To Cease or to Continue, that is the Question

[Gregory Thompson]

When you see this, do you really think they are doubting?

And if such can be considered as doubt, who will have the right faith?

You really haven't been reading my posts, have you?

Doubt of the person praying is one factor.

Doubt of the whole world so there is an atmosphere of Jesus' hometown is another factor.

There are actually other factors as well, the bible speaks of the reasons why Prayers are answered.

Have you not considered in terms of resurrections,

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.(Isaiah 57:1)

There is also the possibility that the ministry would not use such a wonder to glorify the Father (condition in scripture), but use it to prove the correctness of their teachings. (which is a tendency today) Whatever the actual reason for the case you are singling out, God knows, and I do not.

 

[Guojing]

You really haven't been reading my posts, have you?

Doubt of the person praying is one factor.

Doubt of the whole world so there is an atmosphere of Jesus' hometown is another factor.

There are actually other factors as well, the bible speaks of the reasons why Prayers are answered.

Have you not considered in terms of resurrections,

The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.(Isaiah 57:1)

There is also the possibility that the ministry would not use such a wonder to glorify the Father (condition in scripture), but use it to prove the correctness of their teachings. (which is a tendency today) Whatever the actual reason for the case you are singling out, God knows, and I do not.

So basically you are saying, God can do miracles today but there is no guarantee that they will happen when you pray for them?

 

[Gregory Thompson]

So basically you are saying, God can do miracles today but there is no guarantee that they will happen when you pray for them?

Yes. You need to keep having faith, the time period required will be longer, and the faith needs to be consistent after the initial praying.

It may take longer for the "seed" to grow into the fulfillment.

And sometimes it just isn't possible because of the whole world's lack of faith, great miracles may not happen but some healings are possible.

 

[JohnT]

Oh, and I believe prophecy deals with foretelling future events.

Your definition, while your own may be too narrow:


prophesy
verb
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proph·e·sy | \ ˈprä-fə-ˌsī \
prophesied; prophesying
Definition of prophesy


transitive verb

1: to utter by or as if by divine inspiration
2: to predict with assurance or on the basis of mystic knowledge
3: PREFIGURE
intransitive verb

1: to speak as if divinely inspired
2: to give instruction in religious matters : PREACH
3: to make a prediction
from Definition of PROPHESY

(2) Prophecy (Rom 12:6; 1 Cor 12:10, 28, 29), under which may be included exhortation (Rom 12:8; cf 1 Cor 14:3). The gift of prophecy was bestowed at Pentecost upon the church as a whole (Acts 2:16 ff), but in particular measure upon certain individuals who were distinctively known as prophets. Only a few of the Christian prophets are directly referred to—Judas and Silas (Acts 15:32), the prophets at Antioch (13:1), Agabus and the prophets from Jerus (11:27 f), the four daughters of Philip the evangelist (ver 9). But 1 Cor shows that there were several of them in the Corinthian church; and probably they were to be found in every Christian community. Some of them moved about from church to church (Acts 11:27 f; 21:10); and in the Didache we find that even at the celebration of the Eucharist the itinerant prophet still takes precedence of the local ministry of bishops and deacons (Did., x.7).

It is evident that the functions of the prophet must sometimes have crossed those of the apostle, and so we find Paul himself described as a prophet long after he had been called to the apostleship (Acts 13:1). And yet there was a fundamental distinction. While the apostle, as we have seen, was one “sent forth” to the unbelieving world, the prophet was a minister to the believing church (1 Cor 14:4, 22). Ordinarily his message was one of “edification, and exhortation, and consolation” (1 Cor 14:3). Occasionally he was empowered to make an authoritative announcement of the Divine will in a particular case (Acts 13:1 ff). In rare instances we find him uttering a prediction of a future event (Acts 11:28; 21:10 f).


Lambert, J. C. (1915). Spiritual Gifts. In J. Orr, J. L. Nuelsen, E. Y. Mullins, & M. O. Evans (Eds.), The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Vol. 1–5, p. 2843). Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company.

As you hopefully can see, both the secular dictionary and ISBE give wider definitions than you stated above.

Want to revise your definition?

 

[JohnT]

WOF false teacher.

Is that redundancy?

 

[Jesus is YHWH]

Is that redundancy?

its like verily verily

 

[JohnT]

So basically you are saying, God can do miracles today but there is no guarantee that they will happen when you pray for them?

Prayer is a request, not a demand.

 

[Guojing]

Prayer is a request, not a demand.

In that case, then everyone is basically a cessationalist. Peter, when he healed the lame beggar in Acts 3, was clearly not requesting.

 

[JohnT]

JohnT said: ↑
Prayer is a request, not a demand.

In that case, then everyone is basically a cessationalist. Peter, when he healed the lame beggar in Acts 3, was clearly not requesting.

WOOSH!!

Evidently my post went over your head. Prayer has zero to do with one's theology.
It is a conversational petition to the Creator of the Universe

 

[JohnT]

its like verily verily

In English, it is similar. However in Hebrew (Aramaic is a derivative, and that is what Jesus spoke) it is a profound statement.

The construction of the profound meaning is a repetition of one word twice, So when Jesus says it, and the KJV translators did not pick the emphasis up, they went literal, and translated those idioms as if jesus only meant to say, "truthfully, truthfully".

 

[Guojing]

WOOSH!!

Evidently my post went over your head. Prayer has zero to do with one's theology.
It is a conversational petition to the Creator of the Universe

You do agree that Peter was not "requesting" God to heal the lame beggar in Acts 3 right?

 

[JohnT]

You do agree that Peter was not "requesting" God to heal the lame beggar in Acts 3 right?

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars.

That is an "answer" as relevant as your derailing question

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Your definition, while your own may be too narrow:


prophesy
verb
Save Word
To save this word, you'll need to log in.

Log In

proph·e·sy | \ ˈprä-fə-ˌsī \
prophesied; prophesying
Definition of prophesy


transitive verb

1: to utter by or as if by divine inspiration
2: to predict with assurance or on the basis of mystic knowledge
3: PREFIGURE
intransitive verb

1: to speak as if divinely inspired
2: to give instruction in religious matters : PREACH
3: to make a prediction
from Definition of PROPHESY

(2) Prophecy (Rom 12:6; 1 Cor 12:10, 28, 29), under which may be included exhortation (Rom 12:8; cf 1 Cor 14:3). The gift of prophecy was bestowed at Pentecost upon the church as a whole (Acts 2:16 ff), but in particular measure upon certain individuals who were distinctively known as prophets. Only a few of the Christian prophets are directly referred to—Judas and Silas (Acts 15:32), the prophets at Antioch (13:1), Agabus and the prophets from Jerus (11:27 f), the four daughters of Philip the evangelist (ver 9). But 1 Cor shows that there were several of them in the Corinthian church; and probably they were to be found in every Christian community. Some of them moved about from church to church (Acts 11:27 f; 21:10); and in the Didache we find that even at the celebration of the Eucharist the itinerant prophet still takes precedence of the local ministry of bishops and deacons (Did., x.7).

It is evident that the functions of the prophet must sometimes have crossed those of the apostle, and so we find Paul himself described as a prophet long after he had been called to the apostleship (Acts 13:1). And yet there was a fundamental distinction. While the apostle, as we have seen, was one “sent forth” to the unbelieving world, the prophet was a minister to the believing church (1 Cor 14:4, 22). Ordinarily his message was one of “edification, and exhortation, and consolation” (1 Cor 14:3). Occasionally he was empowered to make an authoritative announcement of the Divine will in a particular case (Acts 13:1 ff). In rare instances we find him uttering a prediction of a future event (Acts 11:28; 21:10 f).


Lambert, J. C. (1915). Spiritual Gifts. In J. Orr, J. L. Nuelsen, E. Y. Mullins, & M. O. Evans (Eds.), The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Vol. 1–5, p. 2843). Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company.

As you hopefully can see, both the secular dictionary and ISBE give wider definitions than you stated above.

Want to revise your definition?

I do not like religious dictionaries sometimes because they seek to make their own agenda to fit their own beliefs. Anyone can quote from a religious dictionary and say they are correct. But the religious dictionary was created by fallible men. I believe these dictionaries can sometimes influence regular secular dictionaries (Which is wrong).

Anyways, instead of just blindly quoting from some guy (or men) who wrote a religious dictionary, please show me a verse or set of verses on your own that makes you believe that the word “prophecy” does not in any way include foretelling the future depending on the context. If you don't point out such verses to me on your own, then I can just assume you do not know what you are talking about.

 

[Jesus is YHWH]

Deut 18
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”

21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD’” Jeremiah 23:16

“I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied” Jeremiah 23:21

hope this helps !!!

 

[Saint Steven]

1 Corinthians 3
Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders!

This seems like a general teaching. I don't see any indication that the Corinthians were being pious. This doesn't really have anything to do with piousness. (holier-than-thou)

Saint Steven said: ↑
Is there any indication that the Corinthian Christians had a holier-than-thou attitude? I don't recall that? It seemed that they weren't pious in the least.

 

[Francis Drake]

Most Cessationists do not believe ALL of the gifts have ceased. Most of them are referring to the sign gifts (like healing, prophecy, tongues). I believe discernment or warnings or insights about others is a gift that continues. But I do not believe prophecy is included in that because that would mean we would have to add new prophetic writings to the end of our Bible.

This is a complete misinterpretation of what prophecy means.

I also do not believe God wants us to write down any knew revelatory knowledge, and tack it onto the back our Bible, either.

No, but we should write all prophecies and visions down and seek the Lord for confirmation as to what they mean for us.

Side Note:

This is why I prefer to call myself a Partial Cessationist.

Side Note 2:

Oh, and I believe prophecy deals with foretelling future events.

Rev19v10...."For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

The "testimony of Jesus" simply means what Jesus would say (testify) if he was around. And its obvious that Jesus didn't spend all his time speaking about future events. Much of his time was spent on day to day mundane events that brought hope and life to those around him.

Thus the "spirit of prophecy" is that gift which reports what Jesus would say if he was around.
And take note that Jesus said he only did what he saw his Father doing, so it could perhaps be said that spirit behind Jesus's words were the testimony of the father!

Prophecy today is not about adding to scripture, nor is it always about future events.

Prophecy most certainly can bring scriptural truths to life, and it occasionally can speak of future events in people's lives. but primarily it brings huge encouragement to the saints.

I suspect you are contemplating today's gift of prophecy from a distance rather than personal experience. I can assure you that these gifts are truly wonderful assets in the body of Christ.
For more than 40 years I have lived my life under the direction of the Holy Spirit gifts. Either directly to myself, or from others, I have received countless prophecies, visions, dreams, words of knowledge etc. that have proved invaluable and on occasion have even saved my life.

 

[JohnT]

I do not like religious dictionaries sometimes because they seek to make their own agenda to fit their own beliefs.

Your statement is not based on knowledge; it cannot be substantiated. If the publisher is the Watchtower Society, then you have a case for bias, or the Paulist press, having a fancy Latin claim, you have possible case for Roman Catholic bias.

But if the contributing authors of the dictionary are Evangelical scholars, and the dictionary is published by an academic publisher, then you have a work taking a position of being less denominationally biased

In other words, I am exposing something which should be second nature: EVERY author and EVERY editor have an agenda, and that is not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is to make an outright condemnation of all "religious dictionaries" as you did.

FYI, the ISBE is a world-renown encyclopedia. Had you wanted to do criticism on the author of the article, you should have researched his c.v., and the published books of J. C. Lambert. As it is, your post seems to be a drive-by hit, fueled by ignorance of the facts.

Anyways, instead of just blindly quoting from some guy (or men) who wrote a religious dictionary, please show me a verse or set of verses on your own that makes you believe that the word “prophecy” does not in any way include foretelling the future depending on the context.

There are many theological words which we use today, and are not "defined by any Scripture verse" They include "trinity" and "hypostatic union" etc. We are neither afraid nor inaccurate to use them as you seem to suggest.

As it is, you are simply reversing the onus of proof, and that is not acceptable. You are free to agree or disagree with what I post. the post has nothing to say about your beliefs; rather my post is a partial accumulation of resources that bolster what I believe. They say nothing about you, nor of your beliefs.

But for you to challenge me to find something that you falsely attribute to me, namely "you believe that the word “prophecy” does not in any way include foretelling the future depending on the context." is a betrayal of your own academic responsibility.

Even if you were correct in stating that, you would need to:

1. find evidence from my posts agreeing with your false accusation
2. find evidence from Scripture supporting your position
3. refrain from using any source such as ISBE

Those stipulations are necessary because your post

1. claims a "bias in Bible dictionaries/ encyclopedias"
2. claims that my providing a definition of "prophesy" is somehow inadequate
3. claims to know about something about something that I never mentioned directly: discontinuance of certain spiritual gifts.

Thank you for giving me your lunch to eat. Please tell your mom that she bakes good cookies.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Your statement is not based on knowledge; it cannot be substantiated. If the publisher is the Watchtower Society, then you have a case for bias, or the Paulist press, having a fancy Latin claim, you have possible case for Roman Catholic bias.

But if the contributing authors of the dictionary are Evangelical scholars, and the dictionary is published by an academic publisher, then you have a work taking a position of being less denominationally biased

In other words, I am exposing something which should be second nature: EVERY author and EVERY editor have an agenda, and that is not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is to make an outright condemnation of all "religious dictionaries" as you did.

FYI, the ISBE is a world-renown encyclopedia. Had you wanted to do criticism on the author of the article, you should have researched his c.v., and the published books of J. C. Lambert. As it is, your post seems to be a drive-by hit, fueled by ignorance of the facts.



There are many theological words which we use today, and are not "defined by any Scripture verse" They include "trinity" and "hypostatic union" etc. We are neither afraid nor inaccurate to use them as you seem to suggest.

As it is, you are simply reversing the onus of proof, and that is not acceptable. You are free to agree or disagree with what I post. the post has nothing to say about your beliefs; rather my post is a partial accumulation of resources that bolster what I believe. They say nothing about you, nor of your beliefs.

But for you to challenge me to find something that you falsely attribute to me, namely "you believe that the word “prophecy” does not in any way include foretelling the future depending on the context." is a betrayal of your own academic responsibility.

Even if you were correct in stating that, you would need to:

1. find evidence from my posts agreeing with your false accusation
2. find evidence from Scripture supporting your position
3. refrain from using any source such as ISBE

Those stipulations are necessary because your post

1. claims a "bias in Bible dictionaries/ encyclopedias"
2. claims that my providing a definition of "prophesy" is somehow inadequate
3. claims to know about something about something that I never mentioned directly: discontinuance of certain spiritual gifts.

Thank you for giving me your lunch to eat. Please tell your mom that she bakes good cookies.

Notice how you did not even use one verse to make your case that the word “prophecy” does not always mean the foretelling of future events by divine intervention (i.e. God's power). Again, I ask you to make your case by using the Bible. This is why I am assuming you don't really know what you are talking about because your not picking up your sword and wielding it, dear sir.

Anyways, may God's peace and blessings be upon you (even if we disagree).

 

[Bible Highlighter]

Rev19v10...."For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

The "testimony of Jesus" simply means what Jesus would say (testify) if he was around. And its obvious that Jesus didn't spend all his time speaking about future events. Much of his time was spent on day to day mundane events that brought hope and life to those around him.

Thus the "spirit of prophecy" is that gift which reports what Jesus would say if he was around.
And take note that Jesus said he only did what he saw his Father doing, so it could perhaps be said that spirit behind Jesus's words were the testimony of the father!

This is called isolating verses out of context. If you were to keep reading in the very next chunk of verses, it talks about the Lord's second coming (Which is the foretelling of a future event) (You can see a description of the Lord's 2nd coming in: Revelation 19:11-21). So the testimony of Jesus includes prophecy because it involves testifying about His second coming. When I talk about Jesus, I must also talk about His return. This is why the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy according to Revelation 19:10. It's not a coincidence that verses 11-21 talk about Christ's 2nd coming (Which is a future event). So prophecy is still the foretelling of future events in context here. I do not see anywhere else in the Bible where the word “prophecy” is not used in reference to the foretelling of future events.

 

[JohnT]

Notice how you did not even use one verse to make your case that the word “prophecy” does not always mean the foretelling of future events by divine intervention (i.e. God's power). Again, I ask you to make your case by using the Bible.

I said that, and more, below

There are many theological words which we use today, and are not "defined by any Scripture verse" They include "trinity" and "hypostatic union" etc. We are neither afraid nor inaccurate to use them as you seem to suggest.

As it is, you are simply reversing the onus of proof, and that is not acceptable. You are free to agree or disagree with what I post. the post has nothing to say about your beliefs; rather my post is a partial accumulation of resources that bolster what I believe. They say nothing about you, nor of your beliefs.

But for you to challenge me to find something that you falsely attribute to me, namely "you believe that the word “prophecy” does not in any way include foretelling the future depending on the context." is a betrayal of your own academic responsibility.

Simply put. THE BIBLE IS NOT A DICTIONARY. It does not contain definitions excepting for the origin of the noun "Christian". Acts 11:26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. (ESV) That is merely an example, not a derail.

So you are simply arguing with yourself. You make a claim that I posted something I NEVER said, then you take me to task because I "supposedly did not provide proof from the Bible of something I never posted".

I am not calling you any name, but that sort of games-playing as displayed in your post reminds me of the Stooge film where Moe says to Larry before a coin toss, "Heads I win, tails you lose." From where I sit, it appears as if you may be playing a game, or else, you may not fully read/comprehend what I am saying, so you jump to unwarranted conclusions about what I actually post.