WWUTT 2020 Q&A Responding to Critics of Cessationism

What is cessationism? And what is continuism? Are there verses in the Bible that defend these two positions? And how do we understand the working of spiritual gifts in the church today? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Moving to Arizona and Recording the Show Ahead

Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. I am flying solo this week. Becky is not in with me, although I do want to try to get her in here for one more Q &A before I have to pack up this room and we head out to Arizona.

In case you don't know, we made this announcement a couple of weeks ago, but we're leaving our church family at First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. It's been a great three years. They still have wonderful pastors there, but I need to get back to being a senior pastor and preaching every Sunday again.

So I have been privileged to have been invited to come be pastor at Providence Reform Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. I'm scheduled to preach there on November the 5th, so we are trying to pull out of here either the 1st or 2nd.

Praise God, we've got a place to go. We have a house that we are renting, and it is a very spacious place. We found one within our budget that had enough rooms for us. When we came here to Texas, we really did not plan well for the house we sold in Kansas and what we were going to purchase here in Texas, and nor could we even find anything because the housing market was just so booming here.

Booming in the sense that it was a seller's market, not a buyer's market. We couldn't find anything. And so we settled on a house that really just didn't work for us. It doesn't meet all of our needs, especially when it comes to being a podcast family.

There was nowhere for me to go and record my podcast. You'll probably remember I was recording at my office at the church for a year and a half or something like that, two years maybe, before I got this room done, which is a corner of our garage.

And then I've been recording in here only this year, and now we're leaving it. But I've added an extra room in the garage, so whoever buys the house, hey, hope you enjoy this room. I don't know what you'll turn it into, but maybe you'll find something creative to do with it.

Well, we found a house in Casa Grande that is perfect for podcasting. It has enough space for us to be able to do that. And the rental agreement has gone through and everything. We're excited about this.

So we won't have to be off the air very long. In fact, I don't want to be off the air at all. I'm trying to record some programs in advance. And so for next week's Q &A, I want to try to get Becky in so that we can do one more Q &A here from Texas before everything kicks in automated, and for a couple of weeks, you're going to hear episodes that I've recorded ahead.

So we shouldn't ever have to be off the air if I've planned all this outright. But I do have to finish up in here. There's things on the walls that I haven't done yet. I have to take the foam down, all the Styrofoam that I've hung up and the carpet on the walls to dampen the sound and stuff like that.

I'm not going to leave that here for the next person that comes in. I think it would look strange to them if they're not podcasters. They would look around and go, what is all of this? What is the reason for this?

So I'm going to take all that down and finish out the room. But I have to get enough of the podcast recorded in advance before I do that. So we appreciate your prayers, your support, and your encouragement for us as we are finishing up things here and heading out to Arizona.

Pray for good health. Pray that all the things that we've got to get done as far as packing goes, all of that lines out. As soon as we're out of this house, it goes up for sale. So we want that to go quickly because we don't want to have to be paying a mortgage and rent at the same time.

And so your prayers for us would be greatly appreciated. We thank you for your support of the ministry over the years and that you're behind us no matter where we go, whether we're broadcasting from Kansas or Texas or now moving to Arizona.

And it has been our delight to continue to provide for you Bible teaching five days a week as I have been devoted to do on this program for over eight years now. We do New Testament Study on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Old Testament Thursday, and then our Q &A on Friday.

Listener Question About Sam Storms and the Cessationist Documentary

So this being the Friday edition of the broadcast, I'm taking questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. I have only one question that I'm going to be responding to today.

This came from John, but this is going to be enough material for me to devote the entire hour to responding to this email. John says, hey Gabe, I'd love to see you and Sam, referring to Sam Storms, have a public forum debate on the cessationist film, the documentary cessationist.

We've talked about it in the past here on this program. I'm in the documentary cessationist. Most of what I talk about there in the program is about speaking in tongues, but then I'm also part of sharing the gospel at the very end.

So John goes on to say, if you were not aware, Sam wrote an eight part response, not too lengthy, asking for a response from people that are in the cessationist film. I believe that you are featured in the film.

And then he sends me a link to Sam Storms' response, which is like an eight or nine part blog. It was pretty lengthy. Grace and peace, John. Well, I sure appreciate it, John. I have been asked by a couple of people to do some interviews as a followup to the cessationist film.

I've turned down all the interview invites that I've received. In fact, I've been turning them down for about the past month. Interview invites of any kind, not just regarding cessationist. But obviously since we're packing up and moving, I don't have the time.

I'm really not built for video interviews anyway. I never have been. If you saw the interview that I did with Justin Peters recently, for example, you'll notice that his video quality is better than mine.

It's because he's built for that and I'm not. And there's been other video interviews that you'll probably see of me, and it looks like that. Gabe's just using the camera on his laptop instead of having some high tech camera in my studio.

I never anticipated doing live streaming video or anything like that, so I've just never invested in it. So I've been turning down interview invites. I've told a couple of people, hey, can you get a hold of me again in November or after Thanksgiving or something like that?

I'll probably have a little bit more time then. But right now I'm not doing any interviews, so I won't have any engagement with Sam Storms or anybody else that has invited me to respond to some of the criticisms behind cessationists or even do any interviews promoting cessationists.

I've done some promotion for it through the what videos you may have seen a what video that I did recently on this, but I have I've not yet done any interviews promoting it just because I don't have the time.

However, I am willing to engage with some of these arguments that have been made contrary to the film. I listened to Remnant Radio do their four part criticism to cessationists. I was doing a lot of driving this past week, so that's where I found the time to be able to listen to all four parts of this criticism.

And they really, their arguments were not very well done. I think they were charitable. I think that they were very devoted to the scripture. I think they did their research before they made some of the arguments that they did.

But there were occasions in which these guys, it was like they weren't even hearing what was being said. They were responding to an argument that wasn't even being made. And I'll elaborate on that here in just a minute, but let me come to the scriptures.

We haven't opened up with scripture on this program yet. So I'm in Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse four, for just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function.

So we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members, one of another, but having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, whether prophecy in agreement with the faith or service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching or he who exhorts in his exhortation.

He who gives with generosity. He who leads with diligence. He who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy by abhorring what is evil, clinging to what is good, being devoted to one another in brotherly love, giving preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, being fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in affliction, being devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, pursuing hospitality.

Now whenever we talk about gifts of the spirit, more often than not, we're talking about those miraculous gifts of the spirit, aren't we? How many times have you heard somebody refer to the gifts of the spirit and you just automatically assumed that what they were talking about was loving one another, was some of these other gifts that are mentioned after prophecy here in Romans chapter 12, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, showing mercy.

Those are all gifts of the spirit. But when we talk about gifts of the spirit, we think miraculous gifts, the prophetic sign gifts, not prophecy as forth-telling, but prophecy as foretelling, miracles, healing, raising the dead, restoring withered limbs, speaking in tongues.

These are some of the sign gifts that we'll sometimes refer to them as because they're miraculous gifts, casting out demons being another one of those. But we don't give so much weight to those other gifts as being actual gifts of the spirit.

And what we bicker and argue over are whether those miraculous gifts are still in regular use in the church today or has their regular usage ceased. This is the difference between cessationism and continuism.

Now let me define these two terms like that again, okay? So you understand where I'm coming from when I use the term cessationism and continuism. Cessationism is the idea that the regular use of the miraculous sign gifts has come to an end.

And I'm talking about those gifts that are clearly miracles, something that would be against nature, but are supernatural in their exercise. Things like healing, like raising the dead, like miraculously speaking other languages that the person speaking did not previously know, prophetically predicting future events with 100 accuracy and clarity, casting out demons, really casting out demons, not doing the thing where people flop on the ground and somebody prays over them and they claim that they have cast out a demon, but somebody that you know has been demon possessed and is now cast out that demon, okay?

And all of these things that I've just detailed for you here, a practical cessationist, which I believe that a practical cessationist is a true cessationist, but sometimes in order to define the terms or define the categories or where you stand as far as cessationism goes, there are those that will call themselves practical cessationists.

And a practical cessationist, which again I believe is the normal cessationist, believes that miraculous gifts still happen. The Holy Spirit will still, by His own will, do miraculous things, as the Spirit wills.

But they are not in regular use. You don't see them occurring with the frequency that they happen in the Book of Acts. It's a very rare thing that you would ever witness something like this. In fact, it's so rare, I've never seen it.

I have never seen a genuine exercise of something that I would have defined as miraculous. And don't think that I am in some sort of cessationist echo chamber in which because I'm in this echo chamber, of course I would never see some miraculous exercise of these spiritual gifts.

I spent 10 years in the Charismatic Church between the ages of 18 and 28. When I got out of my parents' home and I went to college, the churches that I most often attended in those 10 years were Charismatic.

I was in Christian radio for a long time, and Christian radio, not really a place for a lot of sound doctrinal theology. So a lot of the friends that listened to me did not attend sound theological churches.

They attended these very Charismatic churches. And so they would invite me to go to those churches. When I left home and I'm living on my own and people knew me from the radio, it was usually those friends that were very Charismatic in their background and the churches that they attended that invited me to go to church with them.

I dated a couple of girls who were from Assemblies of God churches. One of my best friends in high school and in college and even up into probably about 33 or 34, he's still a good friend today, in fact, but we haven't seen each other in a long time.

He is the son of an Assemblies of God preacher. And at one point we thought we were going to do ministry together. I thought I was going to be pastor and he was going to be my worship leader, and it just never worked out that way, probably for the better.

This was when I was still in my continuous phase. So anyway, all to say that I was in Charismatic circles for many, many years. I heard what people called speaking in tongues, but isn't really speaking in tongues.

I heard people claim to do miraculous signs, to be able to do these healings, to make prophetic declarations and things of that nature. I never witnessed anything, not one thing in that 10 plus years.

It was 10 years that I was in Charismatic circles, but I continued in Continuism until I was about 35, 36 years old. So I never one time saw anywhere something that I would qualify as being genuinely miraculous.

None of them were miracles. Now as we've been going through Matthew together in the study that we're doing on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, there Jesus is performing miracles that the Pharisees see, and they cannot deny that these are obviously miracles that are being done.

Jesus casts out a demon from a demon-possessed man who is blind and mute because of the demon that is in him. And when he heals the man, casts out the demon and heals him, he can see and he can speak.

All the crowds are astounded. You cannot deny that what Jesus did was clearly miraculous. The Pharisees don't deny that a miracle has taken place. You can't. You cannot deny that this is something miraculous.

This guy was blind and mute, and now instantly he can see and speak, casting out this demon. So what do the Pharisees come up with? Well, the only reason he's able to do that is because he's of Satan himself.

That's how the Pharisees excuse what it is that Jesus is able to do. He's of Beelzebul. And Jesus responds and says, any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and any city or house divided against itself will not stand.

And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? That's in Matthew 12. We went through that a couple of weeks ago, two or three weeks ago. So when Jesus performed miracles in the Bible, they were clearly miracles.

What I watch people do in the Charismatic Church, even when I believed that what they were doing was miraculous things, I look back on it now and I know it wasn't. Not one of those things was miraculous.

There were times, even when I was a Charismatic, that I would see that happen and I would go, no, that's not what they said it was. I would hear a person do something prophetic that just turned out to be dumb.

It was a total flop. It wasn't prophecy at all. But I didn't deny that these spiritual gifts are still at work. I just thought, well, he got it wrong. But there's still spiritual gifts at work in the world today.

And then the gift of tongues was really the one that tripped me up the most. No pun intended. Tripping up the tongue. Yeah. Anyway, that was the one that would stump me the most because maybe that person is speaking in tongues.

But who am I to say whether they are genuinely in the Spirit or not? And then it was just, you know, come through the Scriptures. It was a friend of mine that walked me through the Scriptures and gave me a biblical understanding of what these miraculous gifts were according to Scripture that I finally looked and saw and recognized that what a lot of these people were calling miraculous wasn't miraculous at all.

And even what they were calling tongues was not actually speaking in tongues. And once I was convinced from the Scriptures, I had to admit that what all of these charismatics are doing and claiming that they are doing in the Spirit is not really that at all.

And so I became a cessationist. And like I said, practical cessationist, meaning that the Holy Spirit is still doing miraculous things. I pray for healing all the time. I don't for a moment think that God won't heal somebody.

James 5 says to pray for healing. In fact, it says he must bring it to the elders of the church. This is James 5, beginning in verse 13. Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful?

He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

I do that. I do exactly that in James 5. I've even gone with my fellow elders to a person's house who was sick and was asking to be anointed with oil, confessing his sins, and desiring to be healed. And we did that.

Now, in the moment that we did it, he wasn't immediately healed. He was healed later on. And the funny thing about it is he was the one that requested of us to come and do this. I've done this several times.

I'm just thinking of a particular moment when we did this. But he was the one that asked us to come and anoint him with oil and pray over him. And so when we gathered around him and he had confessed his sin to us, we had counseled him regarding his sin, we rebuked him, he received our rebuke.

And I said to him, do you understand what we're doing here and what this signifies? And he said, yes. He said, I think it's kind of strange anointing me with oil and laying hands on me and praying for me, but it's what the Bible says.

And so I want to be in submission to what scripture says. He was the one that asked us to come do this for him. But even he admitted, it's kind of strange, but I want to be healed and I want to confess my sin and I want to be forgiven.

And so we did what James 5 says to do. And he wasn't immediately healed on the spot, but he was healed. So I do pray for healing. Don't for a moment think that because I would call myself a cessationist, that I don't think God is not healing people.

I go to the hospital every week and I pray with people in the hospital that God would heal them. I'm on the phone with members of my own congregation and asking that God would give them healing. I have never thought, well, God's not really healing anybody right now, so there's no point to even pray for that.

If it is God's will, he will do it. I pray for it all the time. I believe that God afflicts people because of their sin. Why would I think that God afflicts but he doesn't heal? That would be absurd. That would be cruel.

God just harms people because of their sin, but he doesn't heal anybody who confesses their sin. I believe that he does both. I am one, as a matter of fact, that has been afflicted in my body and I have had physical illness because of sin that I was in.

And when I turned from that sin, gradually I got better. It wasn't until years later that I realized truly what I had done and that the Lord showed me mercy. But I can tell you that in those moments that I was feeling as sick as I was, I was about 20, 21 years old, nobody knew what was wrong with me.

Friends at church didn't know. I was attending a charismatic church, had people pray over me and ask for healing. I was never healed. I went to the hospital, doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.

I even took a couple experimental drugs. I was in college. I was willing to try something experimental and even that didn't help. I'm talking, you know, prescription stuff, not illegal stuff. Anyway, nothing ever worked and it wasn't until years later looking back on that and realizing I know exactly what was happening to me now.

I was living in sin. I wouldn't repent of my sin and I was being physically sickened by what I was doing and ignoring the remorse and the conviction that I was feeling over that. And just trying to excuse it as, I'm just fine.

This isn't my sin doing this to me. I just happen to be sick. Okay. Anyway, all this to say that I still believe God does miraculous things today and any cessationist does. There are probably hyper cessationists out there.

I don't know that I've ever met one, but there are people I'm sure that would say God doesn't do any kind of miracle of any kind today. There might be some of those guys out there, but they would be fringe.

They are so few and far between that, like I said, I don't know that I've even met one before. So, cessationists do believe that God still does miraculous things. He's just not doing miracles through people with the regularity that we were seeing these things done in acts when these miracles were happening with the frequency that they were and with the amazement, the amazing level at which these things were being done to authenticate the message that was being proclaimed by the apostles, that the people would know that this message that is being proclaimed came from God.

Now that that message has been proclaimed, and as Peter says in 2 Peter 1, we have the prophetic word now fully confirmed. There is not a reason anymore for the frequency of those miraculous sign gifts to continue with the manner and the level that we saw them in the book of Acts.

Will God still do miraculous things today? I believe that he will. Will God gift one person more than another to maybe see some of those miraculous things happen on a more regular basis than perhaps he would do with another person?

I'm sure he does that as well, although there is no such thing as a faith healer, and I've made that point perfectly clear. There's no such thing as a modern-day prophet or a modern-day apostle like we see a prophet or an apostle in Scripture, Old Testament or New.

They don't exist in the world today. Hebrews 1 .1, long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, through whom he has made heir of all things.

So God is not giving those kinds of prophetic revelations, revealing these major future events, or God speaking in such a way that a person would speak with the same authority level that we would see of the prophets and the apostles in Scripture.

If what a person said came from God, then it's on the level of Scripture. But since Scripture is completed and canon is closed, then we don't have that kind of prophetic messaging happening anymore today.

Even when I was a continuous, I was at least there, nobody is prophesying on a level that is, God spoke to me and here is that word, and that word is every bit as on par with the rest of Scripture. I knew that.

I at least knew that in my, and that came from my Sola Scriptura upbringing. My dad teaching me that the Bible is the highest authority. So I know that no one is going to come up with a word that's even equal to that authority, because Scripture, canon is closed, and Scripture is our authority in all things.

So again, at least I knew that much, but I continued in continuism for many years before doing a systematic study of Scripture and then coming to the conclusion of cessationism. Now that said, cessationism and continuism are both systematic theologies.

Cessationism and Continuism as Systematic Theologies

Now what do I mean by systematic theologies? Meaning, this is an argument that continuists will use against cessationists a lot. They'll say there is no verse in the Bible that you can point to that says that the miraculous sign gifts have come to an end.

You can't even point to a verse that says these are the sign gifts. I do believe I can make that argument from Scripture, but yeah, right, there's not a verse that says here's the sign gifts and here's the other gifts.

Yes, I will agree with you there. So the continuist says to a cessationist, you can't point to a verse in the Bible that says these miracles either came to an end or are going to come to an end. And that's true, but the same argument works the other way.

The continuist can't find a verse or point to a verse that says these things are going to continue either. Now they will say that they can, 1 Corinthians 13, beginning in verse 8, love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away.

If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. So they'll make the argument, see, those things continue until Jesus comes.

But cessationists have used that same passage of Scripture to say that the perfect is the completed Word of God. And now that's done. Canon is closed. And so these gifts come to an end. See, both the cessationists and the continuists will use that verse to their advantage.

I'm going to engage with that verse a little bit later on. I'm not going to get into the exegesis of it right here. But anyway, all that to say the continuists will say that they can point to a Scripture claiming that the gifts will continue.

And I'm arguing the cessationists can point to the same verse and make it work in their camp. All of that to say, these are systematic theologies. Neither one can point to a verse to defend their side.

So you go through Scripture to show, here's how we can be sure or have confidence that this regularity of the sign gifts would eventually come to an end for the cessationists. And for the continuists to believe, no, they're still continuing on and they will continue until Jesus comes.

Both are using systematic studies, going through the Scriptures to make their case, not pointing to respective verses. So neither one can say of the other, well, point to me the verse that proves you right.

We're going to have to discuss it to come to an understanding, which by the way, I believe that the very fact that we're having this discussion is proof of cessationism. It is an argument for cessationism more than it is an argument for continuism.

Because if continuism is true, and these miraculous giftings are still regularly at work in the world today, in the church today, like we saw in the book of Acts, you should be able to point out to me a miraculous happening, a miracle.

Point out to me a miracle, or show me a prophet who has with 100 accuracy predicted the future and it came true, and he's never been wrong. Scripture doesn't give an allowance for a prophet to be wrong.

You are able to show me Acts-level miracles, and they happen all the time. Should be easy for you to find that, point to it, and say to me, see, proof that these spiritual gifts are continuing today.

But you can't, because the need for these miraculous sign gifts has ceased. Instead, we debate about the continuation of miracles, which proves, or at least makes an argument for, the fact that they don't have the proof.

That is a point on the cessationist side, I would say. The cessationist is arguing for the absence of a thing. The continuous is arguing for the continuation of a thing. But the continuous should be able to point to those miraculous signs to prove that they are still at work in the world today.

And there is way more fakery, way, way more fakery, than there is any genuine practice of any miraculous signs. The miraculous is rare. You will seldom see it. And so most of what people are doing in charismatic churches today is not at all what we see demonstrated in the Book of Acts.

Now, the guys with the Remnant radio program, when they're responding to the documentary cessationist, they really never define their terms. They didn't say that miracles have to be what we see miraculous signs as in the Book of Acts or in scripture.

As a matter of fact, you have to listen to them for a while before you get to this. But what they start calling healing or prophecy or whatever else is not at all what we see in the Book of Acts. They never define their terms, and so they're arguing on a basis that it's kind of difficult to know where it is they're going exactly.

And sometimes it feels like they're arguing with an argument that wasn't actually made in the cessationist film. So it becomes very strawman-like. If you know what a strawman argument is, you're creating a caricature of the argument that's not the actual argument, so it's easier for you to knock it down.

A strawman. Just like when I did sparring when I was in college, when I did karate, you would have those dummies that you would fight, right? The dummy can't fight you back. And so that's what a strawman argument is.

You're creating something that you can easily knock down. And even though these guys will play clips of the cessationist documentary, the argument that they're responding to doesn't come from the documentary.

It's like they've made up their own argument that they can knock down. Sometimes they make some good arguments, but most of it, it was really difficult to get through. Even though I listened to four episodes of it, it was hard to get through some of the arguments that they were making.

This is Joshua Lewis of King's Fellowship in Ada, Oklahoma, Michael Miller of Reclamation Church in Denver, Colorado, and Michael Roundtree of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City. And I'm going to play a clip.

I'm going to play this clip just to give you an example of what I'm talking about. This was one of the most egregious examples of them responding to an argument. It was almost like they didn't even hear what the guys in the cessationist documentary were saying.

So what you're going to hear is Joshua, Michael, and Michael setting up the clip. And then you're going to hear a clip from the cessationist documentary. And then the guys are going to come back in and respond to that.

Now, it would be easier to follow who's talking if this was a video. And like I said, I don't do video podcasting. So you'll just have to bear with the fact you're going to hear multiple verses here and you won't know who's talking, but you'll get the gist of what it is that's happening.

So we begin here with Joshua very charitably saying that, you know, we consider our cessationist brothers to be brothers and we want to engage with their arguments. And sometimes this will get a little bit spicy, but that's how these things go because we're all passionate about our positions.

And then they're going to play the clip and then respond to the clip. So here we go. I'm going to play this in its entirety and then I'll respond to it on the other end.

We want people to know on the front end, we are continuationist. We love the gifts of the spirit. We love our cessationist brothers. We consider them brothers. We consider them Christians. We have to say that on the front end of the show because we're really going to push back on some of these teachings and doctrines.

We're going to push back on some of these interpretations of history. We're going to kind of expose some of the self-contradictions that are taking place in this film. And when you do stuff like that, things can seem a little spicy, a little aggressive, and we're not trying to put on that kind of posture.

We believe these are Christian brothers, but we do want to engage with their arguments. We love them. We pray for them. We pray for them before we do our show. And we're hoping that these kinds of discussions can help people who are on the fence realize, man, these things aren't super biblical.

We want to help you pursue the gifts of the spirit because we think it's good for you for the glorification of Christ and at the edification of the church. You guys ready to dive into this first video?

Yeah. We're calling it clip number 13, clip, uh, cessationists can't figure out their own timeline. Okay. So, uh, let's play the clip.

Play that beautiful beam. Later on, as we see, particularly after the periods of persecution, Constantine has come into power. Christianity has become legalized. That's the time period where we see this expectation of the miraculous.

You do have a kind of continuationism developing in Roman Catholicism. Their notion of canonizing certain people as saints was built upon the notion of the continuation of miraculous signs. One story says that when St. Patrick was baptized as an infant, the priest was blind and couldn't read the baptismal order.

So he took the baby's hand, made the sign of the cross over the ground and a spring of water burst forth to watch the priest's eyes. His vision was restored and he could perform the baptism. Oh, that's just crazy.

Legendary stuff. It's just crazy.

Legendary stuff, guys. Cool. Let's dive into this first clip. Let's talk about it. Let's start off with the timeline. This historian says that the gifts of the spirit seem to be bolstered after 325, right?