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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Romans 12:6 - 12:6
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Prophecy
See on prophet, Luk 7:26. In the New Testament, as in the Old, the prominent idea is not prediction, but the inspired delivery of warning, exhortation, instruction, judging, and making manifest the secrets of the heart. See 1Co 14:3, 1Co 14:24, 1Co 14:25. The New-Testament prophets are distinguished from teachers, by speaking under direct divine inspiration.
Let us prophesy
Not in the Greek.
According to the proportion of faith (κατὰ τὴν ἀναλογίαν τῆς πίστεως)
Ἁναλογία proportion, occurs only here in the New Testament. In classical Greek it is used as a mathematical term. Thus Plato: “The fairest bond is that which most completely fuses and is fused into the things which are bound; and proportion (ἀναλογία) is best adapted to effect such a fusion” (“Timaeus,” 31). “Out of such elements, which are in number four, the body of the world was created in harmony and proportion” (“Timaeus,” 32). Compare “Politicus,” 257. The phrase here is related to the measure of faith (Rom 12:3). It signifies, according to the proportion defined by faith. The meaning is not the technical meaning expressed by the theological phrase analogy of faith, sometimes called analogy of scripture, i.e., the correspondence of the several parts of divine revelation in one consistent whole. This would require ἡ πίστις the faith, to be taken as the objective rule of faith, or system of doctrine (see on Act 6:7), and is not in harmony with Rom 12:3, nor with according to the grace given. Those who prophesy are to interpret the divine revelation “according to the strength, clearness, fervor, and other qualities of the faith bestowed upon them; so that the character and mode of their speaking is conformed to the rules and limits which are implied in the proportion of their individual degree of faith” (Meyer).