Understanding “Prophet” in New Testament

Understanding “Prophet” in New Testament

When looking at the Old Testament, we see God use these people who are called Prophets. They write prophecies and lead Israel, warn Israel. They are almost like the Old Testament Spokesman or even in some cases spokeswoman of God to the nation of Israel. When we get to the New Testament the word Prophet pops us again, we got the gift of prophecies popping up under the list of the spiritual gifts. So does the Church now also have prophets like the Nation of Israel had prophets or is this different?

 This verse is 1 Corinthians 12:30 tells us the positions of the Church, as a whole. Like the whole body of Christ, from beginning to end of the Church Age period. The verse says, “And God has placed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, next miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, managing, various kinds of languages.” 

This verse got my eye when looking at it. I noticed it said “second prophets”, but aren’t the prophets before the apostles? Wouldn’t it be “First Prophets, Second Apostles”? Since the prophets are in the old testament. I did a little digging into this verse to find out what we can learn from this word “Prophet”. BibleHub is my source. 

According to Biblehub, we get this…

Original Word: προφήτης, ου, ὁ

Part of Speech: Noun, Masculine

Transliteration: prophétés

Phonetic Spelling: (prof-ay’-tace)

Definition: a prophet (an interpreter or forth-teller of the divine will)

Usage: a prophet, poet; a person gifted at expositing divine truth.

Under Usage, we can see all the ways this word can be used. The “A Prophet, Poet” part reminds me of the old testament terminology of the word prophet. Psalms are just a lot of poems. Some of the old testament prophets were poets, like King David. Now when looking at “a person gifted at expositing divine truth” reminds me of a Pastor of a Church. Pastors of churches have the gift of being able to open the bible and explain what we are reading. Like I’m doing right now. Being able to dig deep into the bible and find key things and create messages is a gift of a  προφήτης.