Keep running across charismatic/continuationist reactions to the Strange Fire Conference. Besides the surprisingly common responses that seem not to have heard a word of the Conference at all but just go on and on elaborating their own familiar opinions, the main misunderstanding persists: they miss the point that it's supernatural gifts possessed by human beings that are said to have ceased, not God's doing of miracles Himself.
This was said at the Conference but nevertheless keeps being overlooked. Tom Pennington's talk showed that gifts to men had the specific purpose of identifying the possessor as God's messenger, and there was no need for such messengers after Jesus' ministry was shown to be from God. But God may still do miracles Himself, nobody is denying that. Pennington answers this among other persisting misunderstandings of his arguments HERE.
It's a common confusion the Conference should have definitively resolved, but it persists. Even Martyn Lloyd-Jones seems to have misunderstood this, which you can see on a You Tube video of John Piper on Lloyd-Jones, Piper also having this misunderstanding.
When you then see that the gifts claimed for today aren't at all the same as those in the New Testament, the whole issue ought to be closed with finality.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
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