Most Christian denominations teach that the spiritual, supernatural gifts were just for the early church. Commentaries try to come up with reasons why they don’t see spiritual gifts now. They say "they were needed at first in the Church: (1) as a pledge to Christians themselves who had just passed over from Judaism or heathendom, that God was in the Church; (2) for the propagation of Christianity in the world; (3) for the edification of the Church. Now that we have the whole written New Testament (which they had not) and Christianity established as the result of the miracles, we need no further miracle to attest the truth" (Jamieson Fausset & Brown's Commentary).However, having spent all my life in a Pentecostal Church I see spiritual gifts in action every Sunday and I can see that all the reasons given above still apply today. We live in a world that is looking for the spiritual everywhere and when they don't see it in the church they look elsewhere. Spiritual gifts are needed in the church today just as they were in the early church.
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