Let me clarify -- my intention was not to get into 'credentials'. This is an 'anonymous' discussion board after all. We don't really know anything about each other's personal lives. And any arguments need to stand on their own merits and not on anything else.
I agree with your point. But on the other hand, making comments about language when you have some training in linguistics or exposure to other languages is a valid point to make.
Your position is that Biblical speaking in tongues does not occur today, right? That's how I interpret your comments. Your position is also that God does not perform miracles through individuals, right?
My position is that the Spirit gives these gifts as He wills. Maybe they don't occur so frequently in the circles you frequent that you actually encountered such a thing. Or maybe you skeptically dismissed the evidence available to you. If these gifts are rarer than you'd like them to be, at least around you, then that doesn't mean they don't exist.
We are both Christians, and we should go with what the Bible says, instead of our own experiences. You haven't seen certain spiritual gifts, so you don't believe they occur on earth today. I see the scripture says they are given 'as the Spirit wills' so I believe what the scripture says. You are basing your doctrine on your interpretation of experience....or lack thereof, which makes even less sense. I am basing mine on scripture.
I have seen some of the I Corinthians 14 gifts. I've never seen anyone raise the dead. My wife may have actually done that before I met her when a man got hit by a bus. He didn't have a death certificate, but he did not appear to be breathing before she prayed for him and commanded his spirit to come back into his body in Jesus name, while the Muslims looked at her. I didn't see it myself, but I am one degree of separation, so to speak, from someone who did. And I know my wife well enough to know that she wouldn't just make something like that up.
I've also witnessed that a girl was healed of severely crossed eyes. I've known other people who were healed, but I can't see internal organs or pain, and I'm not a medical doctor (though I played one on TV).
So when one casts a net as wide as I have...and runs into ZERO "tongues" (other than the "hubbala hubbala hubbala" variety)
And I have heard speaking in tongues, which, to my somewhat trained ears, sound like they could possibly be real languages. I have known two people who spoke in tongues and other people understood. I know or have met two people who have heard speaking in tongues in English, and I know of other cases.
Your argument doesn't hold water. If you haven't experienced speaking in tongues, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. When English evolutionists heard of the duckbilled platypus, a lot of them dismissed it as a myth until one was sent to them to study. It did not fit with their preconceived ideas based on the theory of evolution. The fact that none of them had seen a duckbilled platypus did not prove that such creatures did not exist.
and ZERO apostolic-style miracles (raising from the dead, healing from profound life-long paralysis and blindness)
If someone gets healed, do you just move the goalpost, and say that healing wasn't spectacular enough to be apostolic in nature. Jesus even healed a woman of some kind of internal bleeding. The woman actually touched the hem of his garment and power came out of Him, and He sensed it. Is that spectacular? Is that an apostolic level healing? There were probably plenty of minor ailments healed, also. Jesus healed Peter's mother of a fever. Is that up to the level to be a apostolic level healing?
People are being sent on "wild goose chases"...trying to hunt down things that don't exist...
Things that don't exist? Your reasoning is similar to an atheists. You assert things you can't know. You certainly can't know there are no miracles being done through individuals from the Bible, because the Bible does not teach that such things have been removed from the earth.
If you are going to claim that all the cases in the world of miracles are false, you should go track them down. Some will probably be rumors. Others will pan out. I haven't read Craig Keener's 'Miracles' yet. He's known more for his works on the Bible. You could start with a book like that and read what evidence is readily available in book form for a low price before claiming their is no evidence. If you really wanted to back up your assertion, of proving that these miracles do not exist, you could research the thousands of claims that they do exist.
I found a video of a lecture being given by the former Time correspondent in Beijing, a journalist, who wrote a book in Jesus and China. I forget the title. It appeared to be a lecture on a college campus. He said that, at least from talking to the Chinese, they believed that people were being healed through the ministry of Christians in China. He was able to interview a number of persecuted Christians who escaped to Hong Kong.
e was also able to 'triangulate' one story by interviewing different people from different perspectives. It had to do with a policeman who persecuted Christians. Later, he got a form of cancer doctors could not cure and was healed through the ministry of Christians. He was healed, became a Christian himself, and fled to Hong Kong due to persecution. The author/journalist was able to interview different people about this story.
except if its "24 years ago and 16,000 miles away and 4th hand".
Your criticisms sound like the same sort of things atheists might say about the miracles in the Bible.
I am supposed to see it with MY eyeballs. Not yours. But you guys...can...not...get...yourselves...to stop with the 2nd hand, 3rd hand, 10th hand hearsay.
Why do you need to see miracles with your own eyes? You aren't an unbeliever who is only going to believe the Gospel if he sees miracles, are you? Why isn't the Bible good enough? Why can't you just say, "the Bible says the Spirit gives gifts of healing and the working of miracles as He wills. Okay, I believe that."? Why do you have to see the miracles with your own eyeballs to believe that God does such things?
That's all the Charismatics have...is hearsay. Not a single one of them has said to me:"Hey, I have the gift of healing. Follow me to church for a number of Sundays and sooner or later I'm going to heal the lame or blind and raise the dead!"
I don't know that the apostles would have said such things. There are also factors like having faith and the will of God. The apostles had done miracles before, but on one occasion, they prayed that God would stretch forth His hand to heal and to do signs and wonders. They were dependent on God for such things. But there are people who go out with people and pray for the sick on the street and at other places and share the Gospel, who will train others to do the same thing. On YouTube, Torben Sondergaard and Pete Cabrera have videos about this sort of thing. Neither one of them believe they have to be dependent on the faith of the person being ministered to. Torben Sondergaard talks to the type of people who will engage with him on the street, which tend to be young people, so he'll deal with things like sports injuries and various forms of pain that young people hanging out at the mall or on the street might experience.