House Church Talk - cessation of spiritual gifts

[Bruce Woodford]

Hi Ross,

Hope you have a great vacation and look forward to hearing from you after 
you return.

If my challenge to your teaching on the cessation of spiritual gifts "feels 
like a harder buffeting than it needs to be", please be assured that my 
concern is not directed towards you personally, but rather has in view the 
fact that "Ideas always have consequences!"  False beliefs and practices 
inevitably spring from false ideas.

Just three brief comments re your last post:
(1)When I asked about present day ministers i.e. evangelists and  pastors 
and present day ministries of exhorting, giving, ruling, discernment etc, 
you responded:"There are those that carry out these functions, just not by 
gifts. We have been equipped otherwise."

Dear brother, where in scripture do you see the body being equipped for such 
functions APART FROM GIFTING??
Let me ask the question from another perspective: Since you claim the body 
of Christ only had members called apostles, prophets evangelists, pastors 
and teachers WHILE IT WAS AN IMMATURE BODY... what scriptural designations 
are there for members of the MATURE body of Christ?
Also, since you claim that the immature body of Christ had functions such as 
prophecy, ministry, exhortation, teaching, ruling, giving, showing mercy, a 
word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, 
speaking in tongues, interpretting tongues...what scriptural designations 
are there for the functions of members in the mature body of Christ?

(2)In  response to your claim that faith and hope are fully realized at the 
return of Christ, I'd written:"There are many promises of God and prophecies 
to be fulfilled which will not all be fulfilled at the return of Christ!!! 
So how can faith and hope be fully realized then???"
To this you wrote:"...John will give us a number of passages which are 
explicit in that faith and belief are realized with eternal life which many 
can remember without listing them here. Also see 2Tim 1:12; 3:15; Ja 2:5; 
and:  1 Peter 1:9"

Your answer did not even address the fact that faith and hope will still be 
exercised AFTER THE RETURN OF CHRIST relative to promises and prophecies of 
scripture fulfilled AFTER THAT EVENT.  Why did you not respond to the point 
of my question?  Besides, saving faith to which you refer and the reception 
of eternal life is NOT realized at the return of Christ, but at the moment 
of conversion!!

(3)I'd written:"It is an absolute impossibility for a human body to be 
perfect/mature when all of it's members are not yet perfect or not yet 
mature. In exactly the same way the Body of Christ will never be 
perfect/mature until all of it's members are also perfect/mature!"

You responded (and I want to draw attention to your last two sentences 
below):"You are wrong here Brother....the human body does indeed take about 
18 years to grow to maturity. Until then, the body requires extra help and 
resources for its care that it can not provide for itself. The genes in our 
bodies are programmed to cause the body to develop into an adult. Thus, 
adulthood is the completion of our growth and development, or we could say 
physical maturity is the perfection of the growing process. To reach the 
designated end is the goal, and to attain the goal is the perfection of the 
process. We might also use the example of the caterpillar becoming the 
butter-fly. That emergence from the cocoon as a butterfly is the perfection 
for that worm! It has reached that final form for which it was destined to 
become. It is the perfection of its development. It speaks of the end of a 
process which finds it prepared to continue on in the next stage. Perfection 
is not the end of the journey of life, it is the end of the preparation for 
the journey of life.  The full-grown man is finished growing and he has 
matured and is of full-age and of full-stature (Mat thew 6:27; Luke 2:52; 
19:3; John 9:21,23). He has matured into an adult and his development and 
growth are complete. The full-grown man is physically equipped to do work 
and be competent in skills that the partially grown child is not. The person 
who has come to adulthood and has finished the processes of being educated 
and trained can accomplish so much more than the child. Maturity is having 
come to a state of completion, i.e., reaching the goal of the process, 
finishing it, or completing it. This passing from the partial stature of 
childhood to the full stature of manhood is the completion of a process. We 
are talking about the total package: physical and mental appropriateness, 
fit, able, and ready to be fully functional.  To me it seems acceptable to 
say that the body is "established" having developed as far as its DNA 
programming has allowed it. Also, by this time, there is mental maturity 
coupled with some experience. It is at this stage that one being mature can 
function as a resource provider rather than a resource consumer. After that 
point, it does not die but rather continues for another 60 or 70 years of 
being useful. There are matters of degrees but lets not allow that to spoil 
the analogy. Thereafter there are new cells being constantly produced and 
maturing to replace old cells which are replaced, but this does not mean 
that the body is still developing, only getting old. The picture of the body 
represents the church, cells, tissues, and organs compare to the individual 
members.  The gifts were the extra resources and care that the infant church 
required until maturity was reached, then those babysitters and caretakers 
were not needed and we can imagine how their continued exercise would 
inhibit the full grown body from being useful."

Observation #1 re what you have written above:
When the Holy Spirit drew the parallels between the physical body and it's 
members and the body of Christ and it's members, He used ORGANS (eyes, ears, 
hands and feet) as examples of members (individual saints).(I Cor 12) He did 
NOT, as you have done, portray members in the body of Christ as "cells" or 
tissues" which die and are replaced!  Cells and tissues which die are 
sloughed off and are no longer necessary to the physical body. However, 
saints who die physically do not cease to be united to Christ as members of 
His Body, nor do they cease to be necessary to the body as you claim  re. 
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers!

Observation #2: When the Holy Spirit drew parallels between bodily functions 
of various members ( i.e. hearing and smelling I Cor 12) and the functions 
of members of the body of Christ (teaching, prophesying, exhorting, ruling, 
giving, showing mercy etc Rom 12), those functions were ALL FUNCTIONS OF 
BODY MEMBERS FROM BIRTH TO MATURITY AND THROUGHOUT THE YEARS OF MATURITY! 
They are not functions carried out only UNTIL the body is mature!

Observation #3: You claim that all the gifts...the functions/ministries of 
Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12 and the ministers of Ephesians 4 were all 
"babysitters and caretakers [which] were not needed and we can imagine how 
their continued exercise would inhibit the full grown body from being 
useful."

But neither "babysitters" nor "caretakers" are MEMBERS of the body to which 
they minister!!!

Dear brother Ross, your theories that, like old cells or tissues of a 
physical body, spiritual gifts ceased, are no longer necessary and have been 
replaced by others...must logically and consistently lead to the following 
conclusions which are absolutely false!
(1)All those who were apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers 
given by Christ are no longer necessary nor are they part of the body!

(2)The functioning of those gifts (members of Eph.4 and ministries of Rom.12 
and I Cor. 12) have been replaced by other members and ministries! If that 
is the case, your "cessation of gifts" theory logically and consistently 
requires that the writings, teachings and prophesies of such are also 
unneccessary!  Hence the new testament scriptures are no longer necessary 
either!!

(3) Your theory would also lead one to conclude that Mat thew, Mark, Luke, 
John, Paul, Peter, James, Jude etc as well as the functions of Romans 12 and 
I Cor 12 were babysitters or caretakers!   Brother, even a very quick 
reading of Galatians 3 and 4 reveals that such terms are never applied to 
people, saints, or gifts to the church, but rather to "the law" (Gal.3:24) 
and "the elements of the world" (Gal.4:2,3)

Your brother in Christ,
Bruce

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN Premium. Get 2 months FREE*