The prophet who presumes to speak a word in God's name that He has not commanded, or who speaks in the name of other gods, "that same prophet shall die" (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 18:20). And if you ask in your heart how you may know the word the Lord has not spoken: when a prophet speaks in the Lord's name and the word does not come to pass, that is a word the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken presumptuously, and you need not be afraid of him (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 18:21–22).

"The Lord told me...," "The Lord is leading me to tell you...," "The Lord gave me a vision..." These are weighty pronouncements, which in earlier times would have been uttered only by a genuine prophet of the Lord. Under the Law, such pronouncements had to be tested, and if the prophet's word did not come true, he was to be put to death.

Today these words are spoken by any Tom, Dick, or Sally in casual conversation. Often they are so general or "safe" that no one could prove them true or false. Even the predictive kinds of pronouncements have such broad parameters that they can be self-fulfilling for just about anyone who wants them to be true.

There are still quite a few occasions when someone is bold enough — or foolish enough — to be specific. But even then, they suffer little or no consequence for what would have been a capital crime in God's eyes.

Sad to say, I could name a number of leaders and members of my former church who regularly made such pronouncements. Even after their pronouncements proved false, they kept making them. They justified their failures by feigning ignorance or making excuses like "God changed His mind" or "God must have something better."

Some even defend the notion that it is acceptable for prophecies to fail, or that prophets can mature into their gift so that their accuracy improves over time. In doing this, I believe they are arbitrarily changing how Scripture defines prophecy. It is a non sequitur to say that people can mature into prophetic accuracy, for the very nature of prophecy is not tied to spiritual maturity. The gift of prophecy is not a skill or talent developed with time and effort. It is more like pregnancy: you either have it or you don't.

Even thinking pragmatically, consider the havoc such a notion would cause for Christian faith. If prophecies can fail, not only would the pronouncements of contemporary prophets be unreliable, but the Scriptures themselves could be considered unreliable, for they too were written by people who were not necessarily at the peak of their spiritual maturity.

I have heard some respected teachers, generally solid students of Scripture, suggest on what I consider flimsy evidence that the prophetic gift may differ between the Old and New Testaments, so that the New Testament gift may allow for error. I believe such a suggestion is irresponsible and wrong. Using words like "may" or "could" does not excuse it, for I believe such a claim could do even more damage than questioning the reality of hell.

Friends, we live in a very disturbing time, when God's people are growing more and more ignorant of Scriptural truth. This means they must rely more and more on the few preachers and teachers who have made it their profession to know and teach God's Word. As a result, the average believer is ill-equipped to judge anything a preacher or teacher tells them.

When I was a student in Bible college, I wrote many research papers. Because I was still biblically wet behind the ears, I found it hard to judge what was true. Every book I picked up persuaded me, so I found myself changing my view with every new author. I was "tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:14). I often found myself defending the view of the last book I happened to read on any given topic. I would have been a dangerous theologian at the time! In fact, I threw away all my early papers because of this.

I am perhaps a little more competent today, and hopefully growing more so by daily meditating on God's Word and memorizing large portions of it. I have no better counsel for those seeking to guard themselves against false teaching than this: you must learn God's Word for yourselves. You must put in the time and effort. There is no other way. If this seems daunting, listen to the encouragement of Scripture: the psalmist loves God's law and meditates on it all day; God's commandments make him wiser than his enemies; he has more understanding than all his teachers, and more than the aged, because he meditates on and keeps God's precepts (a paraphrase of Psalm 119:97–100).

Friends, whatever else we choose to do in life, we must all be specialists in God's Word. Each of us must be accountable for ourselves in this regard. May the Lord bless your efforts!

AI-Expanded Reflection

Deuteronomy 18:15–22 opens with one of the most important promises in the Old Testament before it turns to warnings about false prophets. Moses says, God would raise up "a prophet like me," and "it is to him you shall listen" (18:15). Peter (Acts 3:22–23) and Stephen (Acts 7:37) identify this Prophet as Jesus, and at the Transfiguration the Father's voice echoes the passage: "This is my beloved Son... listen to him" (Luke 9:35). The tests for false prophets exist to protect God's people as they listen for the true word — ultimately fulfilled in the Word made flesh.

The question the comment raises about New Testament prophecy is a real point of debate among evangelical scholars. Cessationists, like the comment, hold that genuine prophecy is always fully authoritative and infallible, and that the gift ceased with the completion of Scripture. Many continuationists hold that New Testament congregational prophecy (as in 1 Corinthians 14:29–32 and 1 Thessalonians 5:20–21) was a different kind of speech — a report of something the speaker believes God has brought to mind — which must be "weighed" and tested and carries no authority equal to Scripture. Both sides agree that Scripture alone is the infallible Word of God, and that claims to speak for God must be tested rigorously. See #1843 and #1957 for the range of views. The comment's personal story of being "tossed about" as a student, and its remedy of patient, personal immersion in Scripture, is wise counsel for believers of every conviction.

Of all the commands given for the king of Israel, the most prominent concerns the Law. When he takes the throne he must write for himself a copy of this instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests, keep it with him, and read it daily as long as he lives — so that he will learn to fear the LORD by obeying all its terms, so that he will not become proud and act as though he is above his fellow citizens, and so that he will not turn from these commands in the smallest way (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 17:18–20).

Notice that God commands the king to make his own handwritten copy. He cannot order someone else to do it. Notice too that he is to keep it with him always — not in the royal archives or the library or even on his nightstand, but in his presence at all times. The sense is much like the instruction given to the people: these commands are to be on your hearts, impressed on your children, spoken of when you sit at home and walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 6:6–9).

And notice that the king is to read it every day. He was presumably a busy man, managing the affairs of an entire nation — yet this is what God required.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The stated purpose of the copying requirement is worth highlighting, because it is not primarily about information. Verse 20 gives the reason: so that his heart is not lifted above his brothers. A king who spends his own hand writing out a law he did not author, and then reads it daily for life, is being formed into someone who understands himself as under the same instruction as everyone else.

The surrounding verses make the same point from the other side. The king is told not to acquire many horses, many wives, or great quantities of silver and gold — the three standard accumulations of ancient monarchy. Deuteronomy's model of kingship is essentially a limited one: a ruler who is a subject of the law rather than its source. That is unusual in the ancient world, where kings typically issued law rather than answering to it, and 1 Kings 10–11 records Solomon acquiring precisely the three things prohibited here, in order.

This section in Deuteronomy 17 about a future king is interesting. Israel was meant to be a theocracy, with God Himself as King, but God still makes provision for their eventual rejection of that arrangement. In 1 Samuel 8:7, Israel demands a king, and the LORD tells Samuel to listen to the people, since it isn't Samuel they've rejected, but God Himself as their king (a paraphrase). The LORD then chooses Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, from the town of Gibeah.

This choice of a Benjamite from Gibeah needs to be understood in light of how Judges ends. Judges 19–21 recounts the story of a Levite and his concubine in Gibeah, where the town's wicked men demand the Levite be sent out to them (Judges 19:22), echoing Sodom and Gomorrah — instead, his concubine is sent out, raped and abused through the night, and left for dead by the men of Gibeah. Twenty-five thousand Benjamite swordsmen fall as a result (Judges 20:46–48), and the book closes noting that in those days Israel had no king, and everyone did as they saw fit (Judges 21:25). It's in this exact historical backdrop that the LORD chooses Saul, a Benjamite from Gibeah, as Israel's king. Saul himself asks why they'd say such a thing to him, being from the smallest tribe of Israel, and the least significant clan within it (a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 9:21). I first read this as simple humility on Saul's part, but the truth was that Benjamin, especially the Gibeahites, had been nearly wiped out entirely. God consistently seems to choose the younger or weaker person through whom His power would be made known. 1 Samuel 10:9–10 records God changing Saul's heart and His Spirit coming powerfully upon him. Though he started well, Saul disobeyed the LORD, and the kingdom was taken from him and given instead to David, from the tribe of Judah, fulfilling Jacob's prophetic blessing that the scepter wouldn't depart from Judah until the one to whom it belonged would come, and the nations' obedience would be his (a paraphrase of Genesis 49:10).

The LORD establishes a covenant with David — like the Abrahamic covenant, unilateral, without conditions attached. God promises to build David a house, raising up his own offspring to succeed him and establish his kingdom forever, becoming a father to him as he becomes a son to God, never removing His love from him the way He did from Saul (a paraphrase of 1 Chronicles 17:10–14).

Yet by the second-generation Davidic king, Solomon fails dreadfully — so thoroughly that Deuteronomy 17's specific conditions almost seem written with him in mind. God's restrictions on Israel's future king included: being chosen by God; being an Israelite, not a foreigner; not acquiring vast numbers of horses; not returning the people to Egypt; not taking many wives; not accumulating excessive silver and gold; and keeping a personal copy of the Law to read throughout his life. Solomon had twelve thousand horses (1 Kings 4:26), seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:1), and greater riches than any other king on earth (1 Kings 10:23). Even with all his godly wisdom, Solomon simply couldn't keep Deuteronomy 17's requirements.

It wasn't until Jesus that a Davidic king finally fulfilled the Law's requirements. Jesus is the king of Deuteronomy 17, the prophet like Moses of Deuteronomy 18, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. Praise God for opening our eyes to see this truth revealed in Scripture.

AI-Expanded Reflection

One small correction: Saul's remark about being from the smallest tribe and least significant clan is 1 Samuel 9:21, not 9:22. Beyond that correction, the layered irony this comment traces — a Benjamite king chosen from the exact town whose atrocity nearly destroyed the tribe — is worth sitting with a bit further, since it suggests God's choice of Saul wasn't simply about picking someone unimpressive for dramatic effect, but about extending genuine restoration to a tribe that had, within living historical memory, been treated as beyond redemption by the rest of Israel. Saul's later failure makes the choice feel almost tragically wasted in hindsight, but the initial selection itself reads as an act of remarkable grace toward a community still recovering from near-annihilation.