(The following is the September 20 devotional from my Next Step Devotions book. Before reading it, I suggest you read 1 Thessalonians 5 and pay close attention to verses 12-22.)

As Paul ended 1 Thessalonians, he gave several brief appeals, including, “Don’t despise prophecies, but test all things. Hold on to what is good” (vv. 20-21). Bible scholars disagree on the nature of these prophecies. According to Grudem, “it should be defined not as ‘predicting the future,’ nor as ‘proclaiming a word from the Lord,’ nor as ‘powerful preaching’ – but rather as ‘telling something that God has spontaneously brought to mind.” * Given this understanding, Paul tells the readers to neither automatically accept nor reject statements that people claim God brought to their minds. Instead, hearers should test everything and hold on to what they deem good.

Paul would never have told the Thessalonians to test what Paul knew to be inspired words from God, such as Old Testament prophecies or first-century apostolic teaching. If a spoken word needs testing for truthfulness, it’s because the speaker may claim as a prophecy something untrue or wrongly attributed to God.

Some people occasionally claim to have a “word from the Lord.” How reliable are such claims? How do we test them? The best approach is to compare their statements with consistent teaching throughout the Bible, not limited verses or phrases. God doesn’t contradict himself, so he won’t speak through anyone with a message that contradicts specific biblical teaching or principles. We must know our Bible well through regular study to make this distinction.

“Test all things. Hold on to what is good.”

Next Step:
Have you heard someone claim to have a message from the Lord? How did you react? How should you test such claims in the future?

____________________

* Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 2nd ed., (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 1293.