The early church was persecuted by the Jews. Many Jews thought they were doing good by rating out those of "the way". You are the one inserting replacement theology and preterism not me. I never mentioned either and have no interest in either.
Who are the authors who invented and/or promoted the idea that ‘tongues are for a sign’ mean that they ceased in 70AD or some similar convoluted interpretation? If you believe that God still has dealings with Israel as an ethnic group, there is no reason to see this passage as having anything to do with the cessation of tongues.
As far as preterism and other eschatological systems go, if you believe the two witnesses, who prophesy and do miracles, are still yet to come in the future, then it doesn’t make sense to do away with prophecy (or miracles for that matter.)
I doesn’t make sense to redefine ‘prophesy’ to mean something other than it means in scripture either.
Well if we just refer to 1 Cor 1:22 we see that Jews require a sign and Gentiles seek wisdom
Yet it defies all good reason to desire the gifts that were least and have ceased.
These gifts won’t cease until Christ returns (I Corinthians 1:7.) And it makes sense to desire the least of the gifts as well as the greater gifts since the Bible encourages us to desire spiritual gifts. So it is good to desire any and all of the spiritual gifts. How can you say you are obedient to scripture if you do not ‘desire spiritual gifts’ (I Corinthian 14:1.)
You want tongues but what of the other gifts? Why not desire administration? Yet you only seek those that are abused and glorify the man and not the Lord.
I’ve prayed for the gift of administration before. I desire to operate in lots of gifts, including the greater gifts as well. I want to prophesy, do you? If you do not, you are disobedient to scripture.
Your second sentence shows some messed up thinking. Just about any gift could be abused. If used properly, gifts edify other people to the glory of God. You make it sound like some of the gifts the Bible teaches us to desire are bad things. That illustrates a problem with your attitude toward spiritual gifts.
Non answer. Scripture is perfect it was only not complete when Paul wrote to the Corinthians.
Look up ‘perfect’ in I Corinthians 13, James 1, and other passages. The word ‘to telion’ could be translated as ‘complete’ or ‘perfect.’ That’s why I use the words interchangeably. Some people use ‘perfect law of liberty’ as if it were evidence that I Corinthians 13 is talking about the Bible. “Hey, ‘perfect’ is used in this verse, too.” But the law of liberty was perfect without the canon being complete, so the use of the same term doesn’t fit the argument.
You need to obfuscate to maintain your position.
It seems to me that if you can’t answer a serious problem with your position that I point out, that you accuse me of obfuscation.
In I Corinthians 13:11, Paul compares his understanding before the coming of the perfect to that of a child. Do you disagree? Paul compares his understanding after the coming of the perfect to that of an adult. Do you agree?
These are the words of Martin Lloyd Jones on the subject taken from
Triablogue: Lloyd-Jones on cessationism
“You see what that involves? It means that you and I, who have the Scriptures open before us, know much more than the apostle Paul of God’s truth. That is what it means and nothing less, if that argument is correct. It means that we are altogether superior to the early church and even to the apostles themselves, including the apostle Paul! It means that we are not in a position in which we know ‘face to face’ that ‘we know, even as also we are known’ by God because we have the Scriptures. It is surely unnecessary to say more.
“What the apostle is, of course, dealing with in 1 Corinthians 13 is the contrast between the highest and the best that the Christian can ever know in this world and in this life and what he will know in the glory everlasting. The ‘now’ and the ‘then’ are not the time before and after the Scriptures were given, because that, as I have said, puts us in a position entirely superior to the apostles and prophets who are the foundation of the Christian church and on whose very work we have to rely. It is inconsistent, and contradictory – indeed, there is only one word to describe such a view, it is nonsense. The ‘then’ is the glory everlasting. It is only then that I shall known, even as also I am known; for then we shall see him as he is. It will be direct and ‘face to face’. No longer, as Paul puts it again in 2 Corinthians 3:18– as an image or a reflection, but direct, absolute, full and perfect knowledge.
That depends but your are obfuscating again.Acts 2 is an interesting passage. It was cloven tongues of fire. What was heard was heard in various human languages. So how does that compare to how the Pentecostals speak in tongues? Not even close to the same thing. You really have no evidence that any of the tongues spoken were anything other than human languages and not the ecstatic utterances proffered today. [/quote]
This is a straw man. I believe tongues are languages. I allow for the idea that some of them may be ‘tongues of angels’ because Paul suggests the possibility. The historical Pentecostal position is that tongues are languages, and there are several accounts from the Azusa Street revival of people entering the meeting and hearing their own language.
You have the problem not me. Prophecy today is telling forth what has been given in the word of God the bible.
Prophecies given in the past are prophecies. But prophesying isn’t just reading or teaching the Bible. That’s not consistent with the usage of the term in scripture. In the Old Testament, prophets would typically say “Thus saith the LORD” followed by a message the Lord had given them to say. Peter describes it as ‘holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
In the New Testament, prophesying is still revelatory. I Corinthians 14 tells the prophets to speak two or three and let the other judge. And if a REVELATION comes to him that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. For ye may all PROPHESY on by one.
Prophesying involves the sharing of revelations. I Corinthians 12 shows prophet and teacher are two different ministers. In Romans 12 prophesying and teaching are two different things. Even in the Old Testament, prophets would get messages from God, and priests and Levites were to teach the people what had already been revealed. Moses prophesied the law, and generations of priests taught it, or were supposed to.
My understanding is biblical and not cultural.
Why is your Biblical argument so weak, then? You are basing everything on eisegeting one passage, and your interpretation produces some huge problems. It makes your knowledge greater than the authors from whom you get the knowledge. It puts you in a superior position to the authors of scripture.
I suspect there are other, stronger reasons for your believing this. Maybe you grew up in a church culture where these gifts don’t operate and so you see that as normative. But does scripture present that as normative. Or maybe you’ve had a bad experience with Pentecostals or Charismatics (e.g. seen certain shows on TBN.)
The church is established and the bible is complete.
Which doesn’t prove your case either.
The Holy Spirit ministers through both today. There are undeniable differences between the church in apostolic times and today. We are still saved by grace but the church is mostly Gentile and not Jewish.
Acts 13-15 shows God doing signs among the Gentiles, too. Saul and Barnabas reported to the apostles and elders the signs they did among the Gentiles.
I Corinthians shows us that a predominantly former pagan and presumably Gentile church operated in a number of spiritual gifts. Paul encouraged their zeal for spiritual gifts.
Why would all this encouragement about spiritual gifts be written in a letter to a mostly Gentile church if these things were only for Jews?
True in a sense but Hebrews 1 tell us that God has spoken to us in His Son. Jesus is the word of God made flesh. Does not leave room for additional revelation.
Your conclusion is false and unbiblical. Jesus sent the Spirit, and God reveals by the Spirit (II Corinthians 2.) If you look at the New Testament, we read that Jesus gave apostles to men. How could revelation have ended when Christ came when Paul received revelations after the ascension? Why would be pray for the Ephesians to have the Spirit of revelation? Why would Paul tell the Corinthians that if a revelation came when a prophet was speaking for the prophet to hold his peace? Your interpretation makes no sense in the light of the rest of the New Testament.
Earlier I made a point that the Corinthians had some moral issues but had genuine gifts. I was responding to your objections about some Pentecostals. I don’t know who you’ve met or what they did. But if there are some Pentecostals who have practices that you find objectionable, that doesn’t prove their gifts aren’t real. And you have even less excuse when you reject the gifts of those living a godly life. I Corinthians 12 teaches against one part of the body with one gift saying of another with another gift, “I have no need of thee.”
Were the tongues languages or ecstatic utterances?
‘Tongues’ means languages. Usually those who call them ‘ecstatic utterances’ are those who haven’t experienced it. Speaking in tongues doesn’t have to be spoken in an ecstatic state, and people can speak in their own language in an ecstatic state or simply be silent. So that is a very poorly named description of it.
Were they in the mouth of the speaker or in the ears of the hearers?
I believe they were in the mouth of the speakers. People have been disagreeing about this since the two St. Gregories in the 4th century. But the ‘miracle in the ear’ view takes an unnecessarily complicated interpretation of Acts 2. And if the mouths of the people were saying something different from the sound coming out, like a dubbed Kung Fu movie, you’d think the people would have commented on that. Paul wrote, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels....” which doesn’t fit the theory that the words spoken are not languages.
You construct doctrine and a church worship on mostly speculation and not the bible.
Have you really thought through your accusation and studied before saying that? Like the Hebrews 1 quote above, your statement doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny.
What do you do in church? Do you sing three songs, listen to a sermon, sing three songs and leave? Where is this in the Bible?
There is one lengthy chapter in the epistles that deals with the Lord’s Supper I Corinthians 11, and one lengthy chapter on other stuff to do in church, I Corinthians 14. Most of I Corinthians 11’s treatment of the Lord’s Supper is on what not to do.
I Corinthians 14 gives ‘commandments of the Lord’ for church meetings. It talks about ‘every one of you’ having a psalm, teaching, tongue, interpretation, revelation, and to let all things be done unto edifying. It gives specific instructions to speakers in tongues and interpreters. There are specific instructions on how prophets and members of the congregation can prophesy. Earlier in the passage, Paul presents all prophesying in a positive light when he tells of the unbeliever or unlearned coming in and hearing the secrets of his heart being made manifested.
The one chapter that tells us what to do in church assumes the existence of the gifts of tongues, interpretation and prophecy. And the prophesying he speaks of is revelatory, since he write, ‘if a revelation cometh to another sitting by....”
There is an implication that his instructions reflect universal church practice, since he says, “as in all the churches” and “What? Came the word of God out from you or unto only has it come?” The word hadn’t originated with them and they weren’t the only one’s who had received it. They didn’t have the right to change God’s ordained ways of what to do in church. Why should we? Paul also writes that his instructions are the ‘commandments of the Lord.”
The commandments of the Lord for church meetings assume the existence of the gifts of tongues and prophecy. Why would God have the part of the Bible that tells us what to do in church in the greatest detail only be valid for a few decades? If the Bible is to see us through to the return of Christ, then why didn’t He give us a book of the Bible that tells us how to have a cessationist church service with no gifts? And why would he need to have I Corinthians 12-14 make the canon if it was only good for a short time?
I Corinthians 1:6 says ‘so that ye come behind in no spiritual gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We are still waiting.
I'm not sorry to say I fail to see the wisdom in that. Guess that makes me a Gentile.
You are like a cradle Catholic you cannot see anything else.
I think that fits you better. No doubt you were raised or spent time in some church that doesn't practice gifts and either because of what you were taught or the limitations of your experience, you choose to believe that God does not operate in the church in some of the ways that the Bible teaches that He does. Your arguments that appeal to scripture are flawed. It seems like you don't think you have to deal with the problems with your interpretation, either, just as long as you have some kind of interpretation to justify your view. Implying that your own knowledge is greater than the authors' of scripture-- because you have their writings-- is a very problematic view. There are also direct statements of scripture like I Corinthians 1:6 that contradict your point of view. The other scripture you offered was a reference to Hebrews 1, arguing that revelation ended after Christ, when the very book you were referring to was written after Christ ascended. How could it be inspired if there were no revelation? It makes no sense.
Step back and pare it all down to the absolute minimum.
The Bible says, "How shall he not, with him also, freely give him all things." Why wouldn't I want all the gifts the Lord has to minister to others to be in my life and in the lives of other believers.
If all you had was a bible and another soul or two to fellowship with could you worship the Lord? Would you be faithful and worship the Lord?
I don't follow your line of reasoning here at all. Why would believing in the gifts the Bible teaches are true mean that I wouldn't be able to fellowship or worship with one or two other people? I've spent plenty of time studying the Bible one-on-one with someone else, praying with another individual. Nightly family devotions used to be a very small gathering, but that's changed a bit as God has blessed my wife and I with more children.
