Not sure what to say. You’ve missed what I’ve said and how I’ve said it pretty badly. It’s clear you’re not interesting in discussion and, despite the fact that you’ll no doubt take this as running away with my tail between my legs, it’s not.

I’m through. Apparently I’m too spiritual prideful for such a humble man as you.

For the record, as soon as you start throwing around unfound accusations of pride and stuff like that simply because someone disagrees with you, that’s where I step out.

Enjoy yourself.

If there is something important here Daryl, its you’re outlook. You’ve shown tells of spiritual pride and a bad attitude to the laity, and made an intent separation from ‘those people that do weird things’ and pride is the root of divisions that keeps them alive. Carefull examination for pride is the most critical to walk with God and other Christians.

Well, you’re first reference is a list of rhetorical questions, and refer back to his action in 1Cor 8:13, do remember that chapter marks are manufactured, not usually actual breaks in a point or the text. Paul is dealing with a controversy, advocating an even more controversial action (not doing something just because it offends someone else) and defends and advocates what he is doing. Is he not an Apostle (yes, so they should pay attention to what he does) Is he not free (Yes, so he refrains from the meat by his own choice) Did he not see Christ (he did, and that is another mark of authority) Are they not his work in the lord (Yes, so he always did lead them) The context doesn’t close until 9:4 where he finishes talking about what he eats and drinks.

Seeing certain things in scripture is good, I more than most see that, but what you did there was played plastic surgeon. Are there any verbal or logical tags in that passage that in any way imply that he is making a list of what an apostle is? Apostle is a word, with a standard definition, not a unique title conjured up for the prestige of the thirteen.

1 Cor 15, the word is least, not last. Last to see Christ, least of all apostles, but he was not least because he was last, he was least because he persecuted the church. That could be chalked up to different interpretations. The things that strikes me is that if you where going to try 1 Cor 15, how you would call 8-9 and totally miss 7. 7 Is actually pretty useful to you’re cause, but I guess you paper mache too much to read even one verse of context.

It’s what people miss that tells you the most about how they read scripture isnt it?

Rev is pretty straightforward. The twelve have a special title here, apostles of the lamb rather than apostle general.

Second point,

I think the subtext of what I meant when I said you found these gifts to be undesirable is not hard to get at. The gifts are undesirable to you’re philosophy, plus you’ve got a major contempt for the misuse (justifiable contempt) which inclines you to go Texas PD on a whole group without total evaluation.

Third point,

I’m leaving 2nd Corinthians for last, because it is by far the most important thing you’ve referenced other than you’re own closing statements.

As for Hebrews, we all know they had abilities, they may or may not have had any particular ability. We’re talking about weather God has changed or not, I doubt you think that I believe there where never any gifts. So, unless the passage deals with them stopping or puts limits or definitions on them you just wrote three paragraphs of red herring.

Now, is the logic of the closing paragraph to the third point really ‘It happened then, it was obvious, so it doesn’t happen now.’ Whats the linking sequence there, you’re skepticism? Are you really mirroring the Atheist “God is big, I don’t see him, so he doesn’t exist.”, only on a smaller scale?

If that reason passes the muster for you just say so, but know who’s wisdom you emulate.

Now, the long awaited fourth point, finally what was begun many posts ago actually continues.

The contrast between our exegesis is a thing of beauty. This, this is what you should pay attention too, this is all about how someone treats the Bible and lives by it.

I’ve taken pains to lay out the clauses and subtleties of meaning and letting the text speak. You’ve taken a snippet and created you’re own definitions (Or neglected to learn the proper meaning) you’ve segmented things that have clearly continuing lines of though, its an atrocity. Where to start…

You said see through a glass darkly was a different clause, but 13:1 starts dealing with Charity and that carries right through to 14:1, but 2 is still talking about tongues and prophecies in the same context, and that carries on till 39, which is extremely damning in that it says “1Co 14:39 Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues. ”

Now, there is clear proof in the immediate link of the concepts because 13:11 deals directly with the concept of maturity (which is a concept directly related to what we translate as perfection) and 13:12 starts with the clause ‘for’ meaning that it is absolutely linked to the previous verse.

So, no, its not valid to say that “1Co 13:10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. ” Is a separate thought from “1Co 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. ”

Without that separation of clauses you’re position is already dead. You may think the point is about the close of Cannon, but the cannon (or even the Hebrew scripture, which the NT actually does reference) is not talked about anywhere in this vicinity. That interpretation is you making you’re imagination supersede scripture. Actual usage of the word perfect deals with perfect love or perfect action or perfect faith or perfect law, its never even remotely applied to Cannon, so what do you have?

As for the term “the perfect thing” That’s just MKJV isn’t it? Perhaps a few more handle it like that. It’s also (usually, I think) rendered ‘that which is perfect’ either way, its not much use speculating what it is when it can’t have happened, because we do not yet see face to face. The person who would peg that perfect as being the coming of Christ would say it is the coming of his kingdom, like this, “Thy kingdom come”, “the perfect come” but its hard to tie the word perfect to make it applicable to the kingdom as well. It usually deals with people and personal actions.

Though a glass darkly isn’t about to go away.

Now, if you’re angling to prove you’re lack of attention, you’re lack of seriously engaging admonition, you’re doing a great job. I dealt with 2 Corinthians 12:12 (because it is second you quote, not first) right above you, once again pre-empting you’re points before you laid a keystroke to make them. That should be humbling, or at least embarrassing.

It goes in to why you don’t like that I understand you’re position, and even you’re reasoning, you don’t want to have to change you’re mind. You certainly do like to think you’ve reached you’re conclusions on something more solid than what some guy thinks. The problem is, you’re some guy.

That’s why while I’m trying to stay on tack on scripture where debate points are, you’re bo hooing like an upset teen about not being understood on one side and when that falls through you’re puffing yourself up, after all, how could a stranger offer you insight to scripture. Its better you believe me to be a lay man, its more humbling on conviction.

You admitted the burden of proof, but so far you’ve been crutching heavily on a pantheistic ‘you have you’re view and I have mine’ For things we cant know such a resolution is fine, but we are discussing actual events and clear scripture. Either these things are happening or they are not. My potion has natural reading on its side, and allows that every case of God’s power may be evaluated to be good or deceptive. You charge every Christian that operates with a certain set of abilities with lying or demoncraft. That’s not a position to take lightly.

When push comes to shove you’re telling people to do exactly, once again EXACTLY, what St.Paul told the Corinthians not to do. I don’t feel the need to pull punches when scripture is openly defied.

Please understand that I have no problem with someone seeing the same Scriptural evidence and reaching a different conclusion. Tim and I have repeatedly acknowledge that very thing about each other while welcoming the discussion.

So, on to your post:

Firstly, the apostolic role is never described as a function but as a group of people, the primary descriptor of which is having met the Lord face to face. That doesn’t happen anymore, and I’ve never heard of a self-described “apostle” claiming it.

Here Paul describes one of the qualifications of an apostle:

1 Corinthians 9:1 “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?”

Here Pauls identifies himself as the last apostle:

I Corinthians 15:8-9 “and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”

Here John tells us how many there are:

Revelation 21:14 “And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

Secondly, nowhere do I describe any gifts as “undesireable”. My heavens, what could possibly be undesireable about the ability to perform miracles or healings on command?

Thirdly, I Corinthians 12:12 “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.”

Also Hebrews 2:3-4 says ” After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.”

“Those who had heard” is a reference to the apostles. It must be for who else heard all the the Lord himself taught? And, just to make sure I’ve covered it, Paul, in Galatians, tells us that he spent 2 years in Arabia beeing taught by the Lord himself.

And, to clarify one thing, the verse says “and by gifts…” not “and by THE gifts…” meaning some of the gifts, not necessarily all of the gifts.

So, even if you and I differ in the definition of which gifts qualify as a “sign and wonder” still, there we have defined who held those gifts or at least, during whose ministry they were performed, whether by the apostle alone or by others. I think the evidence in Acts is that they were specific to the Apostolic age and not just the Apostles, but that they were intended to demonstrate the inherent authority of the Apostolic teaching. I think it is not difficult to identify gifts of healings and miracle as “signs” and administration as something else. And, in Acts, it was those specific gifts, healings and miracles, that were used by the apostles to demonstrate their authority, and, interestingly enough, those were the gifts that false teachers tried to emulate. That also tells me that the charlatans recognized that if they were to be taken seriously, they’d better be able to do something visible and big.

Fourthly, 1 Corinthians 13 vs 8 says this “but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.”

The point in the following verse is not that partiality will pass away when Christ comes, I think the point is that when the canon is complete, partial prophecy will become redundant because we will then have the complete Word of God, and so, being redundant, God will stop giving it. Same with knowledge (reading that, as I mentioned in a previous post as the gift of knowledge, not knowledge generally, that, of course, can never pass away, not even in heaven).
The issue with all three then, is not whether they will pass away but when. I don’t believe the coming of Christ can be described as a “thing” nor do I see that as necessary to understanding these verses. The following verses about seeing in part and through a glass darkly are a different thought.

What those verses do not say is the knowledge and prophecy won’t pass away but will become useless. The phrase is “done away”. That reads to me like they will be gone, not pointless.

So there you go, you may disagree with all of this, but at least see that I’m not playing “semantic games”.

You may understand my position or not, I’m not sure, but really Jair, should anyone change their mind because you, or any other layman, rejects their conclusions? I like to think I’ve reached my conclusions on something a little more solid than what some guy thinks. Hopefully you have too. I wouldn’t expect you to change your mind based on my conclusions, thats not the point of this discussion, or at least I didn’t think so.

Daryl, you should note that most of my reply to you dealt with you’re questions on prophecy. Probably around 70%, and the other 30% only kept coming up because you weren’t here so Tim and I had nothing better to discuss.

You agreed the burden of proof was on you’re position, you said you believe scripture to support it, but you haven’t brought any scripture to bear. What scripture says about it is far more foundational than any observed evidences.

The hitch in me describing you’re position is that arbitrarily assigns any undesirable gifts to be apostle specific, but I can’t in good conscience concede the list of gifts mentioned are in any way Apostolic Gifts. 2 Corinthians 12:12 talks about the sings on an apostle, but it does not list them, other than that I can’t see a tie. You must remember that largest chunk of epistles describing and prescribing these gifts where addressed to congregations, and where not inter apostolic memos. The apostolic gift consists of excersizing authority over churches, its the commissioned ambassador job.

Now, if this role was gone with the thirteen, Paul was confused when puting the role of the apostle in the first place of authority in God’s eyes, then in the same breath telling the Corinthian congregation to desire the best gifts.

So, no, the apostolic ability cannot be gone, the 12 who Christ called in his life are surely dead, and St.Paul is dead, but the ability to guide and exercise authority over churches is alive and well. Ironically McAurthor himself exhibits this ability, writing often messages to other Christians and even things aimed at Pastors and Church leaders.

Now, to understand this passage of Corinthians we have to look into all the clauses and reasons for these things happening. Why will toungs, knowledge, and prophecy pass away? Because they are partial, they are incomplete. Perfect refers to the endpoint, the point of completion, the point of maturity. In this passage it may refer to personal death, or the end of the world and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, but the contrast shows it does not refer to the close of cannon.

Perfect and partial are the contrasting ideas, the best way I can think render them here is complete and incomplete. The logic here is that when things are complete, anything that is incomplete ceases to exist in the proper sense (or rather, it is consumed and contained in the complete). Scripture is knowledge of God, (Gifted to us if the context helps) it does not offer complete knowledge of God’s person or his activities. It gives us everything we need right now, but when we have God face to face, scripture is useless. Prophecy, which offers temporal knowledge, is also overshadowed to the point of uselessness, and what need do we have for tongues when we are with God, to whom shall we evangelize?

So, incomplete, imperfect knowledge as we know it passes away, what we know then makes anything we know or understand now be effectively nothing. The statement that knowledge will vanish is dramatic flair on the part of the translation, the root links to things like Romans 3:3 “Shall it make faith in God of none effect?” Its probably better to say it will be made useless or rendered idle.

Interestingly, the only thing that this verse says will actually stop is tongues, prophecy and knowledge will still exist, but they will be a useless drop in the bucket compared to the value of love.

So, in context do you have any way to render scripture that supports either that the gifts you believe have stopped are apostolic specific or that any gifts have now stopped.

Now, you’ve felt the need to repeatedly assert that I don’t understand you’re position, but I’ve stated from the begging that you’re position is that tongues, prophecy, and instantaneous healing have ceased. I got you on all those points, I won’t play you’re semantic game calling them apostolic gifts, but I’ve got pegged down what you think those gifts exactly are. Buck up and come to grips that I understand you’re position and reject it, scripturaly even.

Thanks for your response. I don’t think either of us has time to conduct an exhaustive discussion here…but still, all the raising of questions is a good thing.

And about the “discussing the conversation rather than the issue” great point, well taken. Thanks.

I liked your list of question re: tongues. We probably have a very similar list although yours would be more exhaustive because some of your questions further down the list, presuppose and answer to previous questions that I would’t give. Still, all good questions well asked.

Re- the charismatic view of healing. I agree, partly. Sometimes what is called “the gift of healing” is really just believers practising what James says we should practice. And so are not technically the gift of healing. My point about Benny Hinn isn’t that all Charismatics think he’s on the level, clearly not all do. But my point is that he (Mr Hinn) understands what the NT gift was (commanded healing) and tries to do that. I recognize that many Charismatics believe him to be out to lunch.
Your last bit about Charismatic praying like they believe it. I agree with you and I also agree that it is presumptuous to assume you’ll get what you ask for. I think it’s equally wrong to assume that prayer makes no difference. I think the bible teaches that all prayer is essentially asking a favour (from our end) and from God’s end it’s a means he uses to accomplish his predetermined plan.

Again, you and I are not so far apart I think, even though some of our end-of-the-day conclusions differ.
Frank Turk had a post some time ago where he stated that the similarities between a cautious cessationist and a cautious charismatic are far more than their differences. I think that’s probably you and I.

By the way, I’m on the other side of surgery today. I have my new kidney and things seem to be going well. God is good.

Which is fun-ly topical. My church is charismatic, and my partner and I are presenting on Francis MacNutt’s book about healing and healing ministry. It has a couple flaws, I think–aside from his Catholic influence–but he does a wonderfully balanced job of discussing the practice and theory of prayer for healing, along with our attitudes toward sickness and the sovereignty of God. (The description of sickness and God’s will is the weakest, IMO, but I wouldn’t call it bad. Just not well-expressed. He does advocate a strong submission to whatever God’s answer to prayer turns out to be.)

(BTW, Daryl–I think you have some “misunderstanding of the charismatic position on healing”, so to speak. There’s definitely some poor stuff from Benny Hinn and his ilk, but the charismatic movement also encompasses a view of healing that may be very close to your own in substance. Or even identical, in substance if not in terminology. I’m not sure where you and Jair are, precisely, but we may all be there together. My only other comment would be that charismatics typically emphasize, “We want to pray like we really believe that God answers prayers.” And they’re more likely than others to err in the presumptuous “claim the healing, God will say yes” direction. I don’t know whether that’s worse than failing to pray because we don’t really believe that it matters.)

Daniel,

Do you see, how even a true prophet could claim a prophecy to manipulate (it doesn’t say much for his character), but yet God could still use him to give genuine prophecies later. If it could happen with a OT prophet could it not happen with the gift of prophecy?

Hmm… Do you argue that 1 Kings 13:11-26 implies, “They didn’t need to apply the ’stone the prophet whose prophecy fails’ principle”?

God might work truth through false prophets, and yet they would still warrant stoning for their false prophecy. So I don’t see how this demonstrates that prophecy can include a fallible gifting.

(Mind you, I think Grudem does present some good arguments. I just don’t see the strength in this one.)

It seems to me that as soon as you bring the idea of a “fallible report”, you’re into people claiming prophecy when, in fact, they’re missing stuff and adding stuff. Deuteronomy calls that person a false prophet and from there on out, they’re done.”

Technically they are not done as 1 Kings 13:11-26 shows. To briefly sum it up… There you will find a prophet telling another prophet that he has heard from God, when he actually made it up for his own reasons. So far that is pretty straight forward – He is a false prophet. Then, however, God uses him in a genuine capacity as a true prophet to pronounce the judgment on the other prophet… So is he a false prophet, or a true prophet who was willing to tell a lie and even blasphemously claim God’s sanction for it.

Do you see, how even a true prophet could claim a prophecy to manipulate (it doesn’t say much for his character), but yet God could still use him to give genuine prophecies later. If it could happen with a OT prophet could it not happen with the gift of prophecy?

Focus on clarification and substance, less on talking about the other person’s style & understanding. (Either they’re not misunderstanding, or they are–in which case the more important thing is that they start to understand what you’re saying, not that they admit they were misunderstanding.)

And no, Jair, I ‘ve not seen that you understand the cessationist point of view very well.
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Someone makes the claims you are making about cessationalism, and someone, usually one of the Pyro’s has to explain all over again that that is not the cessationist position. I’m not sure what you’ve run into in your experience, but denying healing and miracles wholesale is not what cessationists believe.

Here’s part of the problem, Daryl: You’re talking (and thinking?) in terms of “the” cessationist position, and telling Jair “what cessationists believe”. You’re telling him that “cessationists” believe in miracles. Which is an overly broad claim. You can say “cessationism doesn’t mean ‘miracles don’t happen’”, but some cessationists do believe precisely that.

(This is similar to “Calvinists don’t believe that God loves everyone.” Some self-described Calvinists say precisely that.)

So, educate people about the broader meaning of “cessationism”, but you can’t necessarily say that they’ve misunderstood anything. They may have understood perfectly, whoever they were talking to. (You can say “You misunderstood me,” or “you misunderstood the Pyromaniacs”.) Phil Johnson did this well, in the link I posted above.

In other words, keep in mind that they may “misunderstand” cessationism because they met the extreme variety of cessationist. Your correction should take that into account.