What Is the Gift of Faith? | Episode 187

[@izabelseyer7068]

Thank you, Dr. Bernard. I love the clarity and simplicity of this message. 😊🙏

[@babygirl72335]

Isn't it beautiful that we are one body of Christ?! My earthly Dad was Baptist, but he's in heaven now. The Lord has shown me many visions with my Dad there. I'm pentecostal, but only Jesus saves! Amazing one body of Christ!!

[@SouthernParson]

God's grace and our faith are the two things that scripture tells us that God has measured out (as in given equally) to every human being. Grace is often defined as "God's unmerited (undeserved) favor". Our faith is how we are able to respond to God's grace. We all have the ability to either accept or reject God's grace by our God given faith.

[@mosesesitaba4359]

Without faith it is impossible to please God..to believe God ,you have to have faith in Him.

[@JoseTorres-qc4vc]

Awesome testimony.

[@larrykapp3409]

Listening. Thanks

[@LarzGustafsson]

Great teaching!

[@davidestonsperrysr554]

I wish I had the gift of faith. There are so many people at this assisted living facility that are so unhealthy, and take so much medications. I wish all of them were healed, even from old age, so that they would be young again. Of course, I desire healing in my own eyes. Praise The LORD JESUS! Acts 2:38!

[@m3rcked903]

Mathew 18:19 says that you don't need the gift of faith to heal someone, just agreement

[@davidestonsperrysr554]

Thank you. Will you agree with me in prayer for these people here and my eyes?

[@MysteryPersona]

You can still have it!! Pray for it fast for it whatever you need to do. Prepare your heart to handle such a gift and see what God will do in you. Even if he doesn't bless you with it the pursuit of it can open up windows in your faith and life that God DOES intend and you'll be blessed according to his Power Riches and Glory!

[@davidestonsperrysr554]

@@MysteryPersona thank you for the encouraging words. I'm still believing for that.

[@Jay-777-p4p]

Amen praise God great desire 👏🏼

[@berniepenner6204]

The scenario with the Baptist preachers has to be a near carbon copy of the incidents we see in the book of Acts. This is how our 21Century Holy Ghost experience broke out in the late 19th and early 20th Century

[@whist5618]

The whole system of Pentecostal theology is a rather ill conceived one. Its foundations are in no way firm and well put together. Generally, the apologist for Pentecostalism tries to make his whole case based on particular misreadings of scripture that later shade his further interpretations of scripture, however the difficulty is that the interpretations are not necessarily the ones that have to be taken to be consistent with the text. For one example take that rather ahistorical Pentecostal teaching on receiving the Holy Spirit. Early Christians from the first few centuries all consistently teach that the gift of laying on hands/annoiting with oil, which is called Chrismation, was the primary vehicle through which the Spirit was conferred. This gift of Chrismation is not just present in the Christians following the apostles, but in the apostles themselves. Acts 8:18-20 And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. (Acts 9:17 and 19:6 also bear witness to this.) Of course, The day of Pentecost and the events at Cornelius’ house are not to be ignored, no laying on hands, it would appear, occurred, but they are not seen as normative for the rest of church history. And it seems also that Peter links the two with this understanding as well. When giving report back to the brethren at Jerusalem he states that the Spirit fell on them ‘as at the beginning.’ He does not draw from universal experience, but rather he links it back to the beginning only, because these are the only two instances of the Spirit being received like this. The sign of tongues is therefore only necessary for those two instances listed above, but for most of Christian history, those who received the Holy Spirit, received via Chrismation, in which case the certainty concerning whether one has the Holy Spirit has been put to rest. The environment in which Pentecostalism came into being however did not have access to this knowledge. Most the answers given to them were inadequate. Obviously baptism does not confer the Holy Spirit as there were baptized Christians who had yet received Him. And it isn’t just a fuzzy warm feeling that comes over you when you receive Jesus into your heart as there those accepted Christ yet received not the Holy Spirit. While asking the right question, they end up with the wrong solution. And this is clear if one consults what the larger Christian tradition says about the issue. But without the light of tradition one is stumbling blindly, grasping at straws, making up false-doctrine as best can be done in the milieu that Charles Parham found himself in around a century ago. This is only part of the problem with Pentecostal theology that I’ve attacked and I’ve only done so to reach further it a more fundamental issue, that I’ve just begun to cover, concerning the role of Christian history and sacred tradition in theology. Pentecostals, like most Protestants, regard Christian tradition as not being of God or not worth to be included in serious theology. “We should only base our beliefs on the Bible!” I’ve heard often said, but this is fundamentally impossible because answers to what should the cannon of scripture, the question of authorship, among other things are not located within the 66 books of the Protestants cannon. On the one hand, Pentecostals deny the need for sacred tradition and on the other have to make use of it to determine what the scriptural canon should even be. This is inconsistent and it is major difficulty with Pentecostal theology that cannot be overcome with more back and forth over interpretations of particular scriptures, because it is a question prior to all further interpretations. Scripture was not meant to stand alone, but together with Christian tradition.

[@Beatrixbunny1]

Great stuff :)

[@revamp6612]

Acts 10: 44 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. 45 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. 46 For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, There is another example.

[@whist5618]

@@revamp6612 I already covered that example in my previous post, it was actually essential to the argument I was making concerning tongues being inessential, thank you for engaging with me however.

[@revamp6612]

@@whist5618 I must have missed that part. Didn’t see anything about acts 10 in there. I only noticed acts 2, acts 8 and acts 19. That being said. Acts 2,8,10, and 19. I believe are the only biblical examples of people receiving the Holy Ghost (the promise prophesied by Joel) are there any other biblical examples of this promise anywhere else???

[@whist5618]

@@revamp6612 I didn’t specifically reference the verse by number, but only as the events at Cornelius’ house. But it’s something easily missed as my post was rather long.