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-- © GodSpeak International 2009 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Authors: Jane Fitz-Gibbon <jane@icmi.org> http://www.icmi.org
Michael Gerner <mgerner@aol.com>
Teresa Seputis ts@godspeak.net http://www.godspeak.net
Editors: Al Vesper, Teresa Seputis

Judging Prophecy; 2nd Edition

Lesson 1

By Teresa Seputis

What We Are Doing And Why

How This Series Originally Came About

The first edition of this teaching series was originally written because of an incident that happened back on the prophetic school list back in August of 2000.

One of the list members sent out a word that turned out to be very problematic for many. The lady who gave this word was considered "very reliable." She was someone who had shared several words in the past that have ministered to a lot of people. But this particular word caused problems for many people on the list. I received several private emails from people expressing "concern." But at the same time, I also received multiple emails from people who felt that the word was very much a God word, sharing how it was very relevant to them.

I was a bit surprised that this word turned out to be so controversial. When I first saw it, the word seemed relatively 'nondescript' to me and I did not think about it much. But there were a lot of people who had strong opinions on both sides--some loved it and some hated it.

I was also surprised to discover that so many people were having a problem judging the word.

[Our policy about words submitted to the prophetic-school list is that we don't pre-judge them. We just screen them to make sure they are within the list charter, and if they are, then we pass them on to the list for the members to judge. (The charter doesn't allow words that are clearly unscriptural, judgment words, words of rebuke or correction, political opinion 'words,' or words that personally attack/criticize someone.) But if the word passes the "is it within the list charter" screening, we post it on to the list. The reason we do this is because the prophetic-school list is a place where people are allowed to learn, and we want to crate an atmosphere where it is "safe" to learn. People might make a few mistakes when they are learning, and present a word as "from God" when it really isn't. But we don't want to shut them down unduly by not giving them a chance to share their words. So we post their words to the list and expect that the list members will judge each word for themselves, then accept or reject each word accordingly.]

In the case of this "controversial" word, many people on the list did precisely what we expected. But many others were not able to do so. God used this incident to show me that not everyone on the list understood how to judge a word. I also discovered that some of the people who understood how to judge a word were hesitant to do so. They were not comfortable with their ability and they were afraid they might inadvertently reject something that might turned out to be really be from God.

This particular word troubled a lot of people. A big part of the reason for that was because the lady who gave it had a long track record of being very reliable and of giving "powerful" words. A lot of people on the list trusted her hearing but they found the message of this particular word "problematic," and they did not know how to resolve that tension. Some people were hesitant to judge the word because they were concerned that if the judged her word, it would be the same thing as judging the person who gave it.

Personally I did not have any problems with the message of this word, but it was clear that a lot of people did. Some people really related to this word and felt that it was God speaking personally to them. Others felt a check in their spirit about this word. For instance, I got an email from a pastor (who I respect immensely) sharing how this word raised "red flags" in him. He had never commented on any words on the list before, but this one bothered him enough that he wrote me about it.

This all drove me to prayer and pondering the situation. While I was seeking God on this, the Lord began to speak to me and put the pieces together. He showed me how there was a very practical need on the list to discuss judging words.

And right after the Lord "threw the problem in my face," He rearranged the teaching schedule for the list. We had a new course scheduled to start the following Monday, but something unforeseen came up and the author was unable to get it to me in time for the scheduled start date. He estimated that it would be at least three weeks late, leaving a hole in our teaching material.

At first I thought the "hole" in teaching material was a disaster, but God told me that it was His hand, and that He was making space for us to address the topic of 'judging a word' just at the time when that was an issue on the list.

So Mike Gerner and I quickly co-authored a 5-part teaching series on judging prophecy. Mike had actually written most of his material before for another purpose, and gave me permission to use it in our "new" teaching series. In addition, Jane Fitz-Gibbon (who was on the leadership core at that time) had written a 4-part series two years earlier that sort of addressed the same topic. We referenced her series in the "new" one, and felt that the two series together provided people with the information that they needed to learn to effectively judge prophetic words.

Why We Are Having A Second Edition

Here we are nine years later and God suddenly wants us to revisit the same topic again. To tell you the truth, I don't know why God said to do this right now (at this particular time) but I am guessing He has a good reason for it.

As I write this, the current series (course 47 on The Judgments Of God) is one week away from ending. I was originally planning to "re-run" a series we haven't taught in 5 years. It would have been very easy to for me to prepare it...just some simple copying files and editing links to the new course number, and would only take four or five hours to put together.

But as I was preparing to do that, the Lord spoke to me. He told me that He wanted our next teaching series to revisit the earlier Judging Prophecy teachings. My first thought was to "rerun" each of the two series, which hadn't been seen on the list in 11 and 9 years respectively. It wouldn't have been very time-consuming for me to set that up, about the same level of work as my original plan. But God told me that He had another idea. He wanted me to do a lot more work than simply re-run the two older teachings--He asked me to create a second edition from them which involved hours and hours of editing, rearranging lessons, breaking them up into smaller units, etc. In short, He was telling me to do something that is about 35 to 40 hours of work...and only giving me a week to do it in--and that request came at a time when my schedule was already pretty busy.

You might say that His request came at an inconvenient time for me, but His direction to do this was very clear. So I am guessing that His timing on releasing the 'second edition' is as critical and strategic as His timing had been on the fist one--at least for some of the people on the list.

So, What Is The Game Plan?

We have cleaned up the earlier lessons a bit. They basically present the same material, but hopefully are a little easier to read. First we will share Jane's teaching, which has become five lessons instead of four. She will start by building a foundation, explaining the differences between Old and New Testament prophesy. Then she will address the question "what should we do when we receive a prophesy," from two angles: 1) what to do when someone gives us a word they claim is from God and 2) what to do when God gives us a word for someone else.

Next, Michael will offer a fairly comprehensive set of criteria for judging words. He will discuss things like why we need to judge it and what our attitude should be as we judge prophesy. Then he will detail ten different criteria we can use to determine whether or not the word we are judging really is from God.

After that, Teresa (that's me) will share a handout we use at my church in our prophetic team ministry. That handout shares a bit of what we should expect from most New Testament prophecy, gives seven criteria on how to judge it, and how to process (and respond to) a word once you have decided it really is from God.

Then I will share two case studies. The first will look at the corporate word that I talked about earlier...the one that was so controversial back in August of 2000. The second will look at a 'troublesome' personal word that was given to me, and the steps I followed to evaluate it.

Note

You will notice that this series presents more than one point of view on how to judge prophesy. That is because it is written by three separate people. We all agree on the general principles, but we don't see eye-to- eye on all of the specific details. For instance, Jane likes to leave words she is unsure of "on the shelf" for however long it takes for the Lord to either confirm or deny the word. But I prefer (in most cases) to either accept or reject a word instead of leaving it on the shelf. That is because I am concerned that the enemy can empower the not-God words against us (almost like a curse) if we don't reject them.

I am not going to say that I am right and Jane is wrong (or vice versa). I am guessing that in some cases, Jane's way is better and in some cases my way is better. I feel it is important to present more than one view on some of the implementation details. That way you can be aware of the options, so you can prayerfully sort out how you will judge prophecy.


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-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.net> --

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