First Corinthians 14 reveals the universality of prophesying. The believers can all prophesy that all may learn and all may be encouraged (v. 31). The believers should all prophesy to convict people and to judge people (v. 24). When one person speaks and the rest listen, some general help can be given, but the riches of Christ can come only from a certain individual. If twenty speak in the meeting, the riches of Christ can be displayed in a much fuller way. Spontaneously, all the attendants in this meeting will be instructed and perfected. How rich such a meeting would be! Paul said that if we all prophesy in the church meeting, a new one will be convinced and judged by all, and the secrets of his heart will become manifest (1 Cor. 14:24-25). He will see who he is and where he is. Then he will repent.
The characteristic of prophesying is to speak for the Lord, to speak forth the Lord, and to speak the Lord into people, to minister Christ for the organic building up of the church, in larger meetings of the church. If our service in the church is only to preach the gospel, have home meetings, and have small group meetings, we have not arrived at the ultimate point for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. We have to prophesy to build up the Body of Christ. We must seek to excel to the building up of the church. We must gain the skill, the ability, to speak the Lord forth into the listeners. We need to learn how to minister, how to dispense, Christ as everything into others that they may be nourished, strengthened, encouraged, and built up. If we come together every Lord’s Day to prophesy, all the saints will be built up. This is not togetherness, the “piling up of materials,” but it is the fitting, the knitting, and the joining—the building up of the organic Body of Christ.
To prophesy in 1 Corinthians 14 is not to predict. Even the majority of what Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke was not prediction. Most of what Isaiah and Jeremiah wrote is a speaking forth of the Lord. The book of Isaiah is full of his rebuking of the children of Israel. This is speaking for the Lord and speaking forth the Lord. In the New Testament, to prophesy is to speak for the Lord, to speak forth the Lord, and to speak the Lord into people. This is to minister Christ, to dispense Christ, into people. By our speaking, Christ can be ministered to the listeners, so we all have to learn to prophesy. We need to throw all of our excuses into the “trash can.” As long as we can speak, we are able to prophesy.
We all need to have the desire for prophesying. This is why Paul tells us we need to pursue (v. 1a) and desire (vv. 1b, 39a) to prophesy. As we have pointed out we also need to learn to prophesy. Because others learn something when we prophesy (v. 31), that means that we had to learn it first.
According to our study of the New Testament, there are three constituting elements of prophesying: God’s living word of life (Acts 5:20), the instant moving of the Spirit, and the view through the enlightening of the divine light. First, we need to be acquainted with the living word, so we need to read the Bible every day. Every morning we should spend ten minutes to pray-read two verses, dwell upon them, and enjoy the Lord in them. If we drive to work, we can pray-read these verses again on the way. If we pray-read two verses a day for six days a week, we can be saturated with six hundred twenty-four verses in a year. We will become saturated, soaked, and fully acquainted with these verses. This will give us the knowledge of the Word, and the proper expressions and utterance in our speaking.
The second element we need is the instant inspiration of the Spirit. Because we are persons dwelling in the Word, we will be in the fellowship of the Lord, and our spirit will be exercised and ready to receive the instant inspiration of the Holy Spirit at any time. We need the word of God, and we need the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Third, we need the view through the enlightening of the divine light. Our sky needs to be clear. Under the divine enlightenment we can see the real situation of ourselves, the church, and the saints. Because we have such a view, we can speak when the inspiration comes. We speak what we see with the divine word under the inspiration of the Spirit and with His enlightenment. This is prophesying.
According to our experience, it is good to have the larger church meetings divided into groups of about fifty saints to make it easier for more saints to prophesy. It is best to select a book such as Romans and cover about one chapter a week. This chapter can be divided into six sections for the six days of the week with two key verses in each section to pray-read, dwell on, and dive into for our enjoyment of the Lord. By doing this, we will have some inspiration of the Spirit. Then we can write down a short reminder of the inspiration we receive each morning. On Saturday evening, we can put these six inspirations together to compose a prophecy of no more than three minutes to speak in the church meeting on the Lord’s Day. Some of the brothers may even function as coaches, instructors, or tutors to help the saints. After the saints compose a prophecy, they can present it to these brothers to help them improve it. We should practice our prophesying at home and either shorten it or lengthen it so that it is between two and a half to three minutes long. Then when we come to the church meeting, we will be prepared to speak for the Lord.
In the past the elders may have charged the saints to function, but the saints did not know what to speak or how to speak. With the fellowship that I have given in this chapter, we can have something to speak and can develop the skill to speak. This will fulfill 1 Corinthians 14:26—“Whenever you come together, each one has.” When we come to the Lord’s Day meeting, we already have something. We do not read what we have composed, but at the opportune time we speak what we have composed in a living way. Then our speaking will be full of riches. We can now say that we know how to prophesy, and we can have a prophecy for every church meeting. By our prophesying the church in our locality will be built up. We have the scriptural way of begetting people, nourishing the saints, perfecting the saints, and prophesying, speaking for the Lord. If we practice these four crucial matters, the church will be increased in number and everyone will function to speak.