As I read through the various comments I decided to give a summary of how I got here. I do that because of the tendency to some pretty sweeping generalizations in these comments.

I am a pastor of twenty five years and I have preached through almost the entire NT expositionally, some books multiple times. I do this from the original languages as well. I have read widely and extensively in the best of history. And it was the combination of these that led me to cease being a cessationist.

It was being controlled by the text that first began to break through as I encountered passages where it seemed my cessationism could not stand. It was an exegetical study of 1 Corinthians 14 that drove me to change my views on tongues. I may err certainly, but I stand on the principle that if I am ruled by the text of Scripture and approach it freshly each time I study it, I am on the safest ground I can find under the keeping grace of God.

I have been corrected and changed so many times by the Word and I am grateful for God’s grace in this.

But there was help. It was the works of history that helped me break out of my late 20th century anti-pentecostalism — most significant were Lloyd-Jones thoughts on the Holy Spirit and Revival in various places of his works, and Edwards on Religious Affections. I also read widely on the Holy Spirit in pre-20th century works and found a very different emphasis and understanding than what I considered mainstream.

What I found was that men like Edwards, seeing very similar extravagances of behavior, did not dismiss them out of hand, but sought for the marks of the Spirit’s work.

CS Lewis was correct — old books pointed out my own blind spots.

I am convinced that there is not a ceasing of any gifts just as surely as I am convinced that there is not a first and second stage in the Spirit’s activity in this last era of history and this beginning of the new day. I am convinced that the NT church was as submissive to Scripture as we are called to be — and that Scripture was given by the 12, men whose credentials can never be duplicated. I am convinced as well that this does not mean we see more of the Spirit’s work than someone else, for God is not waiting for us to get things right before he works. I am grateful for that!

I have also seen just as many abuses of authority and sin among leaders in one camp as in the other. It is all of grace that we are useful at all for God’s glory.

As I have time I may post again on this, but most of what I would say would be found in the posts you cited above.

Grateful for the work you are doing.

Mark

What I mean by silly is that we must understand that God, Spirit and limitless and sovereign as He is, super-rules not only space and time, but our understanding of His revelation. He presides over and does among His people what He will, and no amount of systematization will ever fully and adequately define His doings; if it could, then someone could be His counselor, a thing which He says no one can do. We would have license to sit next to God and remind Him that our theological discoveries have bound Him to certain criteria. Because we are to tremble at his august holiness and might, we had better be careful that we only label ourselves continuationist or cessationist; God is not to be analyzed and categorized like men are.

1) The miracle of tongues on that particular day of Pentecost was INDEED as much a miracle of hearing as it was of speaking (to augment my brother in Christ’s comment earlier). For 120 people to speak in the native tongues of three thousand different people, you either have to imagine the Holy Spirit neatly dividing the hearers into little groups of 25 listeners per speaker, OR you have to imagine the supernatural tongues being spoken as they were, but TRANSLATED TO THE EARS of the hearers, much like the overdubs in English of a foreign film (my general opinion). For the event on Pentecost to have taken place in that manner, we must admit that the languages spoken by the 120 did not NECESSARILY have to be known languages; I never pay attention to the original language in a foreign film; I am always carried along by what is translated for me to hear.

2) The idea of the “perfect” in 1 Cor. meaning the completed canon of Scripture is, to me, almost laughable. The canon was decided by an ecumenical council and ratified and approved by, so help us, a Pope. The canon would NOT have been promulgated as authoritative without his stamp. Never mind that people were using the same generally-agreed-upon books for years before; the fact is that we have a specific date and specific council to which we must point in order to make the argument that the canon is closed. Why didn’t the Reformers throw out the baby of canonicity with the bathwater of Romish sacramentalism and Papism? Because the Reformers and everyone else who defend the inclusion of these particular books in the Bible’s canon are relying on the WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT, a rather experientialist excercise by nature, because you cannot, simply CANNOT, use Scripture to prove the canon is closed or what constitutes the canon. Everyone who is taking this canon as authoritative is either following the dogmatic pronouncement of a Pope and a council under his rule, OR they are relying on an extraBiblical supernatural leading and witness of the Holy Spirit.

Just some fuel for the fire. May the Spirit rain down upon us in both blazingly bright AND consumingly hot power, for His Kingdom and His glory. Amen.

So she caught, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,

I have peace offerings with me; this day have I paid
my vows.

Therefore came I forth to meet thee, dilligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.

I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with
carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.
NOTE:… all perverted bibles Rome creates are rooted
in “Hesychian”aka “Alexandrian” manuscripts. Alexandria
is in EGYPT, EGYPT is in Africa. Africa is the DARK
continent.

I have perfumed my bed myrr, aloes and cinnamon.

(watch out here comes the LOVE)
Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning:
let us solace ourselves with loves.

For the goodman of the house is not at home, he is gone
on a long journey:

He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come
home at the day appointed.

(Acts 1:18 6X3=18) Judas took a long journey too and coincidently before he did he was connected to a BAG of MONEY was he not? He went to his
own special place. His bowels burst out. Bowels are in
the BELLY.(2nd Corinthians 2:12)

With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.
(LIKE the words in the previous post)

2nd Corinthians 11:11,12

Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth.

But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherin they glory, they may be found even as we.

Galatians 5:12

I would they were even cut off which trouble you.

No doubt God is love, but God HATES false doctrine.
And calls his children to BE YE SEPERATE
(2nd Corinthians 6:11-17).

DON’T BE STUPID(Proverbs 7:22-27)

Now, that being said, what does a sign gift do? Well, a sign gift points to something, it is an announcement of sorts unlike say the gift of knowledge or mercy.

So this leads to another key which is the answering of this question, “What exactly was the purpose of the sign gift of tongues?” When you answer that, you have answered when they will end because until what it is that they announce has been completed or fulfilled or realized they will not end.

That’s all for now, but your entire tongues doctrine rests in Isaiah if one is actually developing their argument from the text and not leaving it behind.

I was going to respond directly to some of the claims of the first commenter, but honestly that writer tries to frame the question as though his interpretations of what tongues are is the only reasonable option. That just isn’t the case.

A few questions I have never received an adequate answer to from cessationists:

If the languages were exclusively human, why is there a “gift” of interpretation? I mean, if the tongues were meant only and exclusively for evangelism to those who spoke different languages, why do you need an interpreter at all?

If tongues were never meant for personal edification, how come Paul states he speaks in tongues more than all of them, but in the church he prefers to speak language which can be understood? (1 Cor. 14:18-19)

How can you claim to see perfectly now because of the completion of the canon, and how could Paul have possibly expected anyone he was originally writing to to understand he meant the completion of the New Testament?

A few things to consider. The miracle on the day of Pentecost may not have been a miracle of speaking as much as a miracle of hearing. A careful reading of Acts 2:4-9 shows it very well could be that one person speaking in tongues could have been understood by those who speak several different languages. This, of course, would mean that the actual tongues being spoken would not necessarily be (and perhaps even very unlikely to be) a human language.

In Acts 10, the purpose of the tongues does not seem to be evangelistic, but to confirm the reception of the Holy Spirit by the Gentiles hearing Peter’s words. (I should note I am not Pentecostal in the sense that I do not believe the “initial physical evidence” of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues. I do however note that speaking in tongues is what confirmed the reception of the Holy Spirit in this instance.)

In Acts 19, the tongues also were not intended for some evangelistic purpose, as there were 12 men present and all of them appear to have been baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Dismissing Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 13:1 of speaking “with the tongues of men and of angels” without a closer inspection is inadvisable. While I do not believe you can prove from Scripture that there were tongues which were not human language, neither can you disprove it. There’s more evidence, however, supporting Paul’s “of angels” to be more than just poetic language (and what would be the point of adding it, any way, were it not a fact that angels had tongues which were not human languages?). I refer again to the miracle of hearing in Acts 2, as it is quite possible they were not speaking human languages since the miracle seems to be one of hearing rather than speaking. Paul encourages those who pray in tongues in private to also pray that they may interpret so they understand what they say, for understanding is better. Note that Paul does say one who prays even without understanding has his spirit edified, but that it is even better to have your spirit and your mind edified by understanding.

This is also evidence of a speaking in tongues which does not fit the purpose of the “gift” in 1 Corinthians 12. The gifts were given for the edification of the body of Christ, yet there seems to be a tongues which Paul himself practiced which was for self-edification.

Which raises another question. If praying in tongues was edifying to the spirit, without understanding, how would “the perfect” (if we accept the cessationist’s definition for “the perfect” as the completion of the canon) negate the need for this type of edification? For that matter, how does “the perfect” negate the need for a timely word of wisdom or prophecy? Or how does the completion of the New Testament negate the need for healings? Miracles?

The entire cessationist argument is built around circular logic and falls apart if they are wrong at any point. The cornerstone of the circular logic is that the tongues will cease when “the perfect” comes. If this is not a valid interpretation for the passage, the cessationist argument fails to hold even a little bit of water. To claim the original recipients of the letter would understand “the perfect” in the way the cessationist’s would have you believe is ridiculous at best and manipulative at worst. Simply put, it is what they have to believe otherwise the clear biblical position on the gifts is a continuationist position.

The fact of the gifts continuing does not give the right for abuse. The Corinthians were extremely abusive in their handling of the gifts, and Paul certainly wrote to them as a corrective. Please consider, however, that Paul did not say these gifts were not legitimate because they were being abused. Cessationists want to call out those today who are abusing gifts as demonic specifically because of abuses. These abuses are wrong, but there is clear biblical evidence that God allows their wrongful use. The evidence is the church at Corinth. We must be careful to condemn those who are misusing the gifts as demonic and unchristian. It’s a judgment Paul does not pass upon a group of Christians as abusive as most of the horrendous abuses which can be seen today.

And also remember Paul said to not forbid the speaking of tongues. Cessationists are on shaky ground when they hold their position in spite of the wealth of biblical evidence which points to the gifts being normative for the church. Continuationists who ignore the guidelines Paul gives for the healthy manifestations of the gifts are on no less shaky ground. Disobedience is a terrible thing on both sides of the issue.

To find out about a strong church in Oregon, you could contact First Baptist Church of Eugene and ask for their recommendations or if they know of biblical churches in certain cities. John MacArthur’s father is one of the past pastors of First Baptist Eugene. I don’t want to leave their phone number here on the meta, so use a search engine and you’ll find their website and contact information.

Steve

I am a Reformed continuationist, and judging by the comments that have come in so far, I’ve got my work cut out for me! May God get the glory, and may we get the joy!