Does the Holy Spirit still give miraculous gifts today — or did cessationism just give half the church permission to ignore two-thirds of the New Testament?

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  Diego1mo ago

  I was a cessationist for 22 years. Taught it confidently. Then my daughter was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and a woman in our prayer group spoke something specific and detailed about her recovery that no one could have known medically. She's been cancer-free for six years. I don't know what to do with my theology anymore but I know what I saw.

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  Zara1mo ago

  I don't care about the label. Cessationist. Continuationist. Whatever. I know that the God I met in the worst night of my life, when I was suicidal and alone at 3am, spoke to me. Clearly. Personally. Not audibly but undeniably. I will not let a theological framework take that from me.

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  Zara1mo ago

  nobody is talking about the elephant in the room which is that a LOT of people claiming the gift of tongues are clearly just making sounds. i was in a church where they literally taught you to 'prime the pump' by repeating syllables until it 'kicked in.' that is not a spiritual gift. that is a learned vocal behavior. and if we can't admit that, we lose credibility on the whole question.

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  Yuki1mo ago

  I grew up Pentecostal. Watched adults perform fake healings, watched people guilt-tripped for not speaking in tongues, watched a pastor say God told him to take a woman's rent money as a 'seed.' The gifts aren't the problem. The lack of accountability and the emotional manipulation around them absolutely is.

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  Sam1mo ago

  Cessationism is just rationalism with a Bible verse stapled to it. Show me ONE passage — just one — where Paul says 'by the way, these gifts expire when the last apostle dies.' You can't. Because it isn't there.

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  Kofi1mo ago

  I'm a pastor and I'll be honest with my congregation about something I rarely say publicly: I have prayed for people in genuine faith and have NOT seen miraculous healing. I have also heard specific, detailed words spoken over people in our church that could not be explained naturally and proved accurate. I have seen both. Any theology that forces me to explain away either experience is probably incomplete.

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  Taylor1mo ago

  the real answer is that the western institutional church has systematically trained the Holy Spirit out of itself through liturgy, professionalism, seminary credentialism, and a horror of anything that cant be controlled from the pulpit. cessationism didn't kill the gifts. our structures did. and then we built a theology to justify the silence.

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  Maya K.1mo ago

  my problem with continuationism isnt the theology its the culture. ive seen too many people told their loved one wasnt healed because THEY didnt have enough faith. that is cruel. that is harmful. and it flows directly from the continuationist framework. if healing is available to all believers who have real faith, then someone not getting healed becomes THEIR fault. thats not gospel.

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  Zara1mo ago

  The thing that pushed me from cessationism was studying church history honestly. The gifts don't suddenly disappear in the historical record after the apostles. Irenaeus in the late 2nd century describes healings and tongues as ongoing. Tertullian. Even into the 4th century. The 'apostolic age only' claim doesn't match the actual historical data. It's a theological construct, not a historical fact.

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  Liam1mo ago

  ok genuine question. if prophecy still exists why does every 'prophetic word' sound like a fortune cookie. 'God has a great plan for you and He sees your struggle.' cool. so does a horoscope.

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  Casey 211mo ago

  Anyone else notice that cessationism is overwhelmingly a Western, educated, comfortable-class theological position? Go to underground churches in China, go to rural Brazil, go to sub-Saharan Africa and ask believers there if the gifts ceased. See what they say. Our theological conclusions should maybe account for the fact that we're doing theology from a place of almost zero genuine suffering or desperation.

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  Sam1mo ago

  been in charismatic churches my whole life and honestly half the 'prophecies' I've heard were just the pastor's opinions dressed up in King James vocabulary. 'Thus saith the Lord, thou shalt give generously in this season.' bruh.

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  Elena S.1mo ago

  I was a missionary in Mozambique for four years. I am Reformed in my theology. I am also a cessationist who watched things happen that I have no natural explanation for. I came home and read everything Grudem and Deere wrote. I came home and read Gaffin and Pennington. I'm still not fully resolved. Anyone who is FULLY resolved on this question probably hasn't looked hard enough at both sides.

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• D2

  Diego 211mo ago

  I think both sides are partly right and mostly arrogant. Cessationists have rightly identified that a lot of charismatic practice is manipulative, emotionally coercive, and theologically sloppy. Charismatics have rightly identified that a God who stopped speaking and healing the moment the printing press became possible is a suspiciously convenient God.

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  Marco _x1mo ago

  Hebrews 13:8. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If He healed in the Gospels because of His compassion for human suffering, and His compassion doesn't change, then explain to me on what basis cessationism stands. You're basically arguing His character changed while quoting a verse that says it didn't.

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  Alex1mo ago

  if the gifts have ceased then 1 Corinthians 14 is basically a historical document about past church practice and not instruction for the church today. but paul literally writes 'do not forbid speaking in tongues.' is that command just... not in force anymore? on what basis do we get to decide which commands in the epistles still apply and which ones were temporary?

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  Alex1mo ago

  What I can't get past is this: if God genuinely stopped healing people supernaturally around 100 AD, can someone please explain why? What changed about God's compassion? What changed about human need? The cessationist answer basically requires us to believe God became significantly less present in human suffering, and that just doesn't square with who He is.

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  Theo R.1mo ago

  If you are a cessationist and this topic makes you feel nothing — no tension, no need to wrestle, just total confidence that the gifts stopped and that's settled — I'd gently ask you to go spend a week with believers in a context of genuine suffering and desperation and see if your settled-ness holds. Not saying you'll change your view. Just saying certainty is easier from comfort.

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  Sam T.1mo ago

  And yet the entire cessationist argument depends on the assumption that our current experience of an apparently miracle-dry church is normal and should be read back into Scripture as the intended pattern. That is also an experience-driven theological conclusion. They're just using the ABSENCE of experience as their data point.

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  Elena _x1mo ago

  I've laid hands on people and prayed for healing and watched nothing happen. Over and over. Funerals I've attended for people who had a whole church praying. I don't think God is a vending machine. But I also don't think the gifts are fake. I think we understand almost nothing about how this actually works and both camps are too confident for how little we really know.

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  Drew1mo ago

  The cessationist argument from 1 Corinthians 13:10 — that 'the perfect' means the completed canon — is exegetically embarrassing. Serious scholars across the spectrum, including ones who ARE cessationist, admit that interpretation is a stretch. The passage is about eschatology, not canonization. Build your doctrine on something sturdier.

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  Noah1mo ago

  The person above me just casually dismissed the lived experience of hundreds of millions of Christians worldwide — many of them in the Global South where the miraculous is far more commonly reported — with 'this isn't complicated.' The arrogance of that should give you pause.

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  Feli L.1mo ago

  That's genuinely the strongest argument against cessationism in my opinion. The 'do not forbid tongues' command sitting right there in the text. Cessationists have to essentially say Paul was writing practical guidance for a temporary situation. That requires a level of interpretive special-pleading they'd never accept in another context.

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  Kofi1mo ago

  The real issue nobody wants to say: cessationism became popular in Reformed circles partly because it was a way to theologically distinguish themselves from the 'enthusiasts' — the emotional revivalists and Pentecostals they found theologically embarrassing. It was as much a cultural move as a biblical one.

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  Maya M.1mo ago

  Sure, but cessationists constantly appeal to church history when it supports their positions. You can't use historical evidence selectively — invoke it when convenient, dismiss it when inconvenient. That's not honest historiography.

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  Noah1mo ago

  The comment above is making a fair point but it's conflating Word of Faith prosperity theology with continuationism generally. Plenty of continuationists — Reformed charismatics, for example — explicitly reject the idea that lack of healing is the sick person's fault. Don't let the worst expressions of a movement define the whole thing.

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  Liam1mo ago

  And if you're a continuationist and you've never seriously engaged with Warfield's 'Counterfeit Miracles' or Gaffin's work on the cessation of prophecy — not just dismissed it, but actually wrestled with the strongest version of the argument — you don't get to act like cessationism is just spiritual cowardice. It's a serious position held by serious scholars who love Jesus.

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  Avery1mo ago

  Acts 2:17. 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy.' Peter quotes Joel on the day of Pentecost. If cessationism is true, the 'last days' lasted what, maybe 40 years? The text doesn't support that reading. We are still in the last days.

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  Priya1mo ago

  because head coverings were a cultural application of a principle. paul himself signals that with the underlying reasoning he gives. but 'do not forbid tongues' isn't tied to a cultural context — it's a direct instruction about a spiritual gift. the comparison doesn't hold.

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  Liam1mo ago

  The 'prime the pump' practice is not representative of all continuationist theology. It's a specific charismatic/Pentecostal technique some groups use. Critiquing the whole continuationist position based on the worst practice of one stream is like critiquing all cessationism by pointing to someone who uses it to justify spiritual apathy.

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  Leo1mo ago

  That's actually a meaningful distinction and I appreciate it. There's a difference between 'God does not perform miracles' and 'the New Testament sign gifts have ceased.' Most cessationists I've met actually believe that — they just get lumped in with 'God stopped doing anything supernatural,' which is not what most of them are saying.

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  Quinn _x1mo ago

  No cessationist I know would deny that God speaks to His people or that He is present in moments of crisis. The debate is specifically about the sign gifts as described in 1 Cor 12-14, not about whether God is actively present with believers. Please don't let the extreme version of cessationism — 'God is totally silent' — represent what most careful cessationists actually believe.

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  Ravi1mo ago

  Hard cessationist. Not because I'm a rationalist — I believe in the bodily resurrection, the virgin birth, and a literal second coming. I believe in miracles. I just believe the specific GIFTS listed in 1 Corinthians 12 had a unique apostolic function and that function is done. God can still heal. He just doesn't give individual believers the 'gift of healing' as a permanent spiritual endowment.

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  Jordan1mo ago

  That verse is about Christ's unchanging NATURE and doctrinal reliability, not a proof text that every ministry function He performed continues perpetually through all believers. Context matters. Jesus also physically walked on water — does Hebrews 13:8 mean we should be doing that too?

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  Hana S.1mo ago

  counterpoint: Irenaeus also believed some things we'd all call wildly wrong. the mere fact that someone in church history reported something doesn't validate it. early church fathers were not infallible witnesses.

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  Nina1mo ago

  That's a rhetorical point, not a theological argument. The truth of a doctrine is not determined by where it's popular. Prosperity gospel is enormously popular in the same regions. Popularity in a region does not validate a position.

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  Jordan1mo ago

  Cessationist response to that: Paul also gave instructions about head coverings and greeting with a holy kiss. We recognize that some instructions in the epistles had situational application. Why is 1 Corinthians 14 uniquely exempt from that kind of contextual reading?

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  Casey1mo ago

  Nope. Gifts ceased. The canon is closed, the foundation is laid, and anyone claiming apostolic-level miraculous gifts today is either deceived or deceiving. This isn't complicated.

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  Hana1mo ago

  Respectfully, pastor, 'I've seen both' is not a hermeneutical method. Our theology has to be derived from Scripture, and personal experience — however sincere — has to be interpreted through the text, not the other way around.

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  Feli1mo ago

  lol okay that walking on water point is actually pretty sharp I hate to admit

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  Feli1mo ago

  Fair rebuttal honestly

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