Most people picture the spiritual gifts backwards, and it changes everything once you turn the picture around.
We tend to think the gift of prophecy belongs to the person doing the prophesying — as if they own it, carry it around, are the "gifted one." I don't read it that way. The gift is for the person receiving it, not the one delivering it. The one who delivers is the mailman. God gives a gift to someone through someone else, and the deliverer is the courier, not the owner.
The Bible practically shouts this if you listen. Every manifestation of the Spirit is given "for the common good" (1 Cor. 12:7) — the good of the body, not the vessel. Prophecy is "for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort" and "builds up the church" (1 Cor. 14:3-4). The value always lands on the recipient.
And look who God has used as couriers — people no one would call prophets. When Jesus was born, the Spirit came on a devout old man named Simeon and he prophesied over the child (Luke 2:25-35); Zechariah, a priest, "was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied" (Luke 1:67); neither of them held the office. (Anna, standing right there in the same temple, is called a prophetess — Luke 2:36 — which only sharpens the point: Simeon prophesied without ever carrying the title.) Caiaphas, of all people, plotting Jesus' death, prophesied that He would die for the nation — and John stops to tell us "he did not say this on his own" (John 11:51). And Saul, hunting David, fell to prophesying until men asked, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" (1 Sam. 19:24) — a proverb born precisely because a man can prophesy and be no prophet at all. God even made Balaam's donkey speak (Num. 22:28): the humblest courier of all, carrying a word that was never its own.
The office and the gift are not the same
This is why "prophet" as an office and "prophecy" as a gift are two different things. Paul asks, "Are all prophets?" and means no (1 Cor. 12:29) — yet in the same letter says, "you can all prophesy" (1 Cor. 14:31). Both are true. The office of prophet is a person God gives to His church to equip it (Eph. 4:11); the gift of prophecy is a word God can put through almost anyone, once, for someone who needs it. Not all who prophesy are prophets.
And that is also why the gifts are far more specific than people assume. They are not a permanent possession you either have or don't have. Paul says the Spirit distributes them "to each one, just as he determines" (1 Cor. 12:11) — the word is manifestation, something shown in a moment, for a person, in a place. Sometimes God stations someone in a standing office. Very often He simply hands a courier a letter addressed to somebody else in the room.
In short: The gift is for the one who receives it; the one who delivers it is the mailman. That is why God can use a Simeon, a Caiaphas, a Saul — and once even a donkey. The office of prophet and the gift of prophecy are not the same — not all who prophesy are prophets — and the gifts are specific in time, place, and recipient, not a badge you carry around.
