1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. [The believers were touched by the Holy Spirit and began speaking a Heavenly language, including Peter. This was in the place where the BELIEVERS were gathered. This phenomenon drew a crowd. So what does THE TEXT say happened next, to the ones who were not yet believers?]5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. 6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. 7 And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? 8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? ... we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. 12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
You do not teach sound teaching. You presume and alter the actual Word to fit your mindset. What did the listeners say? They gave witness that each heard the Galileans in their tongues, the tongues of their origins. The Holy Spirit interpreted what Peter was saying, so that it came into the mind of the listener in the tongue of that hearer.
The presumption is that Peter was speaking in a Heavenly language, a language that entered the minds of the listeners such that they heard not a Heavenly language but every man in his own native language. BUT the text does not say that. The opening text says the believers spoke in other tongues. The Believers.
Try reading Acts 2 starting at verse 5, rather than verse 1. The original texts were not divided as we get it today. But Truth remains Truth even if you start at a different passage. Take the context as given. Then go back and atart at verse 1, to see if your mind catches a different emphasis after the exercise. Think of what happens at conversion. Who must call you to be born again? Was He calling these men of many nations to be born again? Does the Holy Spirit speak into the dead spirit of those to be born again? Think, don't add to the Word that which fits your mindset, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.
The presumption is that Peter spoke a Heavenly language. BUT THE TEXT does not say that. It does give us the pattern which is present even today when someone is wooed by The Holy Spirit to be born again. Regardless of the nation of origin, the hearer is hearing the still small voice calling them to believe, to believe in the One Whom God has sent for their salvation, to be born again, born from above.
The emphasis is not on the spectacle of Heavenly language, of 'many tongues' speaking in tongues, it is on believing in The One Whom God has sent for our salvation. The text does not say Peter spoke in a 'tongue of Heaven', it emphasizes instead that every one being wooed by The Holy Spirit heard The Gospel in their own tongue.
This does ot say 'a heavenly language'. It does say 'other tongues according as the Spirit was giving them. We should not presume then that Peter spoke in a Heavenly tongue.
Imagine the scene: "each one hearing them speaking in his proper dialect" ... aside from the confusion it must have appeared, so many languages and dialects all spoken at the same time, yet each man heard the one dialect he understood out of all the noise of so many dialects being spoken simultaneously by those believers.
Paul spoke with the tongues of men and angels as we found out in 1 Corinthians 13 but regarded love as the greatest of all fruits...”1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.…”
The entire chapter of Corinthians 14 lays down as to how tongues should be used in church and in privates meditation.
And none of these "Qualified Cessationists" answer the main question...
Where is the basis for their "ceasing of gifts" in the OLD TESTAMENT?
That is the qualifier.
Since no one here has an answer, this will be the last time I will write to anyone about Cessationism, because there are much more problematic issues regarding those who do believe they have the full gifts, but whom many of us believe are being animated by Familiar Spirits and other demonic counterfeits; situations where no Cessationist will be able to deal with, because you don't believe the gifts are for today.
So be it, I'll not be addressing Cessationist concerns after this post again until someone points to an Old Testament scripture outlining Ceasing of some of the Gifts poured out at Pentecost.
As for Peter, you guys are saying that he didn't speak in tongues, though everyone around him DID speak in tongues, and Peter believed wholeheartedly in the gift of tongues when Cornelius and his family spoke in tongues.
What is the difference if Peter or Mary spoke in tongues or not? That's pretty ridiculous for there to be some prejudice against Peter speaking in tongues, when the text indicates all who were in the upper room spoke in tongues (and this is why the spirit looked like "tongues of fire" upon each one of their heads. But you guys say that Peter wasn't there, or was sucking his thumb in fear in a corner, or something? Weird. And stupid, considering that this Cessationist prejudice against many of the gifts of the Spirit could work against you at the time of the False Prophet and the strong Delusion; you could be swept up in Joel's army, the deluded army of fake believers whom God will send against His own people...
You are trying to limit tongues to what your human mind can understand about it. And to do that, you would first have to explain how you understand that God changed all the languages at the Tower of Babel.
After you explain the miracle of the Tower of Babel, you will realize the Lord can do anything He wants with our language and how we speak. Tongues is not too hard for Him to give to Christians now in the 21st century, nor was it too hard to give in the 2nd century.
But no where does it say this gift, or the other gifts of the spirit mentioned above, were going to cease. Nor does it say the reason these gifts might cease.
Nor does it say anything in the OT about why some of what was poured out at Pentecost, as per the Prophet Joel, would be yanked back by God.
But, and this is what is most important for charismatic believers now, but Joel does discuss the army God will "send against His own people".
Now that is quite a prophecy, considering that the NAR consider themselves Joel's Army.
“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you."
The problem imradr and others here have (and I shook the dust off my feet with that first one, so I will not be replying to his thread. He cannot hear me or my words about the Gospel, so I am instructed by the Lord to shake the dust off)... nonetheless, the problem these Cessationists have is profound for these Last Days.
1. If they do not believe the gifts are for today, especially prophecy, how are they to discern the counterfeits of these gifts in the NAR?
2. If they do not believe the gifts are for today, and therefore have no discernment about modern day prophecy, how will they discern who the False Prophet is, when he appears?
3. If we cannot distinguish true from false prophecy, again, how will we recognize the False Prophet when his time comes? Or will these Cessationists be so blindsided by what the False Prophet says, that they will suddenly believe the gifts are for today and be swept up in the great Delusion, that God promises He will send?
And, of course, the strong Delusion that God promises in Thes. is confirmed by Isaiah 66.
Unlike this dangerous belief that only some of the Gifts of the Spirit prophesied by the Prophet Joel are extant for today.
Finally... the problem of Joel 2:25... that God is telling us that He is sending an army against His own people... tells you and me that we better be equipped for that day with rapid-fire discernment, words of knowledge, prophesy and tongues, if that is one of the gifts that has been given to you.
For
"the Lord will have to shorten the time for the sake of the elect" and "when the Son of Man returns to the earth, will He still find faith"?
I'm sorry if some of you believe that the gifts are not for today, but there is no Old Testament basis for this belief, and Joel didn't qualify his prophesy but instead said:
"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.
32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.
Right.
The deal on what happened at Pentecost was NOT so much as being that a group mostly composed of Galileans were speaking in the languages which they were presumed not to know from personal experience in them.
The real emphasis that ought to be of the first water is that they were praising the Creator and speaking of His marvelous works (that is, prophesying so that people of these other dialects could understand what was being said.
As you have pointed out, and I have long been partial to, what the NT Scripture says, that (whatever the Galileans thought they were saying) the people gathered for the Pentecostal feast heard God being exalted in their own native dialects.
That's the issue. Wherever we experience, either in OT accounts or in the New, when the Holy Ghost has fallen ON people, they uniformly engage in prophetic utterances, whether the result of what they are saying is inscripturated (David, Solomon, Jeremiah) or only that the nature of their utterings was recorded (Saul ben Kish, Cornelius).
The language aspect is what the "Pentecostal-charismatics" are wrongly placing as the most important, rather than that the intent of the Holy Spirit's operation is to magnify the Lord Jesus.