Charismatics

This passage is not in the future tense. It is not saying we can't look into the perfect law of liberty yet, it is saying that if we look into it(present tense) and continue doing so, we will be blessed.

According the Bible there is a perfect law of liberty and that is the Word, which is the context of the passage as we know from verse 22. Of course since you think the Bible is in error you won't believe what it says so it is pointless to discuss it further.

~Lorelei

 

It was the same word used in the verse I quoted above that was speaking of the word, the "law of liberty."

What is your definition of stilled in this context?

But the majority of those experiencing it teach that it is subsequent. That fact makes it anti-scriptural and definately negates it's validity. The Holy Spirit can not empower you in such a way and still keep you ignorant of Who He is.

This is based on your experience and not scripture, as is the case with charismatics.

Where does scripture tell us that those who can't believe without enough evidence will be given some "tangible" experience to strengthen us?

The examples of the Holy Spirit's empowerment in the NT was among those who were strong in the faith, not weak. Or are you saying the apostles were immature in the faith?

The Bible NEVER teaches this!

~Lorelei

 

The apostles were weak prior to Pentecost. Your interpretation of "stilled" and "pass away" is one of several - it could equally mean that tongues are stilled when you die, or at the eschaton ; what grounds have you for exclusively favouring your interpretation?

I agree that most charismatic and Pentecostal groups teach subsequence (a notable exception is Vineyard); I have already said I disagree with subsequence.

Let me ask you another question: if you are questioning my own particular experience of the HS, then what do you say I experienced then,and why did this cause me to go and witness to my friends and family and evangelise them (my parents are now saved) when before I would not haveh had the guts to?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Pentecost is not an on-going event. It was a one-day historical event in history which never again will be repeated, just like many other events in the Bible. It is a historical event. God spoke to Moses through a burning bush. That was a one-time event. He has never done it again in history. God used a large fish to swallow Jonah and a donkey to talk to Balaam--one-time events in history. So was Pentecost. It will never again be repeated.

What did Jesus say to the disciples in Acts 1
4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

They were to wait in Jerusalem, wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. They were to wait!

The reason that they were "weak" as you say, is because the Holy Spirit had not come. They were commanded to wait for it to come, which it did on the day of Pentecost. Any believer who claims to be weak has no excuse. The Holy Spirit has already come. One doesn't neeed an experience like tongues to be strong. The "need" of tangible experiences is indicative of an immature Christian, or a Christian not well acquainted with the Scriptures. "I want this experience because???" Not because the Bible says so, but rather because the flesh says so.

The fact that you experienced more courage to witness after your experience with tongues is not because of your tongues experience but in spite of it. God still blesses a believers witness, and His Word. It is His Word that we must ground our lives on, not our experiences.
DHK

 

I managed to look up some stuff I wrote on teleios awhile back:-

Teleios, (together with its associated similar words, teleioo, teleiotes, and teleiosis) is used frequently by Paul. You will have noticed by now that I have failed to give translations of these Greek words yet, and therein lies part of the problem: teleios and co have multiple meanings. Just as a Greek would have trouble translating our word ‘love’ (is it agape, eros, storge or phile?), so too do we have difficulties with teleios. Basically, it can be translated, inter alia, in all or some of the following ways: complete, finished, perfect, having-achieved-the-end-result, accomplished, fulfilled, full-grown, fully-developed, adult and mature. It derives from the Greek noun telos, meaning end/ goal, and, as a further aid to our understanding of the word, the teleological school of philosophical thought essentially asserts that ‘the end justifies the means’ (e.g.: that the bombing of Hiroshima was morally right because it saved lives in the long-run). To a degree, the meaning can vary according to the context but I would suggest that, by and large, teleios (and the associated words above) encompasses all of these meanings and that Paul’s use of it in his soteriology demonstrates conceptually the same kind of dialectic tension as between now and not yet which we have with the Kingdom of God being at hand. Judge for yourselves by these examples of the use of teleios-rooted words, both in Pauline texts and other New Testament writings: 1 Cor 14:20; 2 Cor 12:9; Eph 4:13; Phil 1:6; 3:12-16; Matt 5:48: Heb 2:10; 10:1; 12:23; James 1:4; and 1 Jn 2:5.

DHK, the tongues weren't the important part of my experience those years ago; what was important was that as a consequence of that touch from God, I was able to effectively evangelise whereas previously I had not. What is your explanation for this change?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Lorelai,

The Word is Jesus, In note that you are refering to the Word as the Bible. Which is in error.

I am not suggesting that I do not believe in the Bible and feel that it is in error, I dont believe that there is one translation of it that is free from any type of "translation error".

Any error of translation automatically stops it being the "perfect word".

To be "Perfect" is without error. including translation error. Hence only Jesus Christ can claim to be truly Perfect.

 

I was half way through writing a reply here last night and my computer crashed...I can hear some saying "It's a sign!"...But I made it through and posted tonight, so I guess it wasn't much of a sign after all

I was thinking about replying to a few things on this thread, but would wear out my keyboard doing so so will just stick with Trotter's original question

When I was a little bit younger and a lot bit sillier I went to 2 "La La Land embassies" for a few years, and looked at another couple here and there.

Some of the problems (in order remembered, not necessarily order of importance)... The messages. Based on remarks from the pulpits their "trinity" would be money, sex, and sport.

The word/faith ("name it claim it and frame it", "blab it and grab it", "God is Santa Claus") garbage was taught at the ones I attended. I fear it is more common than some on this thread have suggested.

The number of non-profit prophets getting around in there. Incredible. They get up, say "Thus saith the LORD", then sprout the biggest load of garbage one could ever hear. The worst example is the night one prophesied that a young bloke at Church was going to do this and that and the other and etc etc....and the young bloke was with the Lord 2 weeks later.

The "tongues" stuff. At all the ones I saw there were periods where everyone would go off at once "spaghettipizzalasagnaing" with never an interpreter in sight.

2 words: "Toronto "blessing""

4 words: "slain in the spirit"

For those that may have been wondering, I never spaghettipizzalasagnaed, got into the laughing gas, or squashed a group of "catchers" I was in the wrong spot at the wrong time one night and took a catch. Thinking back now I should have just let her do a "BOMBS AWAYYY", if it is from God, then surely He can handle the landing too?

I thank God for the time I spent at those places. It was certainly..'educational'

The only way to realise both true and false doctrine is to compare it to the Word. Pray for those caught in the false.

Pete

 

LOL, mate!

Many years ago, in a former life, I was at a Toronto-style meeting; this really fat woman fell over and broke her arm and all the Penties went nuts trying to pray for it to be healed. In the end, of course, she had to be carted off to hospital and the arm healed in the usual way

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Matt, at my taxi medical last year I weighed in at 150kg or so, which roughly translates to...umm...I forget. I am pretty sure I have put on a bit more since then...Or the shirt I am currently wearing is shrinking

So anyway, if I went to one of those joints now they would be calling people down to get "slain" to cure their dandruff and bring world peace, but would point to me and say something like "errr, no, we see your scalp is fine and you are peaceful enough..."

Pete

 

James tells us that we have the perfect law now, not in the future. Paul said when perfection comes the imperfect will be done away with. Even if the passage were talking about Jesus He is saying we have "perfection" now, so tongues would still be stilled. However, we know Christ has not come again yet, but we do know that we have His Word, which He said would never pass away. I believe your interpreation is in error.

To say that an error in translation invalidates this as the Word is your own interpretation. The Bible says His "words will never pass away" not that man will not mistranslate them.

~Lorelei

 

Historically Paul attempted to put the issue of tongues under control. He did state that if it was of God there must be an interpretation. He also states the reason is for the edification of the body. If the body is not edified it is meaningless. Therefore what is the use if there is not an interpretation.

To state that tongues ceased when the Csnon was complete is an American theological idea that has no basis in some other countries. The fact is that some countries today do not have Revelation in their Bibles because Revelation has never been a part of their canon. One of those countries is where a number of early church fathers were.

I have never heard any scholar who even believed tongues has ceased that will say that scripture alone can prove that tongues has ceased. They will even say that you cannot prove it grammatically.

I will say this: any gift that is not used under control of the Holy Spirit is not being used by God. A pastor may have gifts that make him a great preacher but if his gifts are not under the control of the Holy Spirit then his gift is not being used to glorify God.

 

I would also say that Tounges are another known language, and that if they are used an interpretation must be given. Paul did go at pains to ensure that this would be the case.

 

The Bible quite clearly takes precedence; anything spoken by man, whether it be preaching, tongues+interpretation, prophecy, word of knowledge etc that adds to, contradicts or detracts from the canon of Scripture, is false.

I agree with Ben - tongues are, or should be, genuine human languages - that is the Acts 2 model - the typical scenario would be a multi-lingual congregation or audience, as in Acts 2 or at Corinth, where a tongue would be given in one of the minority languages (eg Aramaic, Latin)and then an interpretation in the majority language, koine Greek.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Agreed. We should not let the existential tail wag the theological dog.

That said, I have experienced what I would call 'true tongues' on a few occasions. One that sticks in my mind was at a Pentecostal church where somone got up and gave a tongue which was then interpreted. Unbeknown to either speaker, there was a woman from Greece who was not saved who happened to be visiting that morning. She then came forward and testified that the tongue was word-perfect Greek (modern not koine)and was to the effect that God loved her dearly and was calling her, and that the interpretation was a word-for-word accurate translation of the tongue. As a consequence, she was convinced of the reality of God and gave her life to the Lord that morning.

Put that in your cessationist pipes and smoke it!

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Matt,
Much of Christian life is about experience.
Each Christian has an experience with the Holy Spirit, as He leads us to salvation.

But after salvation, experiences vary greatly. And this is where the great debate starts.

You saw something, and personally witnessed a valid spiritual transaction, and a person was saved. You also understood that it was the Living God who was responsible. You knew that because of your relationship with the Living God.

But for those who have not experienced these types of spiritual transactions, they must be considered out of bounds. Their pastors and teachers have taught them that the book (Bible) is all we need today, and that no supernatual events are vaild outside of salvation. Interestingly enough, their experience fits with their theology.

For those of us who believe that the Holy Spirit does today the same as He did in the first century, our experience fits with our theology.

Jesus illustrates this in His hometown.


MT 13:53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. 54 Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?" they asked. 55 "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? 56 Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" 57 And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor."

MT 13:58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

What many in the cessationist movement deny is that our beliefs will affect our experience. They believe that the gifts are not for today, and interestingly enough, they don't see any, and if they do, they say what happened is of the devil. Strange how history repeats itself so many times. It happened to Jesus. And Jesus said it would happen to us.

James also teaches that our faith will reflect in our actions. And wouldn't your know it, along comes Martin Luther, and tries to kick the book of James out of the Bible.

It will be nice when we see "face to face", with Jesus.

 

Agreed with both of you.

I think that a lot of the problem is to do with poor theology. Over here, the charismatic movement is often described as "a movement and experience in search of a theology". I would go further than that and say that it is largely a movement that ought to be in search of a theology but mainly isn't, largely because many of its members shun rigorous Biblical scholarship as being 'unspiritual' (whatever that means!). This is a great pity, for if they did undertake the type of exegesis carried out by the likes of Don Carson and Jim Packer on I Cor 12-14, the spiritual gifts would be exercised more faithfully and the kind of abuses and errors that we deplore wouldn't happen.

Yours in Christ

Matt