47 years ago, after an honest evaluation of the Scriptures, I concluded that I had been wrong to reject the charismatic gifts of I Cor. 12 and 14 as for today. This was a matter of intellectual honesty. Did I believe that the Bible in context supported a charismatic orientation that would continue between Pentecost (Shavuot) and the Second Coming of Yeshua, or did it support a cessation of these supernatural gifts and manifestations after launching the Yeshua movement and seeing the canon of the Bible established? It was a matter of intellectual honesty. In addition, did I believe in a distinct experience of being immersed in the Spirit, distinct from the salvation experience. Again, a study of the Bible and history convinced me that this distinct experience was essential. It sometimes is simultaneous with being born again, sometimes as part of water immersion and sometimes after that. This was my an intellectual conclusion. What would I do about it?
Shortly after these conclusions, I found myself in ministry to hurting people for whom ordinary counseling was ineffective. I discovered prayer ministry for overcoming strongholds, healing from traumas and releasing from demonic oppression. Many were healed. I found that when I prayed in tongues, I knew much better how to proceed in the counseling and in healing prayers. Then, I also began to pray for people to be filled with the Spirit and prayed to see the gift of speaking in tongues released in them.
As I connected to the charismatic world, I was impacted by men and women who walked powerfully in the gifts of the Spirit and the prophetic. I somehow believed that such levels of gifting were for specially chosen vessels in leadership. The ordinary or normal believer could expect to prophecy in exhortation and to pray for people with some results, but ministering at a high level of gifting was for special leaders. After all, did not Paul say that in exercising the power gifts, he showed himself to be an apostle? Did we not see the greatest gifting through people who one prophet called “God’s men of power for the hour?” Did I experience some amazing signs and wonders in my own ministry? Yes, but it was periodic. I was not a “power minister” but a teaching and governing minister.
There were indications that my orientation was skewed. One prophet at a Vineyard conference with John Wimber, preached that God said that He would raise up a last days movement of the people empowered. Signs and wonders and Gospel progress would come from the people and not primarily the leaders. This would be characteristic of the last days before the coming of the Lord, no longer “God’s man of power for the hour.” Yet we drifted back into the understanding that the only special leaders were to walk in great power in a more constant way.
Recently, I have been challenged by the ministry of Dr. Randy Clark. His writings and the writings of the theologian Dr. Jon Mark Ruthven to which he referred, the late Professor of Theology at Regent University in Virginia Beach, have convinced me finally that this theology of the greater power being mostly limited to those specially chosen leaders was wrong. Rather, a life of miracles in the supernatural power of God though His prophetic gifting in his people should be normative.
Mark 16:17,18 speaks of the miraculous signs following “those who believe,” and not only specially chosen leaders. The list is astonishing: “that they will drive out demons, speak with new languages, … handle snakes, drink deadly things without harm, lay hands on the sick and they will get well.”
This text is an addition to Mark 16, in my view an apostolic addition, that summarizes what was believed by the communities of Yeshua’s followers at the end of the first century.
John 14 is just as clear, “Amen, amen I tell you, he who puts his trust in Me will, the works that I do he will do, and greater than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” (TLV)
I can hardly believe how I explained away these texts in my rationalistic period many years ago. I and others taught that the greater works was preaching the Gospel after Pentecost and seeing people born again. We argued that it did not have to do with miraculous works. It is so obvious that in context Yeshua was talking about the same kind of miraculous works that characterized his ministry. These texts say the works were done by those who believe, not only leaders who believe. Leaders add to these works the ability to establish congregational movements and govern them.
I recall some years ago our dear prophet leader, David C. Rudolph would release people into accurate prophetic words of knowledge. Yet, somehow, we did not see our people characterized by walking a more supernatural walk in an ongoing way. As I look at the ministry of Dr. Randy Clark, I see him being an instrument to activate many people to believe and walk in such way. Signs and wonders on the cutting edge of preaching and sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom are taking place, especially in Southern Global Christian movements. It is growing here in the West as well, though such power is not widely known. I now believe that the day is coming that we will see the fulfillment of the prophecy giving at the Vineyard some 34 years ago. I want to be part of that fulfillment. In addition, I want to see this in Jewish ministry, in a movement of Gospel power in Israel and the Diaspora.
We should all be instructed that living in such a way only comes from walking in intimacy with Yeshua, a depth of devotional life individually and corporately. As Yeshua said, it flows from abiding in the Vine. (John 15:1-6). Dr. Randy Clark’s great book Intimacy with God is a great book on walking in intimacy and in the supernatural life of his prophetic leading.