The recent “Strange Fire” conference at John MacArthur’s church advocated the cessationist position, that is, the position that the gifts of healing, prophecy, and tongues ceased with the apostolic age and are therefore not present in the church today.  This conference, as you can imagine, stirred up quite a bit of controversy, especially among those who adhere to the continuationist position, the position that these gifts do indeed continue to this day.

My own position is that while I am suspicious of much that goes on under the charismatic and pentecostal banners, and while I think we are right to outright reject the clearly unbiblical excesses of some branches of these movements, scripture does not contain the explicit biblical evidence for cessationism that I would need to see to hold to that position.  As such, I am cautious but open to the continuance of these gifts should they draw attention to Christ and not violate any of the clear teaching of God’s Word.

I saw yesterday that James White’s Alpha and Omega Ministries (this is not an endorsement of James White, by the way, though he has done some good work in some important areas) hosted a debate between Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Sam Waldron on the question, “Have the New Testament Charismatic Gifts Ceased?”  I was able to listen to this debate today and found it helpful insofar as it presents two well-thought-out representative cases for these positions.