Let's discuss YOUR view. Along with all the Bible translations, you read 'telion' as 'perfection' instead of 'maturity'.
It is a bit difficult for me to be an advocate for Robert Thomas when I don't agree with his view...Unlike Thomas I do not think 'teleios' should be translated 'maturity' (not do any bible translations). Nor do I put undue emphasis on 1 Cor 13:11. That was just an analogy Paul uses, just like the analogy of the dim mirror in the next verse. Paul is not saying the early church was childish, any more that he is saying they were dim. His point with the analogies is that things changed for the better.
Or should we discuss your view? You seem to be hedging your "view" with disclaimers and obscurities - one wonders if you're willing to take any kind of stance at all. Anyway, earlier you seemed to summarize your view. You tried to slam this one in my face, so to speak:
Let's just summise by observing...How many of the dozens of scholars commenting on 1 Cor 13 agree that the gifts completely cease when "the perfect" comes, never to return? All of them.
In ch 2, Paul characterized the Corinthians as immature "babes" and used that same Greek word for "babes" in 1Cor 13. He also used the same Greek word for maturity (telion) in both chapters. Or does telion indeed mean perfection? In everyday life, transition from infancy to manhood is
universally understood to mean maturation rather than perfection. Admittedly one might want to second-guess that reading due to
theological presuppositions (theological biases), but nonetheless a consensus on
normal usage carries considerable weight in hermeneutics.
Even Christ, in His infancy:
"Spoke like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child" (12:11)
Did He gradually become 'perfect'? Or rather 'mature'? His knowledge developed gradually over time without reaching infinitude on earth. He
matured. Post-resurrectionally, however, he reassumed His perfection. Instantly! Notice the contrast.
(1) Maturation is a slow, painstaking, gradual development. It is a
quantitative growth of the existing state.
(2) Perfection is a
qualitative shift - it is an instantaneous abandonment of the existing state.
And the maturity-party cessationists (including Robert Thomas) agree with the above distinctions. Thomas states of the Greek word telion, "This is quantitative, not qualitative, so
to teleion must have the same quantitative connotation" (Robert Thomas, "1Cor 13:11 Revisited: An Exegetical Update," Masters Seminary Journal, Vol 4:2 (1993), p. 190).
A qualitative transition (perfection) seems eschatological. If the gifts remain until we become perfect in heaven, Continuationism is correct. As you insisted:
Let's just summise by observing...How many of the dozens of scholars commenting on 1 Cor 13 agree that the gifts completely cease when "the perfect" comes, never to return? All of them.
You have opted for "perfection" instead of "mature". I'm confused. Doesn't that make you a Continuationist? Yes, I'm aware this might be a misextrapolation of you, as I'm still unfamiliar with your views. At this point I am asking it as a QUESTION. Please explain to me how your "perfection" isn't Continuationist.
Robert Thomas (and others like him) advances a pretty solid reason for "maturation" - he argues that the passage uses the
quantitative expression "in part". Thus it pictures spiritual development as a slow transition from prophesying "in part" to prophesying "in full". Paul wrote:
"For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10but when [maturity] comes, what is in part disappears"
In his view (and others like him), the Greek phrase "in part" (ek merou) is decisively quantitative.
Maturity, then, is a quantitative abundance of prophecy, knowledge, and tongues. Robert Thomas drew that same conclusion, as I cited earlier.
Essentially, the foregoing is my rebuttal of anyone who ascribes "perfection" or "cessation" to this passage.