Hope of Glory wrote
Personally, I can look at Scriptures and see that the signs, wonders, and miracles performed through men were present up until a certain point, and then disappeared. Personally, I think it was some time between 59-64 AD, because up until that point, Paul had that power, and afterward, he could not even help his friend. But, no matter when they disappeared, we are told they would disappear, and they disappeared from Scripture.
There are some major flaws with your argument.
1. If you graph out the occurance of supernatural gifts that appear in scripture, there is a huge spike toward the end, as the book of Revelation contains visions, angelic appearances, and prophecy.
2. If you were to graph out, like a brain wave chart, all the occurances of the supernatural that occur in NT scripture on a time line, you would see that the occurances go up and down. They don't just go down. Before Acts 4, there was a lull. Then the apostles prayed for God to do signs and wonders, and He did. There was a spike ont he chart. In Ephesus, there is another spike on the chart as God does extraordinary miracles through the hands of Paul. An honest look at scripture does not show gifts declining, but rather highs and lows. Plus, most accounts of miracles are in the Gospels and Acts, because they are spiritual books. Since teacing on spiritual gifts in the book of I Corinthians is 'milk' it makes sense that Paul would not cover that material as much as churches grew up and learned how to use the gifts properly, and we see little mention of this sort of thing or a lot of the problems the Corinthians had in a late epistle like Philippians.
3. You assume the apostles could use their gifts at will, like Superman uses his powers in the comic book. Scripture argues against this. The apostles did miracles, but they had to pray in Acts 4. Apparently, there was a drop in miracles and they were dependant on god for miraculous power, on an on-going basis. Before Peter raised Tabitha, he prayed. In Ephesus, God chose to do special miracles by Paul's hands. Luke notes this. So if Paul left a sick man in Miletus, that does not mean the gifts gradually waned. Paul had some kind of eye illness apparently EARLY ON in his ministry when he went to the Galatians. This was probably first missionary journey, and Paul did many great miracles after that.
4. You are contradicting direct doctrinal teaching of scripture with your time period theory. The Bible teaches that the Spirit gives gifts as He wills. You are saying He doesn't give them because of your time period argument. Your time period argument relies on an argument from silence.
