Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 151:602 (Apr 1994)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

---

BSac 151:602 (Apr 94) p. 233

Book Reviews

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: A Former Dallas Seminary Professor Discovers That God Speaks and Heals Today. By Jack Deere. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993. 256 pp. $17.99.

In this book, Jack Deere, formerly an associate professor of Old Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, describes and defends his reasons for abandoning cessationism in favor of the belief that miraculous and prophetic spiritual gifts are being experienced today. The book is intended for a popular audience, but it represents perhaps the most careful defense of “Vineyard” or “signs and wonders” theology to date.

Deere is familiar with most cessationist arguments, having once maintained that position with a great assurance (even arrogance, judging from conversations recounted in this book). He rightly rejects many familiar arguments, demonstrating that they have no legitimacy in the biblical text. For example Deere refutes those who say Paul progressively lost his ability to perform miracles, and he demonstrates that miraculous events were not simply clustered in three eras of biblical revelation. At the same time, he challenges cessationists to explain several documented cases of healing in recent years, some of which he says were accompanied by prophetic pronouncements.

This line of argument relates directly to Deere’s thesis: no biblical arguments are adequate to support cessationism, and experience demonstrates that the miraculous and prophetic gifts are being given today. Deere is correct in arguing that no text directly states that the gifts would cease with the death of the last apostle, and he is correct in saying that the discussion largely boils down to evaluating historical and contemporary experience, but he does not give adequate attention to the fact that that evaluation must be based on biblical criteria.

For example Deere appeals to a number of contemporary examples of what he regards as prophecy, but he does not engage in a comparison between those experiences and the biblical descriptions of prophecy (e.g., Deut 18:18–22; 2 Pet 1:21). Other defenders of modern-day prophecy have considered the character of Old and New Testament prophecy in detail, but Deere does not. With the exception of his more careful study on the gift of healing, he seems to assume certain biblical gifts are comparable to contemporary experience.

BSac 151:602 (Apr 94) p. 234

In contrast to the arguments Deere so easily refutes, more able cessationist arguments have focused carefully on a comparison between biblical descriptions and historical experiences. For example the bette...

visitor : : uid: ()