Doesn’t Word Faith have a ring of works righteousness to it? It’s amazing how everything always seems to go back to works righteousness, at least it does in my mind. Every false doctrine seems to have works righteousness at the heart of it. Man just cannot let God have all of the glory. If we have provision, its because God has granted it to us out of His loving kindness according to His will, not because we followed a formula and we had faith in our faith (our works righteousness). You see, God is great but He always needs that little extra nudge of assistance from us; Mighty Man. Salvation works that way too. Christ’s sacrifice paid it all on the cross but it was all for nothing if I don’t MAKE Jesus Lord and make a decision for Him. I’m sorry, Jesus IS Lord regardless of me receiving Him or not but that’s for another discussion. (Got off on a tangent…sorry).
I’m new to the Charismatic teaching so I don’t know if they are all the same or not as far as to degree that they believe in gifts of spirit, etc. I just read a piece from Tim Challies’ blog that was talking about the cessationist vs. continuationist debate (I never knew there was a debate prior to today) and it gives a good description of what all this topic consists of. Some criticize MacArthur and claim that MacArthur paints a dramatic caricature and with this, a lot of Charismatics claim that they do not fall into the category that MacArthur describes. I also learned today that Reformed Theologian John Piper is a continuationist – who would’ve thunk it?
The links for the Challies articles are below. Tim Challies interviews Dr. Samuel E. Waldron in the first article and in the next interviews Dr. Wayne Grudem about this topic.
I should’ve mentioned in my previous post that Dr. Waldron is a cessationist & Dr. Grudem is a continuationist & that Mr. Challies is attmpting to give both sides of the argument through the two different articles….sorry.
Doesn’t Word Faith have a ring of works righteousness to it? It’s amazing how everything always seems to go back to works righteousness, at least it does in my mind. Every false doctrine seems to have works righteousness at the heart of it. Man just cannot let God have all of the glory. If we have provision, its because God has granted it to us out of His loving kindness according to His will, not because we followed a formula and we had faith in our faith (our works righteousness). You see, God is great but He always needs that little extra nudge of assistance from us; Mighty Man. Salvation works that way too. Christ’s sacrifice paid it all on the cross but it was all for nothing if I don’t MAKE Jesus Lord and make a decision for Him. I’m sorry, Jesus IS Lord regardless of me receiving Him or not but that’s for another discussion. (Got off on a tangent…sorry).
I’m new to the Charismatic teaching so I don’t know if they are all the same or not as far as to degree that they believe in gifts of spirit, etc. I just read a piece from Tim Challies’ blog that was talking about the cessationist vs. continuationist debate (I never knew there was a debate prior to today) and it gives a good description of what all this topic consists of. Some criticize MacArthur and claim that MacArthur paints a dramatic caricature and with this, a lot of Charismatics claim that they do not fall into the category that MacArthur describes. I also learned today that Reformed Theologian John Piper is a continuationist – who would’ve thunk it?
The links for the Challies articles are below. Tim Challies interviews Dr. Samuel E. Waldron in the first article and in the next interviews Dr. Wayne Grudem about this topic.
http://www.challies.com/archives/interviews/tongues-signs-w.php
http://www.challies.com/archives/interviews/tongues-signs-w-1.php
I should’ve mentioned in my previous post that Dr. Waldron is a cessationist & Dr. Grudem is a continuationist & that Mr. Challies is attmpting to give both sides of the argument through the two different articles….sorry.