My View on People Who Claim to be a Prophet

I want to give you my opinion on people who claim to be a prophet because there are too many people out there who claim to be one (like Joe Coleman). In fact, I’ve encountered several websites where so-called “prophecy experts” identify themselves as prophets. I have even seen a few websites where a person uses the title “prophet” as part of their name.


I have cited the following verse before but it is important to cite it again in this post. Deuteronomy 18:22 says that a true prophet of God is a person who gets all their predictions correct when they claim they speak for God.

• Deu 18:22 When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

I am definitely NOT a prophet. I make mistakes and I would never go as far as to proclaim that God told me to tell people that something was going to happen.


I become leery of people who claim that they are a prophet. I feel a person may be at least one of the following things when they claim they are a prophet:

1. A person with a big ego: Some people call themselves a “prophet” to attract the attention they crave from people.
2. A person who is not fully aware about what is in the Bible: A person who claims to be a prophet sent by God should be fully aware of what responsibilities are associated with being a prophet and know what criteria people use to judge whether a person is a prophet.
3. A person who is getting their information from the wrong source: Some people may actually be getting information from a spiritual source. However, the spiritual source most likely is not from God.

I attempt to forecast the future; not prophesy about it. The main difference between a forecaster and a prophet is that a forecaster tries to make educated guesses about future events while dealing with uncertainties. A forecaster knows that their statements about the future may not come true because there are many things that need to happen a certain way for their statements to come true. For instance, a weather forecaster often warns the public that their five-day forecast about the strength and movement of a hurricane is tentative because there are many different, uncertain atmospheric factors that impact the strength and movement of a hurricane (plus hurricanes have a mind of their own sometimes). Meanwhile, a true prophet is a person who has everything they say came from God come true because their information came directly from God, Who knows everything and is in control of everything.


I am not saying that there has not been a prophet since biblical times. Paul wrote that there are some people who have the spiritual gift of prophecy and the Bible said that the young will prophesy during the end times. However, I have a hard time imagining God giving the gift of prophecy to a person who would exploit it by charging people ridiculous amounts of money to make predictions.