Gifts of the Spirit

  A skeptic of inmillennialism might lodge an objection based on Jesus’s Great Commission. After his resurrection he said: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of…

Metaphors matter. The Scriptures use them to give a full-orbed description of the “last days” of the Mosaic age (e.g., Heb 1:2; Gen 49:1). God gave Israel a “new birth” through Christ’s resurrection (1 Pet 1:3; Eph 2:6). Christ then began to reign in his kingdom after Israel’s “regeneration” (Matt…

  A valued reader disagrees with our interpretation of “that which is perfect” in 1 Cor 13:10. In our post The Miraculous Gifts we said the “perfect” stands for the messianic age in which we now live. Our reader says “this ‘perfection,’ teleios, to which Paul refers, is the eternal…

Most Christians desire spiritual experiences. They want to know the Lord and have communion with him. Paul desired to “know [Christ], and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Phil. 3:10). Such desires are legitimate. Some believers seek spiritual experiences…