Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HŰP Tol. JC£_ Special^uober 1968 No 2-64-(07768)

in a topical manner, closelyopplied to the speci£ic_situati-ons. There was a need for this ministry jüor the very reason that Jesus left no Holy-Scriptures to his congregation but sent out men with the commission to preach the Gospel in the wear Id, that is, in the way of applying the message to the given situations. Iposinalin-ministry, therefore, is explicitly prophetic ministry.

We also read about prophets, beside the apostles, but we knew verj little about the content of their ministry, except tint they worked in the congregations and enjoyed great authoritys What Paul writes about them in the 14th chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians is of particular importance. We are going to sum up the oontents of this often analysed chapter in a few theses,, The prophet is a charismatic person who performs his ministry by virtue of the special spiritual gift of prqpheoy received from God0 The prophet is net alone; he is in the cangregptioru The other members of the congregation, too, must strive to receive the gift of prophecy. The prophetic utterance is intelligible and reasonable speech to the cogency of which the non-believers also defer. Unitelligible speech cannot claim prophetic authority for itself. In general, the prophetic minis try has no supreme and unconditional authority in the congregation It is, first of all, subject to the person and message of Jesus Christs only that spirit is from God that recognizes Jesus as the Lord, and only that man is prophet who accepts the word of Jesus as the final authority. Thai the Christian prophet must also know tint he is not the only prophet of Jesus Christy Hence he must listen to the other prophets and yield to the clear and intelligible utterance of the other prophets0 And at last, prophecy is not an end in itself; it is for the congregation of Christ, for the Church. The test of the prophetic message is whether or not it builds up the congregation-. And this means whether or not it makes the congregation grow in faith in Jesus Christ and in love to our fellowmen,

Although Paul attaches great importance to the ministry of the prephets in the Church (Ephesians 3sll), he does not call himself a prophet. It is obvious that, in his view, prophecy is included in his apóst olate0 We would give a faulty portrait of him if we failed to consider the prophetic traits cf his apostolic ministryo But we do not think primarily of his visions (2 Cor 12:l), neither of his occasional intimations about the knowledge of the secrets of God (Romans U;25), but it is the whole of his doctrine of Justification and the whole of his theology that must be called prophetic since in these he gave guidance to the life of the Church at a Juncture of history with true prophetic vision# His doctrine of Justification now pressed into the dogmatic fbrms cf the Church might hardly suggest to us today, that this teaching was originally of an incomparably novel and prophetic character. But it will suffice to point to the career of the apostolé; it was a typically prophetic career. His own people, the chosen people of God, failed to understand and accept his message, aid he was taken captive in the holy city, Jerusalem.

Paul's Gospel is prophetic in tint it does not formally repeat the preaching czf Jesus but formulates, in view of the life and teaching of Jesus, of his death and resurrection, the Gospel of God's free grace. His doctrine of Justification is confession to Jesus Chi’ist who, out of love, offers him-