Does prophecy have to be 100% correct?

Excepted from here.

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Tim Challies is reviewing a book by Sam Storms called "Practicing the Power." While it is a charitable review, considering Mr. Challies' opposition to the charismatic position, he makes the below point without any explanation:

His understanding of prophecy hangs on a fatally flawed interpretation of those key passages in Acts. It ignores all the Old Testament restrictions on prophecy and its requirement that prophets be without error. It makes no distinction between the necessity of prophecy before God revealed the Scriptures and after the biblical canon was closed.

So this is an opportunity to discuss the nature of NT prophecy and its differences from OT prophecy. Mr. Challies relies on De. 18:19-22 for his assertion:

If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death.” 21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

Since cessationists appeal to this for documentation of their claim, they also must embrace the fact that false prophets are to be put to death. If a prophet must be 100% correct, then cessationists are supplied with the scriptural remedy for false prophets. Or doesn't that death penalty part apply? If so, why does one requirement apply and one does not?

And by the way, what if the person is 100% accurate? The cessationist objection vanishes. 

We know, of course, that we operate on a different dispensation than do the Jews. We are not Jews, so we do not have the ceremonial law, the dietary restrictions, we don't have to worry about mixing fabrics, or any of the other stuff the Jews were subject to.

So we conclude that if we don't don't put people to death for false prophecies, we don't hold prophets to 100% accuracy. NT prophecy doesn't have to be 100% accurate.

This is the reason we are commanded to judge prophecy, because prophecy is not infallible:

1Co. 14:29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.

1Jn. 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

So it is clear that at least some prophecies are true, which we discern on a per case basis. After all, there is extensive instruction about how the gits are to operate, how to judge them, what their purposes are, and with this the tacit acknowledgment that the gifts were in operation all throughout the body of Christ. Paul would have no need to expound at length about something that was going to cease in a few years.

Paul commands us to embrace prophecy:

1Th. 5:20 do not treat prophecies with contempt.

He wants us to desire the greater gifts, including prophecy. 

1Co. 14:1 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.

The early church also had false teachers as well as false prophets, and they are mentioned together as if they are connected.

2Pe. 2:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.

Do we say that there is no teaching today because some teaching is false? No, of course not. Teachers are human, operating in their understanding and weakness. Should a false teacher be put to death, since they're mentioned together with prophecy? No, of course not. Like prophets, their call is to instruct and build up the Body. They won't do it perfectly.

No one wants prophetic inaccuracy. but it was a reality then and a reality today. That's why Scripture is adamant about judging prophecy. If prophecy has ceased, there would be no need to judge it, for then all prophecy would be definitionally false.

And what about Agabus? Scripture describes him as a prophet. Yet he didn't get a prophecy 100% correct. Here's his prophecy about what would happen to Paul:

Ac. 21:10-11 After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, `In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles."

Here's what actually happened to Paul:

Ac. 21:33 The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done.

This may be a minor point, but remember, we are talking about the supposed need for 100% accuracy. Did the Jews hand him over to the Gentiles? No, Paul was seized and bound by the Romans. Was Agabus put to death? No.

Thus we conclude that the NT idea of prophecy has a different standard. It is to be weighed, judged, and evaluated. And, it must be embraced.

Another point. Those who worship on Sundays appeal to the fact that the 4th commandment is nowhere reiterated in the NT, and thus we are relieved of the obligation to worship on the Sabbath. Would we then be able to appeal to the same concept regarding prophecy, that because the 100% accuracy requirement is not repeated in the NT, contemporary prophecy does not have to be 100%?

We would not want to make this a universal application of the OT vs. the NT, I am simply using the same rationale to illustrate how we pick and choose our Scriptures based on preconceived notions.

Concluding point. Re. 11:3 mentions two prophets: 

And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”

The obvious conclusion is that there is (or will be) contemporary prophecy.  However, if there are cessationists around at the time these two are prophesying, what will be their reaction?