The Cessationalist claim that tongues, prophecy, healing and many other gifts are not for today. Here is part of their thinking: The nature of the New Testament miraculous gifts . If the Spirit was still moving as he was in the first century, then you would expect that the gifts would be of the same type. Consider the speaking of tongues. At Pentecost, the languages spoken were already existing, understandable languages. The New Testament gift was speaking in a known language and dialect, not an ecstatic language like you see people speaking in today. I’m still looking for a citation on this one (all the others too!) Some may point to 1 Corinthians 13:10 and say that the “perfect has come” in the form of the complete cannon of scripture and that “tongues will cease.” All spiritual gifts are partial. The perfect comes with the full revelation of the church under the personal and direct control of Jesus Christ. This was the belief of all the Apostolic and early chu...
As I have been studying 1 Peter for my sermons I have noticed something that I guess I knew but it struck me like never before. "Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All flesh is like grass, And all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, And the flower falls off, But the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you." (1 Peter 1:22-25, NASB95) When we are obedient to the truth (the Bible) it creates chnage. God causes us to be born again through His enduring word. The word preached transformed lives. Do we allow the Bible to change us? In the beginning was the Word. That word changes us. Real change. That's should be the hallmark of inspired preaching. When we allow it to penetrat...
Spiritual Gifts are for Today This is a refutation of the article “7 Biblical Arguments for Cessationism,” the first point for a discontinuation of spiritual gifts was that miracles were only for certain periods in the Bible and states for his first argument that miracles don’t happen anymore. “ The unique role of miracles . There were only 3 primary periods in which God worked miracles through unique men. The first was with Moses; the second was during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha; the third was with Christ and his apostles. The primary purpose of miracles has always been to establish the credibility of one who speaks the word of God—not just any teacher, but those who had been given direct words by God.” The writer invokes the fuzzy phrase “primary periods.” Yes these men’s ministries were distinguished by miracles, but to try to confine to certain periods does not take into account the full counsel of the scriptures concerning workers of miracles. The m...
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