Sermon Tone Analysis

Supernatural Gifts in Post-Biblical Church

If there is evidence of supernatural gifts in the post-biblical church we need to see them, and if one of the primary arguments of the cessationist position is found to be fraudulent; we should approach this topic in a Presbyterian Church

Define Protestant Cessationism

This position is a reactive one to the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church prior to and through the Reformation; especially confusing since they stressed Sola Scriptura .... we will examine during a later study… Luther, for example, rightly was worried about those who gave greater credence to the internal voice than to the Revealed Word.

People in history like Warfield (d.

1921) was antagonistic to those who felt the Lord spoke to them.

and voices like this are still with us ....This claim from MacArthur “The Church Fathers, who came almost entirely from the East, believed that the apostolic gifts had ceased.”

This is simply not true.

Many just right off the fringe groups, but some of the groups they write off are still with us - like the Methodist, and the Charismatic movement The RCC and the Eastern Church.

Protestant Cessationist have worshipped at the altar of the enlightenment and deny the validity of anything not rational.

the result is deism and not faith the Living Christ.

Pentecostals haven’t helped in their explanations , which are odd.

But if the position holds water there will be no evidence after the apostolic age; and if there are recorded histories than this position is refuted on its face.

I have chosen four people (2 from eastern church and 2 from the western), during the first six centuries of the Christian era to illustrate the continuation of the gifts.

Spirit-Empowered Ministry in the Post-Apostolic Church

It is clear that the Holy Spirit’s activity in the Christian Church did not change dramatically after A.D. 100.

There is a ebb and flow of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, but prophets continued to function in the 2nd century, and beyond.

While some church fathers (like Origen, who some consider a heretic) are reported to have claimed the gifts stopped they did not but is so, well, this if so question will show up later.

Hagiography points to a continuation throughout the Middle Ages, and the Bollandists have cleaned up the list.

They detail an evangelistic outreach empowered by gifts of the Spirit.

To insist that non of these accounts are credible, while at the same time assuming that similar stories from the 1st century church are credible, suggests that we are not letting the data speak, but imposing our own views on it regardless of what it says.

Gregory Thaumaturgus (wonder-worker) (213-270).

Gregory was born about 213 at Neocaesarea (in Asia Minor, presently Turkey), the son of wealthy, noble parents.

His father was devoted to the worship of pagan deities.

When Gregory was 14 years old, his father died and Gregory became a student of the famous Alexandrian theologian, Origen, under whose tutelage he became a devout Christian (side bar — notice that a pagan chose to study with Origen).

Origen probed his student with questions and taught him to think critically, investigating philosophy, physics, and ethics.

Gregory later praised Origen as one who mediated him through divine charisma, speaking as those who prophesy and interpret mystical and divine words.

Following his education, (230?) he returned to to his native Neocaesarea, where according to his follower, Gregory of Nyssa, there were only 17 Christians.

When Gregory the Wonder-worker died forty years later, there were only 17 who were not Christians.

How was this mass conversion accomplished?

As least four of the Church Fathers speak to this question.

One of Gregory’s spiritual descendants was Basil of Cappadocia.

In this famous work, On the Holy Spirit, he argues that Gregory should be placed among the apostles and prophets as a person who walked by the same Spirit as they.

Specifically, Basil reports that by the “fellow-working of the Spirit” Gregory has tremendous power over demons, and was so spiritually gifted that his evangelism was dramatically successful.

Basil list a few of the miracles created to Gregory’s ministry (including prophecy and the turning of the of the course of rivers).

He concludes:

by the superabundance of gifts, wrought in him by the Spirit in all power and in signs and in marvels, we was styled a second Moses by the very enemies of the Church.

Thus in all that he through grace accomplished, alike by word and deed, a light seemed seemed to be ever shining, token of the heavenly power from the unseen which followed him.

Gregory of Nyssa, another of the the Wonder-workers followers, wrote an essay of his predecessor, which seeks to explain the evangelistic success of the Wonder-worker.

Through-out it is assumed that miracles and other other supernatural phenomena resulted in mass conversions.

In this history of the early church, the fourth century historian, Socrates, reports that pagans were no less attracted to the Christian faith by his marvelous acts, than by his words.

He reports many miracles, healing of the sick, and the casting out of devils even by means of his letters.

Jerome, who provides us with the earliest extant list of “Who’s Who in the Church,” tells of reports current in the fourth and fifth centuries that Gregory’s writings were overshadowed by the “signs and wonders” which accompanied his evangelism, bringing great glory to the churches.

Curiously, the greatest Church historian of the period, Eusebius, is silent on matters miraculous in Gregory’s ministry.

This silence has been seized upon by modern “demythologizers” to suggest that they were merely figments of the Wonder-workers disciples imagination.

But arguments based on silence are valueless.

The same scholars argue that Gregory’s philosophical and reflective tendency’s would be incompatible with a ministry that evidenced “power evangelism.”

One can only wonder how, using this reasoning, they can so readily accept the same mix in the life of Saint Paul (see Acts 17: 28 and Romans 15: 18-19.)

Basil of Cappadocia (ca.

330-379): The Spirit and Social Concerns

Of all the Early Church Fathers, no one is more concerned about the things of the Spirit that Basil of Cappadocia.

His writing On the Holy Spirit may be the greatest of all such works ever produced in the Christian Church.

He lived in the same section of Asia Minor as Gregory the Wonder-worker.

This is not at all surprising because Gregory’s influence is directly referenced in Basil’s writings on the Spirit.

Basil understood that the vibrant (living and true) Christian was a “pneumatophor” - an active receptacle and distributor of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts.

He is remembered first for providing Eastern Christianity with its most articulate and powerful description of the person and offices of the divine third person of the Trinity.

Basil is also remembered for establishing the monastic rule which is used by monks of the Eastern Church.

One of the unique aspects of Basil’s concept of the Church is that it is a charismatic boy, each person exercising unique and separate gifts, without which the community as a whole is impoverished.

Basil expected those who exercised leadership and care must be spiritual seniors who have gifts of discernment of spirits and healing the sick.

They must also have prophetic giftings: Acts 11: 27-28; Acts 20:22; Acts 21: 10-11.

One of the charismata Basil encouraged was empowered Christian preaching.

He also stressed the gift of teaching.

Basil tended to rely heavily on the leadership of those having obvious spiritual endowment.

As a bishop, he would, on occasion, give leadership responsibilities to a lesser monk or lay brother who was gifted spiritually.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Basil’s charismatic life and outreach was the combining of preaching and teaching with caring.

He created an entire community, called Basilead, to deal with social needs, including those of widows, orphans, lepers, the poor, and even travelers.

In the process, he guided others into the role of pneumatophore - those led of the spirit to give of themselves, rather than be self-seeking.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430): Miracles accompanying sermons

Without a doubt, Augustine stands as the most influential Church Father in the West.

He is responsible for crystallizing much of Western theology, including the traditional Western view of the Holy Spirit’s person and work.

What most theologians and church historians do not recognize in Augustine is the dynamic of this ministry and his recognition of the place of the miraculous in successful ministry.

Although he was skeptical of the spiritual gifts in his early career, by the time he wrote the City of God (413-426), miracles were a part of his own experience.

In this work he reports, “Even now … many miracles are wrought, the same God who wrought those we read of still performing them, by whom He will and as He will....” Again, he declares, “We cannot listen to those who maintain that the invisible God works no visible miracles … God, who made the visible heaven and earth, does not disdain to work visible miracles in heaven or earth, that he may thereby awaken the soul which is immersed in things visible to worship Him, the invisible.”

Augustine gives several examples, including a Cappadocian brother and sister, Paulus and Palladia, who were widely known for their horrible cases of palsy.

They wandered into Hippo one spring, and attended church, where they were prayed for.

On Easter morning, when the largest crowd of the year had gathered, Paulus was praying in the church, when suddenly his shaking ceased.

Those around recognized what had happened, and soon the whole church was filled with the voices of those who were shouting praises to God.

Augustine then ministered to the people, mediating the eloquence of God’s work among them.

At the end of the service, there were more shouts, for the palsied sister, Palladia, who had been trembling at the back of the church, suddenly found herself totally healed.

At this point, Augustine reports,

“Such a shout of wonder rose from men and women together, that the exclamations and the tears seemed like to never have come to an end … they shouted God’s praises without words, but with such a noise that ears could scarcely bear it.”

Augustine had a practice of requiring all who had experienced miracles to make both oral and written testimony, so that those who had heard would not forget, and those who had never heard would be aware of God’s power.

He also took his own advice by reporting a variety of contemporary miracles.

Whenever a miracles occured, Augustine’s practice was to mediate the event to the people.

This was so that they would understand completely what had happened, so they would not forget, and so that God would receive the glory, not the priest.

Augustine insists that true gifts will bear examination.

He even suggests a test to determine whether the spirit is of God.... see if there is charity there.

Furthermore, Augustine warns against the notion that a spiritual work must be accompanied by external proof: “God forbid that our heart should be tempted by this faithfulness.”

Strangely, especially in light of the above, Augustine does deny that the gift of tongues is for this generation (5x) ...

“In the laying on of hands, now that persons may receive the Holy Ghost, do we look, that they should speak with tongues?

When we laid the hand on these infants, did each one of you look to see whether they would speak with tongues,, and, when he saw that they did not speak with tongues, was any of you so wrong minded as to say, ‘these have not recieved the Holy Ghost’?

Tongues are no longer needed because the church speaks in the tongues of all nations.”

This is a problem for our believers baptisms brethren since he is referring to infants … and has the early references.. IT is also very significant that he uses infants who do not speak at all for his evidence and not scripture.

Gregory the Great (540? - 604): Recorder of Contemporary miracles

Gregory the Great, the fourth and last of the traditional Latin “Doctors of the Church, “ became Pope in 590.

His Four Books of Dialogues on the Life and Miracles of the Italian Fathers and on the Immortality of Souls (593-594) simplified the doctrines expressed in Augustine’s City of God and was highly influential during the Middle Ages.

This work was was composed for the single purpose of recording miracles performed by Italian saints in his own time.

He understood that miracles were necessary in the Early Church to accomplish the work of evangelism.

So, too, they were necessary in his own time for the conversion of pagans and heretics.

They also were intended to deepen the faith of those who were already baptized Christians.