50 QUESTIONS FOR A CHARISMATIC CHRISTIAN |

Evangelism and missions

Have you ever known a charismatic who moved to a poorer culture with a different language for the sake of planting churches?
How could you answer an experienced missionary’s contention that the practices of tongues and miracles as practiced in the rural areas of Africa are actually vital parts of their false religion of prosperity?
Do you consider the prosperity gospel a form of true Christianity or a false religion?
Do you know of anyone who speaks in tongues or performs miracles who also encourages believers to suffer for the glory of Christ?
Has the charismaticism of the poorer places in the world helped them to send out churchplanters or missionaries?

The gospel and false teachers

Do you know of any popular, false teachers who profess to speak in tongues and perform miracles?
Have you ever heard of any charismatics who warned people about these false teachers with the same kind of intensity of Jesus, 2 Peter 2, and Jude?
Why are there few or no charismatics who rebuke the terrible and rampant sins of people like Todd Bentley, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, or any of the other popular charismatics?
Why is it that if you find a man who believes in prosperity theology he also endorses speaking in tongues and miracles?
How many examples of false prophecies have you heard?
How many examples of Scripture twisting have you heard from charismatic preachers?
What would you say to missionaries who claim to have heard scores of the most ludicrous, sinful, greedy, blatant, and carnal statements from a wide swath of charismatic pastors in multiple languages in the poorest areas of Africa?
What would you say to African Christians who suffered for years under wicked charismatic false teachers and claim that after having visited many churches in the whole area, they cannot find one that teaches the gospel?
Do you know of any charismatic pastors who are known for teaching verse by verse through Scripture?
Is that a common emphasis among charismatics?
If tongues, miracles, and prophecy are important today, then when the epistles were being written, why were they only referenced in 1 Corinthians 12-14 to the most carnal church?

Changes in the gifts

Have you ever heard claims of miracles or examples of speaking in tongues that you considered fraudulent?
How did you know that these miracles or tongues were fraudulent?
Do you consider modern miracles, tongues, and prophecy exactly the same as the gifts described in the NT?
If you do, then where are the missionaries who can translate the Bible without learning the language, where are the men who can calm hurricanes, and who are the pastors who predict the death of their church members like Peter in Acts 5?
If you think the gifts are not quite the same as the NT experiences, then does that not make you a kind of cessationist?
If you are a kind of cessationist, then what Scripture do you use to support the partial cessationism that you believe in?
Could those same Scriptures also lead you to a more complete cessationism?

The Holy Spirit

Since Romans 8 speaks more often about the Holy Spirit than any other chapter in the Bible, and since that chapter is so central to the foundational book of Romans, and since charismatics profess to have a special interest in the Holy Spirit, why don’t we see books, conferences, and denominations focused on Romans 8 among the charismatics?
Do charismatic churches talk about the fruit of the Spirit as often and with the same intensity and expectancy as they treat miracles, tongues, and prophecy?
Is the charismatic movement as a whole known today for humility and holiness?
Aren’t those some of the most vital marks of the Holy Spirit’s work in a man?
Why have the major leaders in this movement not brought this as a critique?
Do you know of any charismatic revivals that took place without any contemporary music or modern technology such as DVD’s?
If not, then why doesn’t the Holy Spirit work as He did in Acts 2 where technology and contemporary music were absent?

Apostles

Do you believe that the names of the 12 apostles that will be on the New Jerusalem are the twelve apostles from the NT (Rev. 21:14)?
If these 12 and no more will be written on the foundation, then can there be any more who are just like them?
If there are no more apostles who are just like those apostles, then isn’t that a change—a cessation of NT practices?

Tongues

Of the instances of tongues speaking with which you are familiar how many are similar to the Acts 2 where the believers spoke in earthly languages?
Have you ever known any missionary who preached fluently in an earthly language that he had never studied?
Have you ever been in a church service where the assembly spoke in tongues according to the rules of 1 Cor. 14? (The rules: One at a time, no more than three, an interpreter must explain, no women)
What percentage of churches that speak in tongues do you think follow the rules of 1 Cor. 14?
If you have ever been in a church where they broke the rules, how do you explain the Holy Spirit inspiring something that is clearly against His Word?

Miracles

Why do healers of today differ from the healing of Jesus Christ in that they do not heal everyone present, they do not perform miracles over death or nature, and they cannot create matter such as bread?
Why don’t healers of today go into a hospital and empty all the wards?
Why do so many charismatic preachers show themselves on TV with prepared environments for their miracles?
Do you know how frequently false prophets deceive poor people with fake miracles in the developing world?
Where are the responsible charismatics who for the great love they bear to the true gospel, and for hope they have that some of the poorest will be converted, and for their own righteous indignation that a false preacher is calling himself a charismatic, will denounce these charlatans as children of Satan (Matt. 23:15), snakes (Matt. 23:33), dogs (2 Peter 2:22), and pigs (2 Peter 2:22)?

Prophecy

How is prophecy today different from just speaking wisely?
If prophecy is similar to speaking wise words then how is that different from the belief and practice of all other churches?
Are the words of a prophecy words that came from God?
If they did come from God, then should we not record them in the Bible, and preach from them, and demand that all people obey them?
If they did not come from God, then aren’t they simply men’s fallible and possibly sanctified opinions?
If the words of a prophecy came directly from God, then isn’t the canon still open?
If the words of a prophecy came from men’s own fallible but possibly sanctified opinions, then how is that a unique spiritual gift?

50 QUESTIONS FOR A CHARISMATIC CHRISTIAN