What is the Biblical definition of "prophecy"? In common parlance, prophecy is often considered to be "predicting the future." For some, it conjures up images of telephone psychics and the like. Others might envision a crystal ball. It generally has a mystical connotation of some type.

On the other hand, the "prophets" of Scripture (e.g. Malachi, Habakkuk, Jonah) seem to be doing something different. Making explicit predictions about the future seems to be a small part of their function as a "prophet."

So my question is: Biblically speaking, what exactly is prophecy? Is there a Biblical definition that matches the actual practices of the prophets?



If possible, please support your answers using the 66 books of Scripture that are found in the Protestant Bible.
Perhaps two of the most famous minor prophets will illustrate that prophecy is not so much about telling the future as the present.

Jonah, for example, only issues a single proclamation about the future:


  "Forty days, and Nineveh will be overturned," (Jonah: 3:2 RSV)


this does come to pass.  Nineveh was overturned.  They sat in sack cloth and ashes.  Their hearts were overturned.  If they had not been repented to God then they would have been destroyed but they were indeed overturned.  Amos, another prophet, makes very few predictions about the future, but again, the thrust of his message is that God's people need to shape up!  This is true of Hosea, Malachi, and many others.

The non-writing Prophets - Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, share the same distinction.

Indeed, we say that Martin Luther King, Jr. was "prophetic" in many of his missives against segregation in the United States.

The point is that a prophet is one who is given a message by God.  (Indeed Malach-i means "My Messenger") The prophet is then told to deliver this message to His people, however God chooses.  When Jeremiah refuses, he says it burns in his bones.  When Ezekiel does what God says, his wife dies and he can't mourn, he ends up lying on his side for years at a time, and generally looking like a nut.  Indeed, when Jesus drives the moneychangers out of the Temple, he is simply called a "prophet" for the act.

The point is simple that a prophet is a messenger of God.  If that message says something about the future, then it is because God wishes to give a message about consequences.  (Indeed, John the Revelator is apocalyptic, not prophetic!).