There are certain aspects that you simply cannot do without in order for prophetic ministry to work. By ‘prophetic ministry’ we mean an evangelistic ministry that strongly preaches Bible holiness and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, from a charismatic point of view, always involving the witness of the Spirit for the assurance of salvation; and the baptism in the Holy Spirit for ministry empowerment. I think the starting point in this consideration should be the history of the Covenanter preachers from Scotland in the 1500s and 1600s–and so I’d point you to Jeff Doles for that. After this point, I’d encourage a close study of everything related to dreams, visions, healing, and deliverance from the life of John Wesley–and so I’d point you to Daniel Jennings for that, which covers the 1700s. And so the miraculous gifts are seen as continuing in the lives of preachers in the Church of Scotland, the Church of England, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, at least in a recorded and traceable way. The findings of this type of thinking were eventually organized by a Presbyterian theologian in 1841: Dr. Archibald Alexander’s Thoughts on Religious Experience; and there were many other books from that time period which covered the subject, although this one stood the test time, through being republished by Banner of Truth. After the Assemblies of God had been established, it seems that Harold Horton’s The Gifts of the Spirit became the long-term winner on the subject, though little attention was paid to dreams and their interpretation.

Although much has been said about the contributions of Dr. Wayne Grudem to this area, he kept things very academic, and left much to be desired about the psychological aspects, of the personal spiritual experiences supporting the gift of prophecy. Most of what he had to say was in the area of defending sola Scriptura for charismatics. And while it could be said that Dr. Jack Deere’s Surprised series adequately responded to Baptist cessationist arguments from a seminary level; and that the full range of spiritual experiences were fully explained from the Bible, he also left some unhealthy loose ends about certain NAR leaders, such as Paul Cain and Mike Bickle; and some serious character defects were fully supported in his books and which need no repeating. For these reasons, I would only recommend that debaters and discerning theologians arguing against cessationism, would be the people to resort to Drs. Grudem and Deere; and that the everyday charismatic reader would be content to study Doles, Jennings, Dr. Alexander, Horton, and finally Ira Milligan’s Understanding the Dreams You Dream, which gives a simple Bible-based approach to dream interpretation.

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Jeff Doles, Miracles and Manifestations (Walking Barefoot Ministries, 2007).

Daniel Jennings, The Supernatural Occurrences of John Wesley (SEAN, 2012).

Dr. Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience (Banner of Truth, 1996).

Harold Horton, The Gifts of the Spirit (Gospel Publishing House, 1934).

Ira Milligan, Understanding the Dreams You Dream (Treasure House, 1997).