Did the psychologist hear it from a cousin who heard it from his best friend who read it in a newspaper,
Can you cite a peer-reviewed journal article?
Is cessation an observation or theology?
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Can you cite a peer-reviewed journal article?
Well, you are one of the skeptics, right? So why do you keep talking about the subject?
I will address the 'Greek myth' you have proposed, along with the one proposed by
@Genez
We can find good evidence AGAINST this hypothesis by looking at how the Greek middle is used for the same Greek lexical item in other passages, to address the assertion that the middle means they gradually fade out.
1. 1 Corinthians 13:8 says
εἴτε γλῶσσαι, παύσονται
which translates as:
“whether there be tongues, they shall cease.”
Nothing in παύσονται (future middle) itself means “gradual.” It just means “they will cease / stop.”
The Greek verb shows up in the middle in Luke 8:24
καὶ ἐπετίμησεν τῷ ἀνέμῳ καὶ τῷ κλύδωνι τοῦ ὕδατος,
καὶ ἐπαύσαντο, καὶ ἐγένετο γαλήνη.
KJV:“and he rebuked the wind and the raging of the water:
and they ceased, and there was a calm.”
Both Luke and Mark describe Jesus calming the storm.
Luke uses παύομαι (middle).
Mark uses κοπάζω (active).
If the middle means the winds and waves gradually ceased and the active means they ceased all at once, then the two Gospels would be contradicting each other.
But the middle doesn't mean something happens gradually. I'm on my second semester of Greek, and we aren't taught that the middle means something happens gradually. It can sometimes mean reflexive action, where one does an action to himself, but some verbs just take the middle, even in active voice.
This does not align with the teaching of scripture. In fact, Paul said that apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry... which leads up to growing into a perfect man to the full measure of the stature of Christ.
II Timothy does say that the word of God is given that all scripture is given... that the man of God might be fully equipped, but some peopld seem to have spiritual dyslexia when they read that and think it says that scripture is all that is given that the man of God might be fully equipped.
We need the stuff that is in the scriptures, not just the scriptures themselves. We need to have faith, not say, "We don't need faith because we have the Bible." We need the work of the Spirit in our lives, and are not to say, "We do not need the Holy Spirit because we have the Bible." We should NOT say, "We do not need any of the stuff the Bible says we need because we have the Bible." We should not say that about spiritual gifts either, that we do not need the spiritual gifts by which, according to the Bible, we are edified, because we have the Bible.
These were MD's. Psychiatrists. Not psychologists.
They were giving stats to work with.
Just the same.
I was not expecting for you to agree.
And you would not need "research" or "2 or 3 witnesses" to believe the Pentecostal claims of ongoing physical supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
We are not on a "remote island" void of the ability to sense such claims.
Your silly excuses as to why people can not see or reject such bogus claims makes you seem quite dull.
There are people have seen healings, witnessed supernatural prophecies (e.g. people prophesying things they could not naturally know.) If you haven't seen it, it means you haven't seen it. It doesn't mean it hasn't happened. You could call people liars for telling you what you have seen. That doesn't make them liars.
What you are or were is of no interest to me. You are the one who talked about experiences. My introduction to Pentecostals was mixed, not that I knew anything about anything when I was first saved.
My first experience was with Teen Challenge in Sydney. The leader was "Tiny" Dewberry, AOG pastor. Perhaps you know of him. I also met Pentecostals at Teen Challenge in Hawaii and in Hong Kong. I did not know anything about it, but I know what I experienced. I was not interested in what I considered something for emotional people. Pentecostals sure were different from the Baptists. I was a member of the George St church,
I had a bit to do with Arden Burrell in the mid 1970's. He was a great help, but he was hamstrung by AOG leadership and that was a great shame. He fell for the "Toronto Blessing" deception in the 90's when I met him again. Even so, he had a word from the Lord for me that was spot on.
I will say that I'm done with Pentocostalism. I can walk to the nearest ACCC fellowship. No thanks. However, I am not done with the gifts of the Spirit. I don't see any valid reason to reject them.
Ten years before attending Bible college I was given a dream about it.
When I had the dream the Bible college did not exist.
You are still missing the point. It is not whether it is in the middle or not, the ceasing for tongues and the ceasing for knowledge and prophecy are two different words.
If the one circumstance, ie the return of Christ, is the catalyst there would be no need for different language. It uses two different words because all three gifts are for two different groups of people with two different catalysts for cessation.
As for your last paragraph, sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo you have made up based on nothing I have actually said but you have interpreted.
If I were to give you a word of knowledge regarding God and His working? Against what will you test it? Your experience/understanding or what the scriptures declare?
Something new that has no foundation recorded in scripture? Yes.
Why don't you show me in a Greek grammar book or by some examples from usage of words in other passages of scripture or ancient Greek texts that if two different verbs are used that they must refer to different time periods. This sounds like a specious argument to me.
Are you arguing that prophetic revelation continues until Christ returns, but not speaking in tongues? Btw, what do you do with the two witnesses prophesying.
Is this something you are curious about, or an indirect argument against words of knowledge being given?
If your thinking is "If someone gets a word of knowledge and there is revelation other than from directly reading words on the page of scripture, then it would be hard to know if it is legit or not, therefore, such gifts must not be given" that would be an argument against words of knowledge being given in Biblical times as well... and a very poor one at that.
If the Spirit gave revelation to believers that could not be completely discerned using only exegesis in the first century, would it be unreasonable of the Spirit to do so now?
The Bible does say to let the prophets speak two or three and let the other judge. It says despise not prophesyings; prove all things; hold fast to that which is good. And of course, in the first century, one test would be to test it against apostolic doctrine and Old Testament writings, as we test prophecies against the scriptures today.
But if you were standing there in the first century and Peter confronted Ananias and then Sapphira had conspired to hold back part of the price of a purchase and pretend to give the whole thing, you could not open the Old Testament and find a passage that said they did such a thing. You could have seen each drop dead. And if you had been an unbelieving skeptic, you might been able to blame it on witchcraft or a hidden guy with a poisoned blow dart (though I wonder if that first accusation in my example would have been a forgivable sin.)
If the unbelievers comes into the assembly and all prophesy and the secrets of his heart are made manifest, can you look up in the Old Testament and see if Dikaiopolis stole a sweat-scraper from his neighbor, or whatever secrets would have been made manifest for an unbeliever to fall on his face?
So this issue of discerning apart from pure exegesis is not a modern issue only, but also an ancient one. So how do we discern.
Hebrews speaks of the mature who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Romans 12 tells readers that by offering their bodies as living sacrifices, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may know what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. This is a bit broader than discerning prophecy, but application can be made. There is also a reference to the gift of discerning of spirits in I Corinthians 12, so there is grace for being able to discern as well.
This is not about people lying about personal experiences, that is about the lack of the prima facie that should be quite evident if we were living in a continuation of the age of the miraculous.
You are attempting to defend this narrative of ongoing physical supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit with stories of past personal experiences. This is the blindness and foolishness of your reasoning.
If the blind are being given sight today.
If the dead are being raised today.
If the physically lame are being healed today.
There would be no need to search in books for evidence of these types of current events yet this is what you are doing.
Do you understand the meaning of "ongoing"?
I think you need to look up 'ongoing' in the dictionary. We aren't talking about 'widespread' or 'common' events. If individuals have experienced supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit and testify to experiencing them, their testimonies are evidence that such manifestations are ongoing.
Newscasters who grew up watching Scooby Doo and have a materialist worldview hear about someone blind being healed, etc., they are unlikely to report it. You yourself read about, and dismiss it, how much more someone who actually professes to be an atheist would have the same attitude. Your reasoning seems so clouded that you can't make the logical connection between people experiencing such things in modern times and these things occurring in modern times.
'Emotional people' ... is the key thought to consider here.
Philippians 3:17-19
Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you
have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now
tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose
end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame
—who set their mind on earthly things.
Note:
"Whose god is their belly?"
What does that mean?
That meant back then that their god of their lives was their emotions.
People did have the specific word "emotions" back then.
They simply used body parts to describe what today we simply refer to as "emotions and affections."
For example?
For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:8
My bowels, my bowels!
I am pained at my very heart;
my heart maketh a noise in me;
I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul,
the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Jeremiah 4:19
When someone is ruled by their emotions?
They make themselves to be enemies of the cross of Christ.
Because? They choose to override the ability to deny self and take up their cross.
To deny self when the Word holds a warning up in front of them.
The early church gifts have ceased.
But... the emotions have not.
It's a battle to enure.
Knowing the Word, and believing it, makes it easy.
grace and peace!
Have you ever had any contact with witches?
They would tell you the same things.
And, it must be something very emotionally addictive to keep clinging to it so zealously.
You would think they would quit doing what they do, considering the dire consequences they will face.
Not concerning interpretation of Scripture.
He gave us teachers to do that.
If you are walking in the Spirit, truly?
At the right time you will find your right pastor-teacher.
But, if you are walking in the zeal of your emotions?
You will pick what suits you just fine out from the cosmic smorgasbord of false teachers
For the time will come when they will not put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great
number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
2 Timothy 4:3
.
I'm shaking my head here. Bad theology produces bad exegesis.
Did you bother reading the first part of the verse?
or many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now
tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose
end is destruction, whose god is their belly,
So Paul is weeping here... being emotional... and your take-away is that being an enemy of the cross of Christ has to do with being emotional?
Do you see the irony there? Do you see the problem with that? Was Jesus emotional? Was he emotional when he said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death?' Was He emotional when he had compassion on the people who were like sheep without a shepherd?
What about Hebrews 5:7, describing our Lord's prayers? 'Who in the days of his flesh… offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears…'
I 've occasionally run into the idea of anti-emotional doctrine. I think some of the Bible church and Fundamentalist 'Reformed' Baptist types get caught up into this kind of thinking. I once heard a Baptist preacher with Reformed theology online who was scoffing at a preacher for saying he'd prayed so intensely for the people the night before that he was hoarse, and he and another preacher were saying who really prays until they are hoarse, like they were mocking him.
Of course, I thought of how Hebrew described our Lord's prayers. And we have lots of references to displays of emotions, outward displays of rejoicing also, in the Old Testament. The Psalms speak of rejoicing, of dancing. Emotion is not presented as evil in the scripture. Both Paul and Jesus were likely more expressive with emotion. Even the Greek culture was likely more expressive if this aspect of the culture carried over from the Homeric and classical period.
Even today, some strands of Judaism treat it as a command for men to rejoice by dancing at a wedding. In the first century, people wailed at funerals. Being Stoic or being quiet like Mr. Spock is not taught as a spiritual virtue in scripture.
Consider what the verse says.
Philippians 3
19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things.
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, (NKJV)
Notice he says the issue is minding earthly things--- not on being emotional. Now let's compare this to another teaching of Paul's where he mentions the belly.
I Corinthians 6:13
“‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord…”
Notice the reference to the koilos, the stomach or belly. Here, though it has to do with carnal appetite, not merely feelings.
Let's apply this bit of Pauline teaching back to Philippians 3. Paul isn't saying being emotional is evil. He's expressing emotion in the verse passage! The issue is those whose god is their carnal appetite. The issue is the lusts of the flesh, not having feelings... like Paul does.... in this very verse!
So here you quote about Paul being emotional... longing greatly, emotionally, in his belly.... to prove what? That being 'emotional' is bad?
What a strained argument that ignores the context... Paul himself being emotionally expressive in the very passage.
Jesus said that He that believes in Him, out of his __belly__ shall flow rivers of living water. The belly isn't bad. It needs to be sanctified. The emotional element isn't bad. It needs to be sanctified. Jesus wept. Jesus experienced sorry. Jesus rejoiced. Peter and John rejoiced. Peter said to rejoice in the Lord always, and again, he said, rejoice. Paul expressed sorrow over sin, sorry in His belly.
It seems rather sinister to equate emotional expressions that are presented positively in scripture as somehow ungodly, to look down on those who might weep in prayer or express joy while singing to the Lord. I hope you do not do this.
An irksome argument that conflates different issues here. There is a kind of 'emotional subculture' of Pentecostalism, probably more so in Appalachia throughout the South. It seems like the A/G folks in the midwest and some of the other folks in the western part of the US are different. And other countries differ in different ways. But there is loud emotional preaching from Baptists in Appalachia, as well. My theory is that the style was probably influenced by George Whitfield and spread to other movements. Maybe Shubel and Stearns and some Methodists imitated his style and it became the culture. Emotions aren't evil. A more expressive style is an issue of style, not doctrine or damnation.
And individuals are different.
But spiritual gifts and emotion aren't the same thing. There are people who sound loud and dramatic when they prophesy and might seem emotional. There are also people who prophecy in a very calm and conversational tone. I've probably recall more prophecies from people who repeated back what I was thinking or addressed issues the speaker could not naturally know in the calm tone of voice. But God can work through loud people and calm people.
Your arguments are bizarre and tenuous and do not take the whole counsel of scripture into account on this matter.
I'm the one whose standing on what scripture teaches. You have rather bizarre misinterpretations of scripture.
Are you emotionally addicted to sterile cessationist ideology?
As far as witches go, demons might tell witches things. The Bible talks about divination, soothsaying, etc. and warns against it. It doesn't say it can't work sometimes. Israelites were forbidden to go to such people, but they were allowed to go to prophets.
The New Testament passes on commandments of the Lord to the church, requiring the church to allow prophets to speak two or three and to let the other judge, teaching that 'ye may all prophesy one by one.' It gives commands that require allowing speaking in tongues and interpretation in the church in an orderly manner. The Bible commands believers to covet to prophecy, and to earnestly desire spiritual gifts. Are you obedient to these scriptures? Can you hold to your current theology and obey these scriptures at the same time?