects of cessationism throughout history among the Montanists, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, the Enlightenment movement between 1650 and 1790, and to the current primary position of cessationists expressed through the work of B.B. Warfield in his book “Counterfeit Miracles.” (1972)
Jon Mark Ruthven echoed this in his gold standard polemic on cessationism in his book “On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Post-Biblical Miracles,” where he writes, “The doctrine that miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased around the apostolic age has evolved over the long expanse of church history, and has found expression in various religious persuasions and philosophical convictions.” (2011, p. 8)
Continuationsim is the belief that the gifts of the Spirit and offices of the apostle and prophet are for today and meant to continue until the second coming of Jesus the Messiah.
There is historical evidence throughout Church history to attest to the continued miraculous expression of the Holy Spirit within the Church.
I encourage you to read Jeff Oliver’s “Pentecost to Present: The Holy Spirit’s Enduring Work In The Church-Book 1: Early Prophetic And Spiritual Gifts Movements” (2016) and its following books for more on the continuation of the miraculous throughout Church history.
Suppose you would like to delve deeper into understanding cessationism and its relationship to continuationism, the position of this paper regarding prophets and prophecy.
In that case, I encourage you to read Ruthven’s book “On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Post-Biblical Miracles” (2011) and Clark’s “The Essential Guide to the Power of the Holy Spirit: God’s Miraculous Gifts at Work Today.” (2015)
New Testament Prophecy and Prophets– Expressing the Voice of His Love
Prophecy Defined
The Lexham Bible Dictionary defines prophecy as “An oral, divine message mediated through an individual that is directed at a person or people group and intended to elicit a specific response.” (Home - Logos Bible Study, n.d.)
In short, prophecy occurs when God inspires an individual with a divine message and communicates it through them to an audience intended to receive that specific message.
In her book “Voice of God: How to Hear and Speak Words from God,” Cindy Jacobs identifies two types of prophecy, personal and corporate. “Personal prophecy is delivering a prophetic word from God to an individual. Corporate prophecy is delivering a prophetic word to a congregation of believers.” (2016, p.22)
The Bible and Prophecy
Some believe God does not speak to His people personally but only through the Bible. They count anything outside the Bible as “extra-biblical” and either hold it skeptically or reject it. This is assuming that the Bible is the only way God speaks.
However, I believe the Godhead is not Father, Son, and Holy Bible. The Godhead is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Bible is God’s inspired Word and is inerrant and sufficient for understanding His purposes and plans for humanity, and is the starting gate for knowing Him and His nature. It provides all we need for teaching and equipping God’s covenant people for life and ministry.
I believe the Bible is a springboard for a relationship with Him. God’s desire is intimacy with His people, and He can not fulfill that desire by simply having us read a book.
The Bible is meant to condition our hearts and minds to perceive Him and His Kingdom, so that we may interact with and understand Him, and learn to recognize and follow His voice.
The goal of the Bible is for us to know the author, and His personal prophetic voice makes His heart and mind intimately known to us in the present day through a partnership with His written Word.
Prophecy and the Priesthood of All Believers
I believe Moses, as God’s chosen prophet to lead Israel into freedom, carried God’s prophetic desire to place His Spirit upon all His people so they may know Him intimately.
Moses shares this desire in Numbers 11:29, “But Moses replied, 'Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!’” (NIV, 1973/2011)
This truth of God’s desire for His people to hear Him for themselves is echoed in John 6:45, where Jesus says, “It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.” (NIV, 1973/2011)
In many cultures, the priest or prophet is the one who hears God on behalf of others, but in the New Covenant, we all, through our covenant connection to the Father through Jesus, can hear Him directly because we are now one in Spirit.
1 Corinthians 6:17 says, “But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.” (NIV, 1973/2011)
This connection is further described in John 10:2-5, where Jesus describes Himself as a shepherd who guides us by His voice:
“The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” (NIV, 1973/2011)
Through our covenantal connection, we all have access to God’s personal and intimate voice, and as a priesthood, we act as mediators to a world that does not know Him, sharing the personal words of God with human hearts who long to know the One who created them.
1 Peter 2:9 declares, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (NIV, 1973/2011)
The Gift of Prophecy Explained
The gift of prophecy is described in 1 Corinthians 12 as a gift given as the Holy Spirit wills to build up, encourage, and call others to act in alignment with God’s purpose and will.
It is a gift freely given by grace that Paul says we can pursue in 1 Corinthians 14:1, “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.” (NIV, 1973/2011) This means we can ask for it and desire to prophesy in our journey of relationship with God.
With the many corrections of prophecy illustrated throughout the Bible, it means that it is a gift that can be misused, as God has entrusted it to be operated through love. If we use it outside of its purpose, it can cause harm.
The Bible says that once God calls us and gives us a gift, He does not take it back. We can choose not to receive or nurture it, but he does not withdraw the gift.
However, I believe He withdraws the grace to operate it, but that is varied and can be determined by various surrounding circumstances. Our God is not cookie-cutter; He is relational.
The gift of prophecy is a grace gift that enables us to have greater sensitivity to God’s voice for others, allowing us to share the Gospel more effectively and tailor it to an individual's relationship with God.
Prophetic words can come through inner impressions, visions of the mind, dreams, and angelic visitation, among many other ways the Bible identifies.
When love is not the motive, or there is a lack of understanding, there is potential for abusing the prophetic gift by manipulating others, prophesying “words from God” for personal gain, among many other potential cases of abuse.
This can be limited by healthy pastoring to eliminate character defects, a safe environment for practicing hearing God, healthy accountability among intimately known and committed peers, and good teaching that emphasizes obedience to the Holy Spirit and the fear of the Lord.
New Testament Prophets
Before examining the characteristics of a New Testament prophet, I would like to review the Bible and the verses that establish the context and expression for all five-fold offices. Ephesians 4:11-16 states:
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (NIV, 1973/2011)
Based on these scriptures, we see that the five-fold ministry is specifically given to the Church to build them up and equip them to carry out the ministry of reconciliation in alignment with God’s will and purposes, so that they may become perfected in the character, nature, knowledge, and expression of Jesus the Messiah.
We also see that the five-fold ministry is given until the Body of Christ is perfected, which has not yet happened, and would correlate with the Messiah’s second coming. This directly contradicts the cessationist position that these gifts are no longer needed.
What specific role does the prophet carry in the context of the five-fold leadership gifts?
They are wired to hear God and relay what He is saying to others in a personal and corporate way, demonstrating the prophetic ministry and raising and equipping the Body of Christ to hear God for themselves and others more effectively.
They carry delegated spiritual authority and leadership from the Messiah Himself to carry on His ministry as a prophet of God to bring the Church in alignment with the plans and purposes of God in that specific hour of History in alignment with the overall plan and purpose of God to reconcile the world to Christ and restore all people to union with Himself.
Many object to the modern expression of the office of prophet due to recent abuse and the potential for mistakes in hearing God, often stemming from their interpretation.
There have also been other religions that use the term "prophet," and this has contributed to a mystical view of a prophet. We grow in hearing Him because we are all in a growing relationship with God.
In the Old Testament, the prophets served as the direct line of communication between God and His covenant people; errors were destructive to them, which is why they were judged harshly.
In the New Testament, however, we can all now hear God for ourselves, and the prophet’s role changed to that of a coach and leader of God’s people, with a prophetic purpose.
Now the emphasis is placed on character and growing in relationship with God, which produces clearer and more accurate prophetic words as our hearts become more attuned to the Father’s voice.
So-called prophets can abuse this title and lead people astray, but that is why we need healthy prophets who demonstrate healthy prophetic ministry, are devoted to building God’s kingdom and not their own, have extraordinary character due to their measure of authority, emulate the love of God, and build prophetic communities that encourage one another and keep each other accountable.
Prophecy and Prophets are for Today
In conclusion, the pathway to prophetic maturity is embracing the cross and dying to the old while embracing the new life of God’s Spirit.
As we follow God’s voice and grow in knowing Him, we will be more attuned to Him. We can better utilize prophetic gifting to encourage, edify, and exhort others into encountering the wonderful God of love.
God desires to know us and be intimately known by us. The Gospel of the Kingdom empowers His Church to carry that message to the world through His prophets and a church prophetically empowered to declare with boldness the love and affection of God for a broken people.
We must understand that prophetic people are not meant to be isolated; we are called as a group of covenant sons and daughters to carry the glory of God together to a lost and broken world.
When we have any other motive or try to go it alone, there will be issues that are true of any endeavor, let alone the prophetic. Many people reject things they are uncomfortable with, even though the evidence suggests it is God.
We must be okay with this and press on to see His Kingdom come, and His will be done on earth as a pure and powerful prophetic Church.
Kris Vallotton puts it eloquently in his book “School of the Prophets: Advanced Training for Prophetic Ministry,” where he states, “The world is waiting to see the love of the Father expressed through the power of the prophets and prophetesses—those whose ministries are enhanced by the manifold wisdom of God, who embrace one another in the unity of the Spirit and who are propelled by the bond of peace.” (2015, p.217)
Prophets and prophecy are for today.
References
Clark, R. (2015). The essential guide to the power of the holy spirit: God's miraculous gifts at work today. Destiny Image.
Holy Bible: New International Version. (2011). Zondervan. (Original work published 1973)
Home - logos bible study. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2025, from https://ref.ly/logosref/bk.$25prophecy
Jacobs, C. (2016). The voice of god: How to hear and speak words from god (Revised and Updated ed.). Chosen Books.
Oliver, J. (2016). Pentecost to the present: The holy spirit's enduring work in the church-book 1: Early prophetic and spiritual gifts movements. Bridge-Logos Publishers.
Ruthven, J. M. (2011). On the cessation of the charismata: The protestant polemic on post-biblical miracles--revised & expanded edition. Word & Spirit Press.
Vallotton, K. (2015). School of the prophets: Advanced training for prophetic ministry. Chosen Books.
Warfield, B. B. (1972). Counterfeit miracles. Banner of Truth.