do not lightly esteem prophecies;
This letter closes with quick, short commands, and this one stands right beside "Do not quench the Spirit." That placement raises three questions: what is prophecy here, why would anyone think little of it, and what does honouring it look like?
Verses 19 and 20 are not two separate topics. The second command tells you what the first one means.
The call here is not the personal one of Ephesians 4, "do not grieve the Spirit." It is "Do not quench the Spirit," followed by "Do not despise prophecies," and that pairing fixes its true meaning. Both assume the free action of the Holy Spirit in the assembly. There even the least member of Christ must not hinder His general movement. And no one may despise Him in His highest way of dealing with souls, which is "prophesying."
Another writer puts the same link in a picture from the schoolroom.
"Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies" (1 Thess. 5:19-20). They are coupled together; the one who despises one loses both. If the student is too proud to learn from the assistant, he is unworthy to be taught by the master.
Prediction is not the root idea. The word means speaking on God's behalf.
So what is the nature of this "prophesying"? In the strict meaning of the word, a "prophet" was "one who spoke for another." Nations outside Israel used the name for people who spoke for a god and made his will known to men. It did not have to mean predicting the future at all. There was another word for that, and the Scriptures never use it.
Its aim is to put a person face to face with God.
The truth is that prophesying is the highest kind of communication God gives through a man. It is not a question of opening up the future, but of bringing God and the soul together. We may see an instance of it in the case of the woman of Samaria. What Christ said to her clearly brought God Himself home to her conscience. She woke up at once to the conviction that the One who spoke was a prophet.
The very thing that makes prophecy valuable is what makes it unwelcome.
Prophesying may well be the ministry people are most likely to despise, because it is not teaching that appeals to man's intellect. In the assembly or anywhere else, it speaks to the heart and conscience, for edification, exhortation, or encouragement (1 Cor. 14:3). It can search a person out. Let us never think lightly of this, for it is a continual need for the intellectual, just as for all others.
Another way people despise it is by looking at the speaker rather than the message.
Part of this responsibility, and of this looking to the Head of the Church, is not to "quench the Spirit," nor to "despise prophecies." That holds when they are the simplest, and when they come from the humblest in the Church in outward standing, if God is pleased to use them.
When a gift goes unused, the whole Church pays for it.
Here in fact is one form of quenching the Spirit. Each one should minister to another according to the gift he has received (1 Peter 4:10). Instead, people ignore what the Spirit has given and hold back the ministry that love urges. So the Church suffers. She loses so much of the blessing that might be hers, and the ability to testify to the grace she has learned.
There is a personal side too. To despise here is to think lightly of something.
"Do not despise prophecies." From the Epistle to the Corinthians we know that the one who prophesies "speaks to men to edification, encouragement, and comfort" (1 Cor. 14:3). Let us beware, then, in case we lightly esteem what God may have to say to us through His servants.
The command does not ask for blind acceptance. The next verse gives the balance.
We are not to despise prophecies. We are not to receive everything that comes to us either, even if someone claims the Spirit gave it. We are to "test everything" and "hold fast what is good" (1 Thess. 5:20-21). If Scripture proves the truth we are taught, and we hold it in faith with God, we will not waver in our convictions with every wind of doctrine. But we can also lift the teacher into a false position. Then we accept what he says because he says it, without testing it by the Word. That way we are in danger of following him into distortions of the truth.
- Coupled. Verse 20 explains verse 19. To despise prophecy is one way to quench the Spirit, and whoever despises one loses both.
- Speaking for God. A prophet is "one who spoke for another." The aim is not prediction. It is to bring God and the soul together.
- Searching. This ministry speaks to the heart and conscience, not to the intellect. That is why people brush it aside.
- Whoever the vessel. Do not discount a word because the speaker is the simplest or humblest person there. God may be pleased to use him.
- Test, don't swallow. Refusing to despise is not the same as accepting everything. Test it by Scripture and hold fast what is good.
but prove all things, hold fast the right;
This short command sits in a run of quick instructions about how believers behave when they gather. Two questions follow it. What do we test by? And who has to do the testing?
This is not a rule for private life. It follows two instructions about the Spirit's freedom when believers meet:
This is not the personal call of Ephesians 4, "do not grieve." It is "do not quench the Spirit," followed by "do not despise prophecies," and that fixes its true bearing. Both assume the free action of the Holy Spirit in the assembly. There not even the least member of Christ may hinder His general movement, or despise Him in the highest form of dealing with souls, "prophesying." On the other hand, no one may impose on the saints with high or exclusive claims. The truly spiritual never need such claims and would find them repulsive. They were to test everything, to hold fast what is good, to abstain from every form of evil.
So freedom and testing belong together. Freedom to speak does not mean the hearers accept everything said:
"Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said" (1 Corinthians 14:29). To refuse this when the assembly gathers is to quench the Spirit… We are not supposed to swallow what we hear. We are told to judge what everyone says, and I do not expect you to accept my words lightly… We must judge what is spoken, not in a fault-finding spirit, but so as to know what is right, and not to approve what is wrong.
Testing needs a measure, and one writer puts the whole issue into a single question:
"Test everything." By what standard? My own understanding, or God's revealed word? "Hold fast what is good."
The Spirit who teaches the teacher also helps the hearer weigh what is taught:
The Holy Spirit would Himself teach by the written word those who, when taught, are to teach others. In the same way, the Holy Spirit helps the hearers to see whether what is taught agrees with the revealed and inspired word of God. "Test everything," says the apostle, "hold fast what is good." Reject, of course, whatever is not good. Even with apostolic teaching, those who heard were commended for comparing what was said with what God had already revealed and written (Acts 17:11).
The specific risk named is accepting truth because of who said it:
"Test everything." While we are not to despise ministry, we are still responsible to "test" it by the word. There is the ever-present danger of receiving truth on the authority of the teacher.
The same writer shows where that habit ends:
If we test the truth ministered by Scripture, and hold it in faith with God, we will not waver in our convictions with every wind of doctrine. As J. N. Darby remarked, "If I do not believe the Word until someone else approves it, I do not believe it at all; it is the approval I believe." The danger comes when we lift the teacher into a false position. Then we accept what he says because he says it, without testing it by the Word, and we may be led into perversions of the truth, and lose the truth we once professed to hold.
The duty is not reserved for leaders or the experienced:
We are not to accept anything that is said without testing it by the Word of God. We are to "test everything." However young in the faith, this was the personal responsibility of every believer. They were to take nothing for granted, and nothing on the word of another. Scripture was their one real authority.
Neglecting it has a cost, and the cost is shared:
How often, in a time of crisis, have leaders found some plausible excuse and persuaded whole companies of Christians to follow them in a path not according to the truth of God. But the blame lies not only with the leaders. It lies also with those who give them blind submission, and who in this way avoid their own responsibility to judge matters for themselves in the Lord's presence. The believers at Berea did judge: they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so (Acts 17:11).
Testing is only half the command. The second half names a common tendency:
"Hold fast what is good." Having tested what we hear, we are to hold fast the good. The tendency, too often, is to remember what is unprofitable, and to let go the good.
- Test — because ministry is free. It sits beside "do not quench the Spirit" and "do not despise prophecies." Free speaking and honest judging belong together.
- Test — by the written word. The measure is not your own understanding but God's revealed word. Even those who heard the apostles compared their words with what God had already written.
- Test — not the speaker, the message. The danger is receiving truth on the authority of the teacher. Accept it because he said it, and you believe the approval, not the Word.
- Test — every believer, however young. No one can hand this duty to someone else. Those who give blind submission share the blame when whole companies follow a wrong path.
- Then hold. Truth tested by Scripture and held with God keeps you steady in every wind of doctrine. The common failure is to remember the unprofitable and let the good slip away.