Is true prophecy all about predicting the future accurately ?

 

January 4, 2026

There is a common theme of prophecy that runs through all three readings of today. It is in fact a common narrative tool in several forms of storytelling - from the prophecies that announce the arrival of Moses or Jesus or Krishna (in Hindu religious mythology) to the prophecies that announce the chosen one in Harry Potter or Star Wars etc.  

But are prophecies just a narrative tool to indicate the special-ness of a person? In some cases yes, but in the Bible, it can mean more. Most of us equate prophecy as foretelling the future. However, the understanding of prophets and prophecy in the Bible is not so simplistic. For instance not all scriptural prophecies, including the ones attributed to Jesus, necessarily came true (Mathew 16:28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”). Does that then make them false prophets? On the other hand, there are science fiction writers (e.g. Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov and others) whose predictions about the future as found in their stories have been found to have come true in a number of cases. Does that make them prophets?   

So who then is a prophet, at least according to the Bible?  There are basically three terms used in the Old Testament, and one in the New Testament, which have been translated as ‘prophet’ in our Bibles.  The most commonly used term in the Old Testament is NABI, which means ‘to announce, to call’ (e.g. 1 Samuel 19:20-24).  Then there is ROEH (e.g. Isaiah 29:10, 1 Samuel 9:9) which means ‘seers’ - i.e. the ones who could see below the surface of things, who possessed a vision of the truth that others cannot, or refuse to see. Thirdly there is the term ‘ISH ELOHIM’ which means, ‘man of God, or man of the spirit’ (e.g. 1 Samuel 2:27). Coming to the New Testament the Greek word ‘PROPHETES’ is used which literally means ‘one who speaks for another’.  Putting these meanings together we can say that the prophet is one who is attuned to the Ultimate Reality, and speaking on behalf of that Ultimate Reality, announces to the world the truth that we refuse to, or just cannot, see.

This is what all the prophets of the Old Testament, and John the Baptist and Jesus too did. They announced to the world around them what the people and the religious establishment were not willing to see, - namely that their way of living out their relationship with God was not what it should be.  And therefore in seeing the reality that others cannot or would not see, the prophet can see where that reality is leading us.  It is like a psychologist who can ‘see’ what the current behaviour of a person is going to lead him/her to, and can in that sense ‘predict’ the future that that person is likely to experience.  In the same way, when any of the Old Testament prophets saw the behaviour of the Jews, they could ‘predict’, if you will, because they saw things from ‘God’s eyes’, what would happen to their people and like in the first reading today they lament what is going to befall them.  Or when Jesus saw how the religious establishment functioned and the religious motivation they gave the Jews, especially as to how the Messiah would come to lead their armies and get back their political power, which led to an undercurrent of continuous chaffing under the yoke of Rome among the entire Jewish population (incidentally including among the disciples of Jesus),  and even led to splinter groups like the Zealots, Jesus could see how it would all eventually lead to the destruction of all that the Jews considered holy, including their temple - and so he laments “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing’’ (Mathew 23:37).     And then he continues to prophesy about their sacred temple that ‘’not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” (Mathew 24: 2)   

What these prophets predict is not destiny or a blueprint for the future, but rather a reading of the current situation, like Jonah who predicted the destruction of Nineveh, but then because the people repented, the evil that he told them would  befall them, does not come to pass (Jonah ch.3). And so like a chess prodigy who can predict where the game is going 10 moves in advance the prophet can see what the institution (religious, political, or social) refuses to or just cannot see. This is why real prophets (Amos, Jeremiah and many other Old Testament prophets, and Jesus and John the Baptist) as opposed to fictional prophets, are usually at odds with the ruling elite in society, i.e. with those who control the institution. The institution doesn’t really like prophets - something that is interestingly demonstrated in an early catechism of the Church, known as the DIDACHE, in which specific rules were included in order to control any potential prophets.

But such articulation of what s/he sees and what is likely to happen is not all that the prophet does.  The prophet then announces the kind of life we ought to be living, the kind of religion we ought to be practising, the kind of world we ought to create, by imagining an alternative, again just as we have in today's first reading. 

However, more often than not these alternative worlds offering such hope is destroyed by the institution on the rock of practicality.  But the prophet does not get mired down in questions of whether the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence, until one can first imagine.  When Martin Luther King said, I have a dream, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character’, there was no real possibility that it would come true. But till he, and the black community that walked with him, supported by the whites who bought into this dream, started imagining this alternative, there was no hope that they could ever make it a reality.  When Gandhi dreamed that the British with all their power and brute force could be made to leave India through non-violent means, it was clearly an unrealistic dream, but he had to first dream it, for it to even have the possibility of becoming true.  When Jesus challenged the religious establishment of his time, his imagined alternative led him to be crucified, but his dream led to a completely different world that was deeply influenced by his dream even two millennia after him.

We may not all have what it takes to be a prophet - to be able to be so in tune with Ultimate Reality (a one-ness the Bible articulates as ‘standing in the presence of the Lord’) that we see what others can’t, and announce or call out the grief that is hidden in the way things are in our society, nor be able to imagine an alternative that we could walk towards. But that does not mean we must not listen to the voices out there, always remembering that there can  be more ’prophets’ than those coming only from our own tradition - precisely because Ultimate Reality cannot be controlled by our limited human experiences. And so different ‘prophets’ can and will focus on different truths out there and offer different imaginable alternatives. All we need to do is to test their voices on the lodestone of whether the imagined alternative leads to active love of neighbour - for that is the essential criterion for the followers of Jesus. 

First Reading: Isaiah 60:1-6

Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth
    and thick darkness the peoples,
but the Lord will arise upon you,
    and his glory will appear over you.
Nations shall come to your light
    and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

Lift up your eyes and look around;
    they all gather together; they come to you;
your sons shall come from far away,
    and your daughters shall be carried in their nurses’ arms.
Then you shall see and be radiant;
    your heart shall thrill and rejoice,
because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you;
    the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
A multitude of camels shall cover you,
    the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
    all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense
    and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.

Second Reading: Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6

For surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for you  and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Gospel: Mathew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.”  When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:

‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,
for from you shall come a ruler
    who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”

Then Herod secretly called for the magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east, until it stopped over the place where the child was.  When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.