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From: lohr@wsqtb8.crd.ge.com
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Spiritual gifts not meant for today??
Message-ID: <Jan.16.04.51.58.1990.16174@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 90 09:52:01 GMT
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Spiritual gifts not meant for today??

    I don't mean to stir up controversy with this - I'm more just looking for
information.  This may even be an old thread which has been covered
fairly thoroughly.

    There's is a teaching which I have heard several times (more or less
second hand) which states that the spiritual gifts are "not meant for today".
That is, they were meant for the early church to build it up initially, 
but are not given today and at best inappropriate.  This applies in particular
to the more "miraculous" gifts such as tounges, prophesy, healing and word of 
knowledge.  I think some go as far as to teach that the manifestation of
these gifts today is satanic in origin.  

    I believe one pivital scripture reference used to verify this is in 
1Cor 13, where it states, that when the perfect comes the imperfect (refering 
to the imperfect or incomplete manfestation of the gifts) will pass away, 
where "the perfect" is taken to be the completed New Testament rather than
the coming of Christ.

    Do I have this right?  Can anyone summerize both pro and con (without too
much bias ;-)?  Are there denominations or well-known teachers who in 
particular adhere to this belief? Is this an age-old controversy within the
body, or something which is very recent?  Does the range on the con side
truly go from "inappropriate" to "satanic in origin"?

                                                     Phil Lohr
                                                     lohr@crd.ge.com
                                                     uunet!crd.ge.com!lohr