Charismatic Gifts Debate

By Mark Jones

Theo 350-B05

September 26, 2010

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The Charismatic Gifts Debate

For my research paper I choose the charismatic gifts debate because coming from a Pentecostal/Charismatic background growing up in church, I know a little about the gift. With growing up in a Charismatic church, I saw the gifts in action. There is a lot of debate on whether the gift is relevant for today or have they ceased from the church. One side says that the gifts are in the past and is not relevant for the day that we live in and another side says that the gifts are still relevant for today. There is one group that says that if you do speak in tongues, then you are under demonic control and are not really saved. Both …show more content…

So in my opinion, for someone to maintain the revelation today in 1 Cor. 14:26, is not applying the scripture properly. A third argument is that there is such a misuse of this gift and that people don’t think that it is
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real. First of all the very thought of this argument is that it real and that it does exist. The only real position taken by this is that the gifts have no use but the people using this are not real and they are self-deceiving into using this gift. I know that the gifts can be misused, but in my opinion we as humans are not perfect because we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. But I don’t discredit based on experience anymore as I would say that the gift of preaching is gone because of the misuse of that gift. Experience of this gift does not make doctrine, the Bible does. The people who argue against the gift of tongues use 1 Cor. 13 for their position against the charismatic debate. They are wrong however when looking at the context of the verse I believe that it teaches that the gift will end with the return of Christ. The next question to ponder is what the purpose of the sign gifts is. I like what Learn the Bible talks about the purpose of the sign gifts. It says that “Signs were now given for the enjoyment of the saved. They were given for the winning of the lost.” (http://www.learnthebible.org/gifts-of-the-spirit-are-they-for-today.html, 2010) I agree with that because God blesses