I wrote,
I Corinthians 13 mentions tongues, prophecy, and the coming of the perfect.
Chapters 14 and 15 go into detail on tongues, prophecy, and the resurrection.
Every book has its own outline. You seem to be unaware of that or have not studied the Bible very well. Consider 1Cor.12:1
1 Corinthians 12:1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.
--Then Paul spends the next three chapters (12, 13, and 14) speaking about spiritual gifts. The 15th chapter has nothing to do with the gifts. It is a marvellous apologetic chapter on the resurrection, and not a word on the gifts. Learn what the book is about before putting your foot in your mouth. It is only 12 to 14 that speak of the gifts to any extent at all.
I am familiar with the flow of the book of I Corinthians. It was one of the books I memorized in Teen Bible Quiz way back when.
There are thoughts and themes that go throughout epistles. It is obvious that Paul did not write his epistles with a Greek outline. Some people say his writing is more of a rabinnical style, and compare it to an onion with layers that get pealed off until he gets to the center. Paul does not just deal with one topic in one section. He will mention a topic while discussion another issue, and get back to it. In Romans, Paul mentions the issue of the Jews in chapter 2, and keeps on talking about Israel in later chapters like 9, 10, 11, and 15.
By the evidence of the promises of God. I happen to believe the Bible, and the Bible points rather directly to the cessation of these gifts. But you deny this fact and claim that they continue rather than cease though it be 2,000 years after this statement was written. Unbelievable!
The Bible promises that Jesus will return, and it has been a little less than 2,000 years. Is that unbelievable to you as well? It is not suprising that God would wait that long to bring in that which is perfect, especially considering verses like I Corinthians 1:7.
"So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:"
Ephesians 4 tells us that God gave us prophets until we all come into the unity of the faith unto the full measure of the stature of Christ.
We also see two witnesses prophesying in the book of Revelation and references to Babylon killing ___prophets___. If prophets are still around at the end, then it makes no sense to say that the perfect has already come.
1 Corinthians 13:10-11 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Paul says "when the Bible comes then the temporary gifts (tongues, prophecy and revelatory knowledge) will be done away."
Then he shifts gears and begins another paragraph.
When I was a child (spiritually immature). He is not speaking of himself as a young Pharisee. He says then my thinking was spiritually immature. But now that I have become a man--spiritually grown up and matured, I put away spiritually immature desires.
So what does the passage mean? Think about context. The context all along is revelation. It is not the resurrection; never has been. It is revelation in the context of spiritual gifts. A list of the gifts is given in the previous chapter in 12:28 where they are listed in order with tongues and the interpretation thereof at the bottom, they being the least important of all the gifts. They are also the most carnal showy gifts that immature believers seek after. Paul admits to do doing the same kind of thing.
When I was a child--an immature Christian; I thought as a child...I desired to speak in tongues, to interpret tongues, etc.--that is to have the more showy gifts so that people would notice me. I was immature at that time early in my Christian life. But then I became a man (spiritually mature). I put away those desires.
Shifts gears? Nowhere in the epistle does Paul hint that people speak in tongues to get attention.
The Bible certainly does NOT call tongues carnal. In fact, it calls it a gift of the SPIRIT. The apostles spoke in tongues. There is no hint in the epistle that the problem in I Corinthians with tongues came about because the tongues speakers were seeking attention. They were childish in their understanding and did not consider that uninterpreted tongues did not edify other. But there is no indictment of their motivation for speaking in tongues-- that their motives or selfish or that they were attention seekers.
This is your own bias that you are eisegeting into the passage. Paul spoke in tongues 'more than ye all' when he wrote this epistle. So if Paul was describing speaking in tongues as childish, he was describing his current state.
So what does the passage mean? Think about context. The context all along is revelation. It is not the resurrection; never has been. It is revelation in the context of spiritual gifts. A list of the gifts is given in the previous chapter in 12:28 where they are listed in order with tongues and the interpretation thereof at the bottom, they being the least important of all the gifts. They are also the most carnal showy gifts that immature believers seek after. Paul admits to do doing the same kind of thing.
When I was a child--an immature Christian; I thought as a child...I desired to speak in tongues, to interpret tongues, etc.--that is to have the more showy gifts so that people would notice me. I was immature at that time early in my Christian life. But then I became a man (spiritually mature). I put away those desires.
Paul specifically refers to knowledge in connection with the perfect, not 'revelation' per se. See the following verse.
1 Corinthians 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.
^^^^^^
When the perfect comes, Paul would know fully as he is fully known.
And now, as a man, I have the word of God, a mirror that shows me who I am. James uses this same illustration--the mirror of God's Word. He looks forward again to the day that God's Word will be complete and give him an even brighter reflection than just the Old Testament would.
MAJOR flaw with your reasoning here is that Paul was already looking into the glass when he wrote the epistle. One could look into the mirror of the word of God when it was in verbal form when James wrote his epistle, probably one of the first epistles written in the New Testament. So if you say looking into a glass is talking about the word of God you are actually supporting my argument that 'that which is perfect' is NOT the Bible in this particular passage.
Notice the contrast--now we see through a glass darkly, but THEN face to face.
So now, we have the Bible, which is like looking in the mirror you argue. So if the word is the mirror or glass here, you still have 'the perfect' coming at a later date, after the word.
If the quote in James is your 'biblical basis' for saying 'the perfect' is the scripture, that actually argues against your position.
1. Tongues was a sign to the unbelieving Jews. The Bible plainly says so. Read it for yourself in 1Cor.14:21,22
Paul's application of the passage is that it is a sign for unbelievers. We have unbelievers, both Jew and Gentile, in the world today. There is no reason to think that Jews now would benefit less from signs. When Romans 11 was written, God had already 'concluded them all in unbelief' at that time, and the gifts were still in operation.
Tongues with interpretation had a function in regard to believers, though it was not to serve as a sign to us. If you argue that tongues ceased because they were no longer needed as a sign, tongues had other uses, so if they weren't needed as a sign, that does not mean tongues would cease. It is like saying knife's ceased when they stopped mass production of buggy whips after cars started to be manufactured. After all, you need a knife to cut off the end of the buggy whip handle when you are done with it, so since we don't have buggy whips, we don't have knives. The problem with this line of reasoning is that there are other uses for knives.
2, If tongues was for edificcation in today's society than missionaries, especially those Charismatic missionaries who believe in the gift would not have to go to language school to learn foreign languages.
Your premise does not support your conclusion. Tongues and interpretation edified the church in Corinth even though speaker and congregation apparently did not know what was being said without the interpretation. What does this have to do with missionaries not needing to go to language schools? I don't see anything in the Bible that says that the gift of tongues was meant to replace speaking a language with the understanding. Paul contrasts praying in tongues with praying with his understanding.
The gift of tongues, in reality, was always a foreign language. That is what made it a sign. It was never gibberish. If it was gibberish that was a sign that it was demonic. Check out 1Cor.12:1-3. There was always a good possiblility those speaking in tongues and not knowing what they were saying were speaking ih tongues by the power of a demon.
I agree that tonges are real languages. The Bible contains no warnings one way or the other about speaking in gibberish. It makes sense that one could speak in gibberish without a demon being involved.
Also, it makes little sense to read tongues into the passage that says that if someone curses the Lord, that he is not speaking by the Spirit. Suppose you theorize that someone had actually cursed Christ in Corinth while pretending to be functioning in a gift--which is quite a leap that the passage does not support, but a theoretical possibility. Suppose this happened. If it had happened in tongues, no one would have understood, and Paul would have been referring to an occurence they did not even know about. There is no reason to think that people were cursing Christ in tongues in church.
It makes more sense to see Paul contrasting pagan spiritual manifestations with true Chrsitian ones. Do you think believers speaking by some spirit would have cursed Christ? Isn't it more likely that pagans did such things with their false gifts, and that the Christians were confessing that Jesus is Lord?
Can you name the language? Who interprets for you, and what language does interpret it into? Does everyone understand it? Is he sure of the language from which he was interpreting?
Could the Corinthians name the languages they spoke in? etc. The speaker needed a gift of interpretation to be able to interpret his own message in Corinth. no one understood him, so his message had to be intepreted. Does I Corinthians tell the Corinthians to worry about whether or not their tongues are real? No.
Thus tongues do not edify. If I speak in a foreign language to my congregation how is that going to edify anyone but myself. Even then I can understand my mother tongue better than the foreign languge I have learned.
That is why I have been saying consistently that tongues had a role to play in edifying the church WHEN USED WITH THE GIFT OF INTERPRETATION. The gift of tongues plus the gift of interpretation edifies the church. Tongues alone does not, which is one of the main points of I Corinthians chapter 14.
I do not see the Biblical gift of tongues in operation today--anywhere. Gibberish is not Biblical tongues. Of course if it is not in operation it does not edify. That is fairly logical.
DHK, you cannot even recognize the gift of teaching as being in operation. How could you recognize tongues. I believe it would benefit you to do a word study on the Greek words for 'grace' and 'spiritual gift(s)', charis, charisma, charismata....and then look up the uses of these words in the context of relevant passages. Look up the words in I Corinthians 12-14, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, I Peter 4, and other passages.
Your idea that all gifts ceased is a rather extreme view, one that most cessationists I have encountered do not believe.
1 Corinthians 14:21-22 In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not
--"This people," "they" refers to Israel at that time, before 70 A.D. Between 70 A.D. and 1948 Israel did not exist. How could there be a prophecy referring to something that didn't even exist. If that was true then you would have to admit according to the prophecy there could have been no tongues possible between 70 and 1948 even according to your theology.
1. Surely you are aware that this prophecy was given hundreds of years before Paul.
2. Nothing in either the Isaiah passage or Paul's passage say anything about this referring to Jews before 70 AD. You are making some kind of Preterist type argument without holding to Preterism-- strange.
3. 'Israel' is a people-group. Israel was Israel during the Babylonian captivity. They have not ceased to be Israel. Notice that the verse even says 'This people' not this 'Legally recognized state.
Acts 2:14-16 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this (speaiking in tongues) is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
--Who is Peter speaking to? The Jews of the first century--the very ones that crucified the Lord!
Acts 2:36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
--These aren't the people that are around today. They all died by the end of the first century. Tongues were a sign to them; the nation of Israel at that time. At 70 A.D. the nation of Israel was no longer a nation, and the prophecy of Isa.28:11,12 became completely fulfilled. Judgement came.
This is an extremely weak argument. The Jews Peter preached to were likely not the same unbelieving Jews Paul's audience would have encountered in Corinth years and years later.
There is nothing in eithr the Acts 2:14-16 or Acts 2:36 passages that indicate that these passages apply specifically to 'first century Jews.' In the first passage, Paul is speaking to a specific crowd of people, but the passage is 'profitable for doctrine' for us. You are eisegeting.
I Corinthians 14:26 does not say that tongues was only for a sign for the specific Jews who had crucified Christ. When Christ was about to be crucified, the crowd said, 'let his blood be on us and on our children.' It is likely that some of Peter's listeners in Acts 2 were not in the crowd that shouted this out to Pilate.
In the OT, God held the nation of Israel collectively responsible for sins, allowing other soldiers to die when Achan stole goods that were to be destroyed. God held the nation responsible. Generations later, God held the nation responsible for breaking covenant with the Gibeonites.
quote:
Why can't it be both ways. Every where you look in Scripture you see Scriptural reasons: one on top of another why tongues have ceased. Does it bother you to see mounting evidence that tongues have ceased: because it is a sign to the Jews.
The 'mounting evidence' exists in the minds of people like yourselves, but it is not in the pages of scripture. Your 'evidence' is eisegesis, not whatthe Bible actually says.
Because it is a sign for the Apostles and their message.
You have not shown that apostleship has ceased. I have demonstrated that God did signs through non-apostles.
You have not shown where scripture calls all the I Corinthians 12 gift 'signs.' Just because it makes sense to you to call them signs does not mean scripture uses the term that way.
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Paul says that signs, wonders, and mighty deeds were signs of an apostle. He does not say that ONLY apostles did these things. Nor does he say that these things are signs of 'the apostles AND THEIR CLOSE ASSOCIATES'. He says signs of 'an apostle'. Yet the Bible shows non apostles doing signs, and specifically calls them signs. So either you need to conceed that this verse does not teach that non-apostles cannot do signs.
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Either I am right in what I say, or Paul is lying: "signs of an apostle" Which do you choose?
Maybe you should directly state your position. How do you formulate an argument from this for the cessation of the gifts? Connect the dots for me so I do not have to guess at your stance.
My position is this. Paul did the signs of the apostles. There are two ways I can see this can be interpreted.
1. One is the the signs of an apostle were the suffering, etc. he endured as described in the passage, and were accompanied by signs, wonder, and mighty deeds.
2. The other is that signs, wonders, and mighty deeds were the signs of an apostle. Scripture shows that God granted that non-apostles do signs at times. Stephen and Philip did signs. In Hebrews 2, they that heard the Lord did signs, but the passage does not say that this was restricted to the apostles.
And you have not demonstrated that I Corinthians 12 gifts are the same thing as an apostle.
If you are trying to argue that I Corinthians 12 are only for apostles, surely you realize that you are contradicting scripture. Paul himself wrote about regular believers receiving these gifts. So don't try to interpret the passage in a way that does not even make sense in the light of the rest of scripture.
It makes sense, if one holds to interpretation 2, above, to insist that if someone is an apostle, he will do signs, wonders, and mighty needs. It does not make sense to try to make the verse say that only apostles can/could do signs, because the passage does not _demand_ this interpretation, and this interpretation contradicts other scripture.
The primary reasons for tongues and (according to Heb.2:3,4) for the other gifts of the Spirit, were to authenticate the Apostles and their message. Secondly, it was a sign to the unbelieving Jew. All other purposes were minor in contrast to those two main purposes for tongues.
I challenged you earlier to show me scripture for this view. Show me the scripture that prioritizes the following purposes of spiritual gifts.
-edifying the church
-'authenticating' ('bearing witness' is the more scriptural way of saying this)
-sign to the Jews.
The Bible doesn't say all the gifts are signs to unbelievers. And it does not refer to I Corinthians gifts as 'signs' in reference to believers.
I wrote,
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Two problems here. The Bible does not teach that all spiritual gifts going on today are fraudulent. Do you teach your congregation? Is that fraudulent, or do you do it without any grace from the Spirit? Think about the implications of your argument for yourself.
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Yes, I teach my congregation that all the spiritual gifts have ceased and if any person claims to have them they are frauds. I could teach before I became a Christian, and I can teach now.
What I meant was this. You teach gifts have ceased and modern expressions of gifts are fraudulent. The Bible talks about a gift from teaching.
Since you teach, are you a fraud, or do you teach without any grace from the Spirit to aid your teaching?
And it is sad that you teach your congregation doctrine not based on scritpure like the following, "I teach my congregation that all the spiritual gifts have ceased and if any person claims to have them they are frauds. "
You basically admitted earlier that you don't have any scripture for the other gifts ceasing besides the ones mentioned in I Corinthians 13. You have not a shred of scripture for teaching that gifts as a whole have ceased, and yet you teach the idea has doctrine. Shame on you.
What is the difference? I don't have the gift of teaching as it is described as one of the gifts of the Spirit. Those were supernatural gifts that have now ceased. The only difference now is that I can teach under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I can preach with His power. I am able to be filled with His Spirit. His Spirit constantly dwells within me. But none of this is related to any of the gifts.
You do not know what 'charismata' means. Do a word study. The Holy Spirit empowering someone to teach, by the grace of God--that sure sounds like what happens when the Biblical gift of teachign functions.
Notice that there are charismata in Romans 12.
The gifts of the Spirit have ceased. That can be demonstrated in so many ways. It can be demonstrated through the gift of tongues, as I have already explained.
It cannot be demonstrated from scripture.
There would be no need of missionaries learning foreign languages if tongues were for today.
The Bible does not support this idea.
