Hi Wolf!
Last bit first:
Oh, it’s fine that you don’t agree. It helps us rethink our position when we read others’ views. And thank you – I’m a grandparent (it’s a girl)!
I understand your point about the Reformation and there being no tongues at that time therefore the gift must have ceased. I don’t find this convincing though. The Scripture is a more reliable source – the Reformers weren’t inspired.
You write:
Paul’s not mentioning tongues in 1 Cor.13,9 doesn’t mean he isn’t including this gift. It is a matter of writing style. This was my first thought when I read your words and I have found that scholars (who are not charismatics), e.g., D.A. Carson, make the same point (so they must be right). It’s a stylistic thing. Paul doesn’t have to repeat the three gifts here, particularly as he later explains (in 14,5) that prophecy is greater than tongues unless someone interprets. In that case, tongues is of equal value with prophecy and has the same function, “that the church may be built up”. So it would make no sense to exclude tongues in the gifts that would cease when the perfect comes. Paul here is contrasting things that won't last forever with love, which will. So tongues is included with the temporary things.
You say you believe “the perfect” is the completion of Scripture. Would the Corinthians have understood this though? Was there any mention of a collection of New Testament books or a New Testament canon anywhere in the context of 1 Corinthians 13? This idea is completely foreign to the context. If there had been, and if Paul made it clear that the last book of the canon would be written in AD90, would it have been persuasive to argue: “We know that love will never end because it will last more than 35 years”?
The context requires us to understand that the perfect is the age to come. You wanted us to consider the views of the Reformers. When considering the “completed canon” argument, Calvin wrote in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, “It is stupid [sorry Wolf, his word, not mine] of people to make the whole of this discussion apply to the intervening time.”
Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes of another difficulty with your view: “It means that you and I, who have the Scriptures open before us, know much more than the apostle Paul of God’s truth. It means that we are altogether superior even to the apostles themselves, including the apostle Paul! It means that we are now in a position in which ‘we know, even as also we are known’ by God. Indeed, there is only one word to describe such a view, it is nonsense.”
This means that we have a clear biblical statement that Paul expected the gifts to continue through the entire church age and to function for the benefit of the Church until the Lord returns.
We need to look at the nature of New Testament prophecy though. It differed from the Old Testament variety. Old Testament prophets spoke the very words of God. New Testament prophets put impressions the Lord has given them into words. See Agabus, for example.
We need prophecy today to benefit the church, Wolf. Through it, God speaks directly into people’s specific circumstances, encouraging and comforting them.
You say you would expect a 100% success rate. But Agabus, who prophesied to Paul, got minor details wrong and Paul didn’t always follow the advice contained in his prophecies anyway. Not only this, but at the end of another section on spiritual gifts, Paul writes, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:20,21). There would have been no need for this instruction if we could rely on 100% of all prophecies.
There's more that I could write but this is perhaps enough for now.
Oh, in case you're wondering, I'm no wild-eyed Pentecostal (not that there's anything wrong with that). I'm a Baptist. Very correct.
