The PuritanBoard - View Single Post

a mere housewife · #18 (**permalink**) 03-30-2004, 10:47 AM

Thanks, Scott. I hate being the "lone ranger"; and it is difficult to believe that the great men throughout church history would have written off such well-documented instances of predictions and tongues as have been given as delusions or falsehoods. Jonathan Edwards was excellent with categories and distinctions, and it is hard for me to believe that he would have dealt with predictions & tongues (spoken in a legitimate, scriptural, orderly fashion) as if they constituted further revelation. This is why the verse you quoted, Christopher, doesn't convince me: it speaks to further revelation, but not to further signs/miracles. After all, Christ came before tongues in the NT; and the different ways and manners referred to is speaking of OT revelation, not of NT signs.

Joshua, I think we have a good rule for discerning whose experience is of God and whose isn't: the word of God, which tells us that if they speak not according to this word, then they are false prophets & teachers. Also, it gives guidelines for how these gifts are to be exercised.

For instance, if we take the case of the old lady I told you about, who has always maintained to intimate friends that God told her a week before her husband's death that he would die-- we have several Biblical ways by which to judge this. Did it come true? yes. Did it claim to be a new revelation? no. Did it contain anything contrary to Scripture? no. Is the lady trustworthy? There is absolutely no reason in our extensive acquaintance with her to think she would lie: she is one of the most Christian ladies I know. Did the prediction result in disorder, or unscriptural behaviour? No.

We also have the use of our common sense:
Is the old lady subject to delusions? no. Was she in a condition to suffer delusions at the time of her husband's death? no. If she was deluded, it resulted in the one of those most glorious instances of being able to rejoice in a difficult providence that I have met with: She was able to sing with her children at her husband's funeral: "Like a river glorious is God's perfect peace, over all victorious in its bright increase..."

If others are willing to turn all of these considerations to say "she has a false spirit" because it doesn't fit in with a theological definition that speaks primarily to revelation, not to signs and wonders, I am extremely reluctant to go along.

Patrick, I don't mean to quibble about what does "there" mean-- but I do not think that across the sea qualifies quite: the point I was making is that Paul was not physically present when the disorder with the tongues was going on. I absolutely agree that the foolishness of preaching is the means to spreading the gospel; but how can one preach if one doesn't know the language? How does a heathen know that this preaching is any different from the ranting of his witch doctor, who can walk across burning coals without being hurt? Your arguments about the apostolic office requiring these signs, and how they have no more use now, seem to be based on an association of these signs with new revelation. I do not make that association, and I wondered if I am missing something: what about these signs inherently speaks to new revelation?

Joshua, I think that Paul was not trying to tell them to stop speaking in tongues because he wasn't around, but to use them legitimately, and to seek the best gifts. I am not arguing for predictions/tongues being the best gifts, any more than I am arguing for them being further revelation.