Cessationism vs. continuationism...does it make any difference?

Not convincing. Quoting random Scriptures out of their normal context doesn't earn you a cigar. Paul was talking about the preaching of the Cross, not spiritual gifts. You might need to get with the big boys who have learned the skill of correct exegesis of Scripture and accurate hermeneutics.

You can quote all the Scriptures you like, but until our churches start obeying God's Word in other foundation areas, we won't see many miracles. While there is a general lack of love, and believers of one religious persuasion attacking and criticizing others, and man's wisdom being preached, none of the scriptures you quoted will have their equivalents.

You can quote all the Scriptures you like, but until our churches start obeying God's Word in other foundation areas, we won't see many miracles. While there is a general lack of love, and believers of one religious persuasion attacking and criticizing others, and man's wisdom being preached, none of the scriptures you quoted will have their equivalents.

If they don't come to him why would Jesus heal them ? There not there to heal . Jesus doesn't hear there ailment. This is how it worked . First a person would come to Jesus and ask for the help . If they didn't come then they were not healed. This is basic stuff here . Through not Believing Jesus was the messaih they wouldn't come to him . Why would they ask a carpenter/ a regular Jew for healing?

The waters have been totally muddied by the general unbelief in the modern manifestation of the spiritual gifts. In the same way that Jesus couldn't do any mighty works in His home town because of unbelief, many modern churches are so infected with unbelief with cessationist doctrine or influences from modern western science, that they cannot exercise faith in God's Word concerning spiritual gifts.

We have many churches that have resorted to worldly wisdom to serve up to their members, using secular business practices and liberal teaching that extracts all the miraculous, leaving members with just man's words of religious wisdom. Paul told the Corinthians that he was coming to them not with man's wisdom but with the demonstration of the Spirit and with power. In most of today's churches the preacher comes to them not with demonstration of the Spirit and power but with man's wisdom. The cart is put before the horse.

But in third world countries, more of the miraculous is seen, because there is not medical welfare in many places, and people need to be healed by the power of God or else they die. So the issues are quite different, and they have a greater view of the supernatural, and that they don't have western science to muddy the waters for them.

The key words are "those who believe". There is a great difference between religious, church-going people, and true believers.

If they don't come to him why would Jesus heal them ?

I would be interested in any reference from Scripture where either Jesus or Paul said directly that tongues, healing and prophecy were just for the Apostolic Age and were not to continue afterward. I'm not too interested in any quotes by 19th Century theologians who wrest 1 Corinthians 13:8 out of its proper context to words into Paul's mouth that he never said.

I take the definition of "sign" gifts that they are signs that the Kingdom of God is with us. I am not aware that the Kingdom of God has left us and gone somewhere, maybe on vacation. So, if the Kingdom of God is still with us, then the gifts that show the appropriate sign must also be with us still.

You've lost the plot now lol
22For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

23But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
Do you not read 22For the Jews require a sign? and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
All through the Ot Jews are given ' signs ' . Moses gives ' signs ' to Israel.

1 Corinthians 14:22

“Wherefore tongues are for a SIGN , not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.”

//
You can quote all the Scriptures you like, but until our churches start obeying God's Word in other foundation areas, we won't see many miracles// Yes this teaching is a result of taking the idea ' miracles can't happen, unless the person musters up enough faith " . Its a double bind of legalism that puts people on a guilt trip . Its the perfect loop . " oh the reason YOUR church doesn't experience miracles is because they don't believe " . " Oh yeah , your a missionary that goes to far off places , learns the language for years in order to share the bible with them, and you would find the gift of tongues handy in this situation ? Well it could be because you don't believe in the gift , so God can't use it " hmmmm ?

///
The waters have been totally muddied by the general unbelief in the modern manifestation of the spiritual gifts. In the same way that Jesus couldn't do any mighty works in His home town because of unbelief, many modern churches are so infected with unbelief with cessationist doctrine or influences from modern western science, that they cannot exercise faith in God's Word concerning spiritual gifts.// Ok you use Matt 13.58 ( As do many people who use this verse as a proof text ) to support a certain teaching thats common in pentacostal circles. But the comparison is faulty. Those coming to Jesus for healing were not ' exercising faith ' nor was it about spiritual gifts . They heard he was healing they heard who he claimed to be and who he was . They came to see . They came to him and asked . They all were healed who came.
Signs ?
Mat 11
.

¶Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,

3And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?

4¶Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:

5The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

How ever you define it, thats make no different that this teaching began to become practice in Topeka and startet with the pentecostal movement in Azusa.
It was obviously finished in the first centurys. Because you can find in the churches in the second century an worldly life in the churches. And when Montanus ( around in the year 160 ) began His ministry and claimed from himself to be the counselour/ the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and prophecie rise again in his sect.
And believers in this time thought first that the Gifts which had stopped came again.
So many joined this sect, even Tertullian later.

And it is strange that out of the pentecostal and charismatic movements the Holy Spirit is not giving this sign gifts.
If the Holy Spirit is the One who gives the gifts. Then this is not a matter wether this is taught in the church ore not.
The believers in Acts were not taught before that they have to ask for the gift.
The Holy Spirit came and gave as sign the gift of speaking in tongues.
So if you would be right with your view, then every bornagain Christian would get this gift of speaking in tongues, independ what the churches would teach.
Btw it would not be nesassary that it would be taught, because it would be clear to understand from every believer. It would be normal for every Christian to speak in tongues. BUT this has not happend.

First in Topeka and Azusa then the believers were taught to pray and wait for the revealing of the Holy Spirit with the sign of speaking in tongues. Called today empowered with the Holy Spirit ore baptised with the Holy Spirit.

Nor in the NT nor in the time after the NT till to the beginning of the pentecostal movement Was this taught in the christian denominations we know.
Before 1900 of course we find speaking in tongues and prophecy and healings taught in cults like mormons and the new apostolic church.

You talk about the kingdom of God. The citiziens of this kingdom are at first the nation of Israel. Gods holy folk. As the prophecies from the OT which are not fulfilled till now,
will be fulfilled in Future.

If you would be right with your view, then that what you claime were openly to see everywhere. Nobody would have a reason to discuss about it.

Cessationism would not exist!
Thats the problem. What you are claiming is not the reality. Thats why we discuss.

How ever you define it, thats make no different that this teaching began to become practice in Topeka and startet with the pentecostal movement in Azusa.
It was obviously finished in the first centurys. Because you can find in the churches in the second century an worldly life in the churches. And when Montanus ( around in the year 160 ) began His ministry and claimed from himself to be the counselour/ the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and prophecie rise again in his sect.
And believers in this time thought first that the Gifts which had stopped came again.
So many joined this sect, even Tertullian later.

And it is strange that out of the pentecostal and charismatic movements the Holy Spirit is not giving this sign gifts.
If the Holy Spirit is the One who gives the gifts. Then this is not a matter wether this is taught in the church ore not.
The believers in Acts were not taught before that they have to ask for the gift.
The Holy Spirit came and gave as sign the gift of speaking in tongues.
So if you would be right with your view, then every bornagain Christian would get this gift of speaking in tongues, independ what the churches would teach.
Btw it would not be nesassary that it would be taught, because it would be clear to understand from every believer. It would be normal for every Christian to speak in tongues. BUT this has not happend.

First in Topeka and Azusa then the believers were taught to pray and wait for the revealing of the Holy Spirit with the sign of speaking in tongues. Called today empowered with the Holy Spirit ore baptised with the Holy Spirit.

Nor in the NT nor in the time after the NT till to the beginning of the pentecostal movement Was this taught in the christian denominations we know.
Before 1900 of course we find speaking in tongues and prophecy and healings taught in cults like mormons and the new apostolic church.

You talk about the kingdom of God. The citiziens of this kingdom are at first the nation of Israel. Gods holy folk. As the prophecies from the OT which are not fulfilled till now,
will be fulfilled in Future.

If you would be right with your view, then that what you claime were openly to see everywhere. Nobody would have a reason to discuss about it.

Cessationism would not exist!
Thats the problem. What you are claiming is not the reality. Thats why we discuss.

How do you account for church fathers up to and including the 4th Century reporting tongues, healing , prophecy and casting out of demons occurring without interruption?

And John Wesley having 250 verified healings during his ministry? And Augustine, through a one year survey, reported 75 miracles of healing and deliverance in his churches?
St Benedict prayed for a workman who had been killed through falling masonry during the building of the monastery, and the workman came back to life.

At first, i have not said, that we have today no healings, and special in Mission ministry, ore where the gospel is preached.
Butcstill you cant compare this with the miracles and healings which are reportet during the time of Jesus ore the apostles.


The churchfathers mentioned speaking in tonguesc yes, but it is not shure they talk about this in all churches, ore only some, which could also be churches from the montanism movement which endured till the 6th century.
In the way they reporting about it, its can give the Impression that this is in there time not common in their churches.

What is obvious is that speaking in tongues was not reportet as genuine gift of the Christians through the whole churchhistory, otherwise this would be written down.

Also, tongues, healing and prophecy were active in the Eastern Orthodox churches right up to the 12th Century. Because most church historians have a cessationist theology, many facts that support the continuance of the gifts past the Apostolic age and through the centuries has been left out or treated as unreliable legends.

We have to take into account that after the 4th Century, the church changed into being ruled from Rome, with regional bishops working under his authority. Once that hierarchy was in place, the supernatural gifts declined because the Holy Spirit was replaced by the authority of the bishops and ordinary members took lesser roles in church services. Also, the Roman hierarchy, which developed into the Papacy, outlawed any movement that did not comply with the strict doctrines of the established church, and treated these movements as heretical, persecuting the members and destroying their literature. All we have of these movements are the court transcripts and what the enemies of these movements have said about them. To get clues about what these movements were all about we have to read between the lines of what the enemies said about them.

We don't know if Montanism was as heretical as they were made out to be. We have only what its enemies said about them. Okay, so they had a couple of woman prophets who were a bit off beam. So what? We have the same in our modern Charismatic movement. Doesn't prove that the whole movement is suspect.

There is evidence that there have been movements through the centuries that sought to bring reform to the established church, along with the gifts of the Spirit, but these movements were brutally suppressed, their adherents killed and their literature destroyed. We have only the RCC's opinion that these movements were actually heretical.

The Calvinists were no better. Calvinists in Puritan England imprisoned and drowned Anabaptists who, all they said, was that baptism had to be for believers and not for infants. We have only the word of those Calvinists who persecuted and killed the Anabaptists to say how heretical they were. Maybe most of them were little different to Baptists today. Puritans in colonial America imprisoned and killed the Quakers, and burned innocent women accused of being witches.

Isn't it true that history is written by the victors? Therefore isn't main Church history written by representatives of the Established church whose theological prejudice against movements that didn't go along with their own view were heretical to them?

How many Pentecostals in the early 20th Century were thrown out of their churches just because they said that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit were for today? How much acidic hate was poured on them by professing Christians who prided themselves of having "sound" doctrine? And, in the 1960s, how much hate was directed at the neo-Pentecostals in traditional churches, by traditional Pentecostals who treated them as "Johnny-come-latelies"?

And when the Word of Faith movement started (before Kenneth Copeland hijacked it) Pentecostals and Charismatics poured hate and ridicule on them? Yet all these were of the one faith, on Lord, one baptism, and drinking from the one Spirit! Just like the English and the Germans both asked, "Whose side is God on?"

In reality, God is on the side of those who love Jesus, order their lives by the Word of God, and who unreservedly love other believers without theological or denominational prejudice. I just wonder how many of these religious haters, full of prejudice, are going to actually make it to heaven? I think there will be some rude shocks and surprises down the line.

Cessationism and continuationism are but doctrinal possibilities drawn from different viewpoints on scripture. Both have their biblical strengths and weaknesses. I would like to hear from both sides as to why they accept one viewpoint over the other.

Yes, i agree with you. Hate should not be the Motive among Christians. And so far I know there is no single denomination which has the 100% right doctrine.

Of course we have only a little bit of the churchhistory.
Coming to Montanus, if you read his teachings you bearly would agree with Him.
The statement that he himself was speaking from to be the Holy Spirit, was not from an enemy. And if you a movement on the base of false prophecies you would also come to the conclusion that this is not from God.

Very true! The vast majority of continuationists are soundly Scripture-based, and many hold strongly to Scripture even when they don't see any visual evidence of the gifts being manifested. They are not worried by the absence of the gifts in their churches. They know how difficult it is for ordinary church-goers to have the necessary faith to manifest them. But that does not stop them holding to the Scripture that the gift are present and available for today's churches, because they put experiences in second place to clear Scripture.

Cessationists, on the other hand, put their experiences that show absence of the gifts in first place and the Scripture in second. They choose to believe a 19th Century theologian's interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13:8 as the foundation for their doctrine, instead of the many Scripture references to the contrary.

If one of these positions is false, how can it have 'Biblical strengths.' If a position is false, how can it be strong, Biblically? This sounds like a very post-modern proposition on your part.

I don't see any 'Biblical strengths' at all for the cessationist position.

You've lost the plot now lol
22For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

23But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
Do you not read 22For the Jews require a sign? and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
All through the Ot Jews are given ' signs ' . Moses gives ' signs ' to Israel.

1 Corinthians 14:22

“Wherefore tongues are for a SIGN , not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.”