Bible Question: Is there a place for a prophecy encouragement team in the church?t

Bible Question: Would a "prophetic encouragement team" have a place in church? The team would ask God to give them an encouraging picture for the asker and/or interpret dreams on behalf of someone. I don't believe this is right, but it's hard to find scripture that obviously states it as wrong.

Bible Answer: Romans 12:4-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 27-29 provide us a list of spiritual gifts. If there are other spiritual gifts, the apostle Paul would have listed them. It is difficult to assume that there are other spiritual gifts just because a person can imagine or postulate the possible existence of one. The question that we should ask is, "If another spiritual gift does exist why didn't God mention it?" We can always ask God to help us understand a dream just as Daniel did (Dan. 2:14-18), but whether God will is another question. To establish a "prophetic encouragement team" for the church presumes that God has placed a "Daniel" in your church and that God will regularly support such a concept. Daniel is unique in prophetic history. One does not find any other prophet like Daniel in all of the pages of scripture.

Conclusion:Today, the church too often is looking for something to "Wow" the congregation in order to motivate or encourage it. Sometimes such "ministries" are designed to increase church attendance. If we look at the major gifts that God has given to the church (Eph. 4:11), we discover that the major gifts all deal with the teaching of the scriptures. The scriptures are life and light. The scriptures build-up the body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-16;2 Tim. 3:16-17). God uses His Word to grow us spiritually and to "Wow" us. Our emphasis should be on the teaching of the Word of God which is power and might.