-Boaz

My church is total cessationist, but my husband and I do not feel we are. We fall somewhere in the middle. Ultimately, we do not consider this all that important and have no problem whatsoever worshiping there, but, not having researched it thoroughly enough, I got curious to see what the various views on cessationism are.

I will say first that I haven’t finished the article yet!

But, I believe this to be an excellent blog. In presenting the different sides of the debate, I am very impressed that you didn’t give a straw-man argument. Both sides were presented exactly as they are without criticism.

You did not present your evaluation until after presenting the various positions. I have rarely seen anyone who could manage to successfully present various opposing views of an argument without using very biased language.

I have bookmarked this page so that I can finish reading it and read more thoroughly.

Thank you for posting this!

It helped me polish the paper off today!

Thank you again.
-D

First and foremost the witness of the Holy Spirit will help us know the truth.
Secondly, I am hard pressed to think that someone who lives where there is no scholarly interpretation of the word would not be able to know the truth and to walk in it properly.

There can not be two truths to this discussion. God had one thought in this area.
IF we are without mans theology, we must read scripture as it is. This person in a different country would be speaking in tongues , prohesying, healing the sick etc.

I take issue with some of your statements concerning Prophets. We are under grace now. God tells us to not treat prophesies with contempt, we are also to try our wings. We are to have prophets as a part of our congregations in order to reach unity in the faith….attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. I could go on and on.

Given all of this and the fact that God tells us to eagerly desire the spiritual gifts especially the gift of prophesy (this you said God does not expect us to do). He also says to try to excel in the gifts that build up the church. And to eagerly desire the greater gifts. Therefore the Holy Spirit is using all men in this way. “For you can all prophesy in turn”. “The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy” We are under a new covenant, we are all to see visions, dreams and prophesy. Therefore we are not to be under the consequence of death when we are wrong. Much like children who disobey are no longer sentenced to death. It must of course line up with scripture and not contradict.

Bottom line, through all of your exegesis, you missed the full understanding of Who God is and his amazing grace and His passion for his kingdom.

Let us do as scripture tells us. The church is dying, it is devoid of power and in some ways because we try so hard to unwrap and analyze everything. Many are afraid of messes. Lets start pastoring things that are messy rather than closing it down or forbidding it. This is what Paul did in the Corinthian church.

WE need to : Trust God through his Holy Spirit, check our motives and step out in faith and do what scripture says, not man.

God bless,
Donna

I have drawn the same conclusions from the scriptures. I advocate an open,but cautious viewpoint. As a church planter, I have found that in addition to unchurched people, scores of “church-hoppers” come through a growing, highly evangelistic new work believing they have finally found the place to exert their agenda. Of course, they would call it their calling from God. Eventually, their “calling from God” is revealed to be contrary to the church planter’s Call. Then the fireworks start.

I finally got so frustrated with not being able to mention biblical concepts like “filled with the Holy Spirit”, “spiritual gifts”, and even “repentance”, without a preconceived agenda being attached to them, that I wrote a book to clarify our position. I can now hand them a book explaining where we are and why on the spiritual gift of tongues. I became convinced that was the only way to deal with the constant flow of “church hoppers” who are mad at their last Pastor and looking for a new place where the Pastor is willing to be taught what is really important.

I even had one guy look at me after assessing our church to say, “You’re almost there. All you need to do is….” He then proceeded to explain to me how to “whip up” the church to the place where the “the gifts will start moving”. Nowhere do I see the New Testament Church “whipping” anything up. What we see there is the empowering force of God himself in the church moving small broken men to doing the impossible and accomplishing the unimaginable. That’s a God thing and it can’t be “whipped up”.

Anyway, as a Pastor to occupy a middle position between two radically opposed theologies is not an easy place to be. And yet, if we operate in “sola scriptura” there is nowhere else to be. The Bible itself does not clearly consign a definitive end to the “gifts of the Spirit”. Even the best of Cessationistic writers can’t make a really good case for Cessationism because it is simply can’t be found in the text without taking the scripture out of context. 1 Cor. 13:8 is simply not clear enough to base an entire theology on. Why would we be willing to consign half the believers in the world away based on such thin scriptural evidence?

A much better case for Pentecostal/Charismatic theology can be made using only their predetermined subset of scriptures. But again, the context of Paul’s corrections in 1st and 2nd Corinthians has to be completely avoided for “Tongues” theology to be valid. In one passage alone, Paul completely demolishes all “tongues” theology assumptions. “Do all…?” (! Cor. 12:29-31) The scripture is clear that there never was any expectation that all believers should have a universally available gift of tongues as their center of power. Paul corrected that in Corinth. However, I have met some folks who are really good at avoiding what Paul was correcting in Corinth.

My ambition has been to stand in the pulpit and simply preach what the Word says. Nothing added and nothing taken away. But eventually you find yourself avoiding scriptural terms like “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” or “Filled with the Holy Spirit”, because either camp is prone to assuming they know where you are going with that terminology. I don’t believe the Bible teaches a “second blessing” after salvation. In addition to being sealed for eternity by the Holy Spirit at salvation, there can be many “fillings” of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer who genuinely desires more of the Lord in his life. Those “overfillings” should never be associated with one spiritual gift, but rather an increase in the fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:22), power, love, and a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7), boldness (throughout Acts), and the church being added to. (Acts 2:47) These are the things we measure the church by, not a single spiritual gift. Again, revelry in the ecstasy of tongues is exactly what Paul corrected at Corinth. Incidentally great men of God like Spurgeon, Wesley, and Moody advocated “The Baptism of the Holy Spirit”. R.A. Torrey wrote an entire book about it. But it was not associated with the gift of tongues, it was an overwhelming, empowering experience based on repentance and confession more akin to 2 Chr. 7:14 or James 4:6-10.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for the excellent blog. I have some of the books you mentioned but I found your comments from Charles Talbert especially interesting. Thanks.