Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09069 The spiritual gifts are given by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the body of Christ, but the history of the church, from the New Testament onwards, is littered with examples of gifts being exercised in ways that damage rather than edify. The potential for misuse does not invalidate the gifts…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 09068 Every believer has been given at least one spiritual gift by the Holy Spirit, distributed according to His will (1 Corinthians 12:11). The question of how to discover those gifts is one of the most practical and personally significant questions a growing Christian can ask. The answer requires a combination of biblical understanding,…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09081 Ephesians 4:11 lists the gifts Christ has given to the church: “the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers.” The phrasing of the final pair in the original Greek has generated a longstanding debate: are “pastors” and “teachers” two separate callings, or is Paul describing a single, combined role? The answer…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09102 1 Corinthians 14 addresses both the gift of prophecy and the regulation of teaching within the gathered assembly, but it does not always make the boundary between the two as neat as systematic theology would prefer. Understanding the distinction is important, because confusing them in either direction leads to practical problems in church…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 09013 The question of whether prophets exist in the church today sits at the intersection of several important issues: the nature of spiritual gifts, the sufficiency of Scripture, the closure of the canon, and the practical experience of many believers who have received what they understand to be prophetic words. The answer requires careful…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 04123 Few topics in modern church life generate as much confusion, controversy, and pastoral difficulty as the question of speaking in tongues. For some believers, tongues is the defining mark of spiritual vitality, the indispensable evidence of the Spirit’s fullness. For others, it belongs entirely to the apostolic era and has no place in…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 60072 Few movements in modern church history have proved more persistently influential or more theologically problematic than the Latter Rain revival of the late 1940s and the doctrine of the Manifest Sons of God that grew from it. Though the names may be unfamiliar to many Christians today, the ideas continue to circulate widely,…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion Q04014 Few questions in Pneumatology generate more confusion or more heat. The baptism of the Holy Spirit has been claimed as the defining subsequent experience of the Christian life by some traditions, treated with suspicion by others, and misunderstood by many who hold it as central to their spirituality. What Scripture actually teaches is…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 04038 Being ‘drunk in the Spirit’ is a phrase used within certain charismatic and neo-charismatic circles to describe a state of apparent spiritual intoxication, characterised by uncontrollable laughter, staggering, slurred speech, and behaviour that mimics physical drunkenness. The phenomenon gained global prominence during the so-called ‘Toronto Blessing’ of 1994 and continues to feature in…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 4076 The phrase “second blessing” carries a great deal of theological baggage, and the doctrine it represents has divided evangelical Christians for well over a century. At its core, the second blessing doctrine holds that there is a distinct, definable spiritual experience available to Christians after conversion — often called entire sanctification, perfection, or…