Subject: Who decided that the extraordinary gifts |
Bible Note: Hi, Brad... I think you will find that Brother BradK's assessment does, indeed, reflect both doctrine and practice for Biblical Christian orthodoxy. I wish I could express myself as well as he! We draw our normative practices and our doctrines from didactic passages. The record of the miracle with Lazarus did, does, and always will affirm that Jesus is Messiah (John 11:42-43), bringing glory to God in general, and to the Son of God in particular (John 11:4). Nowhere in the narratives recounting the miraculous restoration of life are we told that these incidents are to be normative behaviors. In reference to your suggestion regarding John 11:45: We do not implement or eschew practices based on their results. The truth manifests itself in practical ways, but pragmatism is not a Christian philosophy. Even if this were a sound exegesis of that passage, we can cite other passages where Christ performed miracles only to have people stop following Him (John 6:62-66). After all, belief is never a matter of what people see (Luke 16:31). You also cited 2 Corinthians 4:4, but that whole passage is about God bringing the truth directly to the hearts of those to be saved (v6), not about miraculous manifestations in the church. Finally, I would remind you of Peter. He actually experienced directly the voice of God (Luke 9:35). When he discussed this miraculous experience in 2 Peter 1:18-19, he does not tell us to seek out such supernatural experiences. Instead, he places the value of such an experience as being far less sure than that of the Word of Scripture itself! Therefore, as we read the miracles of Christ and the apostles in the primitive church, we ought to be moved far more than by any sensationalism or theatrics we may experience directly. God is gracious to grant us experiences, but they are nothing as compared to the living Word! In Him, Doc |