Mrs Meg Logan

However, I personally have trouble with TV evangelists who peddle conjuring tricks and lead us to believe that God’s power to heal can be turned on and off like a tap by the right kind of preacher. I don’t think the “gift of healing” was ever like that in the Church.

I agree with you one hundred percent about being annoyed by people blaming someone’s faith for lack of healing. I get even more annoyed by people who tell us that we must believe in our healing even if the evidence of our own eyes is contrary to this. That, to me, is like “mind over matter” and has no place in the Christian church.

Stephen

Also there were people who prophecied in the New testament whose prophecies did not appear in any of the books or letters. It seems that there was New Testament prophecy that was not of a type to be recorded as scripture, but rather spoke into specific situations in the Church.

Likewise tongues – the tongues of Acts were sign gifts, but Corinthian tongues do not seem to have been sign gifts – nor the tongues that Paul spoke “more than any of [the Corinthians]“. The Corinthians were abusing these gifts, showing off their “spirituality” to one another, and Paul had to deal with this abuse – but he seems to accept Corinthian tongues as a normal part of the Corinthian Christian experience.

Incidentally, in 1 Cor 12, where Paul writes “Now concerning spiritual gifts”, the word gifts is not actually present. Paul writes “now concerning the sprituals”, and I think he is actually talking about the puffed up Corinthian Christians who think they are spiritual because they speak in tongues. Paul brings them down a peg or two, as you would expect.

But whilst I don’t see any reason why the tongues of the Corinthian church should not be found in the modern church, I wonder how often they are found. As Shelli has written, tongues sometimes seem to owe more to psychology and the expectations of the pentecostal churches where they are found than anything else.

Nevertheless I see no reason to argue that tongues could not be found in the Church today.

Thanks for the article,

Stephen

But as for God Himself healing…How many times has He healed unborn babies of the problems dr’s say they will be born with? Or prevented illnesses from progressing? These miracles we may not be even aware of…

One of my friends tells the story of her experience with healing. Shortly after a horrible divorce (not her fault) left her a single mom raising 3 kids with hardly two pennies to rub together she got a horrible toothache…she’d never felt pain like that pain before, excruciating. It was the middle of the night, and she wept, wondering how on earth she’d be able to afford to go to the dentist (she was prone to tooth problems). She prayed for relief, and humbly asked God to take her pain away. She specifically asked for Him to have mercy on her when she put pressure with her finger against the inflamed area…and instantly the pain was gone.

This is healing. This is not “naming it and claiming it”. Faith isn’t a way to bargain with God for healing. I get my feathers a bit ruffled when I hear people saying, “So and so must not have enough faith or they wouldn’t be sick”. Yikes.

I’m curious about the scripture that talks about the annointing of oil and laying on of hands. Another one ripe for discussion!

I’m with Shelli, I love talking all this out and getting everyone’s perspectives on it! Iron sharpening iron!

Mrs Meg Logan

Mrs Meg Logan

I do agree that we shouldn’t be seeking for signs per se, but I believe that when the Bible tells us to seek spiritual gifts, we need to obey. I also believe that if the more supernatural gifts were supposed to die out, He’d have put it in the Scripture. When we see Him face to face we will no longer need them, but till then, we have a job to do.

I can understand why people would believe otherwise, as there has been much abuse of spiritual giftings in the Body, so please don’t feel like I am condemming anyone here. It is just that I have been walking with the Lord since 1980, I have experienced His healing touch in my own body, and I have experienced and been blessed by supernatural spiritual gifts used Biblically.

Scripture says that without faith it is impossible to please God. (Let me be clear, I am not talking about hyperfaith-we all know what that is) But I think we can have faith that God is indeed still a supernatural God who can do more than we can ask or think, and we can trust Him to perform His word-ALL of it.

Meanwhile, the important thing is that whether we are cesssationists or we are charismatics, our one goal is to please God and love one another. No matter what we believe on these things we are brothers and sisters in Christ, His servants, and one family.

Anna

“God gifts those that he chooses to and doesn%u2019t necessarily gift us all.”

I think this is refuted quite simply in 1 Corinthinans 12:11, which reads “but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to EVERY MAN SEVERALLY AS HE WILLS.” (emphasis mine of course). In my KJV there is a notation by the word sverally, which reads “individually”, but still that means that every man gets one. And of course we know that MAN here means HUMAN.

Mrs Meg Logan