In 1 Thessalonians 5:19–21, we find a curious series of exhortations: “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything.”
What exactly did the apostle Paul mean when he urged the believers in Thessalonica not to “quench the Spirit”? And what are we supposed to do about “prophecies”? Are our churches “quenching the Spirit” when we discourage the sharing of “words from the Lord” and instead look to the steady, systematic teaching of Scripture?
J. B. Phillips’s paraphrase of the New Testament is helpful here: “Never damp the fire of the Spirit, and never despise what is spoken in the name of the Lord.” Prophecy, as Paul uses the term here, is not strictly a word of revelation that comes to a man or woman at a moment in time; it is the word of God proclaimed—in whatever context (1 Peter 4:10–11; 2 Peter 1:20).
At one time in the history of God’s people, to benefit from such prophecy required testing prophets (Deut. 18:18–22). In our time, it will mean attending to the Word of God recorded in the Scriptures and testing the preachers who proclaim it. If we are to be aflame with the Spirit, we’ll only become so by listening properly to God’s Word.
“Do Not Despise Prophecies”
While we can’t say with certainty what is the context of these statements from Paul, we can venture some educated guesses that—accurate or not—will give us an idea of the ways we can go wrong.
Perhaps, as in Corinth, there were some in Thessalonica who treated speaking in tongues as a greater gift than forthright teaching (1 Cor. 14). Such men and women would have dramatized the spectacular and diminished the mundane. If that is the case, then Paul would be saying, essentially, “I don’t want you to ignore and despise the clear teaching of God on account of these other things. Give it due honor.” In other words, we are not to be gullible, becoming so enamored with what’s novel and exciting that we ignore what is clear and plain.
On the other hand, it’s not too far a stretch to imagine that these admonitions may have been responding to a fascination with the question of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:1–11; 2 Thess. 2:1–2). Perhaps, as happens today, speculation ran rampant to the point of incredulity, so that reasonable people were tempted to do away with the question of Christ’s return altogether: “Oh, it’s all just conjecture and hype!” Of course, the fact that some people mistreat the Word is no excuse for despising it. We cannot become so impatient with the overly excitable that we roll our eyes at the truths from which they have launched themselves into speculation.
When God’s Word is proclaimed, we should pay attention. We should guard ourselves from distraction on the one hand and scorn on the other.
So when Paul says, “Do not despise prophecies,” whatever he meant then, what it means now is simply this: When God’s Word is proclaimed, we should pay attention. We should guard ourselves from distraction on the one hand and scorn on the other. Whatever anyone else is doing, God’s Word is God’s Word.
But if we’re to be neither gullible nor cynical when it comes to God’s Word, what alternative is left to us? Paul’s answer is direct and clear: “Test everything.” In its adjectival form, the Greek word for “test” appears in 2 Timothy 2:15, where Paul speaks to Timothy as a teacher of the Word: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, … rightly handling the word of truth” (emphasis added; c.f. 1 Thess. 2:4). Just as a widget in a factory gets inspected and approved before it is shipped, so we ought to test the teaching of the Word against proven standards before we take it for truth.
Tests of Content
Every test requires some sort of rubric, some set of standards against which we’re to measure the results produced by the test-taker. In the case of the proclamation of God’s Word from our churches’ pulpits, we might consider a rubric consisting first of three tests of content.
First of all, we should always test the teaching of the Scriptures against the Scriptures themselves. This is what the Bereans did: “They received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). We may ask: Does what is being declared here accord with the plain truth of the whole Bible? (This means we should likewise beware of those who either tell us they have something novel to teach or draw outlandish conclusions from obscure passages of Scripture removed from their context.)
Many have been roped to error through ignorance of the truth about Jesus.
Second, we should ask if the teaching accords with who Jesus is and what He has done. The cults—Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and so on—love to use the language of Scripture with respect to Jesus while denying the truth of His divine identity. “We love Jesus,” they say. “He is a son of God.” Of course, that choice of article—a rather than the—is important. Yet many have been roped to error through ignorance of the truth about Jesus.
Third, we should consider whether the teaching accords with the Gospel of God’s free and saving grace. “Even if we or an angel from heaven,” Paul says, “should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed!” (Gal. 1:8). False teachers always tell us to work our way to heaven, or else tell us that works don’t matter at all. To that we must say, “By no means!” (Rom. 6:2, 15).
Tests of Character
Beyond these three tests of content, we might add two tests of character to our rubric.
First, we ought to test whether the character of the speaker accords with the truth of the Scriptures. The central question should not, of course, be “Is this man perfect?”—for there’s only been one perfect man. A better question is “Is this person for real? Is the Gospel he preaches with his mouth steadily upheld by his own works?”
Jesus tells us, “Beware of false prophets …. You will recognize them by their fruits. … Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit” (Matt. 7:15–18). A wicked, unrepentant heart cannot live a consistent life of spiritual fruit.
Second, we should consider the impact of teachers’ teaching on the character of their listeners. A truly prophetic message that brings God’s Word to bear upon God’s people within the climate of their day will strengthen and equip. It will encourage and comfort. It will bring conviction of sin. It will bring an awareness of God. It will be conducive to peace, love, and order.
Of course, true teaching will not always produce widespread repentance. The prophets were rejected. So was Jesus. So were the apostles. Yet even when we test a rejected preacher, we should find that he is rejected for his good word and that he taught with the aim of building up in the truth.
Holding On to Good, Avoiding Evil
In the verses that follow his admonition to “test everything,” Paul urges his readers to “hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess. 5:21–22). Like a discerning clerk accepting a cash payment, we need to know the true from the false. A little boy may be ecstatic when he gets his first game of Monopoly and finds that it is filled with cash. Perhaps only slowly and with great disappointment will it dawn on him that the money can only buy property on the board—and that only lasts until the game is over and the pieces are put back in the box.
When it comes to biblical teaching, we need to know the difference. As followers after Jesus, we’re to be neither roped in by the mere appearance of good nor jaded by all the bad we’ve seen. Rather, testing and approving, we are to hold on to the good and vehemently reject what is evil.
This article was adapted from the sermon “Listening to the Word of God” by Alistair Begg.
