A Light on Prophecy: Retrieving Word and Spirit for Today’s Church

Date of publication April 2012, Paternoster Press

This book is a response to the dearth of the ministry of prophecy in the wider church. It seeks to cast a light on the current malaise by posing four contemporary objections to prophecy: What is to be done about prophetic extremes and excesses? What is the point of prophecy if we already have the Bible? Can we trust prophecy which is not Christ-centred? Is an excitable overemphasis on the Holy Spirit reliable? The work is underpinned by the premise that both persons of Word and Spirit are not only necessary, but a vital ingredient for robust Christian prophecy. Therefore, there is a detailed analysis of the way in which Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit come together as a partnership, working to activate and perpetuate prophecy. Prophecy is at its strongest when the Christ-focus and the Spirit-focus are as one. The book suggests that in order to retrieve the full measure of the ministry of prophecy church traditions should embrace their opposites.

Current research is on the retrieval of Word and Spirit in the two prophetic moves of the Holy Spirit in the 17th Century i.e. French Huguenots (Cévennes) and Quakers (UK).