Can anyone show me where in scripture the Lord taught this methodology to his disciples?

No, this is exactly how those in the new age cults are taught to heal.
Look at what Quantum Touch teach and testify to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqlOZVGTVuY

Read Watchman Nee on “The Latent Power of the Soul”

God can and does still heal, we can ask in faith , but we are not to “loose” anything…
Look at how Karate works…releasing sounds as the Chi is focused down through the limb…no different than Benny Hinn saying, “I loose thy touchhhh!”
It is not God…it is soul power.Focused soul power.

Obviously, the prosperity preachers have abused this area which gives it a bad reputation.

Regarding your larger question, I find it most extraordinary that you claim there are virtually no healings occurring today based on reliable information. I humbly submit to you that you need to do far more investigation into this issue. I personally know people who have been healed of many illnesses, and in some cases these are true physiological problems like misaligned spines, injured feet, etc. I recently attended a couple of healing meetings where local people (i. e., people I know are local and aren’t “plants”) received healing for blindness, deafness, tumors, arthritis, bone injuries, and more.

Here’s a very close-to-home example: some of the folks in my church’s youth group went out to dinner just a couple of weeks ago and prayed for the waitresses’ injured foot. She felt heat and tingling in the foot (a usual symptom of divine healing) and the pain completely left. She was so excited that she ran off to tell the manager, who came out and asked for prayer for his family troubles! In another case, one of the girls in the youth group prayed for (if my memory serves rightly) the knee of one of the boys in her school, and he began to jump up and down with shock saying it felt like it was on fire! Soon it felt totally better. My church also has a small healing ministry that’s recently started to take off, and I heard about a case where a man whose spine was misaligned so that his arms were different lengths when held in front of him literally saw his shorter arm “grow” out as the spine aligned itself. He and his family who were with him were stunned — they apparently weren’t really expecting that to happen and couldn’t even believe what they saw!

I personally have not yet prayed for healing and seen such an instantaneous result, but I believe with 100% certainly that I will when I’m in the right place with God. However, I can say that I have had prophetic words/images from the Spirit that have come to pass in my own life, and when I was baptized last year (though I accepted Jesus back in the 80’s), I was also baptized in the Holy Spirit and have spoken in tongues. So this really isn’t exactly an academic discussion for me…the gifts of the Spirit are real and tangible and have completely transformed my heart and my devotion to God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So now you know a bit more where I’m coming from. Many charismatics will tell you similar stories. Thousands and thousands of people all over the world, and yes, even here in the U.S., are being healed and even raised from the dead as God pours out His Spirit upon all flesh in these last days. Whether you believe that to be true or not is up to you.

I believe it.

You asked a very intriguing question in your initial post: “Why would one want to believe that the gifts have ceased”? It is a good question to ask. I think that most Christians would respond that they would NOT want there to be a cessation of the gifts. Indeed, to see the church move in power and do the things that our Lord and his apostles did would be most encouraging: healing the sick, raising the dead, prophesying, speaking in unlearned languages, etc.. The problem though is that this just simply isn’t happening in contemporary times.

There have been plenty of posts in this thread that give all the scriptural evidences for one’s respective position, but I would like to respond just observationally. What do we really see going on in the church today? Do we see real healing of the sick? Are the dead being raised? Are there sounders of swine jumping into the abyss? Ok so, I see that we’ve already broached this subject in prior posts, but only just. There is real difference when observing manifestation of the gifts between “scarcely” and “never“. Can we in fact point to a single verified instance in the modern church of someone being raised from the dead? This is no trivial question. It goes direct to the credibility of the Christian claim. As Christians we have great joy in knowing that ours is not a philosophical belief; we rest in the knowledge and comfort that we know God IS — that He created and sustains the heavens and the earth; that Christ actually did come, die and rise again on the 3rd day. Scripture in most part is God’s divine revelation to us reporting how He has interacted with humankind historically and spiritually in implementing His redemptive plan. To understand its meaning, we need not employ some esoteric or mystical means of interpretation, and when we look at the world and its history we take joy in seeing how much it comports with God’s telling of it. This is not to imply that our observation is by any means the final arbiter of God’s word, but it is to say that we are without excuse before the judgment throne. “I didn’t know” or, “there wasn’t enough evidence” is not a defense that will be allowed. General and Divine revelation speak too much to the authority and truth of Christ.

So then, if the Christian claim is that the gifts continue, then we should see some evidence for it. This simply goes to a matter of credibility — particularly since there are many who are presently claiming that it is continuing, and that the reason it is continuing is to serve the church and serve as evidence for her authority. But what are we seeing? I hear faint words of miraculous things being done in remote areas of the world, but nothing that can be verified. This begs the question, “since the charismatic movement found its revival in the Western world, and the Holy Spirit is moving mightily there, why is there no evidence for it”? Perhaps you will say there is evidence for it. Ok….where? When we look at healing for example, we see cancers and diabetes cured, and there are those who will claim that this serves as adequate evidence. However, when we look at diseases and illnesses such as these, we notice that there exists a certain percentage of cases that experience a spontaneous remission, and that the percentages of cases that experience such remissions are the same in the Christian and secular communities. It is a natural phenomenon that is part and parcel of the disease itself. Show us someone who has been cured of lifelong blindness, or quadriplegia, or even death at the hands of someone who has the gift of healing. We can’t because it simply is not happening. Why? Well it was suggested in an post that this has to do with pride and unbelief. But is this not the state in which the Holy Spirit found us to begin with? Are we not depraved beings who seek not to do the things of God, but indulge in our own sinful ways? It was God who found us, and it is God that justifies and sanctifies. All is grace! And if the Holy Spirit chose to grow the church through demonstrations of power through His gifts, who are we to hinder this choice? Is God not sovereign in all things? I don’t think that the argument of pride and unbelief holds much credibility with a proper understanding of God’s sovereignty. Also, would it not stand to reason that if God is miraculously healing some illnesses like cancer, that he would also choose to do the same with respect to all types of illness? Is He not an equal opportunity healer?

As an anecdote, I would like to add that my mother died of cancer. We did pray for God to heal her. We understand that God is sovereign, and that He does all things to the good for those that love Him, and if she had recovered, we would have given God all the praise. This is not a contradictory statement: God’s sovereignty has not ceased even though the gifts may have. And there was much good in her death: the way we saw God’s peace move over her, the way in which the church came to her in love and prayer, and song and charity. How great was the comfort provided her and her loved ones by the Spirit. This was in itself a tremendous gift that I am most thankful for.

These are just some thoughts that I hope in some small way add to the greater dialectic being offered by men who are much more learned in these things than me. I look forward to continued reading of the posts herein.

Blessings,
Phil

All right, thanks for the clarification. No hard feelings. You have a very good question there, and although I certainly can’t claim to understand the answer completely, I can think immediately of two reasons: pride and unbelief. We’ve been dealing mightily with both in our local church over the past year+, and it’s had a profound impact on my life as well as our corporate church life. Pride makes our desires and our ambitious and our intellect the filter through which we interact with God, and unbelief limits our ability to step out into supernatural realms which are uncomfortable or scary or challenging. When we lay down our lives for Jesus and say: Lord, have your way with me, no matter what the cost — when we truly step out in faith to believe all the God may have for us — things start to be activated in the Spirit. It’s amazing. Every day I learn more and more about the authority I have in Christ as I humble myself and pursue faith, and it’s just stunning.

Blessings to you John,

Jared

I’d love to get you to interact with me at my DebateBlog on this topic, particularly your exegesis of Acts 2 in which you have places most of your eggs, above.

Please take a look at the site and the format, and you can e-mail me if you’d like to try it out.

I apologize for the way my words came across. I wasn’t saying your church was a weird enclave b/c you guys are charismatic, but that if the gifts are so ubiquitous and profound there are way too many people who haven’t seen it ie if their are supernaturally gifted around why haven’t more people (in the church) experienced it?

Yes, I know people who have come to Christ or have had their faith mightily strengthened through prophesy. I also know people who have been healed in church and in the marketplace through our outreach. When people are touched by the Holy Spirit, they want to know God more! If all you’ve experienced was fake, as you say, then perhaps you need to travel around and see what the Lord is doing elsewhere.

God isn’t limited by the abuses you’ve seen. The Gospel message itself is abused and perverted all the time. Does that mean we shouldn’t preach Christ? Just because the Spirit is abused, does that mean we shouldn’t desire the gifts? God is bigger than human weakness, for which I am eternally grateful.

No more strength for this one!

Just tell me you know that I could write pages and pages right now haha

Perhaps if there is a new facet of the debate, but its my test season, so I’ll gracefully bow out, errrr not step into this one.

(so so so so so tempted to say something though)