1 Corinthians 12.4-11.
When the apostles Paul and Sosthenes corrected the church of Corinth
Nothing wrong with that. But the problem is
So in a cessationist’s mind, the 1 Corinthians passages aren’t at all about supernatural gifts empowered by the Holy Spirit, but how God’s blessed his church with really talented people. Great preachers, musicians, artists, handymen. You know, like when the L
Exodus 31.1-5 KJV - 1 And the L
ORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: 3 and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, 4 to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, 5 and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.
Even gave Betsalél (
But no, 1 Corinthians isn’t about getting way-better-than-average earthly abilities from God. It’s about getting unearthly abilities. Stuff nobody can naturally do. Stuff which proves the Holy Spirit is living and active among us, ’cause skeptical pagans can’t just brush these things off as the talented acts of clever people. They’re forced into a dilemma: Either God’s really among us, or it’s deception or self-delusion. Either he’s real or fake.
So here’s the list the apostles gave in 1 Corinthians—and the rubbish redefinitions which cessationists made up for ’em.
1 Corinthians 12.4-11 KWL - 4 There are a diversity of supernatural things, and the same Holy Spirit.
- 5 A diversity of ministries, and the same Lord.
- 6 A diversity of activities, and the same God activating all in all.
- 7 Each individual is given a different revelation of the Spirit—to bring us together.
- 8 For by the Spirit, while a word of wisdom is given to one,
- by the same Spirit, a word of knowledge is given to another.
- 9 By the same Spirit, to someone else, faith.
- By the one Spirit, to another, healing gifts.
- 10 To another, powerful activity.
- To another, prophecy.
- To another, judgment of spiritual things.
- To someone else, families of tongues.
- To another, interpretation of tongues.
- 11 One and the same Spirit acts in all these things,
- dividing them to each of his own people however he wants.
It’s not a comprehensive list. It’s not meant to be; there are plenty of precedents for other supernatural behaviors elsewhere in the bible. But this’ll get us started.
Supernatural wisdom gifts.
WISDOM. Firstly, we’ve got
Say there’s any difficult situation going on. Say a married couple comes to me and tells me they’re having problems, and they tell me what they think the problem is… and as humans do, they aren’t fully forthcoming with the details. Maybe the husband is hiding massive credit card debt; maybe the wife is hiding a massive porn addiction; neither of them has confessed this stuff to one another, much less me. But let’s say—for no reason I can think of—my first statement is, “Okay, let’s start with a trust-building exercise. First, both of you swear to forgive absolutely everything the other might say. Now, each of you confess the deepest darkest secret you’ve never, ever admitted to your partner.” And by golly those secrets come out, there’s repentance and forgiveness and love and relief and healing… and I can’t take credit for it. Only the Holy Spirit can.
Or say I’m put in charge of a ministry. Something I’ve not run before. (Or something I have; either way.) And in the course of figuring out how to run it, I come up with a really unconventional idea which doesn’t appear to make a lick of sense. Might’ve even been tried before, and didn’t work, and that’s why no one does it. But for no good reason it invigorates the ministry, which winds up serving way more people than anyone ever expected. Again, I can’t take credit for it. I got it from the Spirit.
No surprise here: Cessationists assume this is
KNOWLEDGE. Next there’s
Yeah, okay: Stupid narcissists “just know things” too, and appear to have got it from nowhere but their own wishful thinking. That’s why empahsize once we check it out. We don’t just presume we’re right.
Words of knowledge look like yea: Say you meet a stranger, don’t know him, never met him, and he brings up his boss—not by name—and you reply, “Oh I know Ralph. We play racquetball together.” He says, “I never told you Ralph’s my boss. How’d you know that?” And you don’t know how you knew that. You weren’t even aware you were impossibly filling in the blanks in his story. It kinda surprised you too.
I have these abilities. They shock people. Usually ’cause the information the Spirit dropped into me, tends to poke ’em right in the soul. “Who told you that?!” they’ll respond… and it’ll surprise me too, ’cause I just knew stuff, and can’t tell them how I came about it. (No it’s not because I forgot where I got it. I know where I got everything else. I have a really good memory.) I shouldn’t know things. I shouldn’t be able to give the best advice for things I know nothing about. And I can’t—unless God empowers me.
Yep, when Simon Peter just knew Ananias and Sapphira lied about their donation,
Also no surprise: Cessationists claim the word of knowledge is nothing more than ordinary knowledge: God puts smart people in his churches. God gives us scholars, who do their homework and learn lots of things, and puts ’em in places where they can teach Christians. If you know lots of bible, you must have the gift of knowledge—as I was told when I was a kid and went to cessationist churches. Funny thing is, I do have the actual gift. And ’tain’t the same thing.
FAITH.
In fact the apostles mean a supernatural type of faith, which works like yea: When a person instantly and completely believes the impossible. And because they believe, they act on it—and the impossible happens. That’s supernatural faith.
Like a Christian who drops everything, moves to Asia to become an evangelist, and has a very fruitful ministry. Or a Christian who’s not a faith healer, who’s never done such a thing before, but suddenly commands a paraplegic to get out of her wheelchair, and she does. Or a Christian gives his last hundred dollars to a ministry, and not only does this act solve a precise need of that ministry, but the Christian almost immediately gets that hundred back from another source.
Yeah, supernatural faith will look exactly like wishful thinking, blind faith, and all those people who believe in goofy nonsense because they want so bad for it to be true. Like
How do we tell the difference? Duh; fruit. The Christians who consistently get suckered, don’t produce fruit. In fact the reason they act on their impulses is ’cause they lack
This sort of behavior is to be expected of newbies, ’cause they don’t know any better. But a longtime Christian should’ve ended such behavior long before. Especially if they were burned once, and should know better. Fools acting in blind faith stagger from crisis to crisis.
Whereas legitimate supernatural faith always pays off. Not sorta, not mighta, not “if you look at it a certain way”: Always pays off. Pays off decisively. ’Cause it’s not blind faith; it’s God the Holy Spirit.
JUDGMENT. Gonna leapfrog a few gifts and go to
Cessationists presume this is the same thing as
But this isn’t the natural ability to look at a thing’s fruit. This is a supernatural gift which works just like the word of wisdom and word of knowledge: You just know what’s behind things. To everybody else the preacher, prophet, ministry, or activity looks just fine. Even those who test fruit, will think things look hunky dory. But the gifted Christian knows something’s amiss, long before they even start applying such tests. They instantly don’t like it. It’s like a negative knee-jerk response.
Yeah, supernatural discernment can look exactly like
As I said, we still need to apply the usual confirmations. “Just knowing” something’s not right, doesn’t count as proof. The purpose of this gift is so we know we need to look for evidence; it’s out there. It’s not meant to be a substitute for evidence: Yeah, your guard’s up, but you still gotta prove something’s wrong.
This is not a popular gift. Trust me. Plenty of Christians would love the ability to instantly know whether something’s real or fake. But they need to read Jeremiah sometime: God would clue Jeremiah in on who was real and who was fake,
Healing and miracle gifts.
HEALING.
Nope; supernatural healing is everything the witch doctors claim they can do: Christians pray for the sick to get well, and they do. Christians pray for diseases to get cured, and they are. Christians pray for broken limbs to be whole, for missing limbs to grow back, for cataracts to dissolve, for tumors to shrink, for psychological problems to vanish, for medications to no longer be necessary—even for the dead to rise. And they do.
In ancient times, most people assumed all medical problems, particularly mental illness, were caused by
But exorcism, while obviously empowered by the Spirit, technically isn’t part of the 1 Corinthians list, so I won’t go there today. Another time.
POWER. What the
Certain Christians are ridiculously insistent that every supernatural act must have some sort of salvation component. They figure the only reason God does miracles is to win converts, and get the world saved. And true, God wants everyone to be saved.
For cessationists, they claim acts of power means anything we do, usually on God’s behalf, which somehow gets better-than-average worldly success. Somehow the Holy Spirit made it way more potent than our own efforts could… but not directly, ’cause they’re pretty sure God doesn’t act directly in the universe anymore. But somehow. Can’t really explain how, but somehow.
So an “act of power” might be if we put together an evangelism outreach, and we were expecting maybe 50 people to show up, and we unexpectedly get 20,000. Or if we boycott a business for its immoral ways, and it reforms… or goes under. Or if we successfully petition the government to pass a law. If we successfully raise the funds to build a bigger church building. If our feeble efforts cause anything big to happen. Success, plus good intentions, equals an “act of power.”
So… what about all the thriving, growing heretic churches? Or when pagans, after a long struggle, manage to get a law passed which these folks consider immoral? Oh, well then they don’t use this formula.
Prophecy and prayer gifts.
PROPHECY. I discuss prophecy elsewhere,
Unlike the other supernatural gifts, which aren’t necessarily distributed to everyone, this one is. ’Cause the Holy Spirit wants every Christian to be able to prophesy. It’s why he lives in us in the first place.
Whereas
- It’s the gift of expounding scripture: Speaking and preaching. Anybody who shares what’s in the bible is a prophet. After all, they are passing along God’s word.
- It’s the ability to predict the future… by accurately interpreting various End Times visions.
Basically if you teach bible, or have a knack for explaining the scriptures, cessationists call you a “prophet.” Which doesn’t sync up with any of the scriptures’ descriptions of prophets. Nor any of the scriptures’ instructions to prophets. Nor any prophecy in the bible, nor the supernatural acts of prophets, nor anything our popular culture describes as “prophecy,” no matter how wrong they might get it. Teaching ain’t prophecy!
(Lucky for them, too. Otherwise we’d have to stone every single last “prophecy conference” teacher to death for guessing wrong about
TONGUES. The apostles called ’em
- BAPTISMAL TONGUES: The speaking in tongues Christians do when
we’re baptized in the Holy Spirit. Ac 2.1-4 Basically an overflow of the Spirit’s power at that time. - PRAYER TONGUES: Don’t know what to pray, so
you let the Holy Spirit do the praying for you. - PROPHETIC TONGUES: When the Spirit gives you a prophecy—but it’s in tongues. So it needs to be translated into English, or some language we actually know
1Co 14.5 —hence the next gift on the list, ermineía glossón/“interpretation of tongues.” - HUMAN TONGUES: When the Spirit gives you the ability to speak or recognize a language you don’t already know. Like the apostles did when the Spirit first fell on them.
Ac 2.7-12
Some Christians are gifted in only one kind, like tongues for prayer. Others more.
Cessationists don’t know squat about tongues, ’cause they don’t do them. So they insist there’s only one kind of tongues: The fake kind, ’cause God doesn’t do them anymore. And whenever the bible refers to tongues, it either means a gift which stopped happening in the first century… or a natural ability in foreign languages.
Okay, I have a knack for languages. I took Spanish in grade school and high school, Hebrew and Greek and French—and linguistics—in college. (I tackled Latin on my own.) And of course I’m fluent in American English, and pretty knowledgeable about the 14th and 17th-century variants of English. Cessationists would therefore claim I must have the gift of tongues. I do, but that’s hardly why: It’s because when I pray, my mind can talk with God while simultaneously my lips utter mysteries.
Lastly.
In the cessationists’ redefinitions, you’ll notice the Holy Spirit is entirely unnecessary. Both Christians and pagans are totally able to do these things without God’s help. Pagans have become scholars, healers, power brokers, detectives, linguists. Yet some cessationists actually claim the Spirit does empower these pagans—’cause his gifts aren’t just for Christians, but all humanity.
Of course this interpretation totally takes
So these are supernatural gifts. And the Spirit hands them out to Christians. Only Christians. His kids. No one else.
This isn’t taught very often, and it needs saying: The Spirit may hand out these gifts, but the gifts don’t automatically include expert-level ability. He’ll give you prophecy. But this doesn’t mean you’re immediately a good prophet. You still need to develop some stuff. Mostly fruit of the Spirit; gotta use these gifts in love!
A supernatural gift is a lot like a rifle. Anybody can shoot it. But without training and practice it won’t be shot well. The training comes from watching other Christians work these gifts—correctly, and in a way which produces good fruit. (Or not, which we can also learn from.) The practice comes from ministering to others—getting into situations where we need these gifts, where we’re forced to call upon the Spirit for help, and getting better at love so we can do ’em right. Without training and practice, we can have the same terrible results as a four-year-old caught playing with Daddy’s handgun.
