So Ron Mallet would have us believe that these in depth explanations of how the spirit and His gifts work were solely intended for the ancient Corinthians church but not for us today in the church? Once again, why include them in scripture at all then? What about the letter to the church at Galatia? They were having a very specific problem with the Judaizers adding to established doctrine by clinging to how things were before Christ. Do we now dismiss Galatians because this was a problem only at their church? Of course not. God used these letters to establish doctrine.
But then I ran into John 16:13 (KJV), where Jesus is pointedly giving final, detailed and extensive instructions to His disciples as He stands at the threshold of His torture and execution on the cross.
"When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come."
After reading this great promise, we searched all translations of the Bible available online to make sure there weren't conflicting or contrary versions of "will shew you things to come" (predictions of the future). Most used roughly the same term, but others varied slightly and we share these with you so there will be no doubt as to exactly what Jesus was/is promising.
- NTE: He will announce to you what's to come.
- WEB: He will declare to you things that are coming.
- WE: He will tell you what is going to happen.
- YLT: and the coming things He will tell you.
- NLT: He will tell you about the future.
- DRA: and the things that are to come, He shall shew you.
- ERV: He will tell you what will happen in the future.
- TLB: He will tell you about the future.