Is Prophetic Ministry a Scam? Are We Ready to be Honest?
If I take the stance that all modern prophecy is fake, I lose 50% of my potential audience. If I tell you that prophecy is legitimate, I risk losing the other half.
I recognize this going in and I accept the risk.
I invite you to keep reading, and I’ll preface this by saying that I have experienced prophecy that was accurate and prophecy that was fake.
I don’t buy everything just to support “my people” and I don’t toss out the baby with the bath water because there’s been abuse.
Prophetic Fraud and Abuse
People who have sought prophetic words for guidance and direction are giving up on prophetic ministry.
In light of the continuous stream of scandals exposed on every level of Christian ministry, it’s easy to see why.
How could a man who cheated and looked up personal info on Facebook NOT be a fraud? How could a group of regional leaders giving a “word of the day” or “word for the new year” be legitimate? And what about the inaccurate prophecies and sexual scandals?
One such scandal led a prophetic minister to call out a significant word to a man in the crowd. The word was his girlfriend’s name, and she took the prophecy to be God’s stamp of approval on their relationship.
She married him and he physically abused her. She stayed in the marriage believing God had called her to walk by faith. She held onto hope that a miracle was coming.
It never did, and she eventually found the ability to leave despite her internal programming.
Taking a big picture view
To accurately map the prophetic movement, warts and all, it is necessary to take the sociologist's approach and think multi-generationally.
So much changes each year with advancements in technology that we've expected rapid levels of development and advancement in all areas.
It takes time and generations for people to observe, experiment, learn from mistakes, adapt, and try again, over and over.
First, there was a period where a few "special" and "gifted" people would prophesy. They were handed platforms and influence. These men often could not handle the fame and power to influence. After all, a gifting has never been dependent on holy character.
After a generation or two, the recognized "gifted" began to teach others a process. Those who had never been taught began teaching others.
They released tens of thousands of believers to practice on each other with what would still be seen as very slight training.
One result of this multi-generational period was the extremely flawed process of "interpretation", whereby a person receives an impression, a word, a phrase, etc and interprets or extrapolates full sentence and full thought meaning from that snippet.
One could only venture to guess the percentage of inaccurate words given during this period were significant.
A common mistake
The most common mistakes involved prophesying a much larger and dramatic life change when an accurate interpretation would have addressed the events of the current week.
People whose imaginations revolve around full-time ministry callings and delusions of grandeur prophesied earth changing callings and destinies over people who would only ever directly impact their immediate social group.
A generation of disillusioned believers resulted from the mishandling of incomplete information. People who want to believe that God still speaks.