For the most part I think I'll just monitor the thread.Please feel free to join us.
Okay, there really should be a summary, shouldn't there?
A few days ago Stillwaters posted a thread intended to be used for those who have opinions about cessationism, dispensationalism, and related isms. Zone and I got to talking, and she asked me to post a separate thread, so we would not be monopolizing that thread. She got I think three likes to her request in a matter of a couple hours.
Zone is a cessationist. I walk in many of what are called the "gifts of the Spirit". (We have agreed not to call them gifts. They are currently nameless.) These include tongues, prophecy, healing, etc. Many people in the other thread have posted videos showing that these behaviors are being used in ways that prove the users are not following God. Zone claims that no such real things exist, and the videos prove it. I have used them for most of a lifetime, and I do not use them anything like in the videos. I also know many people who do the same. To all of us, the videos are clearly the use of a counterfeit of some kind. I think Zone is hoping to investigate what I and those I know are doing, and determine is they truly are different, Scriptural, desirable, whatever. We have also agreed that both of us want everything good God wishes us to have, and nothing Satan wants to give us.
I titled the thread from the movement where I was introduced to the Scriptural backing of these behaviors, the "charismatic renewal" of the 1970's.
Zone, please have a look at this and make sure I told the right things about your position.
Ken, i have a research project to do - beginning with a 1 1/2 hr video, so i haveta make popcorn to prep tsk.
prolly won't be back until tomorrow.
this is your thread, so i look forward to seeing where we will begin (or rather continue) our discussion.
love in Christ,
zone
~
1 Corinthians 14:33
For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints
here are the results i posted in the other thread from my research on the spiritual gifts in post apostolic times...i am reposting here for reference because it is relevant to the topic...
in the early second century AD justin martyr wrote in his 'dialogue with trypho the jew' that healing and tongues and prophecy were common in the christian church...
in the late second century irenaeus...a student of john's student polycarp...wrote in his book 'against heresies' that many in the churches spoke in tongues and received prophecy and performed healings...
in the early third century origen wrote in his book 'against celsus' that the tongues were temporary and that they no longer happened...but he also reported that he was a witness to ongoing prophecy and healings...
in the late third century john chrysostom indicated in his 'homily on 1 corinthians 12' that tongues no longer occurred and admitted that the church's understanding of the nature of tongues had been obscured by the passage of time...chrysostom is also the first to use the term 'cessation'
in the early fourth century the church historian eusebius of caesarea...based on the writings i already mentioned and other reports that we no longer have...concluded in his 'ecclesiastical history' that the tongues had continued only through irenaeus' time...
in the mid fourth century epiphanius of salamis wrote in his anti heretical 'medicine chest' that prophecy was welcomed in the church...he argued against the montanists that the church had not rejected the spiritual gifts but only had denounced the montanists' charisma as not being authentic spiritual gifts...
in the late fourth century augustine wrote in his 'homily on 1 john' that the tongues were for the early church and were no longer present in his time...
in the early fifth century augustine wrote in his 'city of God' that miracles still occurred...but that they were not as widely reported as the earlier miracles...and he described several contemporary healings that he was aware of or even witnessed himself... most of the contemporary healings augustine tells about happened through prayer or through the sacraments...especially baptism... augustine also argued in the same work that although the miracles still happened they were no longer spiritually necessary because 'the whole world' had come to believe the gospel...
although the church fathers were fallible and often uncritical and prone to repeating hearsay...most of these post apostolic testimonies seem to reflect the widespread consensus of 'common knowledge' in the church regarding the gifts in their respective time periods...
from all of these ancient testimonies my conclusion is that the tongues continued into the late second century and then ceased... healings continued at least into the fifth century although by that time they were usually the result of prayer or sacrament...healing by direct command as in the new testament appears to have largely ceased by then... prophecy continued at least into the fourth century and it is not clear whether it ever fully ceased...
because of my research i take a position i call 'tentative cessationism'...i regard the ceasing of tongues and the ceasing of healing by direct command as a -historical- fact...though i don't have any -theological- reason for it being so...and consequently i am neutral on the question of whether or not these miraculous gifts could be revived and whether or not the pentecostal or charismatic movements represent such a revival in modern times
No fair! You said I should start the thread, so you could continue discussing with me. I already posted a summary. It should be your turn to ask a question.
See my response to Rachel's post just above.
the Bible only records 3 periods of tremendous and consistent miraculous activity by God - and all 3 were related to His showing of power, which was directly related to what He was saying at the time.
the times of
Moses; Elijah and Elisha; and Jesus the Apostles.
1. Not exactly. I believe the behaviors of tongues, prophecy, miraculous healing, and apostleship disappeared from the churches from 400-1900 or so, because they were suppressed. They continued within the body, although rare, because they were taught they were not supposed to happen. Scripture indicates that they are easy to suppress. After the tongues event of Pentecost, Peter began speaking English; everyone else stopped. The command "Forbid not to speak in tongues" (I Cort. 14:39) indicates it was happening. "The spirit of the prophets in under the prophets control" indicates the prophet can stop at will. If he believes prophecy is no longer possible, you have gone a long way to making him stop. God's plan continued, but outside the church. Catholics believe that many saints worked miracles. Many catholics acknowledge the St. Malachy prophecy. At different times in history, Catholics followed Nostradamus, or the high magick of Enochian witchcraft. The point is, these things all happened outside the church, the "faithful" were taught that mass and communion was all that mattered, so they had little reason to try. The mechanism to suppress was in place, historically documentable, and working.1. but it appears you and i already agree that there was a cessation.
our theories of the RC suppressing the gifts doesn't come into play for me, since i do not believe anyone, man or angelic host could stop God from continuation if that was His plan.
2. the Bible only records 3 periods of tremendous and consistent miraculous activity by God - and all 3 were related to His showing of power, which was directly related to what He was saying at the time.
the times of
Moses; Elijah and Elisha; and Jesus the Apostles.
(note: again i say God has not stopped working, nor has He been suppressed, nor that He is suddenly not able or willing to work the same miracles - i am saying He doesn't need to, and His not performing miracles for long periods shows He has His Own plan)
3. Each time He moved with TRUE MIRACLES (miracles is another term we must define at some point) it was in part to SHOW Himself (for some as a Judge); to confirm His messengers has His authority; and to encourage the people to REMEMBER Him.....His desire that they continue to come to Him IN PRAYER and FAITH.
...........................
can we just jump right in to some of the activities we have today, comparing them with the historical accounts in scriptures?
(reminder and notice - i am a cessationist, and reject unintelligible noises as being the Biblical tongues....if anyone is offended by that, i'm sorry you feel that way).
okay: topic - tongues.
Acts 2
The Coming of the Holy Spirit
1When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and resteda on each one of them. 4And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”
Peter’s Sermon at Pentecost
14But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.b 16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servantsc and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
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QUESTION:
Ken:
were the tongues gifts poured out at Pentecost in Acts 2 known human (gentile) languages or unintelligible noises?
love zone
1. Not exactly. I believe the behaviors of tongues, prophecy, miraculous healing, and apostleship disappeared from the churches from 400-1900 or so, because they were suppressed. They continued within the body, although rare, because they were taught they were not supposed to happen. Scripture indicates that they are easy to suppress. After the tongues event of Pentecost, Peter began speaking English; everyone else stopped. The command "Forbid not to speak in tongues" (I Cort. 14:39) indicates it was happening. "The spirit of the prophets in under the prophets control" indicates the prophet can stop at will. If he believes prophecy is no longer possible, you have gone a long way to making him stop. God's plan continued, but outside the church. Catholics believe that many saints worked miracles. Many catholics acknowledge the St. Malachy prophecy. At different times in history, Catholics followed Nostradamus, or the high magick of Enochian witchcraft. The point is, these things all happened outside the church, the "faithful" were taught that mass and communion was all that mattered, so they had little reason to try. The mechanism to suppress was in place, historically documentable, and working.
2. Catholics actually believe that God works the same number of miracles today as He ever did (I was taught growing up that this is necessary matter of faith. If your statement is correct, then allow me observe that there was several hundred years between any two of these, when there were fewer miracles. Just suppose God wished to repeat that behavior now, and restore those things in large numbers? You've given a Scriptural precedent for relative cessation and restoration.
3. Since 1950, attendance at church has gone from 51% to 16% in America, and is down to less than 2% in some parts of Europe, I am told. Isn't that enough reason for Him to want to be remembered again?
First, it is likely that Pentecost was gobblygook to the speakers and understood by members of the crowd. First, many people thought they were drunk. Surely, even if we don't speak the languages around us, we can recognize them and would not think their speakers are drunk. Second, I know several people who have prayed in tongues today, and one or two people in the meeting who spoke an unusual language recognized it as perfect speech in that language, and stated that it was praise of God. Third, it doesn't need to be the tongues of Pentecost to be Scriptural; it can be either that or tongues of Corinthians. Fourth, there are at least 13 languages listed and 12 people speaking. The recognition had to be in the minds of the hearers.
By experience, modern tongues has all the same problems Paul confronted in Corinthians, and all the same good points. It is most likely they are the same phenomenon.
hi Ken
i disagree with virtually everything above.
and your interpretation of what happened at Pentecost is interesting
Peter spoke in english? where'd you get that idea?
any way....there's a lot here, but i can cover each point, and will do so as soon as i can.
perhaps tomorrow.
i mean, Ken....come on
"The spirit of the prophets in under the prophets control" indicates the prophet can stop at will."
of course the prophet could control himself. that's one reason paul wrote the corrective letter.
And the spirits of the prophets, etc. - Let no one interrupt another; and let all be ready to prefer others before themselves; and let each feel a spirit of subjection to his brethren. God grants no ungovernable gifts.
Clarke
~
The immediate reference of the passage is to those who are called "prophets" in the New Testament: and the interpretation should be confined to them.
It is not improbable, however, that the same thing was true of the prophets of the Old Testament; and that it is really true as a general declaration of all the prophets whom God has inspired, that they had control over their own minds, and could speak or be silent at pleasure. In this the spirit of true inspiration differed essentially from the views of the pagan, who regarded themselves as driven on by a wild, controlling influence, that compelled them to speak even when they were unconscious of what they said. Universally, in the pagan world, the priests and priestesses supposed or feigned that they were under an influence which was incontrollable; which took away their powers of self-command, and which made them the mere organs or unconscious instruments of communicating the will of the gods. The Scripture account of inspiration is, however, a very different thing. In whatever way the mind was influenced, or whatever was the mode in which the truth was conveyed, yet it was not such as to destroy the conscious powers of free agency, nor such as to destroy the individuality of the inspired person, or to annihilate what was special in his mode of thinking, his style, or his customary manner of expression.
Barnes'
i'll come back to all this.......
.....................
could we discuss tongues?
was the gift poured out at Pentecost known gentile languages which the hearers heard in their dialects? or unintelligible noises?
as for "some" thinking they were drunk - was that prophesied to be said/thought? yes.
gentile languages was a judgment on ISRAEL.
God predicted long before He would do just what he did.
tongues are a SIGN for unbelievers << ancient israel.
the gospel went forth in known gentile languages from jerusalem, by the believing jews who were at Pentecost and heard "the wonderful works of God"
love zone.
Alright, you caught me. I was in a hurry, and I slipped. Or course, Peter spoke in Aramaic, or just maybe in Greek. I meant the rest stopped their tongues, so everyone could hear Peter clearly. My point was to prove tongues are under the speaker's control from Scripture.
I found a Scripture we need to consider: Mark 6:5 states Jesus' miraculous abilities were severely restricted by lack of faith. It is a precedent for what I claim happened from 400AD on. The restriction to "just a few healings" is what history showed happened. This theory would say that it took 400 years of Reformation to rebuild peoples' faith enough for the miracles to return. I also noted from your observation that miracles occurred in three big events (Exodus, Elijah, Jesus and the apostles), that each event was about two generations long (Moses/Joshua; Elijah/Elsha; Jesus though John's time), and that they were separated first by 500 years, then by 1000 years. If there is a third such event, one would expect two generations long after 2000 years.
My point is that because prophets CAN stop, if a church convinced them to stop, they would stop. History shows that churches like at Corinth met twice on Sunday, once for the meeting at which the gifts was used (copying the synagogue meetings Paul was taught to run as a trained scholar of the Law), and later in the afternoon for Eucharist. That's why I Cor. 11:34, "let them eat at home." They had time for lunch first. By 100 AD, people were complaining about the quality of Eucharistic prayers, since not everyone who offered them did well, though some did them in prophecy. Bishops wrote prayers that superseded the improvised (prophetic or not) ones, and prophecy for those prayers was no longer permitted, as authority gained ground. As the Empire declined, the emphasis was taken away from the morning meeting, and the evening meeting became the Catholic "mass", first the priority, then all that was left, by the time of the Middle Ages' monasteries. The control of prophecy at the Eucharist became the standard for all official church meetings. It is the "mass" Luther copied, and most of Protestantism copied Luther more or less. That is the exact mechanism by which the gifts were suppressed.
Note the order in I Cor. 13:8. First prophecy becomes of no use (100AD), then tongues fail (200AD), finally wisdom becomes of no use, and people start wondering where all the gifts went. All of these statements apply only to the Mass, which is why the gifts continued until later dates. As long as the older meetings were still held, the gifts were there. Gradually, collapse of the Empire made education harder to achieve, and the knowledge of Scripture each individual Jew enjoyed that made the synagogue meetings possible caused their gradual collapse. This is also why non-denom churches no longer use the traditional Protestant service order. The gifts were restored (if they were) at a prayer meeting, Catholic charismatics added the prayer meeting to their mass responsibilities, based on the old synagogue system, and non-denom churches were invented largely by Catholics thrown out of their church because of their desire to be involved in ministry. The Catholics resented their zeal, as they took up most of the ministries in the church, because they volunteered, whereas non-charismatics mostly did not.
I only used the statement "under the prophet's control" for NT prophecy. That's why I gave you the expansion of the history above. There were prophets in Israel who attempted to use this trance state, cutting themselves and dancing wildly, etc. They were around for sometime, before God fixed it. I think the reference is in Ezekiel.
I'm posting to like three threads right now that have spun off the first. I don't remember if I posted this here:
The tongues of Pentecost were unintelligible noises to the speakers, but intelligible to many of those who heard. They were intended as a miracle to draw the crowd, and prove it was God doing it. The evidence is that: 1. The 12 apostles were speaking more than 13 languages; 2. that many thought they were drunk (surely, everyone can recognize the languages spoken by those around them - they all came to Jerusalem 3 times a year for the feasts), 3: that I am aware of several instances where modern tongues were recognized by speakers of rare, but regularly used languages, and testified after the fact that the words were praise of God or had knowledge of things personal to the hearers in their own native language; 4: that no contrary mention is made of the fact in I Cor. 12-14, where 14: 6,14,19,23 make it clear that the tongues are normally not understood.
Yes, people thinking they were drunk fulfils prophecy, but that does not change what the words sound like to make the prophecy be fulfilled. Yes, Gentile languages are part of Israel's judgement, but it does not change the fact that they were there. Yes, tongues as a sign for believers applies in the first case to Israel, but Paul's quote of it applies to Corinth, a cosmopolitan Greek city, where pagans could wander in as well, and 14:23 says such would think they are "mad".
We also need to account for the use of tongues in 12:28, where they are listed as the last step in the foundation of the church. This is often interpreted as the gospel translated to other languages of men. But consider the fact that after every move of God, our language becomes richer. Without Jesus, would we ever have words like grace, salvation, Eucharist? Without Palestrina and Bach, would we have words like anthem, choral prolude, etc.? Surely when God was making His plans, there were heavenly words for these things, and these words now are spoken on earth. That's an application of tongues as "languages of angels and men". I can pray today for things I have no words for, that God will make available to the church 20 years from now. I have already seen words such as "praise and worship", and "anointing" enter the church as technical music terms just in my lifetime, partially through my own efforts following God in music ministry.
Love, Ken
"Religious Addiction
What we are really dealing with in our Charismatic friends is religious addiction. It is every bit as real and as damaging as any other addiction. And like most addicts, only those who are brought low enough to see the truth finally seek help, or give up hope. It is only when the drink or the drug or the pleasure fails to deliver as promised — over and over again — that the addict is finally prepared to listen to reason. When a soul is seduced by the empty promises of Charismaticism and reason is dismissed as a hindrance, the grip of this heresy tightens incredibly. One trapped in its hold seldom is prepared to reemploy long-abandoned reason until real drought and famine have set in. A Charismatic has to want help before he or she can accept it. As long as they remain content in Pentecostal delusion and satisfied with the ear-tickling, soul-thrilling “high” it conveys, they will not hear our pleas to return to what they consider to be the bondage of “cold, dead orthodoxy.”...