Yes. Just not the way most people picture it.
The Short Answer
Most people picture a prophet as someone who predicts the future, a person with a hotline to heaven who tells you what happens next Tuesday. That is not what the Bible teaches, and it is not how prophecy works now that Jesus has come. In the Old Testament, prophets spoke God's covenant words to Israel, confronted kings, and pointed forward to something better. That something was Jesus.
Are there prophets today? Yes. But not fortune-tellers. The prophetic gift is active in the church now, and it exists to build people up, encourage them, and bring comfort, always under the authority of Scripture and always pointing to Jesus.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.
Hebrews 1:1-2God spoke through prophets. Now He speaks through His Son. Jesus is the final, complete revelation of who God is and what God wants. That is not a demotion of prophecy, it is the fulfillment of it. Every prophet in the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus. Once He arrived, spoke, and sent His Spirit into the church, the job description changed.
Where the Confusion Starts
People mix up two different things the Bible talks about: the prophetic office and the prophetic gift. They are related, but they are not the same. The office belonged to people like Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, men who received direct, authoritative revelation and delivered it to God's people. What they spoke became Scripture. Paul says the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. You lay a foundation once. You do not keep laying it. That work is finished.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
Ephesians 4:11-12Notice what these gifts are for: equipping people, building up the body, helping the church mature. These are functions in the body, not hierarchical titles or ranks, and we walk through how they work together in the five fold ministry. This is not about writing new Scripture. It is about serving the church with specific, Spirit-given abilities, and the prophetic gift is one of them. It is also part of what it means to live in the New Covenant, where God pours out His Spirit on all His people.
Deliver authoritative revelation
Thus says the Lord, which became Scripture
Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah
Build up, encourage, comfort
Tested by leaders and Scripture
Spirit-filled believers in the church
The Distinction
The prophetic office laid the foundation and produced Scripture. That work is complete. The prophetic gift builds on that foundation by speaking encouragement, correction, and direction under the authority of Scripture. One is finished. The other is ongoing.
The Job Description
Paul gives the clearest picture in 1 Corinthians 14:3: the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding, encouragement, and consolation. In the Greek those three words are oikodome, paraklesis, and paramythia, building up, encouraging, and comforting. That is the job description. Not prediction. Not new doctrine. Not secret knowledge. In practice it looks like a believer with a Spirit-given sensitivity to what God is doing, who speaks a word of encouragement that lands with unusual accuracy, senses a direction the church needs, or brings a timely warning that protects someone. None of it replaces Scripture. All of it serves the body. Here is what healthy prophetic ministry does.
If a prophetic word points to the person speaking it, something is wrong. Revelation 19:10 says the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Every legitimate word makes Jesus bigger, not the prophet.
The Holy Spirit never contradicts God's written Word. An impression that conflicts with the gospel or clear biblical teaching is not from God. That is the first and simplest test, and it is why knowing how to study the Bible matters so much.
Paul said let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. Prophetic words get tested by mature leaders. A prophet who refuses correction is a red flag, not a sign of authority.
Does the word bring peace or panic? Restoration or division? Humility or pride? Jesus said you know a tree by its fruit. If the fruit is fear, manipulation, or confusion, the root is wrong no matter how spiritual it sounds.
Prophetic gifts exist for the body, to build up the congregation, not a personal brand. The moment it becomes about the prophet's reputation or following, it has left the biblical track. That the Spirit gives such gifts at all is part of who the Holy Spirit is.
Clearing the Ground
This matters as much as knowing what it is, because a lot of damage gets done in the name of prophecy that has nothing to do with what the Bible describes.
Biblical prophecy is not predicting stock prices, elections, or personal events with mystical precision. When someone starts making date-specific predictions and building an audience around what is coming next, they have crossed out of biblical territory. Jesus said it is not for you to know times or seasons.
The canon is closed. No prophetic word today carries the authority of Scripture or adds to it. The Bible is complete. The Holy Spirit applies what is already written. He does not write new chapters. Anyone claiming revelation above the Bible has disqualified themselves.
God told me you should do this is one of the most abused phrases in church history. When prophetic words manipulate decisions, control relationships, or establish authority over people, that is spiritual abuse. Real faith invites. It never coerces.
Paul told the whole church to earnestly desire the gifts, especially prophecy. It is not a select inner circle. The gift is available to any believer the Spirit chooses to use. It is not about status. It is about service.
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
1 Thessalonians 5:19-21Paul gives the balance in one breath. Do not shut it down. Do not accept it blindly. Test it. Keep what lines up with God's Word and His character. Throw out what does not. That is the mature approach: open to the Spirit, anchored in Scripture.
Why It Matters Now
We live in a time when people are hungry to hear God's voice. They want to know He is speaking into their situation. That hunger is real and it is good. But it also makes people vulnerable. When someone is desperate for direction, they will latch onto anyone who sounds like they have a direct line to heaven, and there are people who take advantage of that, using prophetic language to build influence, sell products, or create dependency. That is not ministry. That is manipulation.
The answer is not to shut down the prophetic. Paul was clear about that. The answer is to grow up in how we handle it. A healthy church welcomes prophetic gifts and holds them accountable. The elders weigh what is spoken. The congregation tests it against Scripture. The person delivering the word stays humble and open to correction. Nobody gets a pass because they claim to hear from God, because we all have blind spots and the ability to confuse our own thoughts with the Spirit's voice. That is not cynicism, it is wisdom, and it protects the very thing the gift is meant to produce: a church that hears God clearly and responds in faith. It is one more piece of the bigger picture of what Christianity actually teaches, and of how the Spirit comes to live in every believer.
Where This Lands
So yes, there are prophets today, in the sense that God still speaks encouragement, comfort, and direction to His people through Spirit-gifted believers. What there is not is a new voice competing with the Bible or a fortune-teller charging for the future. Every real prophetic word points back to the same place: Jesus, who is the testimony at the heart of all of it.
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Yes, but not in the way most people picture. The prophetic gift is active in the church today. What is not active is the foundational office that produced Scripture, which was completed in the first century and fulfilled in Christ. Today's prophetic ministry is not about predicting the future. It builds people up, encourages them, and brings comfort, always under the authority of Scripture and always pointing to Jesus.
Test the fruit and the direction. Genuine prophecy points to Jesus, not the person delivering it. It lines up with Scripture, since the Spirit never contradicts the written Word. It submits to accountability and correction, and it produces peace rather than fear or manipulation. A person who claims a direct line to heaven but refuses to be tested is a red flag, not a sign of special authority.
The prophetic office belonged to figures like Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, who received authoritative revelation that became Scripture. That work laid the foundation and is complete. The prophetic gift is ongoing: it builds up the church with encouragement, correction, and direction, under the authority of Scripture. One is finished, the other continues.
No. The canon is closed. No prophetic word today carries the authority of Scripture or adds to it. The Bible is complete, and the Holy Spirit applies what is already written rather than writing new chapters. Anyone claiming revelation equal to or above the Bible has disqualified themselves by that claim alone.
According to 1 Corinthians 14:3, it speaks to people for their building up, encouragement, and comfort. Those three words are the job description. Not prediction, not secret knowledge, not new doctrine. A healthy prophetic word strengthens someone in their walk, encourages them forward, and brings comfort when they are hurting, and it always centers on Christ.