In this five part series, Richard M. Riss presents evidence for the operation of the gifts of the Spirit throughout the Church Age.

Part 1 (Fall 1998): From the Early Church to the 3rd Century
Part 1 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 2 (Winter 1999): 3rd to the 5th Centuries
Part 2 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 3 (Spring 1999): From the 5th to the 13th Centuries
Part 3 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 4 (Summer 1999): From the 13th to the 18th Centuries

Part 4 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 5 (Fall 1999): The 18th and 19th Centuries
Part 5 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik, eds., Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 930 pages, ISBN 9781565637634.

This volume is an imposing compendium of scholarly research into the Jewish Christianity of the first several centuries. The book features essays on nearly every major representative and aspect of this important stream within early Christianity.

The volume opens by exploring the definition of “Jewish Christianity” and then gives an overview of the literary evidence for this stream within the early church, discussing, in turn, the Jewish aspects of Paul’s mission and beliefs, the gospel of Matthew as a reflection of Jewish Christianity, the Fourth Gospel, the book of Revelation, the (non-canonical) Jewish gospel tradition, Jewish Christianity’s use and preservation of the OT pseudepigrapha, Jewish-Christian aspects within the Pseudo-Clementine writings, and the remains of Jewish-Christian witnesses as preserved in Greek and Latin patristic writers. After this is a series of essays on the various Jewish-Christian “schools”, such as the Ebionites, Nazoreans, etc., and various alleged Jewish-Christian leaders, like Cerinthus, Elxai (Elchesai), etc. Philip Alexander discusses the rabbinic evidence for Jewish Christianity, while James Strange discusses the archaeological record. Skarsaune (who wrote many of the articles) closes the volume with an overview, after which there is a bibliography running more than 100 pages. There is really very little that the book does not include, and anything to be gainsaid about the volume will likely focus on a particular issue as treated by one or another contributor, rather than on issues touching the volume as a whole. For example, Donald Hagner’s essay on “Paul as a Jewish Believer—According to his Letters” is rather reactionary, and not, I think, of the same quality as the other essays.

For most students of the New Testament, this volume is both a starting point and a likely ending point for the study of Jewish Christianity. It deserves a place in any personal library.

Reviewed by John Poirier

New publisher’s page: http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/jewish-believers-in-jesus/333750

As of October 30, 2014, the full text of the book appears here: http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/jewbelje.pdf

Ronald A. N. Kydd, Healing through the Centuries: Models for Understanding (Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, Massachusetts: 1998), xxxi+235 pages.

Although the doctrine of healing has a long history in Pentecostal and charismatic circles, it has rarely been investigated from a sympathetic perspective. Ron Kydd’s work is refreshing, because he explores different healing movements within Christianity without dismissing their importance. Divine healing is defined as the direct intervention of God to restore personal health and Kydd develops six models for understanding how healing both functions in and is interpreted by the various healing groups.

Before discussing the models, however, Kydd addresses a number of misunderstandings regarding healing. First, divine healing is not limited to any one group, but has a robust history throughout Christianity. Secondly, without trying to be deceptive, healers and their supporters tend to overstate the manifestations of healing. This tendency is mostly due to the excitement of experiencing of God presence in their midst. Thirdly, there is no stereotypical healer; healers are a diverse lot. Fourthly, healing flows out of the mystery of God, and cannot be reduced to a simple formula. And fifthly, healing cannot be used as proof of doctrinal correctness. In fact, different healing ministries have opposing and sometimes confrontational doctrines, but these groups still experience the grace of God’s healing power.

Kydd develops six models of healing based on his observations in the field: the confrontational, intercessory, reliquarial, incubational, revelational, and soteriological. The confrontational model focuses on the confrontation, victory and liberty of Jesus Christ over sin to heal, in order to plant his kingdom. It includes many early church Fathers, German Pietist Johann Blumhardt and Vineyard leader John Wimber. The intercessory model looks for divine healing through the intervention of saints who have led an exemplary life, and is characteristic of Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. The reliquarial model (meaning “relic”) focuses on the relics of the saints (bodies, objects or tombs) as the vehicle through which healing occurs. Examples include Roman Catholic belief in late antiquity and Middle Ages, and an eighteenth-century group in Paris, which centered on the tomb of François de Pâris. The incubational model insists that divine healing does not come swiftly, but over a period of time in a prayerful, nurturing and hospitable environment. The healing centers in Männedorf, Switzerland and the Morija (also in Switzerland) are representive, but certain healing centers in the Wesleyan Holiness movement could be included as well. In the revelational model, healers are given special, divine knowledge of the need for healing, so that the healer can act accordingly. William Branham and Kathryn Kuhlman are representative of this model. The soteriological model is theologically supported by the notion that miraculous healing is possible through the atoning work of Christ. It has a prominent history in nineteenth-century American religion, culminating in the Pentecostal movement. Healing in this model oscillates between the certainty and the sovereignty of God in healing. Like salvation, healing is certain because it is offered in the atoning work of Christ on the cross, but sovereign in that God may say “no” or “not now” to a person’s healing. Oral Roberts is selected as the quintessential Pentecostal.

Perhaps no other Christian magazine is as poised to offer as complete a picture of the historical conflict between Islam and Christianity as Christian History. In a few brief and readable articles this issue summarizes the rise and beliefs of Islam in direct relation to the Church.

Since the purpose and memory of the Crusades is such a point of contention in this day, it is appropriate that many articles discuss it. Professor Paul Crawford writes that there has been a collective amnesia on the part of the West, especially in the Church, as to what the wars known as the Crusades were all about. Only in recent decades has the Islamic world increasingly attached guilt to the West as aggressors in the Crusades; wars which were started, and eventually won, by Muslims.¹ Ignoring history, many in the Church have accepted this guilt. “But if Christians are allowed to wage war when attacked, and if Christians believe that their religion has a right to exist outside the sphere of Islamic law,² perhaps modern Christians should take a second look at the crusades and their historical context, in which Christianity was under near constant pressure from the Islamic world from the seventh century to the seventeenth” (“A Deadly Give and Take,” p. 24).

Mateen A. Elass explains that jihad means more than warfare, but that the sword is central to Islam in “Four Jihads.” “Imperial Evasion” by Andrew F. Walls relates the evangelistic opportunity and blunder that occurred during the time of European imperialism when most of the Islamic world came under the rule of “Christian” nations. Also discussed by articles in this issue are the differences of belief between Islam and Christianity and stories of witnesses of Jesus to Muslims in history. The issue closes with an interview with Fuller Seminary professor J. Dudley Woodberry asking how Muslims view the West today and what can be done to bring “Justice and Peace” to the rising tide of Islamic militancy.

Those who are purporting the notion that Islam is a “peaceful” religion will find little to like in this issue of Christian History. Possible side-effects from reading this issue may include intense thirst for resources that go deeper than the well-written but brief articles found there. As always, this issue of Christian History is certainly going to get you thinking, imparting a desire to know more about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ in the world.

Reviewed by Raul Mock

Issue 74 of Christian History may be found [as of May 1, 2014] on this page: www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/issue/christians-and-muslims

Notes

¹ Muslims stressing the importance of Jerusalem is also a rather recent development, since historically less significance was attached to the city because it is the third holiest to Islam.

² For more about how oppressive “toleration” of Christians has been historically, read Christian History editor Elesha Coffman’s article “Secrets of Islam’s Success,” pages 16-18 in issue 74.

Part 1 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 2 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 3 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Richard M. Riss presents evidence for the operation of the gifts of the Spirit throughout the Church Age.

Clare of Montefalco

Among several thirteenth-century figures we have discussed, St. Clare of Montefalco (d. 1308) has had a number of miracles attributed to her, as well as frequent ecstasies and supernatural gifts, which she used for the good of people both outside her convent and within it.⁷⁴ One of her biographers, Mosconio, wrote that an unbelieving physician,, Philip, admitted that he had listened enviously when Clare uttered praises to the Lord and “engaged in holy conversations, speaking heavenly words about heavenly things.”⁷⁵

Bridget of Sweden

One of the most important saints of the fourteenth century was Bridget (A.D. 1303-1373) who founded the Order of the Most Holy Saviour (the Brigittines) in Sweden. It was her personal revelations that had made her famous. In the late 1340’s, she received a command of the Lord to go to the royal court and warn King Magnus of the judgement of God on his sins. She did this, and also warned the queen, the nobles and the bishops. For a while, the king repented. He provided a great deal of money for the founding of a monastery at Vadstena that Bridget had decided to begin in response to another vision. During the fifteenth century this monastery became the literary center of Sweden.

Among the most well know event in the life of Bridget were the many revelations that she received from God on the sufferings of Christ and on events that were about to happen in certain kingdoms. Her prophecies and revelations were directly related to most of the important political and religious issues of her time in both Sweden and Rome. At one point she prophesied that the pope and emperor would soon meet peaceably in Rome, and this was fulfilled between Pope Urban V and Charles IV in 1368. Bridget always submitted her revelations to the judgement of the pastors of the church. In Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints, it is written that “to have the knowledge of angels without charity is to be only a tinkling cymbal; both to have charity and to speak the language of angels was the happy privilege of St. Bridget.”⁷⁶

Part 1 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 2 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Richard M. Riss presents evidence for the operation of the gifts of the Spirit throughout the Church Age.

The North African Revival

We have seen that Augustine had adopted the view that miracles had ceased with the close of the apostolic age. In the last two or three years of his life, however, his opinion changed concerning the relative unimportance of contemporaneous miracles. This was precipitated by a revival in North Africa, where Augustine lived. Suddenly, miracles seemed to proliferate. Augustine quickly decided to publicize the miraculous healings in North Africa, and as bishop in Hippo, he examined and recorded each report that came to his attention. He gave verified reports of healings a maximum of publicity, and he insisted upon receiving a written report from every person who claimed to be healed. This report, or libellus, would then be read publicly in church, in the presence of the writer, and would later be stored in Augustine’s library. He attempted to persuade his colleagues to use the same system, but without great success. In the case of the healing of a noble lady in Carthage, Augustine was disappointed that she failed to use her rank and influence to publicize a miracle of healing that she had experienced. A renowned twentieth-century specialist in Augustine, Peter Brown, stated that Augustine attempted to bring together various incidents of miracles “until they formed a single corpus, as compact and compelling as the miracles that had assisted the growth of the Early Church.”⁴⁵ Some of the material that Augustine collected appears in the last book (Book 22) of his work, City of God, the eighth chapter of which contains a very lengthy description of miracles which he had either witnessed himself, or about which he had heard from those whom he considered to be reliable witnesses.⁴⁶

The account in City of God is too lengthy for detailed treatment here, but included in it are reports of healings of blindness, multiple rectal fistula, cancer of the breast, gout, paralysis, hernia of the scrotum, and other diseases. Augustine recounts other miracles in which farm animals were cured, demons were cast out of certain individuals, and the dead were raised. In one case, a poor man who lost his cloak prayed, and later found a huge fish squirming upon the beach. He sold it to a restaurant, where a gold ring was found in the gullet of the fish and given to him. In another case, a cart drawn by oxen ran over a child. After his mother prayed, the child not only returned to consciousness, but he showed no sign of the crushing he had suffered.

Part 1 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Richard M. Riss presents evidence for the operation of the gifts of the Spirit throughout the Church Age.

Origen

In any case, Origen, Clement’s successor as head of the catechetical school in Alexandria, makes explicit references to miraculous gifts in operation in his day, at the beginning of the third century. He wrote, “there are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy Spirit which appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits, and perform many cures, and foresee certain events, according to the will of the Logos.”²⁴ Elsewhere, he wrote:

Moreover, the Holy Spirit gave signs of His presence at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, and after His Ascension He gave still more: but since that time these signs have diminished, although there are still traces of His presence in a few who have had their souls purified by by the gospel, and their actions regulated by its influence.²⁵

A much more extensive treatment of the gifts of the Spirit appears in Origen’s De Principiis, book II, chapter VII, which is entitled, “On The Holy Spirit”. The third portion of this part of Origen’s work appears to be a very loose paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 12: 8-11, where he writes:

For on some is bestowed by the Spirit the word of wisdom, on others the word of knowledge, on others faith; and so to each individual of those who are capable of receiving Him, is the Spirit Himself made to be that quality, or understood to be that which is needed by the individual who has deserved to participate.²⁶

The following paragraph (section 4) of the same chapter provides unquestionable evidence that he is speaking of the spiritual gifts with reference to the time in which he was living, for he writes:

We must therefore know that the Paraclete is the holy Spirit, who teaches truths which cannot be uttered in words, and which are, so to speak, unutterable, and “which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” i.e., which cannot be indicated by human language…..For if any one has deserved to participate in the Holy Spirit by the knowledge of His ineffable mysteries, he undoubtedly obtains comfort and joy of heart. For since he comes by the teaching of the Spirit to the knowledge of the reasons of all things which happens—how or why they occur—his soul can in no respect be troubled, or admit any feeling of sorrow; nor is he alarmed by anything, since, clinging to the Word of God and His wisdom, he through the Holy Spirit calls Jesus Lord.²⁷

There can be no question that Origen is speaking of revelatory spiritual gifts, for he writes very explicitly in this passage of revelation by God’s Spirit. His reference to unutterable truths which cannot be indicated by human language seems to suggest the possibility of a heavenly language in which such things can be uttered through the gift of tongues. Such an interpretation would certainly be consistent with the continual association of the gift of tongues with other prophetic gifts throughout the Patristic era.