cessationism

David Silker writes:

Are the gifts for today? Or are did they pass with the passing of the original twelve apostles?

The arguments to this question rage with increasing fervor. It’s an argument that has been raging for the past hundred years, though we can find traces of this heated discussion in the annals of revival history. Charismatic expressions of Christianity remains, in our day, the fasted growing sector of Christendom. The question, of course, is whether or not book of Acts Christianity was meant to be the template for normative Christianity in our day. There are some that spend much energy combating this idea. My reaction to this discussion may surprise you:

*Yawn.

That’s right, I have absolutely no concern for arguments about the cessation, or ceasing, of the gifts of the Spirit. When the gentleman who spends his days fighting for a powerless expression of Christianity wake up one evening to find his wife speaking in tongues, essentially the argument is over.

So rather than wrangle with words over the minutia of scripture that can never be definitively proven to mean that the gifts will pass away in this age, I hope to go in a drastically different direction in the manner in which I spend my energy and bend my thoughts. I want to pray and contend for an expression of Christianity that looks like the book of Acts, with evangelism and life in the Spirit that reflects the foundation that was laid for me by my fathers in the faith.

I echo that last paragraph.