Cessationism vs. continuationism...does it make any difference?

Was everyone in Israel during the early first century healed of their diseases and infirmities? No.

...it is disturbing how charismatics chase after emotional highs and don’t see all the real wonders foing on around us each day in just the natural laws mysteriously holding everything together for starts, or your roof over your head or meal in your belly, or what about peace that gods beyond all understanding flowing from within you? Charismatics have no idea of that as they are continually chasing after short-lived emotional highs, ever see them in a store isle dealing with the pressures of life? Dead, black eyes with no light coming from them, you will know them by their works for sure....

SOME charismatics. Don't tar everyone with the same brush.

You looking for fireworks in your quotes to build you up and yet they are not from us but actually Jesus manifestations of “his” own thing and not something we conjure up ourselves for greatness.

....and yet, where do their common roots come from? It is the same whitewashing being used.

....and yet, where do their common roots come from? It is the same whitewashing being used.

...signs and wonders....
The bible made the distinction right there, this stuff is simple, your need of manufactured emotional highs is the problem.

That's strange. I have never met any Charismatics during my 50 years of associating with them, who have or are chasing emotional highs as you describe. Most, if not all I have met or seen have been ordinary godly people who enjoy going to church to worship God, hear Scriptural-based inspiring messages, and have enjoyable fellowship with fellow believers. Not much different from any non-Charismatic believer.

They appear to me to be people who go to church to have fun and enjoyment, rather than the many who look as if they are going to the dentist when they go into the church and look as though they had been to the dentist when they come out again.

Having fun and enjoying church does not necessarily mean that they are chasing emotional highs. Church for them is not a dry, boring place where liturgies are muttered with the mouth while the mind is thinking of Saturday's football results. Many dead church people yell like Commanche Indians at the football match on Saturday but sit like wooden Indians in church on Sunday.

I think your description of Charismatics is stuff that you've dreamed up out of your head than what the true nature of Charismatic believers really is.

I've seen more dead, black eyes in boring, ritual-based, wooden indian religious people than I have ever seen in a Charismatic church.

It is you who is injecting your bias into the verses. Here are the verses:

1 Corinthians 13:8–10
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

These verses clearly state that the gifts will end when "the perfect comes", what is the "prefect" we cannot be sure. But whatever it is it's something that would come in Paul's future. Was it 97 AD, 112 AD, 200 AD or April 8, 1584 AD? If Paul thought it was the return of Jesus Christ he would have written it so.

Prove to me that Paul meant Jesus from the Bible only and not any Holy Spirit esoteric knowledge. If you cannot then I suggest you are the troll and the hater.

Here is your chance, these are the verses you picked, why should someone believe Paul meant the return of Christ and not the coming of the Holy Bible.

Firstly, using bold-face type for entire sentences just comes across as yelling.

Secondly, using such antagonistic language as "If you cannot then... you are the troll and the hater" is contrary both to Christian fellowship and to reasonable discussion. It condemns you as well as the other.

Thirdly, your entire demand is nonsensical and silly. "Prove 'X' to me, or you are a troll and hater." There is no logical connection between the two concepts.

Irrelevant. Not every charismatic is a seeker of emotional experiences.

The people you associate with may "conjure up" things for themselves "for greatness", but I have never met any Pentecostals or Charismatics who have done that. And this is coming from an old, experienced "soldier" of faith who has been around for the last 73 years, 54 of those as a committed believer in Christ who knows his Bible.

Irrelevant. Not every charismatic is a seeker of emotional experiences.

Oh for sure the girl going to the same dead church her gramma did because her gramma did? Is apt to be there for the wrong reasons and be just as bound by lies as the charismatics who blew threw her church 30 years ago and tore it to pieces with their emotional trip’n. And absolutely the crowd can be all having fun and games at church in their soft sell of charismatic fever all the time letting people searching for truths in life just fall through the cracks because all they have to offer is their clicks and family groups built around pandering to those who make serious coin within the fellowship but have no sense of what it takes in losses of time and security to tend to those in genuine spiritual need. And why? Because all that is taught is various forms of health, wealth and happiness with some turkey talk and laying on of emotional hands, as some stand back and just pray lofty prayers because they are afraid of what spirits they could become infected with by touching another.....that's really gonna help the young couple in need of proper biblical council and the realities around relinquishing self for God’s will and that the challenges may be there to stay so God can use them to wear your rough edges off! Nope, sorry, no bag of gold for you as expounded upon in the mornings sermon! Hahaha....that’s not trolling at all, just sharing the truths of what emptiness from within emotional worship centres has to offer real life challenges

Well, isn’t that interesting? In my 56yrs raised in born again circles and studying the word, that is all i have seen coming from charismatics and pentecostals.....odd isn’t it? Who is your teaching coming from? Those writing for charisma magazine?

Nonsense. I and my close friends in the faith have been Pentecostal or Charismatic in our theology for many years, going right back to the early 1970s, and none of us have ever sought manufactured emotional highs at all. But church for us is fun and enjoyable, inspiring, uplifting, and a great place to be on a Sunday.

Then why would they stay in association with a system of faith who’s main tenants are built upon emotional trip’n and a two tiered system of those who have the 2nd blessing and those who don’t?

Your pouring out of acid against Charismatics makes me wonder if someone in a Charismatic church got on your wick at one stage and the experience has coloured your whole perception of Charismatics? In my many years of experience that is usually the case.

I knew a guy who was converted in a church, then left it because of the "hypocrites in the church" and decided to become an atheist. He was divorced from his first wife and had remarried, and I had the suspicion that he might have been unfaithful in his first marriage, and was taken to task about it by the leaders of the church, as they would quite rightfully do in the way of correction. Because I knew that he was a person who couldn't be told or corrected in any way, I think the efforts of the church leaders to give him appropriate correction deeply offended him and so he decided that they were all "hypocrites", and dropped out of the Christian faith altogether.

So, who in a Charismatic church got your nose out of joint?

Actually I get my teaching from the Bible, and my observation from my many friends in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement in New Zealand. Maybe New Zealand Charismatics are a different breed than the ones in your area.

By the way, Kenny Copeland's form of Charismatic is not mainstream Charismatic practice or teaching.

Who says they do?