Brad,
I’m glad you made the distinction between your position and the Charismatic position. Bu,t I think the charismatics would also consider you to have a narrow view of prophecy, if you view does not include speaking in tongues and foretelling the future. Having come from a pentecostal background, myself, I know that those two spiritual gifts are paramount.
I also think that most cessationist would agree with your definition of prophecy if you meant foretelling bodly the might deeds of God, or as the early Christians did in Acts 4:31, “and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speack the word of God with boldness. The problem with your assurtion is that you don’t really define the cessationist ‘narrow definition’ of prophecy. So whatever their narrow definition of prophecy is, its obviously ‘not supported by scripture.’ (Wouldn't you say that’s a straw man argument?)
Well, I’m looking forward to reading your post tomorrow. This is an interesting topic and debate within the family. Keep up the good work my brother.
Newton,
Good point I will make the clarification. My only pont in this post is to allow for non-canonical prophecy. I am defining the narrow view as the belief that every time there is a prophecy it must be infallible. The logic is if God is speaking it must be perfect and how could such speaking not be at the level of scripture if it is God speaking. That is the position I am refuting by using Saul prophesying.
As for tongues and fore-telling, I certianly believe that these are available as well. As I said, to do this justice and cover all the topic would take a long dissertation which maybe I should attempt to endevour. But unlikely...
Saul's fearlessness was very temporary and his love of God was indeed temporary.
This one statement I find quite unsetteling. One can love God for a season, but not truely be saved?
I know that is not the point of your post, and although I am infact a Weslyan, I would theologically agree with your take on the "gift" of prophecy. But I'm not thinking very theoLOGICALLY these days.
Your background in the Vineyard movement is very interesting to me. I know some of the history of the movement, and would have enjoyed being a part of the early days. My involvement with Vineyard was mostly as an observer, going to conferences, but I also joined with several Vineyard youth groups, including Anaheim, in the '90's, when we went to summer camp together. Those camps (we attended 5 years together) were instrumental in bringing my Baptist youth group into a fuller understanding of worship to the Lord. I also saw some of the extremes you seem to have seen and experienced. I have a different conclusion, though. Yes, there were extremes, but there were also some very powerful experiences with Jesus, profound enough that the kids were ruined for anything but Jesus. What I mean is, I have seen the bad, but I believe the good far outweighs the bad within the Pentecostal and Charismatic circles.
I want all of Jesus I can have, and I want that for my congregation, and that would include the Charismatic experience (baptism in the Holy Spirit, tongues, the gifts) and I see the Holy Spirit moving us in that direction more and more. It saddens me that you seemed to have been soured on such a wonderful and powerful movement.
Oh...That is not my intention al all. I embrace everything you enjoy and I am not in any way soured.
I do think that to bring these expereinces to the most people without offending with our own egos and illusions to grnadeur, we radicals need to take correction.
Brad,
I very much enjoy and am blessed by your writings. Thank you for clarifying your belief. I thoroughly liked the last line, too! Isn't that often the issue, trying to keep our own egos out of the way? I ask constantly, to make sure that "me" doesn't get in the picture when I'm preaching and teaching. I haven't perfected that yet, but hopefully am closer than what I was. God bless.
Scott
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