Clarifying charismata

I'm reposting some comments I left at Justin Taylor's blog:

I agree with Dr. Anderson that the debate suffers from lack of clarity. Let’s draw some basic distinctions:

i) Not all prophetic phenomena is of the “Thus says the Lord” variety. Consider some prophetic dreams:

9 Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me” (Gen 37:9). 

13 When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” 14 And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp” (Judges 7:13-14).

Those are revelatory, but they aren’t the “very words of God.” They don’t contain any “words” from God.

ii) In addition, although these dreams were inspired, the dreamer isn’t necessarily speaking under inspiration when he relates his dream.

Furthermore, the dreams require interpretation. The interpretation isn’t necessarily fallible.

So those are two additional conditions.

iii) To take another example: 

24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed (1 Cor 14:24-25).

Suppose a Christian tells an unbeliever something the unbeliever did in the past. An incident which only the unbeliever would ordinarily be privy to. That would be revelatory. Extrasensory knowledge of the past, or someone’s private memories.

But that’s not like a divine command. And it’s easy to verify or falsify. The unbeliever knows whether or not he did it.

iv) There’s also a distinction between first and secondhand information. If a Christian had a premonitory dream, and it comes true, he’s justified in believing it. If he tells his friend about the dream before it happens, the friend is justified in believing it.

If, however, he tells his friend about it after it happens, then it doesn’t carry the same degree of warrant. The friend didn’t have that experience. And he can’t confirm it independently.

v) There’s a further distinction between what’s obligatory and what’s prudential. If my friend tells me he had a premonition about me, I don’t have a duty to heed the warning, but if my friend a level-headed guy, I might be wise to heed his warning.

vi) There’s another problem with Grudem’s paradigm. Suppose passages like Acts 2:17-18 and 1 Cor 13:8-10 indicate that charismata are an integral feature of the new covenant. Even so, that creates no presumption regarding the relative incidence of charismata in the church age. They might happen every now and then in the course of church history. They needn’t be a regular occurrence.