1 Corinthians 12:8–11: “For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, and another the message of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as it decides to each person, who produces all these things.”

I am now on verse 10: “To another performance of miracles, to another prophecy.” Prophecy is saying things that are from the mind of God for the moment. Paul wrote to Timothy, “Based on the prophecies spoken about you, you should be encouraged to fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 1:18). In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul wrote that when somebody comes into your midst and all of you are prophesying, the secrets of his heart are revealed (1 Corinthians 14:24–25). And he said the one who prophesies speaks for consolation, encouragement, and strengthening (1 Corinthians 14:3).

So it is personal. Prophecy is personal. Did you get that? Prophecy is personal. He says you speak to people for strengthening, encouragement, and consolation, and he differentiates it from knowledge. In the same book he says, “When I come to you, I will come with revelations, or with knowledge, or with prophecy, or with teaching” (1 Corinthians 14:6). That knowledge might be by revelation, that knowledge might be through what has been learned, that the Holy Spirit is stirring up to be of benefit to other people. He is saying, “Let everything be done for the benefit of others” (1 Corinthians 14:26). And he is saying, “You really want gifts? Why don’t you redirect your attention to prophecy and look at how much benefit you can have from prophecy,” rather than a fixation on tongues, where you are speaking in the congregation and somebody comes into your midst and does not know what you are saying and thinks that you are lunatics (1 Corinthians 14:23).

The person speaking in tongues, if there is no interpreter—I am still going to come to that—is like making sound that has no meaning, even though he is saying something, but it makes no meaning to the other person (1 Corinthians 14:9–11, 28).

The reason I am saying all this is because some people want to say that now prophecy is what you do in every message. No. A lot of the message that will come is knowledge. It takes time to establish knowledge, to really teach the truth. When Jesus Christ said, “Go and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19–20), that is knowledge—just knowledge, information that they have received from Jesus, that they are supposed to continually pass on to others and repeat and pass on.

When we are told that they continued in the apostles’ teaching (Acts 2:42), the focus was knowledge, not prophecy. So to have a kind of message in which you say, “Prophecy is now what we do when the pastor is preaching for 40 minutes”—no, that is not the point Paul is trying to make. Paul is not trying to say, “Everything is now prophecy.” No. He is saying, “You want to excel when it comes to gifts? Then focus on prophecy” (1 Corinthians 14:1, 12).

When you look at what Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, “You have received these prophecies; they should encourage you” (1 Timothy 1:18). So you see that word “prophecy”: personal words that have come to Timothy, words that have his name on them, the message with his name on it. They are supposed to serve as encouragement for him.

So when you say that prophecy should be for encouragement, for consolation, and for strengthening, and then you say that means all the preaching you go and prepare—the two‑point sermon—is now prophecy, no, it is not prophecy in my estimation. It is not prophecy. Prophecy is personal. Prophecy is personal.

It always involves the mind of God—whether information about that person that the person does not know, that people do not know, or it could be talking about the future. When Jesus Christ said, “You are Simon… you will be called Cephas (which is translated Peter)” (John 1:42), that was because of the function Peter was going to serve in the church. Not Simon, not “reed,” but Peter, “rock.” That word will encourage him. That word will strengthen him because it is personal to him.

So prophecy is personal, and it is always personal. When Jesus Christ sent messages to the churches in Revelation, that is prophecy; it is personal to those churches (Revelation 2–3). A lot of the prophecy we have in the Old Testament is particular. It may not be individual, as in someone with a name and surname; it could be individual, as in a nation. Many times, it has to do with Israel—God speaking to Israel, or God speaking to a group within Israel. He could be talking to the prophets, He could be talking to the priests, He could even name names and speak to them.

So prophecy is always personal. That is the point I am trying to make.

God bless you.