Glad to hear it, but the church is not as powerful as it was in the days of the Apostles - you know, that time after Pentecost when they spoke in tongues, performed miracles, raised the dead, made disciples and used, and walked in, the gifts of the Spirit.
The age of Jesus and the apostles was indeed a time when great miracles were being performed. But there was a reason for that - to authenticate the leaders of the fledgling church. Miracles confirmed that Jesus was the Son of God, and miracles confirmed the apostles as his spokesmen.
Acts 2:22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.
Heb 2:4 "God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will."
Mark 16:20 "Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it."
Notice the past tenses in all those verses. These gifts are not in operation today. People having such abilities were limited to short periods of history when God needed to authenticate their message. There have been 3 such periods in biblical history: the time of Moses and Joshua to authenticate and introduce the writing of the Pentateuch, the time of Elijah and Elisha to introduce in the age of the Prophets, and Jesus and the Apostles to authenticate the Gospel and New Testament. People saw the miracles, were amazed, recognized they were from God and listened to the message. After the message and their messengers were authenticated the 'fireworks' ceased.
There's nothing to say WHEN completeness will come, or even what that is - your interpretation.
There are two predominate theories as to what "completeness" is - the completion of the canon and the return of Christ. An in-depth study of the passage will reveal which is the correct interpretation.
It doesn't mean that your view is the correct one and all others who testify to having heard/used tongues are mistaken.
My view is based on the biblical description of the gift. Is scripture wrong?
How do you know you're not?
That's dodging the question. You are the one who said you believe people when they say they speak in tongues. How do you know they are not mistaken?
Depends how you define baptism in the Spirit.
I use the biblical definition in 1 Cor 12:13
Whereas Christians are converted and born again due to the work of the Holy Spirit, and may ask, daily, to be filled with the Spirit - without actually being baptised in the Spirit.
Impossible. If you are not baptized in the Spirit you are not part of the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:13). All believers, including you, have been baptized in the Spirit. It is a baptism that unites believers into the body of Christ, not a baptism that divides believers into the "haves" and "have nots".
There are a number of other Scriptures which say that people were converted and spoke in tongues.
We are not told what the tongues were, or involved.
No, that is because Luke gave us a full description of the gift when it first appeared. Therefore he does not need to give another multi-verse description on every subsequent occurrence. If they were different Luke, who was a stickler for detail, would have told us so. So in the absence of any new definition it is perfectly safe to assume they are the same.
Scripture says that believers were filled with the Spirit and spoke in tongues. YOU insist that these tongues had to be like those described in Acts 2 - Scripture doesn't.
If you claim the other tongues may have been non-human languages then you are making a dangerous unwarranted assumption. It is reading your own ideas into scripture - the fallacy of eisegesis.
There is no evidence that every tongue that was spoken by a believer was a known, recognisable language.
If you are using the established principles of hermeneutics then that is the only conclusion to be made. To say otherwise is going beyond scripture. Making up spurious doctrines using unwarranted assumptions, and then attempting to defend them by saying "well scripture doesn't say otherwise" is a very dangerous practice. It is thinking like that which has caused countless schisms in the church.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that it was never used and no one had the ability to pry that way.
I never said it was. I said it was a misuse of their gift and therefore not a legitimate way to pray in tongues.
I ignored what you said about a prophecy being a feeling, because you cannot prove that and have no right to make the judgement.
I was responding to what you said about the declaration that the prophecy was a word from the Lord. You seem to think it presumptuous to say that - I am saying that it is rather presumptuous to dismiss that.
I said it was presumptuous for people having feelings and to declare them to be a "word from the Lord". To which you replied that I was being presumptuous in saying that they (the feelings) are NOT a word of from the Lord. You must then disagree with my original premise. So I'll ask again - where in scripture does it ever say prophecies come from a feeling?
On the other hand, I don't respond to people who say "the Lord told me ....." by saying "you may be mistaken" or "prove it".
So if someone told you "The Lord has told me you must marry me" or "The Lord has told me you must demolish your house", you wouldn't say "You may be mistaken"?
But the fact is that the Spirit may give people personal words that cannot be tested in Scripture. Scripture does not tell us which job we should take/house we should buy/person we should marry/how many kids to have/what church to go to etc etc. So if someone says, "the Lord has told me I should take this job" or whatever; how will you test that they are mistaken?
If they say "The Lord has told me...." when the Lord has told them nothing and it is in fact only a feeling they were experiencing, then they are making a false prophecy. All the examples of prophecy in scripture are of God speaking precise words to the prophet who then quotes them to others. Never are they feelings that are verbalized into "The lord told me...". Read Jeremiah 23:16-40 to see what the God thinks about people who make prophecies from their own minds.
But those words don't always have to be about some future event
I never said they did.
and they don't have to be preceded by "thus saith the Lord"
Of course not. Only a few handful examples out of the dozens of prophecies in scripture begin "Thus saith the Lord". I would have thought it was obvious that was just using that as a glaring example. My point, which you apparently missed, is that prophets were always quoting what the Lord actually spoke to them. Not verbalizing their feelings.
Someone may proclaim God's words, or will, and not even realise they are prophesying.
When Caiaphas said that it was better for one man to die for the people than the nation should perish,
John 11:50; that was a prophecy,
John 11:51. He didn't know it, but it was.
No, Caiaphas was not a prophet of God. No passage of Scripture identifies him as one. There were no in prophets in Israel from the time of Malachi until John the Baptist, 400 years later. The qualifications for being a prophet were they had to be holy men with good fruit (Jer 23:14-32, 2 Peter 2:1-3,. Matt 7:15). Caiaphas was a wicked and unrighteous man. Another qualification of a prophet was their prophecies must come true (Deut 18:22). Caiaphas's "prophecy" said the Jesus should die in order to prevent the nation of Israel being taken over by the Romans. But that did not come true - Jerusalem and the Jewish nation was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Caiaphas made a false prophecy.
The reason John calls it a prophecy is because it was Pharisaic tradition that the high priest could prophesy, in a similar way to the way Roman Catholics believe the Pope may make ex-cathedra pronouncements. (see Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 6.6.3; 11.8.5; 13.10.3). John makes it clear that Caiaphas prophesied by virtue of him being the high priest that year, and not on his own authority as a prophet. It was simply ironic that he unwittingly said things about the Savior that in hindsight had a deeper meaning for Christians.
