by Shea Oakley<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Copyright 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All rights reserved
\u201cNow eagerly desire the greater gifts.\u201d 1 Corinthians 12:31 (NIV)
During my many years as a Christ-follower I\u2019ve come to believe it is a good thing for believers to \u201ceagerly desire\u201d and accept all the gifting’s God may desire to specifically impart to individual Christians to further the work of His kingdom on earth. As I understand it this means every gift mentioned in the New Testament, including the more obviously supernatural ones.
Today, many of these gifting’s are considered valid by bibically grounded churches. Unfortunately, this is not the case for some churches that claim such grounding. I know this because I\u2019ve been a part of some of those congregations over the past three decades.
Often the gifts from which they shied away were the ones that appear to be more \u201cpurely spiritual\u201d than other\u2019s that might seemingly be possessed even by non-believers (administration, helps, hospitality, etc.). To be specific the divine empowerments some implied were no longer valid for today almost always included the following three:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Supernatural healing, prophecy, and speaking in tongues.
For instance, all three of my previous church homes prior to my current congregation would have been uncomfortable with the public manifestation of these three divine gifts during any official meeting. I did not ever see them in operation personally. This was despite at least two of the three denominations having nothing in their constitution which forbade operating in healing, prophecy, and tongues. (One of them, though, had what I thought was a particularly ironic \u201cneutrality\u201d about one of the three. This denomination said that speaking in tongues should \u201cbe neither encouraged nor discouraged.\u201d You might guess which one of those suggestions was taken as the more authoritative advice!)
In some cases, I think the bias against supernatural gifting’s was more an unspoken reaction to some of the perceived excesses of the Pentecostal\/Charismatic movement than a reaction to anything grounded in the sound interpretation of Scripture
.
However, that was not the only factor that influenced churches to reject prayer for supernatural and immediate healing along with giving public voice to prophecy and encouraging speaking in tongues. There was and is a \u201ccounter-narrative\u201d to their use which exists as well. Some theologians, and the denominations with which they are affiliated, support something called \u201cCessationism.\u201d This is the belief that all three of these gifts \u201cceased\u201d with the death of the original Apostles.
I personally think such a theological position is untenable.
There is one basic reason why I believe Cessationism is faulty. In over 30 years of being in the Bible every day I have yet to find a single verse that could be effectively used to prove that healing, prophecy, and tongues somehow stopped being among the gifts we are given in the Church to glorify God and serve others. Such a verse just isn\u2019t there. Nowhere did I find biblical evidence that they all are not for use today or, for that matter, were never used during most of the 20 centuries since the Church was founded.
So why does the Cessationist cause still have support among a substantial segment of American Christ-followers? I think it primarily goes back to those Pentecostal\/Charismatic excesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such excesses do exist.
One of the more egregious examples of this in recent history was during the so- called \u201cToronto Blessing\u201d which began as what appeared to be an authentic revival at a church in that Canadian city in 1994. Healings, prophecy, and tongues were all in evidence during the several months of this revival. Many miraculous things appeared to have occurred and believers from all over the world flocked to Toronto to be a part of what was happening there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, at some point things began to get a bit out of hand, especially in the case of supposed manifestations of the Holy Spirit\u2019s presence. There were several questionable things that started to happen. The worst I remember reading about was that some participants literally began to \u201cbark like a dog\u201d while under the supposed influence of the Spirit (Because of this, and other clearly non-biblically supportable behaviors the denomination to which this church belonged cut all official ties in 1995).
What I believe is often forgotten when Cessationists use what happened in Toronto, and sometimes elsewhere in revivals of the past, to prove their point is this: revivals can be \u201chijacked\u201d by either the enemy of our souls or just by human psychological maladjustments. At some point spiritually unstable and\/or immature believers can and do end up \u201cgoing off the rails.\u201d This has been especially true during prolonged historical revivals that are otherwise remembered as genuine and widespread moves of God.
So, point taken, but the fact that some professed believers may end up \u201cswinging from the chandeliers\u201d does nothing to change the basic flaw in the Cessationist argument.
The fact that they can point to excesses which sometimes crop up around genuine works of God involving healings, prophecy, and tongues is nothing but a \u201cstraw man argument\u201d in my view. It misses the point completely because it does not address the lack of even a hint in scripture that certain gifts stopped being given either at the end of the apostolic age, or upon completion of the biblical canon.
For this reason, along with many truly miraculous things I have personally seen, or heard about from very reputable sources, during my time as a believer, I do not see reason why any church should not collectively and individually \u201ceagerly desire\u201d and pray for every true gifting of heaven to be bestowed on Christ-followers according to God\u2019s sovereign will, for His sovereign purposes. If they are genuine and authentic manifestations of His redemptive power, why on earth should we not seek them?
In fact, I do not think it foolish to think we might even be acting in disobedience to that will if we refuse to seek every gift He might want to give us.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Shea Oakley Copyright 2022 All rights reserved \u201cNow eagerly desire the greater gifts.\u201d 1 Corinthians 12:31 (NIV) During my many years as a Christ-follower I\u2019ve come to believe it is a good thing for believers to \u201ceagerly desire\u201d and accept all the gifting’s God may desire to specifically impart to individual Christians to further… <\/p>\n