Prophesying excels the other spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 14:12). It is the particular gift for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 14:4-5). Prophesying is excelling because it builds up the church. No other way or gift directly builds up the church as much as prophesying. First Corinthians 14:1 says, “Pursue love, and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.” In this verse prophesying is above all the spiritual gifts. Prophesying is the high point. We have to pursue love and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but we should rather speak the Lord out from within us into others.
Verse 12 says, “So also you, since you are zealots of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the building up of the church.” If we seek to speak in tongues, our seeking is too low. We should rather seek to excel by seeking the top gift. To prophesy excels all other gifts. No other gift is as excelling as prophesying. It is the top gift.
First Corinthians 14:31 also promotes prophesying. This verse says that the believers can all prophesy that all may learn and that all may be encouraged. Prophesying here is not to foretell. It is to teach and to encourage. Therefore, all can do it. Verses 24 and 25 say, “But if all prophesy and some unbeliever or unlearned person enters, he is convicted by all, he is judged by all; the secrets of his heart become manifest; and so falling on his face, he will worship God, reporting that God is really among you.” By saying “if all prophesy,” Paul indicates that we all can do it and we all should do it. The believers should all prophesy to convict people and to judge people.
The characteristic of prophesying is that prophesying ministers Christ for the organic building up of the church. As we have pointed out, this is mainly carried out in the larger meetings of the church. We should pursue prophesying and desire to prophesy (1 Cor. 14:1, 39a). Moreover, we need to learn to prophesy (v. 31).
As we have seen before, we should first preach the gospel so that sinners are made living members of Christ. Then we need to have home meetings to nourish, cherish, and establish the new ones. We further need to group them together, to have fellowship with them, to pray for them, to have the mutual care, to teach them the truth, and to promote the seeking after life. By this the new ones will be perfected to do for others what we are doing for them. Then once a week we should come together to practice speaking forth the Lord, to minister the Lord to all the saints. This should not be by just one or two speakers, but by all the saints mutually. We should have mutual speaking, mutual listening, and mutual building up. This is the direct organic building up of the Body of Christ. Therefore, it is the excelling way.
In order to learn to prophesy, we need to enjoy the Lord in a portion of the Word every morning. The way to do this is by pray-reading. Do not try to pray-read a whole chapter. This may be compared to eating a breakfast which is too large. We should choose a portion of the Word consisting of ten or fewer verses. Among these few verses there may be two verses which we especially enjoy, and we can concentrate on these. By doing this every morning we will receive inspiration, and we can take notes on the spiritual inspiration we receive. They do not need to be long notes; short notes with certain points as reminders are adequate. Then we should put all the notes, the inspirations of the past six mornings, together on the last day of the week to compose a prophecy for a three-minute speaking by exercising our spirit. Our speaking should not be too long or too short. Limiting our speaking to three minutes will help everyone to preserve the time in the meetings.
It is best to have some tutors, tutoring us on how to compose a prophecy. Those who know how to do this adequately can go out to visit some new ones to look at their composition to improve it or adjust it and to help them learn more. We should then practice speaking what we have composed, checking to see whether it is three minutes or more. If it is too long, we can shorten it. In this way we will have a proper prophecy prepared in writing. On the next day, the Lord’s Day, we will go to the church meeting having something. This will fulfill 1 Corinthians 14:26, which says that when we come together, “each one has.” Everyone has something. When our time comes, we will speak, not read, our prophecy, and when we speak, we may add something to make it richer and more living.
In the past, many were afraid that they had nothing to speak. Some may even have thought of not coming to the meeting. To attend the meeting was a hard matter for them. They considered that they did not have anything to speak and did not know how to speak. They felt that while the elders had much to speak, they did not have anything. However, through what we have learned about how to prophesy, our situation has now changed. Now we can have something, and we can have the boldness to take the opportunity to speak. Formerly, we may have waited for the meeting to be over so we could be dismissed. Now, however, we will be waiting for the opportunity to speak. We will be anxious to have time to speak. For this reason it is better not to have one or two hundred meeting together. This is too many. According to our experience, it is better to have about fifty, at most seventy, in a meeting. When we reach eighty, we should divide into two meetings. If there are fifty, about one-third of the attendants can speak. Twenty speakers can each occupy three minutes, using exactly one hour.
We should also always be ready in our spirit to receive the instant inspiration of the Spirit. If we are living a revived and overcoming life and are one with the Lord, we will always be ready to receive instant inspiration.
We also need to have the spiritual insight into all matters through the enlightening of the divine light, that is, through the enjoyment of the Lord in the Word. If we have the Word, and in our spirit we are ready to receive inspiration, then we will also have the insight over all things, even in all matters, through the enlightening of the divine light. Prophecy is always composed of the Word, inspiration, and the divine light. We need to put all the foregoing principles concerning prophesying into practice for the organic building up of the church.