Debate: Have the New Testament Charismatic Gifts Ceased?

Debate Format and Speaker Introductions

Have the New Testament charismatic gifts ceased. Good evening, my name is James White, I'm the moderator for our debate this evening, a debate that was initially thought up and first arranged by Confessing Baptist, and now we've gotten involved as well, and I'm very thankful for everyone who has labored to put this debate this evening, most especially to our two debaters, Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Sam Waldron.

Have the New Testament charismatic gifts ceased, the subject of the debate this evening obviously prompted especially at this particular point in time by the recent strange fire conference with John MacArthur and others at Grace Community Church in Southern California.

Let me introduce our debaters and how the debate is going to go, and then turn it over to them so that we can have a timely debate this evening. Dr. Michael Brown is founder and president of Fire School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina, and serves as a professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Charlotte campus, Denver Theological Seminary, and the King's University.

He holds a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Literature from New York University, and is the author of 25 books including Authentic Fire, a response to John MacArthur's strange fire to be published in December, along with scholarly publications in Old Testament, Semitic languages, and Jewish apologetics.

He is the host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show The Line of Fire and the TV program Answering Your Toughest Questions. On the other side of the debate this evening is Dr. Sam Waldron, who is the academic dean of the Midwest Center for Theological Studies and professor of Systematic Theology there.

He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reform Baptist Church in Owensboro, Kentucky. Dr. Waldron received a BA from Cornerstone University, an MDiv from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a THM from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a PhD from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

From 1977 to 2001, he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books, including a modern exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America to Be Continued, and MacArthur's Millennial Manifesto, a Friendly Response.

Dr. Waldron is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society. So we have two very capable debaters this evening to address the thesis statement, Have the New Testament Charismatic Gifts Ceased? In the negative of that assertion is Dr. Michael Brown.

He will be going first. Both gentlemen will have a 15-minute opening statement, followed by 10-minute rebuttals. We will, for the sake of simplicity, keep the same order throughout the debate, so that, well, basically so that a moderator like me can keep up with things.

And so Dr. Brown will be going first, Dr. Waldron going second. So a 15-minute opening statement, 10-minute rebuttals, then we will have two periods of cross-examination. I have often said this is where a debate takes place.

In the first period of time, Dr. Brown will be asking questions of Dr. Waldron, and in the second period of time, 15 minutes each, Dr. Waldron will be asking Dr. Brown questions, and then there will be two five-minute closing statements.

Now, I recognize the fact that 90 minutes is not going to be enough time to answer every question that people are going to have. But what we hope to have is a respectful, collegial discussion of this subject, based upon the Scriptures as the Word of God.

I will be keeping track of the time, and with that, I would like to invite Dr. Brown to prepare to give his opening statement of 15 minutes on the subject, Have the New Testament Charismatic Gifts Ceased?

Dr. Brown,.

Your opening statement, sir. Alright, well thank you so much, James, Sam, for doing this tonight, and thanks for everyone who has helped to put this together. I want to say right from the start, this is an in-house, in-family debate, in light of all the crisis in the world, and so much that's wrong in our society.

We stand united in Jesus, and I hope that shines forth in everything we say, and I'm quite sure if I got to know Sam better over a period of years, there'd be a whole lot that I could learn from him. In setting the framework for this debate, I want to say plainly that this is a sola scriptura issue to me.

What do the Scriptures say? I am charismatic, I believe in the gifts and power of the Spirit, the New Testament charismatic gifts being for today, because I am sola scriptura. For me, this is a matter of letting the Word be central and authoritative, and if I'm to accept the witness of the Word and let the witness of the Word be central and authoritative, I cannot be a cessationist.

I will say plainly that there is overwhelming, explicit New Testament evidence for the continuation of the gifts, and no explicit New Testament evidence against it. Professor Thomas Schreiner, New Testament scholar and himself a cessationist, actually says nowhere does the New Testament clearly teach that supernatural gifts have ceased.

A Reformed pastor, Dr. John Carpenter, says even responsible cessationists will concede the Bible doesn't teach cessationism. Scripture has no explicit cessationist statement. So if I believe the sufficiency of Scripture, how can I use it to defend something it doesn't teach explicitly?

And if the Word of God promises something or even commands something, on what scriptural basis can I negate this or ignore it? So let's start with the ministry of Jesus for whom healing, miracles, exorcism played a central role.

This was part of his foundational ministry. Matthew 4 .23, he went throughout all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

We see elsewhere in Mark 6, Matthew 10, Luke 9 and 10 and other passages that proclaiming the kingdom and healing the sick went hand in hand. In other words, these miracles were not just impersonal acts of power announcing the in-breaking of the messianic kingdom like trumpets announcing the approach of royalty.

They were signs, meaning indicators, of the in-breaking of the messianic kingdom. This is what happens when the rule of God arrives. And since the messianic kingdom did not leave the earth when Jesus ascended to heaven, where does the Bible say it did, there's no reason we should not expect to see the continuance of these miracles as the kingdom of God spreads around the earth, the earth culminating with its full manifestation when Jesus returns.

So we understand that there were unique elements to the miracles of Jesus. We all affirm that to establish who he was, but we also know that some of the miracles he constantly pointed to were because of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, Satan being driven out, healing coming, deliverance coming, because that's what happens when the light shines in the darkness.

That's why Jesus constantly pointed to his miracles to confirm his messianic identity, but he refused to perform abstract acts of power. Nor did he say, look, I was walking on the water, I must be the Messiah.

Now we know that after the resurrection of Jesus, the gospel of the kingdom was preached. Acts 8, Acts 20, Acts 28, that's how it ends, talking about Paul preaching the good news of the kingdom. And Paul speaks of the kingdom of God in the present tense, here and now.

1 Corinthians 4, 20, the kingdom of God is not a matter of words only, but of power. Romans 14, 17, the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

What's the point? Oh, we are looking for the full manifestation of the kingdom, we pray your kingdom come. We are awaiting, inheriting the kingdom of God, but the kingdom of God has also broken in the earth, and with that come miracles of healing and deliverance.

That's what happens when the reign of God touches areas where Satan has dominated and destroyed lives. Also, the healings of Jesus reflect the will of God. Throughout John's gospel, he said he could only do what he saw the Father doing.

And he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. We can learn much about who the Father is by looking at Jesus. John 1 18 famously and literally says in the Greek that the Son exegeted the Father.

Well, did Jesus go around making people sick or making them well? When we go to minister to the sick, not to condemn those who are sick, not to say you're lacking in faith if you're sick, we recognize some of the godliest people in the world are handicapped.

We recognize that many people grow through sickness and disease, but in terms simply of the will of God and expectation, because we always want to line up with the will of God, not our own thinking, the question is what would Jesus do?

What is the Father's will? We see it explicitly reflected in the New Testament, and in fact, it builds on and confirms that which came before. Also, the healings of Jesus were often the result of divine compassion.

For example, Matthew 14 14 tells us that he had compassion on the sick and healed them. Well, if Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, if his healings reflected the will of the Father, and we'll see continuing evidence for this in the New Testament, if they are a reflection of the compassion of God, can we simply say they were signs to confirm his messianic identity?

I had one theologian once tell me these showed who Jesus was, but who Jesus was in terms of his essential nature is who he is. Can we continue to look to God with expectation that out of compassion and mercy he will heal the sick?

And if not, where does the word tell us that? Again, sola scriptura. This to me is not a matter of philosophy or some type of abstract theological deduction, this is a matter of the explicit testimony of the word.

Also in the words of Jesus himself, John 14 12 is programmatic and universal. Whoever believes in me, Jesus says, words we find in say John 6 35, 7 38, 11 25, 12 44, 12 46, these are universal promises.

Whoever believes in me will never hunger. Whoever believes in me, the Father will testify on his behalf. These are universal types of promises. Jesus says, whoever believes in me, the works I do will he do also, and greater works than these will he do because I go to the Father and therefore will send the Spirit.

And we see some of the greater works already in the book of Acts with mass conversions and things like that taking place. Now if we look in the immediate previous verses, we see the works he's talking about are the miraculous deeds that he was performing.

And if we look at the verses that immediately follow, verses 13 and 14, which tell us to ask the Father and he will answer us in Jesus' name, the question is when has John 14 12 ever been reversed? What explicit verses tell me that this is not as universal as John 6 35 and 7 38 and all of these others which have the identical Greek phrase, whoever believes in me.

Now let's think from the angle of God's power, his dunamis, which in particular in Luke Acts speaks of the miraculous power of the Spirit. So Luke 1 35, that points to the conception of Jesus by the power of the Spirit.

Luke 4 14, he comes out of the wilderness in the power of the Spirit. 5 17, the power of the Lord is present to heal the sick. Luke 6 19, Luke 8 46, power comes out of him and heals people. Then he tells his disciples, Luke 24 49, don't leave Jerusalem until you're endued with power, dunamis from on high.

Acts 1 8, you will be witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes and you will receive what? Dunamis. Acts 4 33, with great dunamis, the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection. It does not simply mean boldness, does not simply mean abstract power, but rather miracle power.

In fact the plural of the word is used for miracles throughout the Bible, signs, wonders, dunamis, the mighty acts of God. We now look in 1 Corinthians 2 and Paul says, when I came to you, Corinthians, I didn't come with enticing words of man's wisdom, I didn't want your faith to be in the wisdom of men, but rather in the power of God.

I came to you in the demonstration of the Spirit, and then he reiterates it in 4 20, because the kingdom of God is not a matter of words but of power. When did that change? When, pray tell, did the dunamis change?

When did the giving of the Spirit change? Romans 1 16 says that the gospel is the power of God to salvation. Well if we want to say that one aspect of dunamis changed and it's not for today anymore, perhaps Romans 1 16 is not for today anymore.

And notice that men like Stephen in Acts 6 were endued with the same dunamis and performed miracles, so it was it was hardly for the Apostles only. Now as we continue looking at the giving of the Spirit, we come to a critically important passage, Acts 2 17 and following, right up through 239.

It's the outpouring of the Spirit of Pentecost, shavuot, as supernatural languages are spoken, or I should say languages are spoken supernaturally. Peter stands up and says, this is what Joel was talking about, and then he says, in the last days.

Now the Hebrew just says v 'akhrechen and after this, but Peter inserts the words in the last days to tell you that this is the last days outpouring, and it is the universal testimony of the New Testament.

I doubt that there'd be any debate about that, that from the resurrection of Jesus until today, we are in the period called the last days. The last days are marked by deception and defection, the last days are marked by great harvest, and the last days are marked by the universal outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh, so that now sons and daughters prophesy.

This is absolutely not just for the Apostles, in fact it started with 120 and immediately spread to many, many more. This is marked by the profusion of the gift of prophecy and by dreams and visions, and this is for the last days.

And what does Peter say in Acts 2, 38 and 39 to the repentant Jewish crowd? That they will receive forgiveness of sins in Jesus and the gift of the Spirit for the promises to you and your children and all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call, which harks back to Isaiah 59, 29, the promise of the Spirit to the succeeding generations of Israel here, given to those who put their trust in Jesus.

This is a foundationally important text because it makes clear that the prophetic gift is not just apostolic, not just for a few prophets, but now poured out on all believers, and it is for the period of the last days, and it is to you and your children and all who are far off.

Everything else in the rest of the New Testament affirms this, nothing contradicts it. In Acts 4, 29 and 30, the Apostles pray, Lord, look upon their threats, grant your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

Why was that an acceptable prayer now, but when we pray prayers like that today we're told that it's now a carnival sideshow and a distraction from the gospel. No, the signs and wonders continue to point to who Jesus is.

When we come to the epistles we see in 1 Corinthians 1, 7, Paul commends the Corinthians, you're not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. The New Testament knows of no concept whereby a new canon of scripture will be completed, after which there'll be a long gap before Jesus returns.

And even Professor Schreiner notes that a good case for the continuation of the gifts until Jesus' second coming can be made from 1 Corinthians 13, 8 through 12. And when Paul weighs out the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12, 7 through 12, he does not have separate categories of revelatory gifts.

He says these are for the common good, and they are not explicitly attached to the apostles in any way, shape, size, or form. And then he says at the end of 1 Corinthians 12, now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it, and God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating various kinds of tongues.

These are all interwoven. Even if you try to separate apostles and prophets, you have teachers, miracles, gifts of healing, helping, administrating various kinds of tongues. This is part of the very fabric of the body.

And then when he gets to the end of his discussion in the 14th chapter and says, earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues, that is an explicit command. On what scriptural basis does someone today forbid speaking in tongues?

Paul said don't forbid it. He said earnestly desire to prophesy. On what scriptural basis is that overturned? Frankly, there is none. 1 Thessalonians 5, do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast what is good.

Where has that been overturned in Scripture? It never has. It is an explicit command. If we throw out one verse, we're gonna have to start throwing out others. And then James 5, 13 -15, praying for the sick in faith should be a normal part of congregational life.

This is for the elders, does not require a special gift of healing. In order to pray in faith there has to be confidence of the will of God to heal. And it's in the same context as any one of you suffering, let them pray.

As anyone cheerful, let them sing praise. Well if you want to eliminate the call to pray for the sick as a regular thing with expectation for healing, you have to throw out the other verses as well. The fact is, if we were Roman Catholic and believed in the authority of ongoing church tradition, or if we were Mormons and had another alleged holy book, we could have an excuse to override the explicit testimony of Scripture.

But since we are sola scriptura believers, we have no alternative but to accept the clear, consistent, and never contradicted witness of the Word, and expect the continuation of the New Testament charismatic gifts until Jesus returns.

The entire testimony of the New Testament goes in this direction. There is nothing explicitly that contradicts it. There are explicit commands to pursue these things for the glory of God, the good of a dying world, and the good of the Church.

And as sola scriptura people who hold to the centrality of Scripture, we must be continuationists and not.

Cessationists. All right, thank you very much Dr. Michael Brown for your 15 minute opening statement right on the nose. In fact, I appreciate that kind of accuracy in keeping the time. Now we will hear a 15-minute opening statement from Dr. Sam Waldron on the thesis, Have the New Testament Charismatic Gifts Ceased?

Dr. Waldron, your opening statement, please.

James, thank you for dividing line, working with Confessing Baptist to set this whole thing up. I really appreciate that. Let me also say that I really appreciate Michael's statement. I want to call him Dr. Brown.

It was a good statement, and it proves something else that I wanted to say at the outset, and that is that one of the reasons I think we need to have this debate is that we need to appreciate that many Charismatics are supernaturalists.

They take the New Testament seriously, and for that they are to be congratulated, and we thank God for that. I also want to say that I'm glad Michael said nothing about the Strange Fire Conference, because I intend to say nothing about it.

I've been away on other ministry and have no opportunity to review what was said there, so neither want to attack or defend it. The subject, Have the New Testament Charismatic Gifts Ceased? is also one that I'm very thankful to discuss.

I'm glad we're discussing that. I think it's the key issue in our day, not baptism of the Spirit or the second blessing. Those are important issues, but I think this is perhaps the most fundamental. My argument is as well not that there are no miracles in the world today.

I believe that there are miracles in the world today. My argument is that there are no miraculous gifts. I think there's a clear and common-sense distinction between miracles and miraculous gifts. A miracle is a one-time event.

A gift is an ongoing possession of an individual marked by repeated manifestations of that gift. My argument against the continuation of the miraculous gifts is called the Cascade Argument. It goes like this.

There are no apostles of Christ on earth today. Because there are no apostles of Christ, we may cogently argue that there are no prophets on earth today. Because there are no prophets, there are no tongue speakers, and because there are no tongue speakers, prophets or apostles of Christ, there are no miracle workers.

Let me make several observations about this argument. First of all, it's grounded in the assertion, which I hope to prove in a moment, that there are no living apostles of Christ in the world. It assumes as well that apostles of Christ were a gift to the Church.

They were in office, but they were also a gift. 1 Corinthians 12, 28 to 31, Ephesians 4, 8 to 11, Christ gave gifts to men, among them apostles. This argument also assumes an important distinction between apostles of Christ and apostles of the churches.

I am only asserting that apostles of Christ are no longer alive among us. I'm not saying that there are no such things today as apostles of the churches, or messengers, or missionaries of the churches.

This argument does not depend on whether those people whom I'm addressing believe that there are living apostles of Christ in the world today. Many charismatics do not believe in living apostles of Christ today, but my argument does not depend on that assertion that there are living apostles of Christ.

Rather, it poses a dilemma for charismatics. On the one hand, if they agree that there are no living apostles of Christ, then they should not be against cessationism, because they actually hold a form of it.

And this represents a fatal flaw in their argument. If they say there are no living apostles of Christ in the world today, then they are admitting that the first and greatest gift that Christ gave to the Church no longer exists, and that is a form of cessationism.

And I believe that it's a loose thread which unravels their entire argument. On the other hand, if they believe that there are apostles of Christ in the world today, they are denying a clear and pervasive truth taught in the New Testament, which I hope to show.

What then is the evidence for the cessation of the messianic apostolate, or apostles of Christ? Well, it consists, or is founded, first of all, in the unique marks that they possess. Apostles of Christ, according to the New Testament, have three distinguishing marks.

First, they are directly appointed by Christ. Mark 3, Luke 6, Acts 1 -2, chosen apostles. Acts 10 -41, witnesses whom he had chosen beforehand. Galatians 1 -1, Paul was an apostle by the will of God. And this is the meaning of that strange account of the use of the lot.

The lot was used because no human being is competent to appoint an apostle of Jesus Christ. Only Christ may appoint his apostles. The second mark of New Testament apostles is that they are physical eyewitnesses of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 1 -22, 10 -39, 1st Corinthians 9 -1, am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Third, they are able to confirm their apostolate by doing miracles many places, but 2nd Corinthians 12 -12, especially, the signs of a true apostle were done among you.

As such, these apostles of Christ spoke authoritatively for Jesus Christ. The things that I write to you, says the apostle Paul, 1st Corinthians 14 -37, are the commandments of the Lord. The sheliach, or apostle, or sent one of a man, said the ancient Jews, is as the man himself.

And this is what the apostles of Christ claims. They were as the man himself. They spoke for Jesus Christ authoritatively. Charismatics may argue that men today possess these characteristics, but surely the burden of proof is on them to prove such an argument and to accept the consequences of such an argument, which is to say that there are men who speak authoritatively for Jesus Christ and infallibly today.

But in the second place, and mainly, I argue the cessation of the apostolate, the messianic apostolate, from the New Testament on the basis of five different arguments. First of all, Ephesians 2 -20, the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, which is an allusion to Matthew 16 -18, where Peter is called the rock of the church, and Revelation 21 -14, where the apostles are said to be the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem.

These passages speak of the apostles as the foundation of the Church of Christ. This illustration is met historically and chronologically, and means that apostles of Christ were confined to the foundational period of church history.

1 Corinthians 15 -8 affirms that Paul, last of all, was the last one to see the risen Christ. Last of all, he appeared to me, says the Apostle Paul, and if that's true, and one of the indispensable marks and characteristics of an apostle is to have seen with their physical eyes the risen Christ, then Paul was the last one to do so, and there are no living apostles today.

1 Corinthians 12 -31 and 14 -1 directly suggest that Christians cannot seek the gift of Apostle of Christ, and thus that it is ceased. Prophecy, it seems, is the greatest gift that may be sought. This is what Paul focuses on in 1 Corinthians 14, and in spite of the fact that he's mentioned a gift of Apostle of Christ in the preceding context.

And then a fourth argument, Galatians 2 -7 -9 teaches that Paul received the right hand of fellowship from members of the original twelve apostles. No professed Apostle of Christ today in the world can receive the imprimatur of the original twelve as Paul did.

And then finally, Ephesians 2 -20 states the form of the New Testament canon as the Apostles and Prophets. The Church is built on Apostles and Prophets. If there were Apostles today, the canon would be open as those Apostles continue to speak authoritatively for Christ.

But since all but the most extreme Charismatics acknowledge that the canon is closed, this assumes the cessation of the Apostolate. And again, this all poses a dilemma for Charismatics. On the one hand, they agree that there are no living Apostles of Christ.

If they agree with that, then they should not be opposed to cessationism, because they actually hold a form of it. They believe in the cessation of the first and greatest gift given to the Church, and this represents a fatal flaw in their argument.

It's a loose thread which unravels the entire thing. On the other hand, if they believe that there are Apostles of Christ in the world today, they are denying a clear and pervasive truth taught in the New Testament.

Also, since the New Testament links the impartation of Charismatic gifts to the Apostles of Christ, Acts chapter 8, this suggests the cessation of the miraculous gifts. Now, let me go on, then, to say that this all leads to the conclusion that there are no prophets today.

And this argument goes like this. There are no prophets because, well, first of all, the cessation of the Apostolate creates the presumption, or at least the possibility, that other gifts may also cease, in spite of what our brother has said.

New Testament prophets were, like the Apostles of Christ, foundational to the Church, Ephesians 2 .20. The New Testament prophets were infallible. The definition of a prophet given in Deuteronomy 13 and 18 was never rescinded, and this requires infallibility on the part of prophets, then and now, if they exist in the world today.

Just as the Old Testament's authority is summarized as the prophetic word, this is the form of the Old Testament canon. It is the prophetic word, 2 Peter 1, 19 -21, and the 12 or 13 places in the New Testament where the Old Testament is called the Law and the Prophets, or Moses and the Prophets, so also the canon of the New Testament is summarized in Ephesians 2 .20 as Apostles and Prophets.

And by the way, the prophets in question are New Testament prophets, Ephesians 3 .5, 4 .11, 1 Corinthians 12 .28. And because there are no prophets, there are no tongue speakers. Why? Because it was a form of prophecy.

The tongue speaking of Acts 2, mentioned earlier in the passage, there is explained in the quotation from the Prophet Joel as prophecy. 1 Corinthians 14 .5 asserts the equivalence of the two gifts. If tongues is interpreted, it's equivalent to prophecy, says 1 Corinthians 14 .5.

And then in both tongues and prophecy, the speaker is uttering mysteries, a word that is intimately associated with prophetic revelation, 1 Corinthians 13 .2, Revelation 1 .3, with 1 .20 .10 .7. Now all of this leads to the conclusion that if there are no apostles, and thus no prophets, and therefore no tongue speakers, that there are no miracle workers today.

And again I come back to something that I said earlier. I am not denying that there are miracles today. The kingdom is present, and it may be present in there being miracles today. But there is a difference between believing in miracles and believing in miracle workers.

There's a difference between elders praying without absolute certainty that their prayers will be answered for the healing of a member of their church, and the work of a faith healer. There is a difference between those two things.

There's a difference between miracles and miracle workers. Biblical miracles are called signs, as our brother said, and what that signifies, what that means, is that they are seen as attesting the revelation brought by the miracle worker.

This is the cascade argument. No apostles creates the precedent, leads to the further step that there are no prophets, leads to the further step that there are no tongue speakers, leads last of all to the idea that there are no miracle workers, but does not lead to the conclusion that there are no miracles, nor that the kingdom is not present in the world today.

Okay, you finished there, Sam? I am. With two minutes to spare, thank you very much for your argument, and for both of you for your opening statements. We now have a period of rebuttal. Dr. Brown will go first, he will have ten minutes to interact with what Dr. Waldron has said, and then Dr. Waldron will have an opportunity to respond as well.

So Dr. Brown, your ten-minute rebuttal, sir. Yes,.

Sam, thanks so much for that carefully thought-out presentation. Obviously, you've looked at this and considered it over a period of time, so the fact that I will profoundly disagree point by point is no sign of disrespect in any way, but just forthright discussion so that we can all learn better and sharpen each other.

So I want to say, frankly, there's no dilemma, there is no loose thread unraveling whatsoever, there's no loose thread at all. And basically what I heard was a deduction that is not in the text. In other words, you read something into the text that is nowhere said.

For example, nowhere are the miracles tied in with apostles only, they're tied in with the Holy Spirit. Nowhere are tongues and prophecies tied in with the existence of apostles or prophets. This is the working of the Spirit in the church.

You started with an assumption and then read that back into Scripture to undermine the consistent and explicit testimony of Scripture. You would have thought that Paul would have said, now I want you to really seek the gifts of prophecy, but only for a while, even though I told you you're lacking in no good gift until Jesus returns.

I want to encourage you not to forbid the speaking of tongues, but when the last of us apostles is out of here, you better be sure to forbid it, because it's either going to be counterfeit or the flesh.