Thursday, December 22, 2005
The Problem With Prophets
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal carried an extensive piece on the mission of the author of The Prayer of Jabez, Bruce Wilkinson, to Swaziland. (subscription required)
Essentially our Mr. Wilkinson, after making millions with his book and related media enterprises got "a word" to go help the poor starving Africans. He did a lot of good for a while, but then he got "a word" too far, ran afoul of the local government and stormed away in a huff. So much for the effectiveness of The Prayer of Jabez. Oh yeah, and so much for the credibility of Christian mission when the going gets tough and the missionaries run home.
This is a tremendous example of precisely the kind of thing that scares cessassionists to death. The problem with prophets is that they usually don't know where they end and God starts. How's that for blunt?
There is a reason, I think, that the gifts are not universally effective. It's just too easy to think the gifts are ours when they are really God's. Sometimes, I think that's why we don't always get the answers to prayer we want. God wants to remind us of just precisely who is in charge, and it ain't us.
This stuff is especially egregious because of the number of followers a guy like this accumulates and the disillusions that follow in the wake of such events.
Essentially our Mr. Wilkinson, after making millions with his book and related media enterprises got "a word" to go help the poor starving Africans. He did a lot of good for a while, but then he got "a word" too far, ran afoul of the local government and stormed away in a huff. So much for the effectiveness of The Prayer of Jabez. Oh yeah, and so much for the credibility of Christian mission when the going gets tough and the missionaries run home.
This is a tremendous example of precisely the kind of thing that scares cessassionists to death. The problem with prophets is that they usually don't know where they end and God starts. How's that for blunt?
There is a reason, I think, that the gifts are not universally effective. It's just too easy to think the gifts are ours when they are really God's. Sometimes, I think that's why we don't always get the answers to prayer we want. God wants to remind us of just precisely who is in charge, and it ain't us.
This stuff is especially egregious because of the number of followers a guy like this accumulates and the disillusions that follow in the wake of such events.
Word of Mr. Wilkinson's decision slowly reached Swaziland, where it dismayed his followers. "I don't know how to handle this," said Rev. Zakes Nxumalo. "People won't understand; to them Bruce is everything," he added. "How can he leave everything in the middle of the road?" asked 22-year-old Gcina Mdluli, who has taken a vow of sexual abstinence and now volunteers full-time in Mr. Wilkinson's school anti-AIDS programs.You see, "the prophet" not only confuses himself with God, often his followers do to. Actions like this creates such a spiritual turmoil in disciples that many, so many, end up cursing God and the church.
Mr. Wilkinson says that he blames neither God nor man. He says he weeps when he thinks of his disappointed acolytes, and is trying to come to grips with a miracle that didn't materialize despite his unceasing recitation of the Jabez prayer.Mr. Wilkinson I would suggest to you that weeping is insufficient. At a minimum comfort is called for -- you are not in ministry for you, you are in ministry for your "acolytes" - your duty is to them. Get you butt back to Swaziland and get busy leading the congregation you have built. Leave the rest of it up to God.
