MacArthur has a dispensational eschatology so I'm not sure I'd call him a "traditional Calvinist".
Let’s start with making the lame walk and the blind see and then talk about glossolalia.
Actually, we only have a problem with gibberish that is NOT a language, and its inability to be translated by another.
“Some Christians, however, believe that these Holy Spirit-inspired gifts will continue until Christ’s return.”
Full preterism is the ONLY interpretive paradigm that puts all of the New Testament writings in their proper context.
Demonstrating the legitimacy of modern tongues would be a perfectly simple matter. I Corinthians is very straightforward: “If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God.” The speaking is not meant to be mere noise — it is real speaking, meant to convey information, as passed along by the interpreter.
So you record the alleged tongue-speaking then play it back for several alleged interpreters. If different interpreters all give different translations, then at least all but one of them are fraudulent. If an interpreter gives a different translation for the same recording at different times, he is fraudulent.
My wife and I went to that church a couple of times when we lived in the Seattle area. Three observations:
1. The music is pretty good, but it is mainly “performance” music.
2. The pastor so badly did that “look over the croud” public speaking style that at the end of the sermon I asked the sound guy if the project his notes on the back wall by the ceiling. He spent virtually the entire sermon looking at the seam between the back wall and the ceiling. It was kinda creeping me out.
3. Lots of tatoos and body hardware there (goth, emo, etc.)
I’m not saying any of thest things are bad in my book. They were just kinda “oddities” to me at the time. This was roughly five years ago.
Regarding tongues
I went to an Assembly of God church from the time I became a Christian (1981) and 1998. I was very involved and the church was very much into tongues, though I never received this “gift”. I’ve done a lot of study’s on the subject and think it is nothing more than a distraction today. The verses that speak of it generally say “don’t do it in public” or when it is in evidence it is people speaking in languages other than their own (e.g. pentacost).
But I don’t commit to it being real or not. If it is your main pursuit as a Christian I think you are very much missing the point.
If you want to argue something really juicy and with more scriptural evidence, how about Saul using a medium to conjure up Samuel, the dead Samuel’s comments, and the context of what the bible says about what happens to people after they die?
Any Christian, who has attended a Messianic service understands what “speaking in tongues” is all about.
“When we get to heaven, the gift of evangelism is not going to be as needed as it is now. You’re like, ‘I’m going to go out and find the lost people.’ There aren’t any. This is the kingdom of God. Everybody here already loves Jesus. ... So, evangelism comes to an end,”
i.e He is seeing it from a fleshly perspective.
Speaking in tongues and getting messages from God are purely marketing ploys to bring in the tithes the masses provide.
After all, if the guy at the Church across the street regularly converses with God and you don’t, well you’re going to feel it in the cashflow.
If you can make people think that babbling like fools is really God giving them the gift of gab, all the better.
That one will sustain itself amongst the congregants - it becomes a social status thing - who wants to hang out with someone that God doesn’t give the gift of “speaking in tongues”? Nobody. SO you better fake it like everybody else.
If you reverse recorded speech, you’ll find most people speak several languages.
Why is any one person so concerned about how any other person speaks to God? We’re His children. If He doesn’t want us to pray any particular way, He can say, “Shut up and go to sleep now, already.”
The real point that Paul is trying to make with out offending anyone is that even at that time people were seeking the gift of speaking in tongues which is the milk.
Many of these people should have been grown up by then and seeking more important things which no doubt involved work, not works of the law but works of faith.
It does say that prophecies will fail and tongues will cease and i think we should be able to see that they have.
John in rev gave the last prophecies, what more do we need except to live like Jesus said to live.
Rev 22
18
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Not sure why I'd need a latter day revelation. I'll stick with scripture, which I know can make me complete and thoroughly equipped to every good work.
Even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." That renders all latter day revelations as either redundant or cursed.
No, thank you.
Only one thing wrong with the argument of “speaking in tongues” still being viable. It was an occurrence that allowed many peoples to understand something even though it was not in their native tongues. Today it is some mystical, “magical” thing where all others hear are guttural noises that do not impart any information. I have a friend who attended a church where the Black female “reverend” spoke in tongues and encouraged her flock to do the same. I had him ask her why nobody could understand what was being said. She told him that she understood it all - because she was “on a higher spiritual plane” than he. I told him to run from that church even if his wife insisted on staying - someone had to be in spiritual condition to witness to the other.
I am not a one who believes God somehow cannot do something, or has quit doing it. However, most people today who speak in tongues do so against scripture.
Yes, I said it. Paul, writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit wrote the letters to the Corinthians, and set up the proper usages and understandings of the gifts of the Spirit.
Most of the charismatics today view the Holy Spirit as a force, or tool, instead of the proper realization that the Holy Spirit IS GOD.
If you look historically at gifts, God gives them for the advance of the Church, just as he did with miracles and healings. These are not primarily for the benefit of the individual believer (although that’s what we focus on).
For example, consider someone raised from the dead in the New Testament (for example, Dorcus). She was raised from the dead, and later, died a normal death (like for example Lazarus). Of course, this had a huge impact on the early Church, but from the perspective of an individual, they still died, just later.
Why is it we want perfection on earth, and our heavenly gifts here? We should be content to wait until our Lord’s return.
Gobbledygook mumbo-jumbospeak.
Audible insanity is what speaking in tongues is all about.
Read Corinthians. You cannot help but see that the “unknown” tongues are nothing but foreign languages. Nothing more.
He continued, "So, when do these gifts cease? When? When Jesus comes back, when we see him face to face. So the Cessationists are right: certain gifts will come to an end. But the Cessationists are wrong: the end has not yet come. And the Continuationists are right: all the gifts continue until we see him face to face, until Jesus comes again."
In contrast, MacArthur says:
Apostolic authority and the apostolic message needed no further confirmation. Before the first century ended, the entire New Testament had been written and was circulating through the churches.
Driscoll may not always be wrong, and MacArthur may not always be right; but in this Driscoll is very far wrong and departs from the grammar and exposition of the Koine Greek of the time of writing of Chapter 13 of this book to the arguing, disunified Corinthians. Very simply, the crux of the debate rests on gender and number of the two demonstrative pronouns "that" in verse 10. Here's the verse:
"But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away" (AV, DRB leaves out 'then').
If the first "that" is masculine and singular, then it could refer to Jesus. If that were so, and Driscoll was correct in his exegesis, then the second "that" would have to refer to the "certain gifts," which then must refer logically to three spiritual categories--prophecies, tongues, and knowledge--summed up in the plural sense, either "spirituals" (v. 12:1), or "gifts" (v. 12:4); both of which are both neuter and plural.
However, in the text, both of these demonstrative pronouns are neuter, and both are singular. The conjugationof the verbs expresses the pronouns are third person singular. Therefore, in context, the reader would never have thought that the verse referred to The Christ or His perfection (and hence not the time of His second coming), nor to a plural number of items consisting of the temporary "spirituals". Driscoll's exposition spurns, if not scorns, the explicit grammar, and is worthy of further attention only because his theme does violence to the doctrines of how The God administers His People. The distraction and division of/in the churches today from this misinterpretation cannot come from The Holy Ghost.
Therefore, Driscoll can not be correct in any sense. On the other hand, MacArthur, in referring to doctrine of the presence of the complete, compiled, finalized, and shared, progressively revealed body of the Sayings of The God, The Word, The Hrema (neuter, singular), never to be diminished or embroidered, thus may certainly be correct in calling for the practicing of pseudo-gifts to stop.
Here is the way that I personally suggest that the first century Corinthian, Jew or Gentile, would have understood this verse had he interpreted it to us in the American English of our time:
"And/but whenever it has arrived--that completely finished thing--then that thing having partial quality shall become unuseful any more" (note that "partial" is anarthrous and imparts quality, not particularity, and is therefore singular).
That "thing" that has arrived is the completed anchor of The Faith, The Holy Bible, completely fit for the salvation of the populated world, and the guidance of The God's saints throughout Eternity.
The "thats" as used in 1 John 1:1 and 1:3 are both neuter and singular.
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; . . . That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full" (1 Jn. 1:1,3-4)(my emphasis)
I fully insist that John here in "that which" and "which" (singular, neuter) refers to the body of Sayings, the Rhema, about (peri) The Word of Life." These two demonstrative pronouns do not refer to Christ Himself. They refer to the body (soma) of accumulated and inspired sayings concerning Jesus ("these things," plural, neuter), making them neuter.
Now in this time, this era, this dispensation, there is no more special revelation occuring, no more prophecies originating from on High, since now that the Bible is not deficient in anything pertaining to The Faith, Its propagation, and administration. There are no Papal Bulls redefining the doctrines of The Old Sword. The Perfected Word is closed to any further amendment, and its content has been sealed since John, the Theologian, under The Holy Ghost's inspiration, laid down his pen. The Volume was then fully completed. It has been preserved through the ages by His appointed conveyance, the local churches, and need no Lower or Higher Criticism to synthesize a "newer" and "better" apograph.
There is no more need for vocal communication of sounds not even known by man through objective grammar--they ceased for lack of need or use and have long been forgotten. Today's attempts to resuscitate them is spurious, not encouraged by The Author or His Spirit.
There is no "word of knowledge." The God has done away with that, since The Indwelling Holy Spirit has activated spiritual discernment in the maturing disciple to both interpret and wisely apply the counsel of the Will of The God, through dreading to disappoint or disobey His commandments, and by walking in His Ways with Him (Ps. 128:1). That is, there is no extra-Biblical supernatural implantation of information not already supplied in His Fully and Completely Finished Word. Anything else has been negated. Forever.
This topic leads many into confusion. God our Father does miraculous things in any era He chooses to. We cannot limit Him!
But which is greater, faith with signs or faith without seeing? Faith WITHOUT SEEING! Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.
Everyone knows the Hall of Faith in Hebrews, right? What of the “others”, of whom the world was not worthy? They were like Jesus was outside the camp, rejected, and quite unsuccessful in sign-seeking persons’ eyes.
Let’s go to him outside the camp, then, and sit in the same faith that believes even though it doesn’t receive!