3 Vital Prophetic Roles that Will Transform Your Calling

As we journey from Genesis to Revelation, we gain an increasing understanding about the prophet’s role.

The job description gets shaped and endorsed by God and the prophet’s role starts in the Old Testament and develops, with new facets, in the New Testament. Contrary to what some people think, God did not end the role of the prophets with the end of the Old Testament. As the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and His church is birthed, the Lord gives us three specific passages in the New Testament that develop the prophet’s responsibility, in addition to what they have already been given in the Hebrew Scriptures. Therefore, what we see in the Old Testament becomes a standard for today, with extra requirements for the New Covenant church added into the role and job definition.

This is of the utmost importance because if we lose the foundational understanding of the role from the Old Testament, we lose all authority given to us as prophets to assist the church today to know the timings of God, the holiness of God, and the priorities of God. Nowhere in the Bible does God scrap the Old Testament principles of what a prophet should be and begin again! Instead, He enhances the role and brings extra clarity, as He requires New Covenant prophets to take on board extra tasks for the well-being and leadership of all believers. Therefore, do not ignore the Old Testament in shaping your understanding of the prophetic office.

Let’s look at the three New Covenant additions to the role of prophet:

1. Prophets Are Foundational

You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:19-20 NIV).

Apostles and prophets become foundational to the establishing and flourishing of the household of God. We pivot around Jesus Christ, who works in conjunction with apostles and prophets to set the tone, shape, and structure by which the household thrives. This means that apostolic and prophetic ministry in the household of God is supposed to be like baking bread in your home—the aroma goes everywhere, with ease. It should not be a fight. Everyone in the house should smell revelation and it will feel natural, good, and pleasing to them. This is the heavenly atmosphere that should be in the church.

Prophets who are truly foundational do not spend their time only prophesying or training people to give words or bring words. Rather, they are building a prophetic culture and they are ensuring a revelatory climate is maintained. This should release and shift prophets from always feeling that they need to be bringing the “Word of the Lord” and instead into bringing the Lord of the Word, where everything gets shadowed in revelation. In this way, a prophetic movement underpins the House of God, and the spirit of prophecy is woven into every facet of our lives as Christians.

Consider that some prophets in Scripture have very little to say but instead create monumental shift. For example, John the Baptist, whom Jesus describes as the greatest prophet who ever lived, only gets a few lines of prophecy, but his ability to change atmospheres is great. Therefore, prophets don’t do all the prophesying! Prophets cast a revelatory shadow that gives a value for the voice of God over everything and everyone.

The concept is reminiscent of King Saul, who comes into his right mind when shadowed by a company of prophets led by Samuel (see 1 Samuel 10:11). If we cannot let heavenly revelation shadow us and we stop the prophets from bringing their revelatory anointings, which are foundational for us all, then we will find that the church loses its rightmindedness and specifically its ability to be on time with God, for timings are the specialty of the prophetic community. (The Hebrew tribe of Issachar was the prophetic clan who knew the times and seasons and set the calendar for all the children of Israel.)

The same principle applies to the apostolic, who must bring a saturated culture full of strategy and the ability to release and send people into their high call and into godly risk taking. My father, Pastor John Hansford, is a gifted Bible teacher and biblical literacy runs off him like rivers and waterfalls in every conversation. Lots of people who know him will testify that anytime he is in the room, and even when he is silent, he exudes a value for the authenticity and authority of the Word of God. His gift to the body of Christ is not to do all the teaching, but to give a value to the house that we need taught, and that Scripture is worth devouring for all it is worth. If you have spent any time with an evangelist, their anointing will inspire you to rededicate your life to Jesus, even if you have known Jesus and been saved by Him for many years!

So we begin to understand that the office of the prophet is a cultural role in establishing atmosphere for the House of God, as well as timings, direction, and correction. There is rarely ever a place in Scripture where a prophet turns up to pat you on the back and say, “Well done!” Their gift is the provocation that they give you to get into the right place with God and carry the right vision for what God wants to do with and through you on the earth today.

Prophecy often goes wrong in a church context when it is added as bolt-it-on to what is already happening. Desperate leaders just want to keep the weird prophetic people happy, and slightly removed from doing anything wild, dangerous, or upsetting to the established direction of travel!

But a prophetic culture is not always about taking a microphone or having a platform as a statement that the prophet or prophecy has arrived. It’s not even about putting prophetic people into their own group on the sidelines. Instead, it must be a culture that comes up from the foundations. Leaders and prophetic types must work on this culture together, with relational intelligence.

2. Established Prophets Are Leaders

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12 NASB95).

Prophets don’t have a prophetic gift, they are a gift, chosen by God and anointed by God. They are a gift to the church and to the nations. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors (shepherds), teachers—anyone in this list of five—once they are established in their fivefold office, they form the leadership structure that God puts in place and uses for the development-raising and maturity of the people of God. The prophet is part of the government and leadership of God on the earth and therefore has the responsibility to help steer and accompany the people.

3. The Prophet’s Remit

In Revelation 10, John the Revelator gives us perhaps the most succinct and comprehensive understanding of what his job description involves:

Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings” (Revelation 10:11 NIV).

This is a prophet’s remit in the New Covenant: to prophesy about peoples, nations, languages, and kings. So if you’ve ever heard someone claim, “I’m a national prophet,” or, “I’m a prophet to nations” (which are in common parlance within today’s prophetic movements and on social media) it is an unnecessary thing to say. Perhaps these extra phrases simply come from the unhelpful swagger of youthful enthusiasm, but they are redundant because when you become established as a prophet, you will have, by very definition, a remit that includes peoples, nations, languages, and kings. The office of the prophet by virtue of call gives a broad and far-reaching sphere of responsibility.

Very rarely in the body of Christ do we have a lack of authority to remove a demon, work a miracle, or receive revelation. More commonly we have a lack of mandate and permission from God to use that authority. We are spokespeople for God in that we speak where He says, to whom He says, to the people group He says, to the nation He says, and never according to our own preference or our own agenda.

To summarize: in addition to all that we see prophets do in the Old Testament, prophets in the New Covenant have a responsibility to 1) steer the atmosphere of the church; 2) lead the people, equipping them for works and building them up; 3) prophesy to peoples, nations, and their leaders—as God commands.