When you hear a prophecy, how do you know it’s from God?

First Corinthians 14:1 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.

My Sunday Brunch blog post a few weeks ago about psychics has spurred me to write about prophecy.

About ten years ago, after my first book (Promises To Keep) was released, I received an email from a local person, asking me to speak at her sister’s, Tee’s, birthday party. I accepted the invite and I arrived at the event, impressed by the large expensive house as well as the nice, immaculately-dressed party guests. We had a fancy dinner, complete with Cornish game hens, and a nice breeze blowing through the open windows.

I started talking about my writing experiences and about how I came to be published. One of the male party members asked me if I’d ever thought about sending my book to Oprah. I responded, “No, I don’t think Oprah likes to read romance novels.”

Then, Tee, the fifty-year-old birthday woman, quickly touched her forehead, and closed her eyes. She then looked at me and said, “Oh, by the way, you’re going to be on Oprah.” The whole “prophecy” experience was very quick and I barely paid it any attention.

Later, when I went to my car to get more books, D.(Tee’s boyfriend), comes outside and says, “Did you hear what Tee said about your being on Oprah?”

I said, “Yeah…”

He said, “Well, it’s true. You know Tee’s an ordained prophet.”

I said, “No, I didn’t realize that.” The whole subject of ordained prophecy was foreign to me.

Afterwards, when I got home, I glanced at the program that they’d handed out during the birthday party. The program had Tee’s picture on the front and the program also mentioned that Tee was an ordained prophet. I didn’t realize the birthday guest was an “ordained prophet” until I’d arrived at the party.

I have no idea if Tee is really an ordained prophet. But, if she says that she is an ordained prophet and I have no proof disputing that, then I feel that I can’t disbelieve her. I only saw this person once, and since my knowledge of this subject is sketchy, I can only speculate.

I still haven’t appeared on the Oprah show, but, I have no idea what, exactly, Tee was “seeing.” I guess it could still happen in the future, perhaps, since Oprah is still on TV (although her talk show was cancelled).

In First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul speaks of the spiritual gifts, but, he really advocates the gift of prophecy. The greatest gift is love, but, prophecy is placed on a higher level than speaking in tongues. The fact that Paul says that we should especially desire the gift of prophecy makes me stop and wonder about this topic. The word prophet is thrown around and used so much nowadays – it’s a common term and it’s kind of hard to know who, exactly, is a real prophet.

What, exactly, is an ordained prophet? Who ordains a prophet? Also, when somebody says that they are a prophet, how can you be sure that they’re telling you a message from God? Someone pointed out to me that sometimes psychics will disguise themselves as prophets – do you think that this is true? Leave your responses in the comments, please.

Also, a quick change in subject, if you have a Kindle and want to read a simple, heartwarming romance, then you should try my Love Inspired title, First Mates. I’ve been getting some reader mail recently about this title and I think you might find this cruise-ship-romance story very enjoyable. I’ve been getting positive comments from both male and female readers recently.

~Cecelia Dowdy~