KenPierce
Puritan Board Freshman
God told Jonah to go to Ninevah. He didn't tell you. Yet, you have been told about God's instruction to Jonah. If you were to tell Jonah that God did not tell him that then you would be contradicting God. If you merely heard about God telling Jonah and did not believe it was God you would be disbelieving God. If you read about God telling Jonah and did not believe God told Jonah you would be disbelieving God. All these cases, whether inscipturated or not, would be sin since God did speak to Jonah.
Thus, as I've been saying all along, God's "Truth for them" cannot be confined to them because the moment they share that Truth it must either be believed or disbelieved by another and either God is being believed or He is not. Either you and I are giving counsel to another that God is the One who spoke or He is not. In fact, how fearful it must be for a Continuationist Pastor to run the risk of counseling a person that that voice they're hearing really isn't of God. After all, even as Piper points out Satan can imitate God pretty well.
Further, I don't believe I stated that a person would supersede Scripture. Not intentionally at least. What I stated is that not all Scripture is plain and if a person has a "revelation" to go into the ministry as an example, might they not ignore your counsel that weighs some of the GNC factors such as internal and external call? After all, not a small amount of prudence is built upon the light of nature and GNC from Scripture. It's a bit complicated sometimes and it's not at all unusual for people to go with the "God told me this" and have their eyes glaze over when you reason with them that such a course would be foolish based on GNC from Scripture. Thus, it's not that they place their revelation above the Scriptures but it is at the same level as the Scriptures (God breathed) and it is not at all easy to convince a person that has these regular impressions from God to stop seeking the voice within and learn how to study that which has been already revealed.
Finally, you did not interact with what I stated above and I would like your opinion. "Jonah, go to Ninevah" is a great example of something God told Jonah and He remembered and recorded. This was God-breathed. Even if it was not inscripturated, Jonah had a corpus of information that was God-breathed - the Law, Wisdom Lit, and some prophets, and what God told him. At least for him, if he was never to share it with another, he had a Canon+ while everybody else had a Canon. Hence, I argue that, for the individual who argues for continuationism, they cannot argue for a closed Canon for those that hear the voice of God. Everybody else has a closed Canon but not the people who hear the voice of God and who have variations of an addended Canon that they must remember.
Okay, let's think of the early church. Prophecy is going on in Corinth, and probably other places. Direct, God-breathed, not written down in Scripture, not spoken by apostles.
How were they to handle this inspiration? They were to test the spirits. They were to weigh the prophecies (1 Cor 14). There were direct person-to-person prophecies (acc. to 1 Cor 14), and the recipient was to remain silent while it was spoken. NOne of this was inscripturated. It appears, rather, to have been directive commands from God mediated through human beings, on a lesser level than the inspiration of Scripture.
I think we can quit the charge that I'm erecting Straw Men, Sir, and simply interact on this. I am dealing with what we know about the character of God. For a fellow Cessationist, I believe you've been making some hay with my own presentation, assuming I'm trying to malign, when I'm only trying to make some application of their arguments. Is it not possible, after all, that they claim to escape a problem but fail to actually do so?
There is absolutely no place in Scripture where anything God breathed may be treated by men as anything less than authoritative. Whether every prophetic utterance was inscripturated is not my point - the point is that it has a "from the lips of God" oughtness that has to be treated with the same seriousness as Scripture because, if validated it is from God and has the same weight.
Thus, how can you argue that, from the perspective of obedience, a man is more or less bound to a prophetic utterance than to the Word of God?
As did prophecy in the OT. We agree.
On this, we fully agree. In fact, as I was musing over this today, I thought of something: Paul lists Biblical qualifications for Elders and Deacons but not for Prophets. I think there's good reason for this.
And, as I stated above, I don't believe I've put any such arguments forward - either straw men or Biblically-inconsistent arguments. I've stuck to the point that the moment you admit God-breathed inspiration you have to deal with the author of the inspiration and cannot merely claim that there is a "second-tier".
My only point with you, Rich, is that all you allege and charge charismatics with today, could have been alleged against the practice by Paul when it was actually going on. And, he doesn't do that. Instead he cautions and regulates it. That, in itself, is an important point.
How so? Do you really believe Jonah would have disagreed with me that God's word to him was authoratative and had to be remembered even if not inscripturated? My problem with charismatics today is that they somehow think that they're speaking for God and it can be taken or left. I've even been in Charismatic Churches where they attempted to "regulate" it.
Again, I think Paul's regulation is consistent with OT regulation. The idea that prophecy has to be tested is as old as the Scriptures themselves when Moses revealed that a prophet could not contradict that which was previously revealed.If these things: tongues and prophecy, were works of the Spirit, who is Paul to say, "Only 2 or 3 speak. There must be an interpreter, etc etc." Is he trying to muzzle the spirit? Would he do this if the inspiration were on the level of Scripture? It seems to me that this, in itself, argues for a lesser inspiration (for want of a better term) than Scripture.
Incidentally, do you consider the Urim and Thummim to be a lesser form of inspiration and by that I mean this: would Israel have been judged if they asked God whether they should go into battle, He said yes, and they refused to go? This is the key issue for me.
Rich,
Just to be clear: I don't think that YOU are erecting straw men, etc. I think that WE as cessationists sometimes don't give a fair hearing to our non-cessationist brethren.
Just to go back to an earlier point. Most continuationists who have Biblical moorings would put revelatory gifts on the level of the inspiration of a sermon, subject to the Word of God. So, let's let them speak for themselves what they believe about the inspiration.
As a preacher, I understand God "speaks" to his people in the proclamation of the Word. To some he speaks condemnation. To others conviction. To some he speaks challenge, and to others encouragement. Some hear a call to full time ministry. Others to missions. Some hear a call to teach Sunday school. All of this is from God; none of it is on the level of Scriptural authority, and all of it is judged by Scripture.
I am called to ministry. But that internal call is subject to external evaluation and Biblical standards. What I believe to be God's call to me is subject to the judgment of the Word and the church. But, the call is still from God. And, as you say, for me to disobey would be disobedience to God.
I guess it could be a straw man to say that because some charismatics treat the revelation as "take it or leave it," that one must necessarily do it.
So why, theoretically, could that not apply to some personal message from God, verbally, to an individual?