A friendly but curious subscriber asks, "In view of your book's title (The Sound of His Voice: Discovering the Secrets of God's Guidance) and some recent gracEmails, I wonder whether you have become one of those charismatics."
A gracEmail subscriber who desires to be open to whatever God might wish to do in her life expresses difficulty with the idea that he still bestows gifts of tongues, prophecy and healing. What is the gift of "tongues" supposed to be, anyway?
A gracEmail subscriber writes concerning a man who claims to be an apostle, and whom a number of believers regard as such. Are there living apostles today? What makes a person an apostle?
It is Sunday, November 17, 1996, approximately 4:20 in the evening. I have taught and preached this weekend at a little church in the southern Arizona desert, and the Tucson traffic has almost made me miss the plane home. I rush to check in at the American Airline ticket counter, then run -- as fast as my stubby, out-of-shape body can travel -- to the departure gate
Scripture says that supernatural gifts of tongues, prophecy and knowledge will cease when "the perfect" comes (1 Cor. 13:10). "When will that be?" a gracEmail reader asks. "Does this verse refers to the last biblical book being written?"
power, love and spiritual gifts
A gracEmail subscriber writes concerning a relative who has "discovered the amazing power of the Spirit," and is now eager to share this miracle-and-wonder power with everyone else.
A brother from a Baptist church in North Carolina writes, "My view has been that only the apostles had authority to bestow spiritual gifts through the laying on of hands, but I've had to rethink that in the light of other passages of Scripture. What do you think, based on your study of Scripture?"
A preacher in the South asks: "If the miraculous spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12-14 are still available, how do we go about receiving them?"
A preacher in the South asks: "If the miraculous spiritual gifts ... are still available, has anyone in your congregation received them, and how do we verify whether they are genuinely from God?"
Great joy, human brokenness and divine renewal marked our seminar on gifts of the Holy Spirit. The seminar included two teaching sessions followed by a question-and-answer session on Saturday morning and a healing prayer service on Saturday evening.
The deadness of Winter has given way to the greening of new life in the fields and forests of Arkansas, now lavishly adorned in a living palette of jonquils, firepinks and wisteria, and complemented by redbuds, dogwoods and flowering trees of all kinds. Contributing to all this splendor, robins, bluebirds and martins cheerfully announce the arrival of Spring. Meanwhile, the Grand Artist is also moving among the community of rescued humans, in whose lives he is working a rebirth and transformation fully as awesome as his work in nature. Sara Faye and I were privileged to enjoy God's work in both arenas this past weekend, as we shared in the body-life of the nondenominational Covenant Fellowship in Searcy, Arkansas.