Your Sons & Daughters Shall Prophesy - Prophetic Gifts Today In The New Testament Church

Christ's Continuing Voice in the Church

It was the process of institutionalization, to which all new movements are subjected, that was the real cause of the disappearance of prophecy from the early church. 44 Clifford Hill Increasing institutionalization is the clearest mark of early catholi cism-when church becomes increasingly identified with institution, when authority becomes increasingly coterminous with office, when a basic dis tinction between clergy and laity becomes increasingly self-evident, when grace becomes increasingly narrowed to well defined ritual acts....Such features were absent from first generation Christianity ...though in the second generation the picture was beginning to change. 45 James D.G.Dunn There is, in fact, an inevitable tension between the ordered forms of regular ministry and the more unpredictable and enthusiastic forms.It fre quently happens that those who appreciate one form cannot abide the other. 46 F.F.Bruce

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