Are the Gifts of the Spirit for Today? A Debate

The following is a pre-recorded program. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey friends, this is Michael Brown and today, Monday, then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of this week, we are taking you into debates that I've done over the last several years.

In fact, going all the way back to 2013. Debates on the gifts of the Spirit, debates on the nature of God, debates on predestination election, debates on is Jesus the Jewish Messiah. And today we start with my debate.

This is June 2017. I was invited to do this debate. And here's what we're going to do. First, we're going to take you into his opening comments through this segment. So we don't play all of his opening comments, but a representative section as much as we can play.

All right? Then we're going to come back in the next segment, take you into my opening comments. Then the segment after that, we're going to get you some of the back and forth Q&A. And then the last segment, our closing statements.

If you go to our YouTube channel, ask Dr. Brown, ask kid year Brown on YouTube, you'll see a link to the description in the description. That'll take you to the debate entirely. Here we go.

Dr. Zacharias is up. It's the biblical position. And what I mean by that is, first of all, we have a misnomer with the very terms, charismatic gifts, because I understand what people mean when they say that.

And so I agree sort of reluctantly to use those terms. But when you look at the text, and today my prime text will be 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, chapter 12 begins with the very term charismatic gifts. That's what is known as the discussion on the spiritual gifts, the charismatic gifts. But when you look at chapter 12, the word that we find there is not harizmata or charismatic or charismatic, however you want to transliterate that, but spiritual.

Now in my authorized version, it says gifts as well, but the word gifts is not in the original. It is one of the ways that the enumerated spirituals are designated, one among many terms. And moreover, when you are looking at 1 Corinthians, you have to remember that this letter is a corrective letter. It is a corrective letter to the Corinthians when Paul is trying to correct the Corinthians. What you have to understand about the letter is that Paul is dealing with people in the church that were, number one, very, very worldly, and he calls them sarkigi. They are fleshly people.

They're carnal, if you will. They're not spiritual at all. They think they're spiritual, you see, and so when chapter 12 begins, it begins with the expression now concerning, which you find several places in the book, and this is because they have addressed these matters with Paul, and they have asked about spiritual things, or spiritual persons, because that term in 1 Corinthians 12, is not the word charismata, it's the word spirituals, and the people that were inquiring of Paul asked about spirituality because they claimed to be spiritual because they had the so-called spiritual gifts, particularly speaking in tongues.

Now, if you miss this, if you miss the corrective, if you miss the particular nuances of what Paul writes, then you're deceived by the English translation, particularly the one I prefer, the King James, because it speaks about, you know, spiritual gifts when the word gifts is not even in the text. Okay, so this is part of the problem. Not only were they carnal, but they were having factions in the church. They were dividing. Some were saying I'm this person and I'm following this person. There was a group that was evidently following Christ.

Christ surprised. Not only that, but there were other things going on in the church, licentiousness to the degree that it would put pagans to shame, where a man had his father's wife, chapter five. What we find is that there's no discerning of the body of Christ, and therefore many of the Corinthians were actually sick as a judgment of God. They were not discerning because of their not discerning the body of Christ, chapter 11, 10 and 11. What you find is divisions between those who have and those who have not. There were people that were hungry, and then there were others who were bringing food, and they were eating, and Paul has to tell them all these things about, look, I can't praise you.

How can I praise you? You're being divisive. You're being carnal. You are not spiritual. It's a very combative letter, and when you read it with 2 Corinthians, you find even more of the same.

Even Pentecostal Gordon Fee acknowledges that on every turn, Paul is combating the Corinthians. So why is that significant? Well, because when you get to see what the actual words are in the text, particularly chapters 12 through 14, which is this unit, and I take it as a unit. I don't believe chapter 13 is an imposition. I don't believe it's a poem about love, like you have there on the side of your unit up there. You've taken those words out about love is, love is, love is. That's not the point. The point is it's about the gifts.

Chapter 13 is not some imposition. Some scholars believe that Paul wrote it, or maybe he didn't even write it. He wrote it for something else, and then put it in here. No, it's carefully crafted, and it is designed to inform the Corinthians. That the gifts are going to cease, and I'm going to show you that from the text today. So let's begin in chapter 12, now concerning the spirituals. He's about to tell them about what's going on, and the first thing he says, he reminds them of their past when they were Gentiles led away by demonic spirits, and he has to tell them right off the bat that anybody who says Jesus is accursed is not speaking by the Holy Spirit.

What on earth is that about? Why on earth is he beginning with the very thing that is a problem? That is the normal spirit gift of tongues. Others are being led by the demonic, and are uttering things that in another language someone was able to recognize, and they were saying that Jesus is accursed, anathema. On the other hand, if you say Jesus is Lord, you can only say that. It doesn't mean just saying the words. He means believing, affirming, on Jesus in one's life as Lord only by the Holy Spirit. So what the Corinthians were doing, the haves and the have-nots with food, money, status, elitism, and spirituality, Paul levels the playing field and says everyone who claims Jesus is doing it by the Holy Spirit.

What do you think? You guys are doing these things, showy things, you're the ones who have the spirit? Paul is saying no. He levels the playing field, and he goes on and he says that there are different gifts, right?

We'll use that term. Paul says that there are diversities of gifts. He says that there are differences of administrations. He says there are diversities of operations, and he says the manifestation of the spirit is given to everyone for the benefit of all. This is an underlying theme for Paul, particularly when you get to chapter 14. That means edification.

Everything is for edification for the church, for the whole. So he begins to list these, and once he lists them, what you find is tongues doesn't fare very well. It starts off with if anyone says Jesus is accursed, and then lists the gifts, and tongues come right at the end, which is significant. And then he says this, but covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet I show you a more excellent way.

Pointing out the problems, after enumerating the illustration, and outlining the gifts, and putting tongues at the bottom, which was the prize gift for the Corinthians, it would be a contradiction of Paul to now tell them, after he's designated the spirit as the sovereign that determines what gifts are given to whom, to tell them now, you seek gifts. This is a contradiction of the original. Zilude in the Greek can be an imperative.

It can be. It's the same form, meaning it's a command. Paul is telling them, do this. But better, according to the context, is seeing this term as what we call not an imperative, a command, but an indicative. Paul is saying this is what you are doing according to your estimation. You are seeking what you in your minds think are the best gifts.

And the adverse is, but I show you a better way. So what you have is, you have Paul correcting them, chiding them, which is the tenor of the entire letter. Then, after telling them this, he gets into the more excellent way.

The love chapter, right? And what is the first thing he says? The first thing he says is the words of men and of angels. Tongues now is number one. Why?

Because tongues is the problem. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. We're taking you back to June of 2018, my debate with Dr. Theodore Zacharias on the gifts of the Spirit, whether they have ceased, whether they continue today.

Here is an extended excerpt from my opening comments of this debate. Same time Dr. Zacharias had on the air now, my turn. Now, we agree that the argument is explicitly what Scripture says. It's fascinating that you have church leaders for centuries talking about prophecy and healing and miracles. And Augustine, about 1600 years ago when he was writing The City of God, he didn't believe that these things were still happening. But when they documented more than 70 miracles in two years, he said obviously the apostolic miracles and gifts still exist. However, that doesn't touch on the issue. Our question is, what does Scripture say?

Professor Craig Keener in his highly praised two-volume study, Miracles, estimates that there are at least 200 million living eyewitnesses to miracles done in Jesus' name today. But that does not impact the question, what does Scripture say? In fact, if a cripple was healed here tonight, that would not impact the question. And if a televangelist was exposed as a phony healer, that would not impact the question. The question is, what does Scripture say?

And it's really open-shut, very simple to be totally candid. And let's remember, we are sola scriptura people. We believe the Scriptures alone are God's authoritative word. If Scripture gives me explicit instructions about pursuing the gifts, about the function of the gifts, about things that tie in with the nature and character of God explicit in Scripture, and then tell me these things will continue until Jesus returns, all of which I can demonstrate very easily by Scripture, in Greek, in English, in whatever language you want to read it, then unless something within the Bible comes and tells me that stopped at a certain point, unless I have something explicit in Scripture, I just have to go by what the Bible says. So let's, we can get into Greek nuances, Hebrew nuances, we have respective PhDs in Hebrew and Greek, we can dig into all that, but I'm quite sure the plain and simple sense of Scripture is overwhelmingly clear. So notice what Paul did right. After 1 Corinthians 13, which we heard read a moment ago, which I'll return to, he says this, pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and above all that you may prophesy. And they're both imperative in the Greek, and every translation will verify that for you. So he's telling the Corinthians to pursue love and to pursue the gifts.

Why? Because they go hand in hand. Just as Paul corrected abuses with the Lord's Supper without rejecting the Lord's Supper, he corrected abuses in tongues without rejecting tongues, and said, in fact, I speak in tongues more than all of you, and the one who speaks in tongues speaks mysteries to God, the problem was the abuse. And he says this, when you come together, each one of you has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation, let all things be done for building up. And then he concludes, 1 Corinthians 14 39, so my brothers earnestly desire to prophesy again, read translation after translation from the King James on, they'll say the same thing, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. So I need something in the Bible that overrules that. I need a text that tells me don't do that anymore, because I know it's happening today, I've experienced it, it's been experienced not just for 100 years back, but through church history in different ways. I need something explicit in Scripture that tells me, not that at a certain point in time it's going to peter out, because it hasn't, I need something to tell me that that's changed. So unless someone can give me an explicit text telling me not to earnestly desire prophecy, and telling me not to forbid tongues, then I'm going to earnestly desire prophecy, and I won't forbid tongues. But it's not just 1 Corinthians, and again this is the Bible we're talking about, not a charismatic textbook or, this is the Bible, in 1 Thessalonians 5 19 to 21, do not quench the Spirit, do not put off the Spirit's fire, do not despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast to what is good. He doesn't say there's going to be a point in time when prophecy cease, he doesn't say make sure you read this other letter where I gave a cryptic hint that this might happen, this is normative, what's written in Scripture is normative for us. And then James chapter 5 verses 13 through 15. Please show me where this has changed, please show me where in the Bible this changed.

Give me chapter and verse, because I'm giving you chapter and verse for each point I'm making explicitly. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Did that change? No. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

Did that change? No. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, let them pray over him anointing with all the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, sozo, which in Luke's Gospel is used saving from sin, saving from sickness, saving from demons, saving from death. The prayer of faith will make the sick one whole, save the sick and the Lord will raise him up and if he's committed sins he'll be forgiven. So every local church should be laying hands on the sick and should be expecting in faith to see healing.

That's normative. And it's not even connected with the gift of healing. This is just something we should be seeing and we're commanded by Scripture to do this.

Not only so, the Word of God tells us explicitly how long these things will last. Acts the second chapter when the Holy Spirit is poured out and the disciples speak in new languages. What does Peter say? He quotes from Joel and he says this is what God said through Joel in the last days and he adds the words. They're not found in the Hebrew.

The Hebrew is just after this. He adds the words in the last days God says I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Not just the apostles, not just the leaders, all flesh and your sons and daughters will prophesy. So the outpouring of the Spirit is on all flesh in the last days. What's the period of the last days? Scripture is very clear on it from the death and resurrection of Jesus until his return.

We're in the last days now and have been in them for 2,000 years. Not only so, Peter says in Acts the second chapter in the 39th verse that with repentance and faith in Jesus people will receive the promise of the Spirit. And the promise is to you and your children and all who are far off even as many as the Lord our God will call. Not only so, 1 Corinthians 1 7 as Paul is writing to the believers he said you are not lacking in any gift. Remember this is something he praised them for. The problem was the abuse. The gifts are wonderful.

The abuse is bad. Alright, so he says you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. In their minds they could be the generation that sees Jesus return.

They didn't know there was going to be 2,000 year period. And he's saying as you're waiting for this event, not telling them by the way before that event happens like 18-1900 years before that event happens or 1600 years before that event happens. The very gifts I'm praising you for will no longer be there. No, he says you're not lacking any gift as you await the coming of our Lord.

And 1 Corinthians 13, and again during my rebuttal I'll go through point for point where I differ with all respect to Theodore. Where Paul says this, that tongues will cease, knowledge doesn't say word of knowledge. Just this knowledge will pass away. Prophecy will stop.

When? When the perfect, when the complete comes. And then he says this, when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection that's in a mirror. Then we'll see face to face. So if you say that all of us have a face to face intimate relationship with God, that we hear his voice, he speaks to us, we speak to him without any hindrance, that it's not through a mirror, there's no faith involved because we see face to face.

If that's happened, then fine, maybe these things have ceased. But obviously we await that day when we will see him as he is. Not only so, now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am known. Do we know God the way he knows us?

Of course not. This has not happened. And this will happen when Jesus returns. So we have explicit exhortation commands in scripture that cannot be overridden by some kind of prophecy or dream or history or anything. The authoritative word says that we should earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially prophecy, we should not forbid tongues. The word of God explicitly tells us that these things will continue until Jesus returns.

And how about this? Romans 12, for as one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith.

He didn't say it's going to stop. By the way, this is different than everything else on the rest of the list. This is a revelatory gift.

No, no, no. And this is his definitive doctrinal book, Romans. So he's just laying it out, yeah. Some prophecy, same words that are used elsewhere in the New Testament for the gift of prophecy. And he says this, if prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes to generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

There you go. Prophecy is just as normal to be seen in the body as giving, as serving. And if you say, well that has a different meaning there, well who changed that?

Who imported that meaning? He's writing to people that know about prophecy and function in it. So Acts 4, when the believers are being persecuted, they pray. And this is how the apostles pray, Acts 4 verses 29 and 30. Lord, look upon their threats and grant your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Why was that acceptable for them to pray, but it's not acceptable for us to pray? Where does the Bible even give us a hint that what he was doing there was going to stop? Look, at the end of the book of Acts, Paul's on an island and everyone that comes to him is healed on the island.

There's no hint that this is suddenly going to stop or just fade away or cease, and again, historically we know that's not the case. So how come this is a good prayer to pray at that time, but it's not a good prayer for us to pray? Why is it that the gifts had a certain Jesus-glorifying function that touched and transformed many lives in the early church, and that function now ceases somehow? And where is there even the slightest hint that when we have the whole Bible or something that healing won't matter anymore, or that prophecy won't matter anymore, or that tongues won't be a valuable way of communing with God? As Paul says, you speak mysteries in your spirit to God and you edify yourself. There's not a hint of it. So I agree with New Testament scholar Thomas Schreiner when he says, nowhere does the New Testament clearly teach that supernatural gifts have ceased.

But I'd go a step further. I would say it clearly, emphatically, definitively says that they will continue until Jesus returns. That's one.

And two, we are called on by God to pursue these zealously, earnestly, because they are for the glory of God, and this should be part of our normal church practice by directive of the Lord in Scripture. Unless you could give me something definitive, clear, that contradicts this, that overrides this, that says it is no longer for today, I'll stay with the clear testimony of the Scripture. Thank you. Okay, got to interrupt.

That's it for now. We're going to come back on the other side of the break with Q&A between Dr. Zacharias and me. Hey, friends, welcome to the Line of Fire broadcast. All this week, except for Friday, we are taking you into debates that I've done in the past on a range of different subjects and giving you excerpts from those debates, representative excerpts. So this is my debate from 2018, Dr. Theodore Zacharias, on the gifts of the Spirit.

Do they continue until today or have they ceased? So we've just played excerpts from our opening comments again. You can watch the whole video.

Go to our YouTube channel, AskDrBrown, and you'll see the link to today's show, and it'll tell you how to watch the entire video for free online. Now we take you into our Q&A, our back and forth. So we had our opening statements. We had rebuttals.

Now what you get to hear is our back and forth Q&A. I hope you find it helpful. So I gave you a number of explicit texts, one you referenced at the end yourself, where we are called on to pursue spiritual gifts, or 1 Thessalonians 5, where Paul says, don't despise prophecy, et cetera. Can you give me any explicit texts that say we should not do these things today? Well, again, I believe that God told us that the prophecies will end, and he will stop them. So you say that that's going to be until the end. I don't believe that's what's borne out by the exegesis of 1 Corinthians 13.

I think that's an imposition on the text. He's not talking about the end of time. He's not talking about the parousia. He's not talking about the second coming or heaven or perfection in the afterlife or death.

He's not talking about any of those things. He's talking about a completed revelatory process. But to repeat my question, is there an explicit text?

Yes. Because I read that said, do not forbid tongues. I don't think that's the right reading of that text.

Let's put that aside then. Earnestly pursue these things, especially prophecy. Can you give me a text that says don't do that? He's saying earnestly desire the spiritual. In 1 Corinthians 12, he uses their word because that's what they're doing, what they think is best. In 1 Corinthians 14, in that verse, verse 39, he's not saying the same thing as he was saying there.

But he's saying it's different, and so you can't equate them. Well, again, that's your interpretation. I am saying that desiring prophecy is what Paul was urging them to do. Oh, does he ever urge me not to? Well, no. I mean, he doesn't say don't desire prophecy. Okay, so he does say desire it, and he never says don't desire it. Okay, you're trying to trick me. No, I'm trying to go with the word. No, no, no, no.

Sir, I would not try to trick you. If prophecies are going to cease when the complete revelation comes, then you're no longer going to seek them because they're not evident. They're not coming.

They're not there. You don't seek what's not there or what God doesn't intend. It's God that intends for them to stop. All right, so you agree he never says don't seek them. He does say seek them. He never says don't seek them. Yeah, well, I want to say yes, but with reservation.

Okay. Because what you're implying with that is that they must continue in the same fashion up until the coming of Christ. Well, I don't believe that's borne out by the text. Okay, so we'll come back to 1 Corinthians in a moment, but all clear on that. He does explicitly say seek. He explicitly says don't seek.

All right, second thing. Acts the second chapter. It says that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is on all flesh, so your sons and daughters were prophesied, not just apostles, et cetera. And it is in this period of the last days, it's words that Paul inserts that are not in the Septuagint or in the Hebrew.

And then in Acts 239, he says this promise of the Spirit is for you, your children, all that are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call. So when did that change? Well, the question is not when it changes.

It's understanding its nature. You see, this is part of redemptive history. Pentecost is not a repeatable event. Pentecost is part of the first coming of Christ. So you can't say, oh, I have to have a Pentecost in my life. I have to get baptized by the Spirit. I have to speak in tongues.

I have to do these things. That's not how to read it. You have to read it in its redemptive historical nature. It's a one-time thing. It is the establishing of this period, the church, the operational period of the church. That doesn't mean that that's going to happen forever after this. It's redemptive historical.

And if you don't see that, that's part of the problem. You want everything that the apostles had to experience the same thing. Well, why don't you sell your property and bring it to the apostles? Oh, wait, there are no apostles. Well, let's scratch that. You agree. Well, go sell your property and give me some of that. That's what it says there. They didn't keep their things. They sold them.

They had communal fellowship. Why don't we do that? Why do you pick and choose what you want? It's either you're going to take it all or you don't take it all because it's redemptively historical in its significance. It's not ongoing. It's not something that must repeat in everyone's life.

Right. So to clarify, I'll bypass the fact that you brought in a totally irrelevant example from Acts 4, which is not an ongoing command. But to reiterate, it says this is for the last days. That's the period we're in now. That's one.

Two, it was the pattern throughout the Book of Acts that people received the Spirit, people spoke in tongues, people prophesied, the sick were healed, and not just the apostles. So that is something that is given a time frame, the last days. It doesn't just say then. It says the last days.

That's one. Two, it is the pattern in the Book of Acts. Three, it's the pattern we're called on to follow in the Epistle.

So are we still in the last days? The question is, you still don't understand the nature of Acts. And yes, indeed, tongues are mentioned three times in Acts, chapter 2, chapter 10, and chapter 19.

Okay. Every time Jews are present, when Paul talks about tongues, he says they are a sign to the Jews. Well, a sign from what? Go back and look at Isaiah 28, verse 11, when he tells them, I'm going to speak to you with stammering lips. Tongues of, and back then it would have been Sennacherib, right? 701, the invasion of the Assyrians.

It was the Assyrian language. Not gobbledygook, not what you see today, but that, again, maybe is irrelevant. But here, the Book of Acts tells us that this was what happened when the apostles came. When the apostles came, they had to go to the Samaritans and put their hands on them. Otherwise, they wouldn't receive the Spirit. And when John the Baptist's disciples, when he asked them, do you know about the Holy Spirit, they said, we don't even know about it.

Wait a minute. John's whole ministry was, he's going to baptize you in the Holy Spirit. What do you mean, if they're John's disciples, they don't know.

No, he was talking about something specific, something unique, and they didn't get it. And he had to re-baptize them, if you will, because they didn't know the truth. Every time you see the Miraculous in Acts, it's always about the propagation of the Word. You see, when the Word is what is glorified, the Word is what is magnified.

All right, you can't deny that. When you're filled with the Spirit, they speak the Word boldly, okay? So when the Word is glorified even, in Acts 13, 48, and you see this again, the explosion of the Word is what is major in Acts, and that revelatory process, as Paul would write in the letter to the Corinthians, would soon end. And when it does, from that point on, you have faith, hope, love. Well, the other things don't remain. What remains, Paul says, is faith, hope, love. You've got to exegete that whole passage to understand it.

All right, so just back to the question. You acknowledge we're in the last days, but you claim that tongues were only a sign for the Jews. So when Paul asked the Ephesian believers in Acts 19, did you receive the Spirit when you believed, how was that a sign for him?

And when they prophesy, how is that a sign for him? Part one of the question. Part two, there's still Jews in the world today. And I give you verifiable examples of tongues, foreign languages spoken supernaturally, prophecies verifiable. So on what basis, then?

The experiences don't prove anything. Well, you said the gobbledy, you gave a disparaging thing, which would be better passed by. OK, all right.

Let's move on, then, to a different question. Just for clarity, you mentioned, James, you mentioned James 5, and it doesn't call for the elders to be healers or have faith for healing. But this is something that we're called on to do on a regular basis. If someone is sick, they should call for the elders. There's an expectation, when they're anointed with oil and prayed for, that there will be healing. So is this something that you believe every church should be practicing in accordance with James chapter 5, that we should all be regularly praying for the sick and that elders should be people capable of praying in faith for the sick to be healed? That doesn't have anything to do with the charismatic gifts. You sure?

Absolutely. So there could be no one with a gift of healing, or perhaps there were elders were gifts of healing. Where is the mention of the charismatic gift of healing in James? It's not, but it's expected that they can pray in faith for healing.

It doesn't say that they're not. That's not the same as the gift. I didn't deny that God can heal, and I don't deny that God can heal in answer to prayer. I believe God continues to be sovereign, and he can answer prayer.

He can send a person to the medical doctor, and he can heal him. I mean, it's not, how did Richard Balkin put it? It's like a spiritual mechanism where you just pray, and the result happens. It's not like that.

That's not how it works. Right, okay, but just to be for the record, and if you don't want to answer this, that's fine. Do you believe that this should be a regular practice that we pray that people who are sick call the elders for prayer for healing and that we should be able to pray in faith for their healing? That should be part of our regular practice. I believe that, number one, we have to designate what the kind of sickness is because it's possible that it's physical. It's possible also that it's not physical, and so it could be spiritual, and they're not able to pray because of the condition they're in, and if that's the case, then yeah, maybe, and if they have sinned, it says they will be forgiven. Now, I don't know what the connection with sin and sickness is. I know that sometimes in the New Testament that's assumed sometimes wrongly.

Sometimes we see the connection between sickness and sin like 1 Corinthians, and so I can't say in James it's always that. I don't know, but we have to be careful how we apply, and when we're discussing spiritual gifts, these spiritual gifts are not required of elders. The gift of healing is not required. The gift of tongues is not required.

None of these charismatic gifts are required of elders, so to be an elder in the church is not necessary that you be a healer, so they don't have the gift of healing, and that's irrelevant to the question of the charismatic gifts. Okay, in John 15, this is a relevant text because all of this part of John is where he promises the Spirit, right? We know that this is one of those texts, and of course, you allude to verse 12 in chapter 14 about those who believe these things will be done. Well, of course, we know that the Spirit will be given, and in John 15, right at the end of the chapter, it says in the context of receiving the Spirit, the comfort is coming, it says, and you shall also bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. This is unique to the apostles, and when you find in Acts this same thing is what was promised to them, so why don't you accept that, that this uniqueness of the apostles, why do you try to universalize everything that happened to them? Jesus says the very reason that this is happening is because you were with me from the beginning. How does that apply to you and me? Number one, I'm not trying to be one of the apostles.

I'm not trying to universalize. Number two, I am believing what Jesus said that whoever believes in him will do the same works that he did. Number three, I notice that in the book of Acts, the second chapter, the outpouring is not just on the apostles but on sons and daughters and on all flesh. Number four, I see people like Stephen and Philip being used in miraculous gifts.

Number five, I see the prayer of faith healing the sick in James five, so I'm just trying to follow scripture. So what does this text mean then? That they had a unique role that we don't have.

No one's arguing that. All right, gotta jump in. We've got one more segment. In this final segment, we will take you into our closing statements from our 2018 debate. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey friends, Michael Brown here. We go into the closing statements from my 2018 debate with Dr. Theodore Zacharias on the gifts of the spirit.

Are they for today? So both of us with our closing statements, and then after that, I'll come back with some closing comments right here on the line of fire. Thank you, and thank you, Theodore, for being a gentleman and a scholar tonight.

I appreciate that. So Mark 16 would be a great text to get into, but in closing statements, you can't bring in anything new, so I won't do that. But had I thought about your acceptance of it, I would have loved to use that text as well.

Maybe another time, sir. That being said, I want to reiterate the points that I made that I believe at no point have been rebutted. We'll start with the fact that Paul gives us an exhortation, not just in 1 Corinthians 14, but also in 1 Thessalonians 5, not to devise prophecies and to rather pursue the gift of prophecy and not to forbid tongues. The argument that historically they happened or didn't happen, again, does not touch on what scripture says. And we heard even in the cross-examination that while there are explicit texts telling us do this, there is no explicit text telling us don't do that. Not only so the idea, well, it's not happening anymore.

Let's say I come to faith in a jungle in Africa, and I'm given a Bible, and I begin reading it. I don't know that it's stopped. I'm going to believe what has written.

And the argument that it stopped, again, is highly subjective. And there are whole books documenting the ongoing evidence of the charismatic gifts through church history. I even mention Augustine in the early 5th century having to change his theology because of miracles.

I would say change your theology because of scripture, but fine, he did because of the miracles that he saw. So that's number one. Number two, Acts the second chapter speaks of an outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh in the period of the last days and says, the promise is to you, the second chapter, and your children, and all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God can call. That includes you and me.

We're in on that promise, same spirit. Number three, we also saw no rebuttal, or even attempted rebuttal, to John 14, 12. These are the words of Jesus, which I take very seriously, as I know each of you do. In the midst of our differences, I don't question that for a moment, that you're very serious about scripture. John 14, 12, again, Theodore is 10 times better Greek scholar than I am, 100 times better. OK, it's his native language on top of it. John 14, 12, very simple, the one who believes in me.

It is universal. It's not qualified. If you're going to qualify that, you have to qualify the others on the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never hunger, whoever believes in me will never thirst. You'll have to say that that must be qualified as well. Number four, the way God has arranged the body, OK, and everything intertwined, you have teacher intertwined with miracle workers and those with gifts of healing, and you have tongues following administration and helps.

These things are tied in and are an ongoing part of the body. I would also point this out, that it's easy to caricature. I could caricature non-charismatics as spiritually dead or skeptics or mockers and say, you're upset with us jumping up and down in church. Well, I'm upset with you falling asleep in church.

Well, that would be an unfair caricature. In the same way as someone who's been in the charismatic movement for over 45 years, I can write whole books about abuses. I can also point you to the finest people I know on the planet, devoted to Jesus, living holy, godly lives. In fact, world surveys of Christians were done which found, interestingly, that those who adhered to a charismatic or Pentecostal faith were more likely to hold to the authority of Scripture, more likely to read the Bible on a daily basis, more likely to pray, and more likely to share their faith.

So there are abuses, but let's not get into negative caricatures. Let us look, number one, at the Word, number two, at the fruit that remains. So if we go back to Scripture, and here's what I appeal to you to do afterwards, go back to the Bible, get alone, read the Scriptures, see what God has commanded, see what He has called for, see what He has promised, and unless you can find something explicit that says it's not to be practiced today, then continue to practice, continue to believe, and unless you know God fully the way He knows you, and have that face-to-face relationship with Him, even that Moses spoke with the Lord as a man speaks to his friend back and forth, then though there's still more to come, we have not yet reached that day. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you for being here, for listening to us ramble on. Theologians often talk a lot, and sometimes they communicate, sometimes they don't, but I appreciate Michael coming, and thank you for coming and allowing us to have this exchange. Peter, who was one of the apostles, and who was privileged, he was one of the inner three, the inner circle, was privileged to see certain things that not all the others got to see. One of those things was the amazing transfiguration of Jesus when they went up on that mountain. And you recall the incident, you know, Jesus is revealing, He's not adding anything to Himself, He's revealing through the flesh some of the glory which elsewhere it says He had with the Father before He was incarnated. He never lost that glory, He never gave it up, He never, you know, abandoned it.

He concealed it. On that instant, He let some of it manifest to such a degree that back in the first century they talked about the clothing being white, brighter than the sun, this kind of language. Well, Peter was so taken with this. He said, when Moses and Elijah showed up, he said, let's make the booths, right?

Let's just stay here, this is the mountaintop experience, this is wonderful. And they were discussing his exodus, his departure, his death, in other words. And Peter had that experience, and I think that that's probably one of the greatest experiences that the apostles were privileged to have. When he writes in his second letter, however, he mentions this experience, and it's a phenomenal experience.

It's an experience of something so amazing that we would say, if I could just see that, that would be enough, that would be, I could be so close to God, I could be so close to Christ, that would be wonderful. And yet here is what Peter says. He says, in contrast to this, which is not a fable, it's a truth, in contrast to that, we have a more sure word of prophecy. We have a more sure word in God's word.

This is what is important. Not the revelation, not the experience, not this phenomenon, not this miraculous transfiguration of Jesus, but what you have here. When Erasmus, who published the first Greek testament in 1516, he wrote a preface, and near the end of that preface, he said that when you read the accounts of the writers, the gospel writers and the letters of the new testament, he said this, you will know Christ better than if you were to lay your very eyes on him. That's the estimate that he gave of the scriptures. That's why he labored long and hard to get the original text out there, so people could read it. Some say Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.

If it wasn't for Erasmus, Luther wouldn't have read. By faith, the one who is righteous by faith will live. That is what caused the reformation, and the reformation was a great period of time in the history of the church where they came up with this slogan that Michael's been using it, Sola Scriptura. But Sola Scriptura is not a slogan you can just hang on to. It's not just a belief that you can say I affirm it. It is a way of life. It is saying in regards to all the phenomena that can or have been or ever shall be, I will always stand on the side of the word of God. Experience proves nothing.

If they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they won't believe even if someone was raised for the dead, and they tried to kill Lazarus when he was raised. There you have it, my friends. I ask you to trust in the full sufficiency of scripture and to learn from the original if you can. Amen.

I hope you found it helpful, the excerpts that we played. We're going to be doing this with different debates tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday as well. And I encourage you, if you're confused on issues, to read the word, read the word, read the word, pray, and ask God for insight. Yes, different people have different opinions, but you always have to ask yourself on scripture, if you're confused on issues, if you're confused on issues, yes, different people have different opinions, but you always have to ask yourself on scripture-related debates, who is better representing the plain and obvious and overwhelming sense of scripture? So dig in, and then say, Father, I want everything you have for me so I can serve you and glorify Jesus to the max. And remember to sign up for our emails at AskDrBrown.org.