As far as I know, there’s no one who refers to themselves as a “post-restorationist”, but perhaps that would be a good way to describe a couple of sites I discovered this week.

The first is the blog of Ger Jones, which I discovered thanks to his insightful comments on a post about Restorationism. Anyway, Ger is the son of Bryn Jones, so he probably has a better inside view of Restorationism than most. Ger is currently studying at Regent college in Canada. I read his entire blog last night, and there’s lots of interesting stuff there, and he deserves more readers than he apparently gets, judging by the lack of comments.

The second is the website of David Matthew, himself a former significant player in Restorationism, and mentioned many times in Restoring the Kingdom. There is a very interesting article entitled “No Revival, So What Now?” which addresses the topic of what direction the “new churches” are going in. His analysis is quite perceptive, outlining four trends from which he highlights both strengths and weaknesses. I think New Frontiers would probably agree with much of his suggestion for synthesis, all except for his preference for churches not to grow overly large, which is something NFI are unashamedly pushing at the moment.

An anonymous commenter on my post on books for charismatic evangelicals asked me what I though of Simon Ponsonby’s book “More”, which is subtitled “How you can have more of the Spirit when you already have everything in Christ”. It addresses an important question in the debate on the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I actually suspect, given Michael Green’s endorsement of the book, that he doesn’t believe in baptism in the Spirit as secondary to conversion. But he does passionately believe that we are to desire and seek more of the Spirit’s power and presence in our lives.

I had never heard of the man or the book, but a quick web search revealed that Simon Ponsonby, who is from St Aldate’s church in Oxford has a large collection of his sermons online in MP3 format, including some which appear to be based on his book preached at an All Soul’s Peckham church weekend away. They are very helpful sermons, and what’s interesting for me is that in these two sermons, entitled “The Foundation for More” and “More”, feature a reference to my friend J-D, and a reading from (I assume from the American accent) his wife Kellie.

J-D was once at St Aldates Oxford and is now at All Saints Peckham. He has recently written two wonderful worship songs, which have been immensely helpful to me in my own personal times of worship. I mention them here, because they both fit in with the theme of “More”.

They are entitled “Lord, You Desire” and “Father, in Your Eyes” and brief excepts can be heard here. Let me quote some lyrics to give you a flavour:

Give me a heart that burns for you
A passion that will never fade away
Give me a devotion that will never cease to cry
More of you in my life

Today I decide, you are the one I will persue
Leaving it all to follow you

Total devotion, means that there’s nothing I hold back
Total surrender, means I don’t question what you say

As Dan has pointed out, far more important than simply emphasising the use of charismatic gifts is a real hunger and thirst for more of the living God. And I think that he is right too, in suggesting that in this common pursuit, we may find genuine unity, even between cessationists and continuationinsts.

Jeremy Pierce raised some interesting questions in his comments on my recent post. He confesses to not understanding how speaking in tongues might edify the speaker. I agree that there is some mystery to it, perhaps in a similar way to the way that partaking of the Lord’s supper and water baptism can be means of grace to us. From personal testimony though, I would say that speaking in tongues for a few minutes is very helpful in putting me into a more prayerful attitude when I am finding it hard to pray, and afterwards I find a surprising liberty and passion in my prayers in English.

However, the point I want to address here is why would we want tongues in a public meeting? If it only edifies the hearer (1 Cor 14:4), as Paul says, then why not speak in your natural language? It would seem that in Corinth that some people were quite self-centred about their use of this gift – wanting to show themselves as spiritual, rather than desiring to edify others. But ego-centric motives are not exclusively tied to speaking in tongues – prophets and even preachers could just as easily fall into the same trap.

As a general rule (and here I may go against the views of some of my charismatic friends), people with the gift of tongues would not normally expect to use it in a public meeting. But on occasion, they may feel that the Spirit is stirring them to speak out in tongues in much the same way that a person with the gift of prophecy does. In this case, they should be open to the possibility that God intends them to bring this contribution, and that the church will be edified through its interpretation.

Which brings us on to the question of how you know if “an interpreter” is present (1 Cor 14:28). In charismatic churches, there are often a few people known to exercise this gift. But if you are not sure they are there, then you should pray that you yourself would be given the interpretation (1 Cor 14:13), as your desire should be for the church to be blessed which cannot happen if the tongue goes uninterpreted.

So how is it that a tongue followed by an interpretation might edify a congregation in a way that a contribution in a natural language wouldn’t? Let me suggest two ways.

First, tongues is an exalted prayer language, in which we speak mysteries to God (1 Cor 14:2). In my experience the interpretation is a prayer that really lifts the spirits of all who hear, often with greater fervency and eloquence than is normally seen in public prayers in church. Thus everyone is encouraged and drawn in to worship more wholeheartedly as they see the Spirit moving someone to pray in such a way.

Second, tongues are described as a ‘sign’ for unbelievers (1 Cor 14:22). This is by no means a simple verse to understand, but I take it to mean that the gift of tongues is a powerful witness to visiting unbelievers that they are outsiders. There is a power present that they know nothing of, and this may stir a hunger within them to know it for themselves.

In conclusion, let me quote 1 Cor 14:39: “So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.” It seems clear to me that Paul considered prophecy far more immediately useful than tongues in meetings, but to forbid speaking in tongues publicly could also rob people of a blessing God wanted to bring. In other words, if Paul was judging a meeting, he wouldn’t be asking “were there three prayers in tongues?” but “were people edified?” and “was there evidence of the Spirit’s moving?”.

There are not many books for people for whom being committed to Scripture is a non-negotiable, but desire to explore how much of contemporary charismatic practice is truly Biblical. Two good ones, from opposite sides of the table are Don Carson’s “Showing the Spirit” (which I have reviewed in detail here), and David Pawson’s “Word and Spirit Together”. Both books in their own different ways highlight strengths and weaknesses of the different positions, and offer ways in which evangelical non-charismatics and charismatics might find more common ground, and move towards a truly biblical unity.

But there are two very interesting new books that I feel will be able to contribute significantly to the ongoing debate between evangelicals about the charismatic gifts. Again, there is one from each side of the table, and both have the potential to be read and appreciated by those of differing persuasions.

First is Sam Storm’s new “Convergence: Spiritual Journeys of a Charismatic Calvinist”, in which he argues that one can be both a convinced Calvinistic evangelical and a charismatic – in fact, that they belong together. Unfortunately its not available in the UK yet, but I have high hopes for this book to help non-charismatics understand and appreciate charismatic evangelicalism better. Having said that, Tim Challies was not convinced.

Second is a collection of essays entitled “Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit? An Investigation into the Ministry of the Spirit of God Today” edited by Daniel Wallace and James Sawyer. Abstracts can be read here. This comes from a non-charismatic background, and is intended to address the issue of the missing dynamic of the spirit-filled life in many reformed churches. They propose “pneumatic Christianity” as the answer, without fully embracing being charismatic. Again, its not easy to get this book in the UK, but Justin Taylor records Wayne Grudem’s thoughts on it here. Its another one I am eager to read.

Despite our sometimes robust disagreements, there is a surprising amount of common ground between the charismatic and non-charismatic evangelicals. Let us not be too proud to learn from each other, and together move closer towards being fully obedient to God’s Word and fully open to God’s Spirit.

I am struggling to keep up with the pace of the charismatic versus cessationist debate that has been raging in the Christian blog world over previous weeks. However, I did want explain my mention of the words “open” and “cautious” near each other in my last post, as Dan has taken this to be an advocation of the “open but cautious” position, which it was not supposed to be.

There is in fact a broad range of positions from the cessationists who see any modern day tongues and prophecies as being of the devil, right through to the raving charismatics who seem to think that tongues and prophecy are the only elements to the Christian life. The common division of evangelicals into three distinct groups (cessationist, open but cautious, and charismatic) is in fact over-simplistic.

For example, some who are broadly cessationist will still be open to the possibility of occasional supernatural occurrences of the charismatic gifts, but were they to occur, they would not expect or seek their recurrence afterwards.

The “open but cautious” camp itself consists of those who are not opposed in principle to the ongoing use of the gifts today, but are unsure that what they see in charismatic churches is either genuine or desirable. Within this group, there are those more accurately described as “closed and critical”, and no one would dare attempt to use such a gift during one of their meetings. But there are also those who are quite happy that one or two members of their church exercise these gifts publicly on occasions, but the rest of the church are not encouraged to follow suit.

Even within the charismatic group, there is variety, from those who insist that all believers without exception should seek and receive the charismatic gifts, and consider it dreadful for a meeting to go by without a prophecy or tongue, to those who place a lesser priority on these gifts.

However, I am not in the “open but cautious” group myself, because I believe their caution all but cancels out their openness to the charismatic gifts. However, I used the terms because they have a Biblical mandate.

We are called to be open. “Eagerly desire the greater gifts”. “Do not treat prophecy with contempt.” But we are also called to be discerning (which is probably a better word than “cautious”). The Bible repeatedly warns of deception and false prophecy. So I would say that the Biblical position is to be “open but discerning”.

In summary if “caution” is used as an excuse not to seek after God with all our hearts and to welcome all that he wishes to do through us and in us, then I want no part of it. All I meant to say is that I want the real deal, not a fake plastic replica.