Church, Part 11 - Spiritual Gifts Part 2 of What We Believe, Part 47

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gifts within the Christian Church on this episode of The Rap Report. Welcome to The Rap Report with your host,
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Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the
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Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the
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Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member. We are here to give you biblical interpretations and applications for the
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Christian life, and we will say that we're going to deal with some controversial things. I will say right up front, if you have not heard the last episode, it is very, very important that you go back and listen to that before listening to this, because we didn't want to do a two -hour episode, and so we broke it up, but you have to understand everything we said in the last episode, so I want to encourage you to go back, if you have not, and listen to the last episode of The Rap Report before starting to listen to this one, because it is kind of essential to get these two together, because otherwise you may misunderstand or misrepresent our positions here that we're going to talk about.
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Let me welcome in my guest co -host for his final show with us, Harold Smith from the
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Patriot Pastors Podcast. Welcome again to The Rap Report, sir. Thanks for having me.
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It's been a pleasure. And so we're going through in a series on what we believe, and so the purpose of this is to teach all of us how to read doctrinal statements, to see when a doctrinal statement says something, all that's behind it and what's in there, and so we're doing that with a doctrinal statement at Striving for Eternity, and part of the thing here is that we recognize that this is what we believe at Striving for Eternity, and as we saw in last week's episode,
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Harold is not part of Striving for Eternity, he doesn't agree completely with this, and that's fine. We can have the disagreements, and we encourage healthy discussion in our disagreements.
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With that said, I'm going to ask Harold to read the doctrinal section, the part we're going to do today, and if you want to follow along, of course, not if you're driving, but if you'd like to follow along, just go to strivingforeternity .org,
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and there, look at the About section, under that, go to What We Believe, click on the
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Doctrine of the Church, that's going to expand it all, and we're in the third to the last paragraph of the
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Church, it's a lengthier one, I'm going to have Harold read the whole thing, and if you want to go back to the beginning of this series, if you're on that page and scroll down to the bottom, you will see where it talks about the
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What We Believe podcast series, and that will give you all the links to all of them in the series so that you can find them quickly.
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So with that, would you mind starting us off by reading that last paragraph? Absolutely.
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There were two kinds of gifts given to the early Church. Miraculous gifts of divine revelation and healing were given temporarily in the apostolic era for the purpose of confirming the authenticity of the
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Apostle's message. Ministering gifts were given to equip believers for edifying one another with the
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New Testament. Revelation now complete, Scripture becomes the sole test of authenticity of a man's message, and confirming gifts of miraculous nature are no longer necessary to validate a man or his message.
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Miraculous gifts can even be counterfeited by Satan to deceive even believers.
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The only gifts in operation today are those non -revelatory equipping gifts given for edification.
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No one possesses the gift of healing today, but God does hear and answer the prayers of faith, and will answer in accordance with his own perfect will for the sick, suffering, and afflicted.
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Okay, so last episode we gave a lot of caveats on gifts, the charismatic movement, things like this.
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That's why it's important to go back to that previous episode. Now what we're dealing with is, we dealt with in the last episode a distinction of two separate categories that we see in the gifts that the
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Holy Spirit gives to the church, ones that we call, at least what I'm calling, miraculous versus ministering, and now we're going to get into the argument we touched on a little last episode of the fact that these miraculous ones may have ceased, and so we're starting in the middle of that paragraph where it says,
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With the New Testament revelation now complete, scripture becomes the sole test of authenticity to a man's message, and confirming gifts of miraculous nature are no longer necessary to validate a man and his message.
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Now, I spent some time in the last episode explaining the difference between the fact that I believe that the miracles were to vindicate the messenger with the giving of new revelation, so at least understand my mindset as we get into this, but I want you to notice what we're saying here.
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It is about the validation of the person and the message, and so I believe that these gifts that we are referring to as charismatic gifts, miraculous gifts, these were gifts that were designed, they were given by the
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Holy Spirit to people for this purpose of authenticating the message and the messenger, and so I think that if we no longer have people writing new scripture,
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I don't think we need that authentication anymore. Now we have everything within the 66 books to communicate to us what
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God has said, and now what we do to authenticate things is to compare it. So, let's take an example we used in last week's episode.
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When a bunch of people get up in 2019 and give their 2020 vision that God gave them a prophecy that Trump would be re -elected in 2020, and it didn't happen.
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We could go to scripture and say, oh, scripture says if you get a prophecy wrong, you're not of God, stone you, right?
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The scriptures say that God's not going to be wrong in his prophecies, and so if they were wrong, it means that these supposed prophets were false prophets at best.
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I just think they wanted to say they wanted Trump to be re -elected and they wanted
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God's endorsement on it. That's kind of what I believe, but I don't want to give too much of an ill view of some of them.
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Some probably did have malicious intent, just try to raise money, but the thing that I am saying here is that we got to look at what's the purpose of the gift.
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I already said in the last episode, I believe that the purpose of all gifts is for the building up of the body of Christ, and therefore when people say, well,
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I have the gift of languages, and I pray by myself, and I speak a gibberish that I don't understand.
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That's not edifying anyone. I know everyone says it's an angelic language, but just keep in mind the only verse that anyone has for claiming that they speak an angelic language is 1
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Corinthians chapter 13, and that is hyperbole. How could
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I say that? Because he says, if I could speak the language of men, even of angels, but have not love,
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I'm a noisy clanging cymbal. But the next verse says, if I know all miracles and have all knowledge, even to move mountains, you know, all power, even to move mountains, but have not love,
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I'm nothing. If you had all knowledge, you would be God. Paul is not claiming to be
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God. He's not claiming we could be God, and we could be omniscient.
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He's using hyperbole, and therefore
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I don't think he's actually saying we can speak the language of angels, but when people are in their own, by themselves, and they're saying they're praying in languages, they don't understand what they're saying, but they claim the
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Holy Spirit does, I have news for us. We do not need to speak a gibberish for the
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Holy Spirit to understand what is in our minds. He's God.
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Doesn't it say with groanings that cannot be uttered? I mean, it's not like we're capable of saying those things anyways.
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Yeah, and so this is why I say I think the way that many apply these gifts, it's not for the serving of the body.
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You say, but Andrew, Paul says there in chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians that it's to edify yourself.
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Well, let's take this verse aside and say, can you think of anywhere in the Bible where we're encouraged to edify self?
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I see a lot that say we shouldn't, a lot that condemns that, so could it be when you read this and read the whole book and see that Paul uses a lot of sarcasm throughout the book, could it be that you're taking something he meant sarcastically and taking it literally?
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Just a thought, something to consider. You know, my takeaway on the speaking of tongues in the modern church today,
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Paul was criticizing the church at Corinth for doing it much too often. He's like, just shut up.
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I'd rather say five words with understanding than 10 ,000 that no one understood. If we look at the church at Corinth and we look at all they did wrong,
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I mean, incest, you name it, taking each other to court, drunkenness at the
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Lord's supper. This is a wreck of a church. If we want to take that as the model letter to justify the speaking of tongues and every solitary church service, which most
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Pentecostals do, I just think it's an outright ripping out of a handful of verses to justify total chaos.
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And I just, I think if you look at the whole book of Corinthians, you don't walk away saying we need to close every service with tongue speaking.
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It just, it's not there. So what brought me out of the charismatic movement, I was involved in that in my college years and after, and I just heard a gentleman at a
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Bible study sitting at the other end of the table as I'm having a cup of coffee, and he says to another person, well, not all
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Christians believe that those gifts continued. And I went, wait, I never heard anything else.
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When I, when I became a Christian and went to college, met other Christians, they all taught me that about these gifts. And I decided to go home and I read first Corinthians 12, 13, and 14 in one sitting, not trying to say that this is teaching that we should speak in tongues and all this stuff, but saying, what is
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Paul actually saying? And could he be saying that these gifts aren't for today? Hi, this is
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Daniel Minnick from the Truthspresso podcast. Truthspresso is a member of the
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Christian podcast community from Striving for Eternity Ministries. And I encourage you to check out all that the
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Christian podcast community has to offer. And another great member of the community is
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Aaron Brewster, who goes by the name AM Brewster. He actually hosts two separate podcasts.
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One is Truth, Love, Parent. The other is the Celebration of God. I highly recommend you listen to them.
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And Aaron is also a speaker for Striving for Eternity. And unfortunately,
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Aaron has experienced hardship from Hurricane Helene. He stayed at his house in North Carolina to take care of his dad and tried to combat the flooding with powered water pumps.
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Unfortunately, when the power went out, inevitably the flooding continued.
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While currently living on a meager ministry salary, Aaron has lost much of his livelihood in the flooding from Helene.
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Let's be practical and give to those in need. Striving for Eternity has set up a
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Give Send Go fund to help out Aaron and his dad. As soon as I heard about the situation,
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I donated. And I strongly urge you to give too. Just go to givesendgo .com
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forward slash SFE. That's givesendgo .com forward slash
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SFE. Please open your hand wide for those in need. Imagine losing your house and your car, pretty much everything you've worked for all your life.
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Please do the easy thing and give generously and be a blessing as Jesus has told us to do.
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forward slash SFE to help out Aaron Brewster, who has lost virtually everything in the flooding from Hurricane Helene.
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Striving for Eternity Ministries is a 501c3 non -profit, so your generous donations are tax deductible.
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So please give generously to help out a wonderful Christian minister and podcaster, a member of the
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forward slash SFE and be a blessing to someone in need.
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And when I read it in one context, I realized a lot of what he's doing is using sarcasm, hyperbole, and he's really condemning them.
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And what I think happened is very much what we see in history. If we go, you know, before 1905
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Azusa Street, which many people see as the beginning of the charismatic movement, you know, we see people that, you know,
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George, John Form, that believed he, you know, they had the gift of languages and miracles and he had followers.
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And one of the followers was Agnes Osmond, and she believed she had the gift of Chinese.
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And she, even to the point she could write Chinese. And she,
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I believe, went to China to be a missionary. And as many of John Form's, you know, followers went to these different places, believing they had certain languages that they could speak and got there.
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And no one understood a word they said. In fact, you know, somewhere I have the writing that she said was
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Chinese. Now, my bride reads Chinese because that was her language growing up.
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A friend of mine, you know, sent that to her and asked, you know, for if this is Chinese, she goes, no,
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Justin, that's chicken scratch. And so she then wrote what
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Chinese. And when you compare the two, you can clearly see the difference between traditional
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Chinese, not the simplified that is used today, but the traditional compared to what she claimed she could write.
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So, and at the time she claimed it, they would have been writing traditional. So it's a thing, what happened?
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She comes back and instead of going, I was wrong. I didn't know how to speak Chinese. She and many others come back saying,
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I speak in angelic language. And so we know that can happen within a few years.
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So could it be that the same thing happened in Corinth? We clearly know that there was a pride issue in chapter 12, because he's telling them like, hey, love is the one, like stop trying to have, say that you have this gift and it's better than that gift and all this stuff.
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Put that stuff aside and, and recognize that we should be loving one another.
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So there's clearly a spiritual pride that they had. Just think and ask the question, could that have happened in Corinth?
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An honest answer would be yes. Even if you disagree with me, yes,
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Corinth had pride issues. Read the rest of the book. And so could it be that they were, you know, they were doing this because, hey, you say you're a teacher, you know, you say you're giving, well,
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I'm a teacher. I'm better than you. Well, you know, here you got a gift that you can't prove. Can you prove that I'm not speaking in angelic language?
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The good news is Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks, teaching them biblical hermeneutics.
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That's right. The art and science of interpreting scripture. The bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover
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Jeremiah 29, 11 should not be their life verse. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org
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to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area. No, because you can't speak in angelic language.
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So, you know, you have these gifts that people can say, well, I got this. I have, they're trying to outdo one another.
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Yeah. I think once you open up the jibber jabber door, that's what I call it, where you don't have to be an intelligent language.
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And that's what tongues meant, a known language. If someone spoke German, we need an interpreter that also understands
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German. And let's say it was miraculous. Let's just play along. I don't, I barely speak
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English, Andrew. If I were to suddenly start speaking German, the only way anybody would know this was a miracle from God was some
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German person to go, Hey, I grew up in, uh, in Berlin and this cast speak in fluent
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German and they could translate it. The language could be rehearsed and recited. And we would have to say, man,
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God was here. This is miraculous. The reason the charismatic fail is they cannot duplicate that in their ministry.
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They, they do not have the ability, just as you demonstrated with the lady claiming Chinese, they can't do the miraculous.
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So they boiled it down to the, you know, unintelligible language. And that's all we hear today from charismatics.
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Let's just deal with the fact that every charismatic has heard the story of someone deep in the jungles of Africa where they, someone went and spoke and someone understood in their native tongue.
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Why is it always somewhere without a video camera or ways of evidence? We always hear these stories, but where's the evidence we can compare and see?
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I have yet to see that. Someone wants to produce it. Okay. Let's evaluate it.
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But I still am not going to change my definition of what scripture says or my, my interpretation of scripture based on your experience.
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Okay. And so, so, so what we're saying here is I think the reason these gifts and a lot of what we spent last episode is making a difference between gifts and facts.
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There's a gifts of miracles and facts of miracles. The fact of miracle, we're going to say again, happens.
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God does miracles. God can heal, but he doesn't give a gift of healing.
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In other words, a gift that is, that he gives to a believer for the betterment of the body, for the equipping of the saints, that is something that they could do with like any other gift, they can use it like teaching, giving anything else.
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They could use it anytime. When they say, well, I have a gift of healing and God, you know, but God doesn't always let me heal everyone, you know, because the challenge
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I always give people is that they say the gift of healing, is there a hospital near you? And if so, is it empty?
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Because if not, are you, do you not love your brother? And they're going to say, well, no, it's based either on their faith.
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Well, that's a cop out to blame the unbeliever or the lacking, the person lacking faith for their not being healed because Jesus healed 10 lepers of which only one returned to him.
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We assume the other nine were unbelievers and they were still healed. So it's not based on their faith because if they, if that was the case, why couldn't
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Paul heal Epaphras, you know, we see in, in Philippians, he was near death.
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Did Paul lack faith? The apostle Paul? So if they don't use that as an argument, they'll say, well,
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God just gives me the people to heal at times, but that's not what these gifts are. You don't say that.
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Oh, well, God only lets me teach at times. Other times I can't teach at all. I can't put two sentences together. But at other times,
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God just gives me a gift of his. No, the gifts are something he gives to people. Okay.
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And that's the distinction that I'm making. I'm not saying that God can heal. You can pray for someone's healing and God could choose to heal that person.
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It doesn't mean you had the gift of healing. It means that God decided to listen to your prayer and heal a person at that time.
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And that's in the providence of God. That's not the giving of a gift. And that's becomes a real important distinction that we're making here.
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So I hope that's clear. If it's not, please go back to the last episode and listen to that.
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Anything you want to say on that before I try to tackle the next sentence with us? Well, I did kind of want to deal with the passage that's given.
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First Corinthians 13, 8 through 12 is the evidence of it ending.
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And we never really dealt with that last time. But I won't read all the verses, but verse 10 says, but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away with.
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And what you're alluding to is what's said in verse 8, charity never fails, love never fails.
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But prophecies, they shall fail. Tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
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Is knowledge a gift that's vanishing away? So I would think from according to this, it would be.
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And we don't know a lot about that. I've heard a lot of different descriptions of what this knowledge is or wisdom.
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Right. And so now with prophecy, well, what do we mean by prophecy?
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Does it mean just the preaching? No. Or is it a, let me tell you the future, right?
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We have words that can have multiple meanings, and we have to be careful with this. And so the issue is this, whether the knowledge or wisdom is a gift, um,
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I think it is because it says the, you know, it talks about there, you know, but there are you, what's it's, it's assumed gifts, right?
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And, and so, well, here's, it just doesn't fit for me.
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This, this is why I kind of have a hang up with, with where we're at. Um, because in verse 12, which is listed as our proof text for this last statement, it says for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.
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Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known. So if we say that when that which is perfect is come, that's the completion of scripture.
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I don't understand how Paul would know all that he doesn't know now.
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It didn't fit for me, Andrew. I'm struggling. Okay. So let me help with this. And this is where I'm thinking
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I may do, I've done this multiple times. If you go and search the podcast,
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I'm sure you'll find where I've dealt with this for the listeners. I made, you know, cause I do a full hour discussion on it.
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But so let's break this down quickly and briefly. So the word teleos in Greek, it is the word that we have the word for perfect in verse 10.
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First off, teleos does not mean perfection. It means completion. It is used throughout the scripture to mean complete or mature.
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So when it says perfect, it's the idea of perfect in the completion of something or the maturing of something.
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Now, what we see in verse nine and 10, it's one sentence. It is that we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial is done away.
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So what we have here is that the knowing and the prophecy are partial.
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Whatever the perfect is, it is the completion of knowledge and prophecy.
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And if you look in the Greek in verse eight, the knowledge and prophecy, they will end when something comes.
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Okay. When it says that they're done away with, that's a future passive indicative. So something's going to cause it to end.
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Where the tongues is a future middle indicative, meaning they'll cease on their own.
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So if someone has a gift of tongues, it would cease on its own. Now, this may be an area where I would go.
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Tongues may be the gift, but the prophecy and knowledge may not be. It may be that that's something that was given for the purpose of revelation.
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Once the canon's complete, they stop immediately, where if you have the gift of languages, they can continue.
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Now, the mistake I think a lot of people make, the first mistake is people say perfect. And they say, well, the only thing that could be perfect is
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Jesus. This word perfect is used throughout scripture, and it doesn't always refer to Jesus.
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And it doesn't mean perfection the way people are using it. Now, what I think you see here now,
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Paul makes that point, and then he follows it up with three illustrations, the illustration of a child, the illustration of a mirror, the illustration of knowledge.
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So he talks about the child becoming a man, putting away childish things. What's he doing? Putting away the partial because he's now being completed.
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He's now a man. He puts away childish things. When we see the word mirror, we think of the mirrors we have today.
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That's not the mirrors they had in that day. They had a polished metal. So if you have just a spoon, flatten it out and look at it.
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There's a big difference between looking at that, a polished metal that's not really clear.
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And it says, in a mirror dimly. So we clearly know he's talking about the fact is it's about the dimness.
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So it's the looking in a mirror that's hazy compared to seeing someone face to face.
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The comparison, again, is going from partial to complete. You're looking in a mirror dimly, not really seeing well.
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And then you see someone face to face, it's clear. Some people will say, well, face to face has to be a personal encounter.
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That has to be when we see Jesus face to face. I have one friend, we've debated this.
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He always says face to face has to be a personal encounter. It's the only way it's used. Yet in Proverbs, we see it face to face, reflecting in water.
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And the same idea here. It's looking at someone, the reflection face to face, the clarity of it.
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So, and then you have, I know in part, but then I will know as I'm fully known. What is that?
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That again, partial to completion. So the mistake I think people do.
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And so people try to say, well, the only time we're fully known is when we're in heaven. So this has got to be either
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Christ's return or when we see Christ in heaven will be the arguments of when this is completed.
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But I think the mistake hermeneutically and hermeneutics is just the art and science of interpretations, how we interpret things.
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When we see this, he's giving three illustrations. Well, the illustrations are not the main point.
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They support the main point. The main point is that knowledge and prophecy are partial.
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And the teleos puts away the partial. So now if the knowledge and prophecy have to do with revelation, as I believe they are, that is why
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I believe it's the canon of scripture. And then these other things are just pointing out Paul's giving illustrations of things coming to maturity or completion.
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Does that make sense, Harold? I understand your position. And I think the thing that I would still say you haven't really, in my mind, you haven't put to rest, it helped me understand your position.
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But in my mind, the thrust is not verse eight, which is tongues and prophecy, because that leaves out knowledge.
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We don't really understand that. But when we look at the thrust of the whole chapter, the whole section of scripture, it's love.
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And if you read the remaining verse, verse 13, now abateth by faith, hope, and love.
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These three, but the greatest of these is love. Faith becomes sight.
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Hope becomes reality. But love remains. I don't think that happens with the completion of scripture.
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Well, but now let's... I think we shouldn't chop off verse 12 and say that is the end.
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Oh, no, no, no. But I'm not doing that. Now, let's put it within that greater context now. What's he saying? His whole emphasis is love, love, love, right?
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They're having issues of the gifts. I think what he's saying to them is focus on the love, because these gifts you guys are focusing on are temporary.
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They're going to be done away with. And that's... Well, what we're discussing is really what the word that means in verse 10.
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And you're saying that means scripture. And I'm saying that means when my immortal body puts on immortality or when my corrupted body puts on incorruption.
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And so I just have a hard time cramming scripture into that verse. I don't have a word that in my translation.
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So, but if you're saying that which is perfect, and so the word perfect, in my mind it says the perfect, but it's a definite article.
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The word perfect, it's the definite article there. And I'm saying that the teleos is defined by verse 9, what's the partial, which is the knowledge and prophecy.
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Right. So... But I've never really understood how we did away with knowledge.
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Well, see, the issue is, my challenge is, what is the knowledge? Because no one can seem to clearly delineate from scripture what he's referring to here.
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And so we want to be careful not to say, well, we're going to interpret it as to know, because that doesn't seem to be what he'd be saying here, because he says knowledge goes away, but knowledge never goes away, even in the eternal life.
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Right. So this can't be to know. Being in the context of gifts, it seems to be some special gift.
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We just don't know what it is. Makes sense. I won't debate it any longer.
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I understand your position. Well, listen, I'll tell you what, if you're still struggling with it, what
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So maybe that's what you need. You just need a good night of sleep to understand this. Maybe that'll help you,
33:58
Harold. Well, let's continue on in this and try to wrap up what we have here.
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So we say here, miraculous gifts can even be counterfeited by Satan to deceive even believers.
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And we see this, it seems in Revelation, speaking of a future time where believers might be able to be deceived by the
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Antichrist with gifts that he could do. So he will be able to do miraculous things that might even deceive people.
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And so now we get in the dilemma. When people say, well, I know that the gifts are real because I speak in tongues.
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I speak in languages. You know who's spoken in languages before Azusa Street normatively?
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Mormons. The occult. Hindus. I mean, there's a lot of people that did this.
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And so now you get the question of how do you know your claims of speaking in tongues and these miraculous things are from God and not a counterfeit?
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Because they will agree, well, those other religions are counterfeit. But how do you know? They'll go, well, because we're
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Christian. Well, they're going to say you're the counterfeit because they're Hindu Kundalini. Right?
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It's like, how can you show it? Well, we're going to look at scripture. And so I'm going to look at this and say, well, the fact that you do these things, that you claim are miracles that can't be verified.
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Well, that's not proof that they're not a counterfeit. Can I right now, as I sit here right now, can
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I speak in tongues? Sure. It's a trained thing. There we go.
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I just spoke in tongues. What did I say? Nobody knows because it was gibberish. Didn't make any sense whatsoever.
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So let's get back to the statement here and look at what we're saying here. Okay. We're trying to say here that the miraculous gifts can even be counterfeited by Satan.
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And so how do we know? I mean, the whole thing is, unless it is something that we can vindicate, we can't know if it is a counterfeit and we can deceive ourselves.
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And we have to be honest that maybe that's what we're doing. I know that sounds horrible because you're saying what
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I'm doing is of demons. I'm not saying what it is because I don't know what it is.
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So let's continue on. We say in the statement, the only gifts in operation today are those non -revelatory equipping gifts for the edification.
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Now, what I'm saying here is gifts, not miracles.
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God still does miracles. I keep reiterating this because there's so many charismatics that say, you don't believe in miracles.
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Yes, I do. In fact, I don't know a cessationist that doesn't believe in miracles. We don't believe the gifts of miracles are given today.
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I keep emphasizing this so much, Harold, because this is where I think so much of the rub is, so much of the misunderstanding and strawman arguments are made.
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And if you're going to disagree with me, disagree on the gift, not the fact of miracles.
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Yeah, I think that the rub is really coming from the two extremes, whether you're the extreme cessationist or you're the extreme
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Pentecostal charismatic, you know, everybody must speak in tongues or they're not saved. I think there's a lot of middle ground here for us to work together.
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And even if we disagree slightly, most people, most people are not going to do not believe that somebody's walking around touching people, you know, actually literally healing them.
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We see the folks, the phonies, and Justin Peters has exposed them to the nth degree.
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If somebody could really do that, children's hospital would be empty. If somebody could literally do that, it would be like it was in the time of Christ.
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They brought their lame, their sick, and he healed them all. No one has done that since the days of the apostles.
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No one. We've had miraculous healings, but no one's done that ministry. No one's been the healer.
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Would you agree with that statement? Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, because that's the gift. And that's where this next sentence comes in, right?
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It says, no one possesses the gift of healing today, but God does hear and answer the prayer of faith and will answer in accordance to his own perfect will for the sick, suffering, and afflicted.
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So the whole point of that is we don't get the gift of healing, but God can heal when we pray, not because we pray, but because it's in accordance with his will.
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That's the distinction. If we didn't believe in healing, why would we even pray?
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Why would we ask God to do something if, you know, for people to accuse us, well, you don't believe in, no,
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I believe in miracles, but I also believe that primarily God's work is through the mundane, not the miraculous.
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It's the day -to -day ministry that God receives his glory from. It's the church meeting
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Sunday after Sunday in love and harmony with one another. It's not in some miraculous, the spirit fell down and we flopped on the floor like fish.
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That does nothing to tell us of the nature and character of our God. That's true.
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Yeah, and I mean, the overemphasis that we see in Scripture is on love.
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So if these last two episodes have upset you, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, maybe
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I did, I don't know, but have love one for another. That's the emphasis.
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I believe the emphasis of 1 Corinthians 13 is that love is primary and these gifts are going to be done away with.
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So why are you making such a focus on the things that are temporary when the important, the lasting thing is love?
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That's what lasts. That's what we should be having to hold on to. He's saying these things are temporary, but love, that's eternal.
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That is the focus, I believe, of 1 Corinthians 13. And I think that's the focus
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I would ask of you who disagree with me or disagree with us, that you would have that attitude of saying,
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I disagree with you, but I'm going to love you. Because even though you may be wrong,
40:49
I still love you, listener. So Harold, any last things you want to say before we wrap up?
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I want to echo just what you said. The evidence that we know Christ is not in the miraculous.
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The evidence that we are saved is not that we speak in tongues upon the moment we're saved.
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The evidence that we are worshiping the Lord is not that someone gave prophecy.
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The evidence that we are the children of God, in the words of Christ, John 13, 35,
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By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love one for another.
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It's the loving one another that far, that's the thrust of, that's where Paul, I believe, got his whole message for 1
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Corinthians 13 was love for one another. The church at Corinth didn't have it. Your church may quote unquote speak in tongues.
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Your church may quote unquote prophesy. You may have all these things that you think makes your church a real church.
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But the testimony that the world will see is not some miraculous hocus pocus thing that you do.
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The testimony of the world is, does your church love each other? And that's all I would say.
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If I've offended you, it was not my intention, but know that I do love you as a brother, sister in Christ.
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And so with that, we will return to this series as we finish up.
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We'll probably have one, maybe two more episodes on the church, then we'll get into end times. There's no debating there.
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Everyone's in 100 % agreement there all the time. I think
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I'm being a little bit sarcastic here. But let me just encourage folks, just quickly,
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I hadn't mentioned it on the previous episodes, but I am going to a conference. I want to encourage you to go to check out.
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It is called the Built to Conquer Conference. You can find out details at the CalebGordon .org.
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It's part of the Caleb Gordon show or podcast and a lot of great speakers there.
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This is going to be in Oklahoma. So I encourage you to go to the CalebGordon .org
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and check out that conference. I hope to see you there. It'll be a great conference, some great speakers other than me.
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And that will be, I think, a great encouragement to you if you attend. That is in Bartsville, Oklahoma.
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And the dates of that is going to be February 22nd. It's a one -day event, Saturday event.
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So if you can make it out there, that would be great to see you there. I look forward to it. And with that, that's a wrap.
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This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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The good news is Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks teaching them biblical hermeneutics.
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That's right. The art and science of interpreting scripture. The bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover
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Jeremiah 29 11 should not be their life first. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org