From Divine Revelation to Human Invention: Jeremiah 23:26-32 and the Challenge of False Prophecy in the Contemporary Christ Apostolic Church

Prophecy holds a significant place in biblical religion and in contemporary Pentecostal and African Christian spirituality.The prophetic ministry becomes problematic when human imagination, personal interest, fabricated dreams, borrowed religious formulae or presumptuous speech are dressed up as divine revelation.Jeremiah 23:26-32 confronts exactly this distortion.It condemns prophets who speak from their own hearts, relay deceptive dreams, steal divine words and presumptuously claim divine authority, and it climaxes in the verdict that such prophecy does not benefit God's people.This study employed historical-grammatical and contextual approaches to examine the passage, with particular attention to the Hebrew concepts ‫ֵב‬ ‫ל‬ (heart), ‫ִית‬ ‫מ‬ ‫רְ‬ ‫תַּ‬ (deceit), ‫ֲלוֹם‬ ‫ח‬ (dream), ‫ָר‬ ‫ב‬ ‫דָּ‬ (word/message), ‫ַב‬ ‫ָנ‬ ‫גּ‬ (steal), ‫ָשׁוֹן‬ ‫ל‬ (tongue), ‫ֲזוּת‬ ‫ַח‬ ‫פּ‬ (recklessness) and ‫ַל‬ ‫ָע‬ ‫י‬ (profit/benefit).The paper argued that Jeremiah's critique reaches beyond prophecy as such to the corruption of prophetic authority, source, communication and ethical responsibility.Findings showed the implications for prophetic practice in the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), especially in biblical formation, spiritual discernment, prophetic accountability, resistance to commercialisation, and the protection of congregational welfare.Paper concluded that the Prophetic renewal calls for a recovery of divine revelation, biblical fidelity, ethical integrity, and the genuine spiritual and communal benefit of God's people.