How do continuationists respond to Justin Peters' challenge to modern charismatic prophets?
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A comparable challenge was issued to Jesus by the scribes & Pharisees:
38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:38-40)
To be sure, while I very much believe in the reality of modern prophets and that God is capable of dispensing any gift in the present that He dispensed in the past, I am highly skeptical of religious teachers who claim to use signs/charisma to draw attention to themselves, rather than to Jesus.
Jesus Himself regularly deferred to the Father.
In Jesus' warning against false prophets (see Matt. 7:15-20) there are at least two clear implications:
- There will be false prophets
- There will be true prophets (otherwise the instruction is unnecessary, He could simply warn against all prophets rather than teaching how to discern true vs. false)
In summary, Peters is asking the wrong question. If God gives a promise we can put His promise to the test (e.g. Malachi 3:10, John 7:17), but we do not dictate to God what He will or will not tell us.
While there may indeed be a good case for skepticism towards some who claim a prophetic calling, this does not logically justify rejection of all who claim to speak in the name of God. Some of the people of Jesus' day used the examples of false Messiahs (such as Judas the Galilean) as grounds for rejecting all purported Messiahs, and in so doing rejected the real Messiah. Emulating the generalizations of those who rejected the Son of God is an inadvisable strategy.
Additionally, I do not believe the type of toothpaste I use is particularly high on God's priority list.
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