Featured Apostles, prophets and manifestations of the Holy Spirit - Part 2

Probably, but remember (as has been pointed out at least a dozen times now), "sign gifts" (aka, manifestations of the Holy Spirit) were not limited to apostles. Frankly, if we are available to God and doing ministry in the Spirit, we should not be surprised if manifestations of the Holy Spirit occur through us (according to God's will and glory) to serve the needs of others. As I pointed out a long time ago, I experience the manifestations of the Spirit in ministry from time to time. It is almost always extremely discreet, but the one who needs the "sign" knows that it is of God.

 

Let me clarify that I have only seen one legitimate use of tongues in my 42 years of faith. It was on July 4, 1986 at Stewart Beach on Galveston Island, Texas. A woman was praying in tongues, and my friend was able to interpret it accurately (to his great surprise). His interpretation was verified a few minute later.

Please note, I am not advocating popular Pentecostal or Charismatic practice or theology.

 

No, it wasn't fraudulent. You have made a huge false assumption according to your biases.

The woman was praying about a situation we were unaware of. My friend interpreted what she was praying, and it didn't seem to make sense until about three minutes later when we walked up on the situation. His interpretation exactly matched what was happening.

Yes.

 

Again, you are obsessed about writing scripture and have tied that specifically to apostles, trying to leverage that to claim there are no apostles today. Being an apostle does not require one to write scripture. Most of The Twelve did not write scripture. Some who were not part of The Twelve wrote scripture, and some who were not apostles at all wrote scripture.

 

It was not a human language, it was ecstatic speech.

Let's be clear, I am extremely skeptical of modern tongues practices in Charismatic/Pentecostal circles. I do not share their theology, nor outlook. Yet you seem to be rejecting my position citing Charismatic/Pentecostal practices.

Our standard should be the Bible.

 

No one, including Jesus, could heal outside the will of God and without the power of the Holy Spirit enabling it at the moment.

There are two general ways healing works in the New Testament. The first is the classic prayer for healing where God may heal someone because of the prayers of his people. The second (much, much rarer) is when a disciple of Jesus who is walking in the Spirit "knows" that God wants to heal someone and the disciple exercises the authority of Jesus in that moment, in coordination with the Holy Spirit, to impart healing to the one who is ill/dying. I have only been part of that once, when I was with a mission pastor in Wyoming in March 1987 and the pastor was called to the hospital because a church member's elderly mother was dying. The doctor said her organs were shutting down, she was unconscious, and her was breathing was nothing but death rattles. (If you have been with someone who is dying, you know that sound.) I went with the pastor to hospital and he talked to the daughter who was beside herself with grief. Suddenly he told her, "The Lord is going to heal her." The pastor grabbed one of the dying woman's hands and asked me to take the other. He took the authority of the name of Jesus and pronounced the woman healed.

I was startled by the whole thing (I had just met the pastor a few minutes before - I was preaching a revival at the church beginning the next day), and looked to see if the woman was healed. She was still unconscious, but the death rattles had stopped (which can happen). The pastor told the daughter that her mother will be fine and to let him know if she needed anything else. We left.

Not much past the room, in the hospital hallway, I asked how he could make that claim and give that woman what appeared to be false hope. He said, "Wait and see."

A few minutes later we arrived back at the church office and started talking about the plans for the week when the phone rang. It was the daughter at the hospital. Her mother was conscious again and was trying to get out of bed to walk around. The doctors and nurses were startled by that and were trying to keep her in bed, trying to figure out what had happened.

The woman was in church with her daughter the next morning.

I'm sure I don't. I don't even know if there is a consensus viewpoint out there in that movement.

I do know that they have lots of prophets that constantly make false prophecies whenever they make specific predictions (for instance, Trump being re-elected), and I am unaware of how so-called apostles in the charismatic movement function.

Modern day apostles are what we call missionaries in our corner of Christendom.

 

Given that I am speaking of a specific instance where it was interpreted, it was NOT meaningless babbling.

I am speaking of exactly ONE instance (July 4, 1987 - Stewart Beach, Galveston Island, Texas) in more than 40 years of hearing people speak in tongues, so I am not claiming anything about tongues the way it is often practiced.

 

You claim to read my posts, but you constantly demonstrate that you actually don't. I have presented this several times in the three basic threads on this issue. Here is the relevant portion from most recent post from last Friday.

This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the manifestations ("sign gifts") of the Holy Spirit. The apostles did not have it within themselves to heal anyone. For that matter, neither did Jesus (read John 4:19-21 and then Matthew 13:58 and Mark 6:5). Healings, and all other manifestations of the Holy Spirit, and empowered and channeled through willing people according to the will of God. They are only under the 'control' of the person channeling God's power when, in God's wisdom, it would be helpful to God's work.​

Jesus clearly stated that He could do nothing on His own, but He simply did what He saw His Father doing. In the same way, disciples who are walking in the Spirit can see what their Father is doing and know His will for the moment.

Nope.