Paul James

Paul's instruction is to test all things and hold fast to that which is good. A good prophecy will point to Jesus who is all in all. A prophecy that points to me or anyone else other than Jesus is not good and therefore should be rejected as divination and not true prophecy. The Scripture says that it is the testimony of Jesus that is the spirit of prophecy. True prophecy that points to Jesus is in the spirit of the Bible, in that the whole Bible points to Jesus. He showed that to the two disciples at Emmaeus.

True prophecy should always be valued by us, because it exhorts, comforts, and builds us up in our most holy faith in Christ.

There are two categories: Either a prophet or a loss! Prophetic or pathetic!

I have never met a Pentecostal or Charismatic who believes in an open canon. All the ones I know and have ever known believe in a closed canon - that God has said all He has to say in the written Scriptures, and anyone who claims to have a "revelation" has to show that God has already said it somewhere in the Scriptures. Interestingly, John Calvin says that prophecy is the remarkable ability, God-given, to interpret Scripture to give special encouragement, exhortation, and comfort to other believers. Someone else said that revelatory prophecy is nothing more than an updating of what God has already said in Scripture, but specifically applied to a particular personal or corporate issue. These, to me, are more valid than someone coming out of left field with verbal garbage that has not relation to written Scripture at all. By the way, I heard that the Anglican church has canons. They must be the "big guns" of that church!

The issue is not the signs and wonders in themselves, but who is being glorified. The Scripture says that the Holy Spirit will always glorify Christ in what He does, including the signs and wonders. But if the signs and wonders draw people away from Christ to someone else, then we can safely assume that the signs and wonders do not originate with the Holy Spirit, but are activated by another spirit. We see a lot of this with the "big-name" ministries who claim signs and wonders in their services. Sick and disabled people flock to these services in their thousands in the hope of being healed, with the belief that if they are in the presence of the great evangelist (Benny Hinn is an example), they will be healed. What they are doing in effect is to replace Jesus with Benny Hinn. Jesus doesn't need a "big-name" healing evangelist to heal people, but He will use anyone who is bold and courageous enough to go in harm's way to preach the Gospel to the unsaved and needs the power of the Holy Spirit to back up his preaching. That's what happened during the ministries of Peter and Paul. Neither of these men used their own names to speak the word of faith to sick people and see the healed. They invoked the name of Jesus, because they knew that only He could achieve the desired outcome. Also, they used that Name only when they knew that the Holy Spirit was directing them, otherwise they would have been using the Name in vain. In effect, healing evangelists like Benny Hinn and people like him are not claiming healing in the name of Jesus. They are effectively doing it in their own name, and when they do use the name of Jesus it is nothing more than an incantation, taking His name in vain. If we take the false prophets of the Old Testament as our example, we will see that they used their dreams and imaginations to encourage people to sin and follow the idols of the pagans around them, or if the people were already following idols, they prophesied that God would bless them anyway and bring them peace, but the true prophets of God clearly informed the people that they were being unfaithful to God and to forsake their idols with their associated sins, and return to the one, true living God. As the true prophets of God were rejected, persecuted and killed, so we see in our day, those who stand up for Christ and His finished work on the Cross, are ridiculed, accused of having demons and thrown out of mega-church conferences conducted by the false ultra-charismatic "big-name" ministries of today. True signs and wonders will always support the Gospel of Christ, and be the means of showing the unsaved that Jesus is really alive today and that they should embrace Him as Saviour. False signs and wonders will always support a religious movement, a "big-name" personality or ministry and will draw people to that ministry instead of Christ. The clue to falsehood is people saying, "If I can only get to [insert the big-name healing evangelist here]'s meeting, I know I'll be healed". Why do multitudes of people flock to Lourdes? Is it so that Jesus will heal them? No. It is in the hope that the Virgin Mary will heal them, or even just the waters themselves.

Paul had to deal with believers in the Thessalonian church who were teaching that the resurrection had already come. So, already, even while Paul was still active in his ministry to the churches, there were professing Christian believers teaching all sorts of nonsense. These days, Cessationism, based on the definition of just one solitary word in 1 Corinthians 13 is a modern example of such nonsense.

Most reliable commentators state that tongues and prophecy will cease and vanish away when the church is resurrected and united with Christ in glory. The point of the passage is that love is permanent while Spiritual gifts are temporary. Paul is saying that love is the foundation for all service to and for God. Without it there is nothing. He says in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 13 that even if he is the most eloquent speaker in heaven and earth, if he doesn't have the foundation of love, he is just a useless noise. He is alluding to the Corinthians being right up there with their spiritual gifts, but coming in behind with love. Use the spiritual gifts by all means, but ensure that they are used on the basis of loving God and the brothers and sisters in Christ.

In other words you can't find anywhere where God has given a word to say when tongues and prophecy are going to cease. And yet you have maintained that God's Word definitely says that tongues is not for today. But now it seems that having faced that there are no words from God on the issue, other than 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 which fully support the spiritual gifts are available for the church (including tongues), you are now accepting that tongues can be used in churches as long as there are interpreters. So, if that is so, have you the courage to stand up in your church and say that they should not forbid the speaking out of tongues along with interpretation if the Holy Spirit moved people that way? You are correct when you say that private tongues are private between the believer and God, and therefore way out of range of any criticism or inference that the tongues being spoken in private is any other than a language that God fully understands. I can fully understand that you or your church would not want to have the type of tongues observed through video clips taken from Bethel, Hillsong, Kenny Copeland meetings, or other environments where tongues is spoken publicly in an uncontrolled and uninterpreted manner. Tongues (or any other manifestation) plus no self-control equals falsehood, because self-control is an essential attribute of the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The issue is that God has not said at any time that tongues and prophecy will cease before the second coming of Christ. Cessationist doctrine is not Bible-based at all. It is a man-made doctrine based on the definition of a single word in 1 Corinthians 13:10, and to hide the fact that the church lost the gifts through apostacy and paganism, and because much of the modern church is riddled with it still, along with heresy in some ultra-Charismatic groups, it is no wonder that good people turn away from what they see as falsehood in these heresy-riddled groups.

Quoting 1 Corinthians 13:10 in context, verse 8 through verse 12, we get the true sense of what Paul is saying. Verses 8, 9, 11, and 12 speak about our state after we have left this world and we are having face to face fellowship with Christ. Yet cessationists extract verse 10 and make it say something totally different that has nothing to do with the context. If we are saying that the perfect which is to come is the completed canon of New Testament Scripture, then we need to go right back and analyse the whole passage on that basis. Verse 8 says that tongues, prophecy and knowledge shall cease and vanish away. But it doesn't say when in that verse. Verse 9 says we currently have partial knowledge and give partial prophecy. The inference is that because we now have the completed canon of Scripture, we have full and total knowledge about everything. Verse 11 says that we were once children, but when we grew up we put away childish things. If the canon of Scripture is the perfect, then we are now fully grown up mature Christian believers. Verse 12 says that now we have the canon of Scripture, we no longer see the things of God as in an imperfect mirror (the type of polished metal that existed in Paul's time), but we see Christ face to face and know Him as He knows us. So, on the basis of this, how does a cessationist who makes 1 Corinthians 13:10 the basis of his doctrine? For him all tongues, prophecy and knowledge has passed away. Therefore he never prays in tongues, never prophesies, and has no knowledge. And yet, he is saying at the same time that he no longer as partial knowledge, but full knowledge about everything to do with the things of God. One has to wonder how a person who believes that knowledge no longer exists, yet views himself as having full and total knowledge. He also views himself as a totally complete, fully formed, mature person, and having total knowledge along with it, doesn't need to be taught anything further concerning the things of God. In other words, he sees himself as above teaching, because he knows everything now. He is also in a position where his fellowship with Christ is now face to face and he now knows Christ as Christ knows him. In essence then, the cessationist is the super Christian who stands head and shoulders over everyone else in the common herd. Do you think there is something wrong with this picture?

The problem for cessationists is that they build their doctrine on 1 Corinthians 13:10 and define "perfect" as the perfect canon of Holy Scripture. That phrase is the only mention in the whole of the New Testament of the spiritual gifts ceasing, yet most reliable commentators interpret the verse as referring to the time when this imperfect world will pass away and the perfect New Jerusalem will appear. There is nothing in this world that is perfect because it is all blighted by sin. Even the canon of Scripture is not perfect, because it is a part of this imperfect world. This is not to say that the Word of God is not perfect, because the Scripture says that it is. But the written Scriptures contain everything that God has said to us, either for our education or for our direct instruction. But John says that the true Word of God is Christ Himself, and when He comes again, He will bring perfection with Him, but not until then. The problem is that cessationists don't want to acknowledge the modern use of the gift of tongues, because it is the ultimate in faith - to pray to a God we can't see in a language we have never learned. It doesn't go along with religious reasoning, and therefore, those with the religious spirit reject it, and use just one phrase of Scripture to try and prove it.

Seeing that 1 Corinthians 13:10 cannot prove that God's Word says that tongues and prophecy will not cease until Christ comes again and establishes His kingdom. Where else does God's Word say that tongues and prophecy will cease at the end of the Apostolic Age?

I told you that I would be prodding you - all in the interests of fair debate. I get my understanding of Scripture by just reading what is there. I look forward to having you explain how that people, including those in my own church were speaking what you call "gibberish" which was understood as praising God in a rural Ghanaian village dialect, and the New Zealand Maori language. And from another testimony of someone who spoke in tongues, and a person from a foreign country cried out, "That person told me all my sins!" Another person was speaking "gibberish" in an English church, and a Welsh native remarked how the person was praising God in perfect Welsh without an accent, and the speaker said, "All I was doing was praying in tongues" (gibberish as you call it). And the testimony of a Cantonese woman sitting in an evangelistic meeting, heard a non-Chinese person say in perfect Cantonese, "You need to go forward and receive Christ." Yet, the non-Chinese person was merely praying in "gibberish" as you call it. As I said before, you have one of two choices - admit that modern tongues is not "gibberish" as you suppose; or that all these people and those who were present during these events are lying. By the way, I wasn't being snarky at all. Just giving some facts about language comprehension. After all, I do have an M.A. in English, and a Diploma in English as a Second Language, so I know something about it. I don't need to pray for a voice in my head to tell me what I can quite easily comprehend from the actual text of 1 Corinthians 14. Actually, I did pray about it once, and the answer that came to me was< "I wrote a whole chapter on it, so all you have to do is just believe what it says, pay special attention to verse 2." Also, the Holy Spirit brought back to mind the actual events that happened to my close friend and me in our own church that the "gibberish" we spoke was praising God in actual understandable language. That was the icing on the cake for me and proved conclusively that what we were praying in tongues was true and right. No doubt about it. And it was while I was an elder in a non-Charismatic Presbyterian church at the time. This means that for the 40 years since I left the Charismatic movement, no one can say that I have been carried along by waves of ultra-Charismatic fervour, and yet I pray in tongues all the time and know that I am having great fellowship with God in the process.

You are welcome. If I am prodding you a bit I assure you that it is good natured and with total respect.

I just go on what Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 14. Verse 2 talks about personal prayer to God, not collective prayer in church. He is quite clear that when he speaks in tongues more than them all, it is obviously not in the church setting, but in his private devotions when he is alone with God. If Paul says that he would rather say things that are clearly understood when he is in church, then to say that he doesn't use tongues in private prayer is just plain silly. Where else would he pray to God outside of church? Also, he is supportive of all the Corinthians speaking in tongues; but where? It would be totally ridiculous to say that he would limit them to speaking in tongues just in church accompanied by an interpreter. He recommends just two or three use the ministry gift of tongues in church, not all of them. So if he is encouraging them all to speak in tongues, where would he be saying they should do it if not in church? Of course the only reasonable answer is - in their private devotions away from the church meeting. You know, some people leave their brains hanging on the door knob when they read the Bible sometimes. I think that anti-tongues is so ingrained in you, that you can read what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, yet not accept what he actually says, and your overarching belief causes you to read things that Paul never wrote, and that logical comprehension of the chapter is ignored in favour of some wacky interpretation that says that Paul didn't really mean it when he clearly said that speaking in tongues without interpretation is for private devotions and not for public worship. It seems that there is one set of comprehension rules for ordinary folk, and quite another set for the type of religious folk who want the Bible to say what they want it to say. I taught elementary school comprehension for 10 years, and I am sure that the 10 year olds in my classes would have said quite clearly that Paul would have meant that when he spoke in tongues more than all of the Corinthians, he would have used it in private prayer. But then ordinary 10 year olds in an elementary school class are not so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly use.