The prophet's handbook

the New Testament church, adequate enlightenment must be given to their charges, those who are to see their orders as delegated commands from the Lord and not just as sermonizers or predictors. Besides sending, principals are persons and groups who authorize, underwrite, and guarantee their agencies’ right to exist, to do business, and to legally act in their remote territories. The verifying factor is that the one who delegated the authority and who sponsored the agency must have sovereign power and/or lawful jurisdiction within the territory the agency serves. A principal, as one in authority (a person or nation), spearheads the actions or movements that generated the agency’s presence in the land. The Bible calls them heads (arche or archon in the Greek), among other things. Agency/Principal Relationship True agencies are chiefly accountable to their principal. They hold to his or her dominant views and ideals on the mission and its assignments, and execute all tasks, operations, and duties the principal’s way, despite any private views or personal opinions they may hold. The agreement between the principal and agent, ideally, extends to the best means of carrying out these for the principal as well. The four aspects—mission, assignments, tasks, and duties—are all integral to an agency. Without them, an organization and its institutions have nothing to practice, no business to transact. Agencies’ remote administration and government, along with their workers, called agents, are therefore illegal. Activities conducted under these circumstances may be construed as anarchic and dissenting without a lawful principal. This can also be the case when the principal has failed to define for the agency its parameters. Apart from them, the legitimacy needed for agency occupation and profitability are void. Here is where the prophetic receives its legitimacy. Christ, being the Head of the church and the Lord over creation, gives the prophet his or her legitimate right to act in all the world. It is Christ’s authority that is delegated to—and exercised by—the prophet; not his or her own authority, as many suppose. The prophet, as an agent of the Godhead, is to pursue the content of the delegation handed down by Christ. Although that delegation is mainly spiritual, its success in the physical world ends up being material. The reality of definite consequences for dereliction of duty spans the Bible. What gives most prophets their boldness against the Lord is a shortsighted self-will. Such prophets believe the Lord has little recourse for their disobedience and have become too familiar with His long-suffering grace. They take liberties not accorded to them as His