Needless to say, all the 9 Manifestations of the Spirit (12Cor 12:7-10) are ‘in part’ where they will be replaced by our complete and perfect knowledge of the Godhead when we stand before them in the New Kingdom.
Well done. You have just proved that completeness cannot be the Parousia. All those gifts do indeed cease at the Parousia. Yet our passage says only 3 gifts cease when 'completeness' comes. So the 3 gifts must cease before the Parousia. Unless of course you are committing the classic pentecostal/charismatic fallacy of reading your own ideas into scripture and saying what Paul really meant to say was that all the gifts cease, when he in fact only mentions 3.
With regard to the general understanding of telios, the following remark that was made by Craig Keener back in 2001 would undoubtedly apply to the majority of Evangelical scholars who have ‘accepted’ that tongues are for today and that telios has no connection to the completion of the Scriptures. For many of them even though they will acknowledge that tongues are there for those who want to be able to pray to the Father, they are more than content to acknowledge that this is so for today but where maybe it is not for them, at least not just yet; they are often referred to as being neither cessationist nor Continuist but those who are ‘open-but-cautious’;
Craig C. Keener, Gift & Giver (2001)
[p.173] I will begin the discussion assuming that most readers accept tongues as a valid gift for today. Even most of those who do not affirm that tongues occurs today believe that those who do pray in tongues can be committed Christians, and they are willing to work with these Christians in the cause of Christ. Christians who refuse all fellowship with Pentecostals are, at least in the parts of Christendom I know, usually out of fellowship with most other parts of Christ’s body as well.
[p.176] Tongues comes up rarely in my work as a biblical scholar (it appears clearly in only six chapters in the Bible); further, none of my close friends who do not pray in tongues, including cessationists, have objected to me doing it, giving me little personal reason to make an issue out of it. As mentioned earlier in the book, many or most of my closest ministry colleagues, people I trust minister in the power of God’s Spirit no less than I, do not pray in tongues.
Your quote from Keener in no way supports your outlandish claim that 95-99% of scholarship agree that teleios means perfect in this passage. All he says is that the majority of his readers and ministry colleagues may believe that tongues is for today - unsurprising seeing that he is a charismatic.
It is interesting to note that although Keener is a self confessed glossalalist and may go to a charismatic church and speak glossolalia with the rest of them, yet in his day job when he puts on his academic hat, he is forced to admit that the tongues of 1 Corinthians was not an angelic or heavenly language, but rather the exact the same phenomenon as occurred in Acts - foreign human languages.
1-2 Corinthians by Craig S. Keener
“Against many interpreters today, Paul seems to believe that the gift employs genuine languages: he uses a term that normally means ‘languages’; speaks of ‘interpretation’ (12:10, 30; 14:5, 13, 26–28); and compares human and angelic languages (13:1)”
...
Some have argued that Paul or the Corinthians believed their tongues-speech angelic (cf. T. Job 48-50), hence perhaps a sign of realized eschatology, or of participation in the heavenly liturgy (cf. 2 Cor 12:4; Col 2:18; Rev. 4:2-3,8;7:11; 4Q403 frg. 1, 1.1-6). But would angelic tongues pass away at Jesus's return (13:8-12; indeed, some, at least, expected angels to speak Hebrew among themselves)? More likely, angelic speech merely reinforces the hyperbole of one able to speak “all” tongues (like one who knows everything or removes mountains, 13:2)
Acts: An Exegetical Commentary : Volume 1: Introduction and 1:1-247, Volume 1 by Craig S. Keener
Paul's theological emphasis on "tongues" is quite different from Luke's, but it is likely (against many) that he is interpreting the same phenomenon; it is virtually inconceivable that the two writers would independently coin the same obscure phrase for two entirely different phenomena.
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The idea that Luke and Paul depict unrelated phenomena requires too many random coincidences to be deemed plausible.
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Some scholars think that for Paul, at least, tongues are merely ecstatic gibberish lacking genuine linguistic content, rather than genuine languages. This is what many writers mean by "glossolalia," which some also suggest early Christians construed as angelic languages; but this modern usage can easily prejudice the discussion of what Paul and Luke meant by the Greek terms from which the compound is derived. As argued below, this practice may represent one form of modern glossolalia, but it is not clear that this represents what Paul understood by the phenomenon (or how all modern tongues speakers understand or experience some other forms of modern glossolalia).
As I have said before, this has come around due to argumention that has are based more upon desperation than with solid Biblical exegesis which has made the cessationist worldview to be little more than a relic of a by-gone era within broad portions of Evangelicalism, though those who are liberals or 'liberal-evangelical' will understandably embrace cessationism as it fits well within their humanistic approach to the Scriptures - that's just the way it is.
So yet again, rather than supplying proof to backup your outlandish claim, you have to resort to another outpouring of ad hominem nonsense from your own biased opinion. Maybe you think if you keep repeating the same old anti-cessationist mantra over and over again it will somehow make it true.
Tell me, do you really believe what you have said or did you post what you said as a sort of ‘I need to believe that something is so”?
No, everyone can see for themselves that the lexicon material you yourself posted contradicts your own claims.
So, for those cessationists who might be confused by your statements let me reiterate what Thiselton stated.
“The climactic τδ τέλειον includes the double meaning the complete (NRSV) and wholeness (REB). Depending on the specific force required by the context the word may also mean perfection (NIV, NJB) or perfect (AV/KJV, RV)”.
Yes but that is not the meaning that Thiselton thinks should apply to 1 Cor 13:10, is it. You are trying to twist Thiselton's words. Thiselton rightly says that
depending on the context the word teleios
may also mean perfection, but that is not the case here. He goes on to tell us what he thinks the word means in this context:
On the lexicography of the word, see above on 2:6, where it clearly carries the different sense of mature (usually of persons), as it does in its one remaining use in this epistle, ταῖς δὲ φρεσὶν τέλειοι γίνεσθε (14:20). However, here there is also a further hint of τέλειος as denoting a goal. For just as in 2:6 the wisdom for the mature is not for those who exhibit childish self-centeredness and immediacy, even so here Paul is about to draw the same contrast with being infantile or childish or childlike in v. 11a and the goal of mature adulthood. Hence it combines the two related notions of fulfillment or goal and the completed whole. No English word alone can fully convey the meaning in this context. To translate solely as the end (Collins) is barely adequate.198”
Clearly he thinks it means completion. And if you are in any doubt you only have to look at his own translation of the passage that he gave earlier in his commentary:
8Love never falls apart. Whether there are prophecies, these will be brought to an end; or if it be tongues, these will stop; if it be "knowledge," this will be rendered obsolete. 9 For we know in fragmentary ways, and we prophesy part by part. 10 But when the completed whole comes, what is piece by piece shall be done away.
With the knowledge that we now have regarding the often-improper use of gender as a foundation for a given argument then any such attempt can be put to the aside, even if the proposition is correct. What many cessationists attempt to emphasize is that the neuter cannot refer to a person such as with the return of Jesus, so in their mind (or with their need) they say that this must refer to the Canon; but what they fail to recognise is that Paul is speaking of the Parousia (neuter) and not specifically to Jesus, though both are of course connected.
Yet many continuists still cling to the idea that 'the perfect' is referring to Jesus himself, which is why it is important to dispel that idea right off the bat. The Parousia would indeed be neuter, but as Compton rightly points out:
The term “the perfect” represents an articular neuter adjective functioning as a substantive and translated “the perfect” or “that which is perfect.”71 Much has been said about the neuter gender of the adjective and what that indicates in terms of the adjective’s antecedent.72 The best explanation is that the adjective gets its gender from the neuter noun forming the expression “in part” in 13:9–10. In other words, by using the neuter form of the adjective in this context, Paul signifies that whatever the “in part” refers to, “the perfect” refers to its counterpart or its antithesis.73 Having the adjective in the neuter gender thus links “the perfect” and the “in part” as having ultimately the same referent. Whatever the “in part” refers to, the “perfect” refers to as well. The only difference between the two expressions is the difference over the relative dimension or extent of the referent.
We know that "in part" is referring to revelation. Hence 'the perfect' or 'completeness' must also refer to revelation.
Compton-"Based on the definitions given above, the common denominator among the gifts is that they all involve direct revelation from God. As such, the expression “in part” simply refers to the fact that the revelation communicated by these gifts is partial or piecemeal".
As this is an odd statement it can be left alone. How can God be praying to himself in tongues as revelation, that is certainly a very strange notion. Is healing a direct revelation from God or even with that of powers (aka, miracles). All too often, when commentators who have very little understanding of the things of the Holy Spirit attempt to defend their particular worldview from a position which lacks both knowledge of God’s Word and experience of the Holy Spirit, they often end up trying to establish strawman arguments that any or most Continuists will recognise are often eccentric.
You have made a rather obvious schoolboy error. Anyone who has read this passage could tell you that the gifts that are "in part" are the revelatory gifts of prophecy and knowledge. Tongues are not said to be "in part", but are included in passage as they cease at the same time. And despite what you might wish Paul had said, there is no mention of healing or miracles or any other gift in this passage ceasing.
Instead of managing to engage the subject matter, I see you finished that paragraph with one of your usual ad hominem anti-cessationist rants.
For those who are maybe not so well read on the now dated question as to the meaning of 1 Cor 12:10, Cottrell’s statement below is a good reminder as to why the old-school commentators who are still bound to the cessationist worldview are seemingly so desperate to maintain the illusion that 1Cor 13:10 is supposed to refer to the completion of the Canon.
Is that the most you can do to refute Cottrell's piece? I am impressed.
Houghton as again repeated the gender fallacy that ‘the perfect’ cannot refer to the return of Jesus (below), which as I said before refers primarily to that of the Parousia which is neuter;
"Several points should be noted about this phrase "the perfect." First, the fact that it is neuter ("that which is perfect") rather than masculine ("he who is perfect") does not rule out the possibility that it refers to Jesus Christ".
How can it be a fallacy to point out that the noun is neuter and therefore cannot be referring to Christ himself as many continuists still try to assert?
And that is all you can manage in response to Houghton also? You're doing well.
Even though I come across this type of comment within the various commentaries, there is actually no support that this sort of problem was occurring. What Paul did object to was with how the entire congregation was praising the Father in tongues all at once during their meetings, which served to confuse the unregenerate and cessationist visitors.
No, the reason the Corinthians were abusing the gift of tongues was because it was left untranslated and thus not edifying the assembly -
"You are giving thanks well enough, but no one else is edified." The whole purpose of spiritual gifts is to serve others (1 Cor 12:7, 1 Peter 4:10).
How could there be cessationists in Corinth? All the gifts were still in operation during the apostolic age. Doh.
Paul never suggests that prophecy should be 'pursued' over that of tongues, this is merely a fallacy on the part of Woods.
Maybe the following verses are missing from your bible:
1 Cor 14:5 "I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy."
1 Cor 14:1-4 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. 3 But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort. 4 Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church.
1 Cor 14:19 "But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue."
And after Paul ranks the gifts in numerical order in 1 Cor 12:28-30 with prophecy 2nd from the top after apostles, and tongues right at the bottom, he then says in v31:
"Now eagerly desire the greater gifts."
What a strange remark, why would Paul ever suggest that our efforts to develop the fruit of the Spirit trump that of the Eight Congregational Offices (12:28). Is he trying to suggest that our ability to live and work in an attitude of love surpasses the ability of the Holy Spirit to heal the sick and where the Spirit speaks to the congregation through prophecy?
That is not what Wood wrote. He said Paul encouraged the Corinthians to pursue love.... which is true (see 1 Cor 14:1) ....rather than the transitory gifts with which they had become preoccupied ie tongues, which Paul ranks as the least of the gifts (see above).
As Dean has quoted a fair amount of material from Thomas and that he also succumbs to the gender fallacy then his material can be left aside.
In other words you cannot refute any of it.
From what I can tell Farnell seems to rely heavily with Thomas as well; Gordon Fee in his footnotes to First Corinthians dismisses the commentary by Thomas on these issues as being not worthy of consideration.
Of course Fee as a pentecostal is unlikely to endorse Thomas's view. But rather disappointingly Fee doesn't explain why he rejects it. Maybe like yourself, he cannot refute Thomas's arguments so without reason he simply poo-poo's them with a broad stroke of his pen and a few ad hominem remarks added in for good measure.
Farnell appears to sum up his own views with that of Thomas (below) which most Evangelicals, be they scholars or lay persons have simply found to be unconvincing;
So not a word of rebuttal against Farnell's piece either, just an unsubstantiated statement that others have found it unconvincing.
So, all told you have failed pretty miserably in your attempts at refuting the cessationist scholars. In fact the only areas you attempted to tackle them were on secondary issues. Their main arguments for tongues and prophecy ceasing before the Parousia you left untouched. Clearly you were unable to refute them.