A few years ago I had developed a friendship with a man who I shared a great deal of respect for and similarity in theology. He and I both considered ourselves “Reformed” (Calvinistic), were convinced that the Bible teaches that baptism is by full immersion for professing believers, and completely convinced that Dispensational Premillennialism (i.e., Pretrib rapture) wasn’t a biblical concept. I know that’s a lot of terminology for some, but those issues are were “hot button” items for us, so finding agreement was… interesting? Yeah, interesting.
After hanging out and discussing theological topics a number of times, the subject of the charismata (spiritual gifts) came up. I don’t remember how, but the issue was addressed. I found out that this person was vehemently opposed to any and all expressions of modern day spiritual gifts such as “prophecy,” “tongues,” or “healing” (we’ll discuss those buzz words later). He actually considered everyone who was “charismatic” not only wrong, but also anti-biblical, undermining the gospel, and possibly demonically inspired. It was also implied that “charismatics” had actually not studied Scripture enough and weren’t very intelligent.
Uh oh.