Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Spiritual Gifts and the Church

I’ll preface this post by outlining some conclusions I have come to: supernatural spiritual gifts are real, they are relevant, and they are powerful; any believer today can duplicate Christ’s miracles.
[Note: It is written that every believer should work out their faith for themselves, so don’t take my conclusive statements to be judgmental proclamations or factual points. If you disagree with my theological standpoint, feel free to email me and let me know where we disagree. Any constructive criticism related to my theology would be seen as an act of love for a brother in Christ you believe to be mistaken; and not as a personal attack on me or my beliefs.]

A church I attended regularly recently witnessed the power of the Holy Spirit through supernatural miracles. Before this experience the pastor was regularly preaching about the validity of spiritual gifts and the power we all have as believers. Now that this church has seen the miracles first-hand, the pastor is continuing to preach about the supernatural and our access to them. The reason I wrote this post is to ask this: is there a number of sermons (or another benchmark) by which we should draw a line for teaching about the same aspect of God? I’m concerned that a continued, non-stop focus on the same aspect will not edify the body; and as a result the believers will become stagnant and die!

Lastly, I want to state a disclaimer: I do not believe that the spiritual gifts should not be mentioned or imparted on a weekly basis. I am concerned with the focus of the sermons staying on the same topic; I am not implying or suggesting that we do not draw attention to the power of God on a weekly basis.

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