Hi,
I am not about to enter into a detailed debate about the rights and wrongs of Pentecostalism. Such would be a waste of time as I have found in the past. I have scanned some of the other articles listed including your own. I have heard it all before and am not convinced. There are many assertions in your own paper that, if I was of a mind to, I could query. Assumptions about the nature of tongues and its use that are pretty limited interpretations of certain scriptures and also ignore other scriptures which expand the meaning of tongues, prophecy and so on.

However I have found it is pointless to debate these finer points of the doctrine until the main issue is clarified from scripture, and that is the question Prof Edgar raised: Are the gifts for today?

The reason for this is simple: If one does not believe that the (sign) gifts are for today then whatever we see today has to be a deception and not the real thing.
But if it can be established scripturally that it is at least possible that these gifts could be manifested today then the question changes and becomes "What should they look like? How would we recognise them if we saw them? What is the purpose/point of them? How do we get these gifts? How do we use them to edify the Body of Christ?"

My query of Prof Edgar's article was a scriptural contradiction of his claim that there was "no scripture that taught that the gifts should continue until the end of the church age." I posited two scriptures that clearly say otherwise. And it is fair enough that these scriptures be addressed, debated in open forum using standard methods of interpretation.

It is easy to take pot shots at Pentecostals and Charismatics - I do so myself - their doctrine is often shot full of holes on various things. But if, in taking pot shots at them, we fall into the same trap from a different side, namely we make unscriptural claims and hence end up teaching what amounts to false doctrine, then we are no better than them.

My query of Prof Edgar's paper remains. Unanswered, uncontested.

John B.