My continuationist friends (and I do have a few) proudly trumpet D. A.
Carson as being one of them. In fact, I have met more than one person
who has told me that they are continuationist in large part because of
Carson’s book, Showing the Spirit, which is his exegetical work on 1 Corinthians 12-14.
And, truth be told, this is one of Carson’s best books, and certainly
is one of the best books on spiritual gifts ever written. It
is thorough, compelling, and takes the reader deeper into the meaning
and significance of every verse in those chapters…with one obvious and
comical exception.
In the NT, the gift of tongues was the ability to speak in actual
languages. Just about every NT scholar grants that. Carson establishes
that as well, and his case is unassailable. With that in mind, there are
really only two semi-plausible ways to legitimize the modern use of
“tongues.”
One is to say that what happens today is an actual known language.
What you hear at your local Pentecostal church is some language that you
simply are not familiar with, such as Swahili. But with the advent of
tape recorders and airplanes (and the field of linguistics), these
claims are really untenable. Carson even grants that to be the case. Continue at Jesse Johnson
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