I find it almost laughable that people should say that they do not see any evidence of the gifts today. It means, of course, that they are only thinking of speaking in tongues or of prophecy or of miracles ... We are entitled, therefore, to argue that if some of these gifts have been in evidence throughout the history of the church and are still here, then why not all of them?
Then speaking of prophecy specifically:
But perhaps the best way of reaching a definition is to ask; what is the difference between prophecy on the one hand and preaching and teaching on the other? Because there is a difference. And I would say that the difference is one word. Immediacy. And this means that a word is given to people and comes to them. Now preaching and teaching are not like that. A preacher and teacher is a man who takes time to study, he takes time to think, to prepare; he arranges his material and gives it order and system. A preacher and teacher should not enter into the pulpit without any preparation and trust to the inspiration of the moment.
What then is the gift of prophecy? Well I would define it as a direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What for? Its purpose is to give a word from God or the Word of God to the Church. Prophecy is the inspired delivery of warning, exhortation, instruction, judging and making manifest the secrets of the heart. Someone who makes a prophecy has been given this gift of passing on, as it were, a word from God to the church and to individuals in the church.
Technorati Tags: prophecy, Signs & Wonders, spiritual gifts
2 comments:
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with him, but I did find a couple of things odd that he said.
It is not unexpected that someone would assume that some of the gifts have ceased. We don't know for sure when some of the gifts are going to cease, but we do know that some will cease sometime. 1Cor 13:8 We also know that Paul particularly listed prophesy, tongues, and knowledge as the gifts that would cease. I don't know if Paul meant this to be an exhaustive list or not.
Second, I found this sentence to be odd "It's purpose is to give a word from God or the Word of God to the Church." What's the difference?
(There is also a grammatical error in that sentence, but maybe that is a typo.)
Randy (no blog)
no blog - you have the gift of "detailed analysis", I hope that never ceases.
:-)
I understood him to be saying that it is not right minded to say that because I haven't seen gift A, it must have ceased but since I enjoy gift B, it must not have. I thought he was challenging the Scriptural base for suggesting which gifts are in the will cease versus will not cease categories.
Because he does not see that, he might rather ague if I see gift B, then I have space for gift A.
On your second point, I understood the "word from God" to be some communication from God rather than in the case of "the Word of God" to be specifically a Scripture.
Remember, in my thinking, I allow for me to think there is communication that is not equal to Scripture.
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