The Schools of the Prophets

    Recently, I saw a post by someone I know who seemed to be against the concept of the schools of prophets. Rather than discounting what they said, I searched to see if what they said was true. After all, I am a student of scripture and lover of truth. I began to conduct research into the schools of the prophets in the Old Testament. Then, I came across an article written by a man named . I had never heard of him before and started to read his writings on Israel’s schools of prophets. Unbeknownst to me, this man lived in the mid to late 1800s. And Mr. Price lived in the Chicagoland area, as I had. I’d like to talk about him and his teachings on the schools of the sons of the prophets in this post.

Candidly, prior to reading his white paper on the schools of the sons of the prophets, I had never heard of Mr. Price. What I discovered about him intrigued me. Price was a professor at the Union Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. Additionally, his discipline was in the ancient semantic Hebrew language and ancient history. Further, he was one of the original faculty of the University of Chicago. Union Baptist Theological Seminary was rolled into the University of Chicago. Mr. Price and the president of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, regularly met to study Hebrew.

Interestingly, Mr. Price’s writings on the schools of the prophets, mirror my own. Out of five of the schools of prophets that I talk about, he has four. Moreover, he has two schools of prophets that I didn’t talk about. I love learning, growing, and exploring. What struck me, is how both of us came from the Chicagoland area. My book, Entering the School of the Prophets is a seminal work on schools of prophets. Mr. Price’s white paper on the schools of prophets confirms and may possibly expand my own understanding of the schools of the prophets. So, I go back to the books to learn more about the schools of the prophets from a professor who lives and died years before me.

That the schools of prophets are for today is without a doubt the way God is seeking to raise up prophets in our day. How can I be so sure? Jesus Himself used the context of schooling to raise up His disciples. In fact, the term disciples speaks of someone who teaches. Jesus was called Rabbi, which was and is a Jewish term of endearment for those teach the law of God; it can also be used as master. Not in a lording over way, but in a leading way, a nurturing way, a fathering way. Jesus has disciples who He trained and ordained for ministry. In fact, they continued to receive training after they were ordained. That’s how Christianity began — the twelve, the seventy, the five hundred, the three thousand, and beyond. All after Jesus’s format of a school.

Why should we think it strange that God would use the same thing today. God always, always, starts with a man or woman. Then, He raises up a movement. Then, a revolution through revelation. Millions are seeking a revelation of God. The Church, by and large, offers pablum. The modern Church will often seek to keep believers hooked up to the milk machine. Mind you, not the breastfed milk of the pure word of God. But the polluted and contaminated milk of the words of men. What many are seeking are the schools of prophets to receive the pure word of the Lord. That’s why there’s been a resurgence of the prophet’s ministry and the prophet’s office: to raise a generation who will love the word of God.

Schools are for learning. They offer teaching that can and should advance our faith in God. That bring forth God’s fullness in the hungry hearts of willing, yearning listeners. I remember attending Sunday school every Sunday morning. I remember awaiting the prayers of the saints and altar calls where no one had to call people to the altar. Rather, they heard God’s call to the altar. Yes, the church I attended had an altar, the stairs of the platform of the church, where believers gathered for prayer before service on Sunday morning. That was normal, everyday church. Now, not so much.

What happened? We left Jesus’s model of schooling disciples for a different model. Our vision changed from “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, Matt. 28:19, ESV, into a different, new concept for “radical worship” without the bedrock of spiritual truth. It hasn’t worked. It has left the Church dry and barren. What do we need? Schools. Isn’t that what Jesus said? Make disciples. Or in the King James Version, “teach all nations”. Preach. Yes! But teach. Yes! Yes! Yes! Teach. School. Learn. Grow. These are the words of Jesus, the way of Jesus, the methods of Jesus, and how Jesus radically changed our world. And it still works. His ways of wisdom never grow old.

Going back to the post I saw that provoked me to seek further revelation and opened the door for my chance meeting with Ira M. Price, I am grateful that I was taught to be a learner. Not dogmatic in theology. Rather, one who yearns for truth. I have learned to be a student, always and in every place. I learned from men and women who were students, whose goal was to teach and train disciples. That’s what the Church is missing. That’s what the Church needs — more men and women, boys and girls, who love to learn the word of God. And, like ancient Israel, we need schools of prophets, colleges of the Spirit, where we are taught and trained how to walk in the Spirit, where doctors of the Spirit are raised up.

We have enough doctors of the word. We need doctors of the Spirit who know who to move and flow with the Holy Spirit. Before there was a ministry of the word in the Church, there was a ministry of the Spirit. There were no scriptures, other than the Old Testament, yet, as the Apostle Paul taught, “He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.” 2 Cor. 3:6. That’s what a school of prophets teaches — the ministry of the Spirit founded on the inerrant teachings of the scriptures. May God bring them back in our day!

Let us pray!

— Scott Wallis