The Narrow Path Ministries

I just watched a program on tv with a pastor speaking.His name is John C whitcomb.
He was teaching the charismatic gifts are not needed at this time during the church age.Only the church is needed.Also apostles are not needed.

And in that, the church needs to tell the truth in Love.And this is a part of it according to him!

If you are sick you should just go to the church(local) call on your pastors and let God do the healing.Realizing God will not heal "perfectly" until we cross over into our new life, with a new body.We cannot make God do anything.We should just follow what he says to do.

It does not have to do with if you have enough "faith" to be healed, nor have hands laid on you, nor "holy water" or cloths touched. And in that he refered to the scripture where Paul was healing folks and was so over whelmed he told them to send him cloths and he would send them back and they would be healed by them.It was Gods power transported through them and faith than.BUT that was for those times not now. So he said don't waste your monies on those who say they will "bless" your cloth or water for 20.00 etc.Also ,don't bother traveling to some one either that says they have a healing gift.If God wants to heal, he will just do it through the church.

He went on to say Paul showed this in several places where he could have healed folks but didn't. Especially by the time he was in prison in Malta.He believes Pauls healing , charismatic gifts were taken from him by than.

As proof, In 2 Tim 4:20,1 Tim 5:23.He would have healed them if he could have done it still. He also went onto say how he would have "healed" himself of his affliction (thorn), but did not.

He also spoke of himself earlier in that Paul said in 2Corn 12:12 he/they had done all things that Christ said the apostles would/could do.
Referring to Mark 16 17-18.(bit by serpents, drank poison etc) but in action as far as how Mr.Whitcomb teaches this, he wasn't doing them after being in prison any more (Paul).

He said ( Mr.Whitcomb) if you do not believe this(apostles , gifts and doing these things are not for now) but think it still works now , Basically I dare you to drink poison and see if you live.

He was not really advocating you do this!
He also said we need no more apostles.
They were for than, so were the gifts.

We just need the church now.

SO what do you think?

ps I did not add all the scriptures he drew from.I hope I am not disrespecting this man in how I heard this, but I am sharing this as well as I have deciphered it by him.

Dr. Whitcomb is presenting a very mainstream, evangelical view, which is the position of non-charismatic theology. "Charismatic" refers to the belief in and practice of the gifts of the Holy Spirit ("gifts" = Greek: charismata). Many Protestant denominations hold to non-charismatic theology and would explain things similarly to the manner that you heard from Dr. Whitcomb. The technical term for this theological position is "Cessationism" (from the word "cease", as in: "The gifts ceased to exist after the Apostolic Era").

There are many things scripturally and historically wrong with this view. First, the Bible never predicts that the gifts will cease at the end of the Apostolic Era. Second, the history of the church has known very many occurrences of the gifts of the Holy Spirit since the time of the apostles. The Didache (early second century) speaks of the prophets in the churches. Irenaeus (late second century) mentions the gifts in the churches. I believe there were miraculous events in the lives of St. Patrick (fifth century) and St. Francis (twelth and thirteenth centuries). Even Luther (sixteenth century) said, "The Spirit and the gifts are ours..." (in "A Mighty Fortress is Our God"). There have been charismatic revivals off and on through the centuries. Neither scripture nor history agree with the Cessationist position.

Many take the Cessationist view for other reasons, however:

1) Because supernatural phenomena are generally rare, and most Christians cannot claim to have seen anything indisputably supernatural. They have the impression that miracles were as thick as dandelions in a meadow in the Book of Acts, and since we do not see them happening around us like that now (they reason), it must be that God has ceased to behave that way;

2) Because many alleged miraculous healings are obviously faked by charlatans who profess to be charismatically gifted. Many Christians who have no trouble seeing through this nonsense react in disgust or embarrassment and conclude that belief in such things is the domain of weirdos and religious quacks;

3) Because genuinely-supernatural things seem unmanageable and make us feel insecure. If we can reduce the normative working of God to domains that we have the possibility of mastering—through intellectual study or through administrative acumen—we can make out a ten-year plan for our church without the danger of God unpredictably upsetting the apple cart. Once you get God doing unusual things, there is the danger of man's best-laid plans falling apart, and of our finding ourselves confronting situations for the management of which we have not been trained. It also makes it impossible to standardize and institutionalize the church's protocol in ways that keep our group in sync with the others of our denomination. For example, if a healing revival should unfortunately erupt in a Presbyterian church, this could endanger that church's standing in its denomination. If people in a Southern Baptist church should begin speaking in tongues, the church might split or be thrown out of the denomination.

All things considered, it is just easier to avoid messiness if we keep God's supernatural activities confined to the pages of an old book. Once the "genie" gets out of that "bottle", you may not be able to get it back in there if find yourself uncomfortable with his actions.

Thank you steve for your explanations.

I myself do believe in the gifts( Yet I also have been in churches where I feel it has been abused and I have come in contact with "different spirits' resulting from that)..I also have been given prophetic words that have come to pass and dreams of the future, very specific that have come to pass, to much in that I couldn't make the situations up and it involved other people..
I also have spoken in tongues.I am not trying to pat myself on the back,I am just saying these have been my experineces and God has used them in my life with believers and unbelievers and has to this very day!
I wanted to throw this out to understand why I hear "fellow" Christians deny this.I have even had some be some what condescending to me when I speak of how the Lord has worked in my life.Sad.

When Dr. Whitcomb was saying why Paul did not heal these folks or himself was reason to support his healing gift had ceased made no sense to me. Just because it didn't happen, it didn't mean it should have., Anyways thanks again for the explanation.

Non-charismatics would say you cannot go by your experience, but must go by scripture, but your experience is scriptural. Perhaps they are unaware of the degree to which their own beliefs on this subject are determined by their own experiences (or lack thereof).

Paul's failure to heal himself has nothing to do with the disappearance of the healing ministry. Paul was sick when he came to Galatia (Galatians 4:13; his first missionary journey), but he demonstrated the miraculous power of God among the Galatians nonetheless (Galatians 3:1—not by healing himself, apparently, since he was still sick much later when he wrote 2 Corinthians 12). Paul's (and Jesus') healing ministry was mostly to unbelievers, and served them as a sign to confirm the gospel preached to them (Mark 16:20). Jesus did not even heal His friend Lazarus, but let him die. Throughout the time that Paul was healing others, he himself, and some of his Christian companions, were often sick and unhealed. Sickness may play a God-glorifying role in the life of a believer (2 Cor.12:8-10/ James 1:2ff), and thus it may not always be the will of God to heal.

The anecdotal arguments of Whitcomb are weak compared to the actual declarations of scripture that the gifts are with us until the revelation of Christ (1 Cor.1:7); until the perfect has come (1 Cor.13:10; and until we all come unto a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph.4:11-13). What's more, Whitcomb's chronology of Paul's sickness vis-a-vis his active healing ministry (apparently his strongest argument?) is inaccurate.