'Even Muslims look at me.' A Muslim journalist wears the Muslim veil for a day in response to the debate about it raging in the UK. Her reaction and experiences are shocking and provide an interesting context to the debate: "I look at myself in my full-length mirror. I'm horrified. I have disappeared and somebody I don't recognize is looking back at me."

On a different note, Mathew Sims has a list of old blog articles he likes from some great sources. He also launches into the charismatic debate with the following descriptions of events that have occurred in a cessationist setting that would not describe any of them as being charismatic gifts. He rightly begs the question, "A Rose by Any Other Name...?"

• "At Bible Conference this last spring, the chancellor of the institution introduced the speaker. This speaker was sick to the point of death just this past year, if I'm not mistaken. At a critical point during his illness, his church held a prayer meeting. During the prayer meeting, three individuals stood up and proclaimed that their pastor who was sick would be completely healed. He was, in fact, completely healed the next morning.
  
  
• My church held a missions conference this last spring. One of our missionaries in the Middle East relayed the story of a Muslim visiting an Islamic shrine and while he was there he saw a vision of Jesus and was saved.
  
  
• A Bible professor at the school I completed my undergrad with reported that when he was a principal one of his students was demon possessed. He and another staff member cast the demon out in the name of Jesus.
  
  
• I have on multiple occasions heard stories of missionaries who have miraculously understood foreign languages and were able to share the Gospel.
  
  
• I have heard multiple pastors, teachers, and lay people speak like this: "I was walking/driving/running by this person/place/thing and God impressed upon my heart to stop and talk to this individual and that person ended up getting saved/receiving encouragement."

He continues by giving four options for how we can respond to these kind of stories. I would love my cessationist friends (yes that includes you, Dan!) to explain which of these four options they take, and if they can think of a fifth to let us know what that is!

1. Deny the veracity of these stories - either by saying they are false, or accomplished by Satan.



2. Accepting the truthfulness of these stories, but trying to explain away their miraculous quality.



3. Accepting the truthfulness of these stories, but calling them something other than a miracle.



4. Accepting the truthfullness of these stories, testing them against Scripture and then thanking God who is at work by the Holy Spirit"

Once Mathew gets a subject between his teeth there is no stopping him - remember he is the only blogger I know of who has finished blogging through the Together For the Gospel Statement. (I am going to be getting back to that sometime fairly soon myself!) So, in true irrepressible style, Mathew has another post already which focuses on the vital place of the subjective testimony of the Spirit that we are saved. He lays down a gauntlet and says:

"There is a commonly made bad argument against this type of subjective truth. I have heard people equate subjective assurance, illumination, and leading with Scripture revelation. So in essence, the argument goes something like: "You believe God still talks subjectively somehow through the Spirit, then everything said should be written down." Bogus!

Has everything that God said in the OT and NT been written down? No. Paul and John both saw and heard things they could not write down. There were a myriad of prophets in the OT receiving Word from the Lord whose "books" and offices are mentioned in Kings and Chronicles, but whose books and words are not extant. Were they really Words from the Lord? Sure, but that does not mean they were meant to be preserved as Scripture . . ."

One of my blog friends, Rob Wilkerson, has also posted two articles this week on prophecy. In the first he sets the scene by saying:

"I have tried to carefully work from my experience as a former cessationist through the greatest obstacle or point of confusion and frustration for them, which is the subject of prophecy. The fact that biblical and/or reformed charismatics cling to it so tenaciously drives their reformed non-charismatic brothers and sisters crazy at times. I've found this to be the case time and again with even my closest cessationist friends . . ."

In the second post he continues in a similar vein:

When I respond to my cessationist friends that the two gifts of prophecy and the two offices of prophet in the Old and New Testaments are different from each other, I am usually met with a raised eyebrow and a smile as if I were engaging in a bit of exegetical ballet. Perhaps I am unwittingly dancing with danger. Nevertheless, I present the differences here for anyone to observe and make their own conclusion upon. These differences speak for themselves and do not at all seem to point to some charismatic experience looking for a justification through hermeneutics, nor an attempt to cram a presupposed theology into a few texts of Scripture . . .

Well, once again real life is about to seriously trump blogging right here. Not for me the what David Wayne called "OCD-Like" tendencies of Tim Challies who HAS to post every day. No guilt is allowed around here when it comes to blogging - remember it's a HOBBY, Adrian! (Not to say that Tim is motivated by guilt, of course!)

It is time for me to lay aside my keyboard and begin what should be about a week or so of a total break from blogging. This is to enable me to spend some much needed time with my lovely family - we are all going to be on a vacation based at home - when home is London there is so much on your doorstep, so who needs to go away?

The only thing that might tempt me back from my rest briefly is if the answers to a set of interview questions I recently sent to a leading Christian figure who has kindly agreed to appear on the blog arrives back.

Otherwise, I leave you to your own devices - feel free to add links to this post all week - but I do have somebody watching the comment thread for anything dodgy, so don't go getting any ideas of misbehaving whilst I am gone!