by Ivan Maddox

West End Bible Fellowship

Atlanta, GA

The record of the prophecy of Amasai holds a special place in my heart, because it is this record that opened my eyes to a clearer understanding of just what the manifestation of prophecy is. Other records confirmed and detailed what I learned here, but this was my starting point, and I want to share the joy and the excitement of my discovery with you.

I was not new to the subject of the manifestation of prophecy when I stumbled across this passage. I grew up in a Pentacostal church, so the "gifts" of the spirit were no stranger to me. We had "prophecy" in our church, but I was not at all comfortable with what I saw there. Prophecy was "as the spirit moved you," and was usually something quite grotesque and incoherent, not at all something I could accept as coming from the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when, on one occasion, we were graced with a death prophecy ("Someone in this auditorium will die within six months!"), I realized that it might not always be a good idea to be around while people were prophesying.

Later, I had the privilege of being part of a teaching church. Much emphasis was placed on Biblical instruction, and it was here that I learned that God did not want us to be ignorant of "spiritual matters." (I Corinthians 12:1.) Here also I learned to study the scriptures to determine what they said, rather than being satisfied with bringing my own ideas to the Bible and backing them up with "proof scriptures." The manifestation of the spirit (they are not called "gifts" in the Greek texts) was an integral part of the fellowship there. What we lacked in the raw passion that was present in the Pentacostal church we made up for in scriptural understanding. Here I overcame my fear of prophecy, and speaking by the spirit of God became almost as natural to me as breathing.

But the sheer volume of Biblical teaching that was made available to me became a problem to me, though for a long time I did not recognize it as such. The problem was this: I did not have time to check much of what I was learning against the scriptures for accuracy. Instead, I developed a habit of accepting what seemed to be true, and checking it later -- when I could -- against the scriptures for accuracy.

Two things in particular disturbed me about the manifestation of prophecy. First, I could not find anything like what I was doing in the Bible. This did not automatically mean that what I was doing was wrong, but it did mean that it was suspect. Still, I was convinced that the teaching I had received on this was right, and I put this issue on the back burner of my mind for several years. Second, people were prophesying in the name of the Lord ("Thus saith the Lord...") and making mistakes. Sometimes it was a matter of a wrong word or two, but sometimes it was a whole message that clearly could not possibly have been from God. I was not comfortable with this, but I was convinced that most, if not all, of what I had been taught on this was right, so I did not pursue the issue.

It was not until the issue of "personal prophecy" was raised several years later that the things that had been simmering in the back of my mind on this issue thrust themselves into the forefront of my consciousness. "Personal prophecy" was presented to us as part of the manifestation of prophecy, even though it involved foretelling the future of other people (something we had previously been taught was strictly NOT part of the manifestation of prophecy), and as something every child of God should aspire to.

The introduction of "personal prophecy" to us shook me out of my complacency. Here was something that, as it was presented to us, I could see clear problems with in the written Word of God. But it was never my desire to blindly condemn something I did not understand, nor did I wish to be on the wrong side of a genuine move of God. We are exhorted in scripture to "Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good." This is what I endeavored to do.

But the introduction of "personal prophecy" did something else to me: it drove home to me the extent of my ignorance in the area of the manifestation of prophecy. I finally had to come to grips with the fact that I did not know what it was, for the "working definition" I was operating under did not seem to line up with scripture. It was time to correct this ignorance, not by tossing caution to the wind and diving boldly into the unknown, but by careful scrutiny of God’s Word, by letting God’s Word determine what was true and what was not. This turned what could have become a finger-pointing exercise in condemnation into a time of soul-searching, of turning the spotlight of God’s Word onto my own heart.

My study of the manifestation of prophecy began with the realization that I was not at all sure that I knew what it was. I had a working definition: The manifestation of prophecy is your God-given ability whereby you, by the spirit of God in you, are able to speak by the spirit of God in the language of the majority of the people present, and bring to them a message from God or for God. This sounded quite clear and comprehensive, but I was not at all sure that this was the Bible’s definition of the manifestation of prophecy. What I did know about the manifestation of prophecy was this:

This was certainly not a complete description of the manifestation, but it was a starting point.

One day I was reading through I Chronicles when I came across the following passage:

When I read verse 18, I stopped. I realized that the words, "the spirit came upon Amasai" meant not that Amasai received the spirit of God at that point, but rather that Amasai was about to mainfest,, or evidence, the spirit of God. This was followed by words spoken by Amasai, so that tells us that he was manifesting the spirit of God by speaking. Since the words he spoke were in the language of the people he was speaking to, this suggests that the manifestation in operation was prophecy.

But the words he spoke hardly looked like my idea of the manifestation of prophecy. It seens pretty clear that these words were not a message from God; they were a message from Amasai to David.

But the manifestation of prophecy is supposed to be a message from God, isn't it? I thought back to what I considered a more typical example of this manifestation: Elizabeth's greeting of Mary in tthe first chapter of Luke.

Elizabeth's prophecy was a message from God, wasn't it? I read her prophecy again, and realized with a start that Elizabeth was not giving Mary a message attributed to God. The words Elizabeth spoke were completely consistent with greeting someone at the door. The words she spoke were a message from Elizabeth to Mary. But what a message! Clearly Elizabeth was not speaking just from her own heart. God was in her words. I'm sure that Mary understood as soon as Elizabeth spoke that she was speaking by the spirit of God.

Excitedly, I looked back at the prophecy of Amasai. As with Elizabeth's greeting, this was clearly a message from Amasai to David. But what kind of impact would these words, spoken at this, one of the lowest moments in David's life, have had on David? These words seem to be designed to encourage, build up and comfort David. They were exactly what David needed to hear at that moment in his life.

These two records raised a critically important question about the manifestation of propehcy: Is it supposed to be a message from God to man, or a message from man to man by the spirit of God? If it is supposed to be a message from God, the question remains as to why the same restrictions that were set on speaking in the name of the Lord do not seem to apply to the manifestation of prophecy. If, however, the manifestation of prophecy is a message from person to person, but inspired by the spirit of God, that riddle is solved: the restrictions that apply to speaking in the name of the Lord do not apply to speaking in your own name, even if one is doing so by the spirit of God.

But is this really the case? Is the difference between the prophecy of a prophet and the manifestation of prophecy as simple as who the words are attributed to?

I knew that this question would have to be answered in I Corinthians 14, the key New Testament chapter on the utterance manifestations of the spirit. And I was under the distinct impression that this chapter taught that the manifestation of prophecy was a message from God.

In the first three verses of I Corinthians 14 our question is answered.

Verse 2 says, "...he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men...." I had read this many times before, but apparently I hadn't read it closely enough. Now as I read it, a question formed in my mind: When a person speaks in tongues, who is doing the speaking? That person? or God?

There's another way of asking this question. I Corinthians 14:14 tells us that speaking in tongues is praying in the spirit.

The question that came to me now was this: When one prays in tongues, who is doing the praying? Is God praying to Himself? Or is the speaker praying to God by means of the spirit of God?

Both questions are actually answered in verse 2: "...he... speaketh... unto men..." Clearly, when a person speaks in tongues, it is that person, not God, who is doing the speaking.

With that in mind, what does verse 3 tell us about the manifestation of prophecy? Again, the answer is clear: "...he... speaketh unto men..." When a person prophesies by the spirit of God, he is not giving a message from God to men, any more than a person who is speaking in tongues is giving a message from God to God. Instead, that person is giving a message from man to men; but he is doing so by the spirit of God.

This means that there is a simple, crystal clear difference between the prophecy of a prophet and the manifestation of prophecy. The prophecy of a prophet is a message from God to men. The manifestation of prophecy, on the other hand, is not a message from God; it is a message from man to men, given by the spiriit of God. There is a world of difference between the two.

This also means that any prophecy that is attributed to God must meet the same tests and conditions that apply to the prophecy of a prophet, and must be judged by the strict standards laid out in the scriptures.

Now that I had a better idea of the characteristics of the manifestation of prophecy, I was one step closer to finding a scriptural definition of this manifestation. With a clearer picture of what I was dealing with, the defining passages of scripture came quickly to mind. These were words spoken by Jesus, in what seemed to be a much different context.

In these two records, Jesus spoke of situations in which his disciples would be arrested and brought before rulers and kings for trial. Jesus counselled his disciples not to premeditate what they were going to say, but explained that they would instead be given what to say by the Holy Ghost in place of the words they would ordinarily have spoken in that situation.

Though this is a specialized situation, I believe this is an accurate description both of what the manifestation of prophecy is, and how it operates. Under certain circumstances, the spirit of God can give you words to speak in place of the words you would ordinarily speak in that situation. The words are not given to you in advance, nor do you premeditate them. Instead, you are given what to speak on the spot, "in that same hour."

This looks like an accurate description of what Elizabeth did, and what Amasai did. They were not speaking a message from God to men; but what they would have spoken normally in their respective situations was replaced by words given to them by the spirit of God at that very moment. The end result was the right word spoken at the right time.