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To: IMRight
Your belief system must rest on God ceasing to communicate with us.

Us Pentecostals are hardly cessationists. God continues to communicate with us through His word, His Holy Spirit and His church. We just disagree with you about the definition of that last noun "church."

28,636 posted on 12/08/2002 12:41:29 PM PST by the808bass
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To: the808bass
Us Pentecostals are hardly cessationists. God continues to communicate with us through His word, His Holy Spirit and His church. We just disagree with you about the definition of that last noun "church."

Ahhh. Pentacostal. I don't remember knowing that. But it makes for a good point that I've failed to get across well in the past. There are any number of people who are led by the spirit to believe in an active (and frequent) exercise of the gift of Tongues (or a form of tongues depending on your definition). There are others (a large percentage of the NCs here, I suspect), who feel equaly led by the HS that there is no such thing. Both believe that their sole arbiter and rule of faith must be Scripture, and for some it is a almost a salvation issue. It seems obvious that it is some "other" "spirit" that is "leading" one of you, right? If one is a true Christian, will the HS not guard against such error? If only God had left us some way of resolving these issues. You know, like when a prophet would lay down exactly what God was saying (infallibly)?

Of course, if your church is like others I've been to (and perhaps charismatic is closer) you have surely seen (and perhaps been given) the gift of tongues and/or prophesy. If God is actually speaking through these people are they not infallible utterences? But what if two get up and have "contradictory" words to give? Who is there to decide? And if they are speaking for God, why is it so easy to believe that dozens of people have this gift but hard to believe that there would actually be an office (the keys of course) akin to "prophet" that carries on that role today? Why would God stop?

28,640 posted on 12/08/2002 3:17:21 PM PST by IMRight
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