Young Friends in London look at the study booklet

John Fitzgerald shares thoughts from his Bible study group in London, United Kingdom.

This week, our Bible study group looked at the study booklet for the FWCC Triennial, and considered the theme: 'Finding the Prophetic Voice for our time; (1 Corinthians 14:1).

We each looked at a couple of articles in the study booklet. It was really interesting to find such a range of responses to the theme. The Bible passage in 1 Corinthians 14 was interesting, too; it has quite a few caveats about how the church should respond to prophecy.

I looked in particular at articles from Bainito Wamalwa and Charlie Lamb, partly because I know them both well. I liked what Bainito had to say about how much the Bible has for us in terms of guidance about prophecy. I also agreed with Bainito on how important it is to nurture ministers and prophets in our community.

Charlie made some strong points, arguing that we may have lost some of our commitment to prophecy in our desire to be loving and welcoming to all. I feel Charlie is right to point out that many Quakers find 'sin' a very difficult word, and that this could be problematic for our ability to proclaim God's truth.

In our group discussion, we spent quite a while thinking about how we could identify a genuinely prophetic message. We had a strong sense that a prophetic message might well come as a 'voice in the wilderness', at odds with accepted thinking and traditional culture. But we agreed that simply going against the grain of accepted culture was not in itself a guarantee of prophecy.

While a prophet might shake a church to its foundations, there must also be a way for a prophetic message to be heard and tested- balancing openness with the need for discernment (some useful words in 1 Corinthians 14:33).

We also considered prophecy at a personal level- in essence, speaking out against sin, as Charlie described in his passage. In the modern culture of choice, this can feel very uncomfortable. We hoped that when called to challenge sin, we would have the reassurance that we were being faithful to the Spirit in speaking out.