These words are taken directly and extensively from Jack Deere's must read book, "Surprised By The Power Of The Spirit", however Jack does not refer to any of these arguments as "baby steps cessationists take before becoming ex-cessationists". I've taken his arguments from chapters 4 and 5 and the liberty to quote him extensively and present them in this way. Will you permit the set up to this question to go longer than usual?
Three Common Baby Steps Cessationists Commonly Take Before Becoming Ex-Cessationists:
Baby Step 1. They realize they disbelieve in the miraculous gifts of the Spirit not because Scripture clearly teaches they've passed away, but primarily because they've have not experienced them; that their appeal to history, the misuse or perceived misuse of the gifts, and the alleged absence of New Testament quality miracles today, are all arguments from experience--actually, arguments from a lack of experience and negative experience.
Baby Step 2. They realize they've made a false assumption that the healing gifts of Jesus and the apostles were "automatic". That is, they understand neither Jesus nor the apostles could heal anyone, anywhere, anytime, at will (Luke 5:17; John 5:6; John 5:19; Mark 6:5-6; John 15:5; Acts 3:12-13; Acts 14:9-10; Matthew 17:16-20). They see that the apostles' relationship to the Lord and our relationship to him is far too personal for such a mechanical explanation of the gift of healing. Therefore they should not be looking for or expecting to find people who can heal at will.
Baby Step 3. They see that they have falsely equated the apostle's ministry of signs and wonders with the healing gifts given to average Christians. They accept in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 that Paul is describing miraculous gifts that are given to the whole Body of Christ, not just to the apostles, and that there is an abundance of evidence for this widespread distribution of gifts (I Thess. 5:20; Rom. 12:6; Eph. 4:11; Acts 11:27; 13:1; 15:32; 19:6; 21:9; Acts 2; Acts 8:5; Acts 10:46; Acts 19:6; Gal. 3:5; I Peter 4:10) which vary in strength (Romans 12:6; I Cor.14:18; 2 Tim. 1:6). They accept it to be simply unreasonable to insist that all miraculous spiritual gifts equal those of the apostles in their intensity or strength in order to be perceived as legitimate gifts of the Holy Spirit.
I'm assuming you are quite familiar with these Baby Steps but still remain unconvinced and unpersuaded to take them. Why?
Regarding Baby Step 1, the problem is not a lack of experience on my part. In fact, I think there's nobody who's really willing to say that it's a lack of experience which has any persuasive weight: it's the lack of the actual Biblical signs and wonders which causes us pause. As I have said elsewhere in this exchange, the problem is not that you are asking me to believe in miracles, or even in God's real presence among his people: you are asking me to accept something which does not resemble prophecy, and healing on command, and speaking in tongues as those things. If we have to accept that the Bible doesn't give an expiration date for the apostolic gifts, we also have to accept that it actually does describe these gifts extensively, and your side doesn't demonstrate them at all.
I haven't rejected what the Bible describes: I have rejected the counterfeits your side presents as different than what the Bible presents.
Step 2 is, sadly, a version of Step 1. I enjoy seeing Luke 5 and John 5 tossed out as examples of Jesus being unable to heal, but because the text says something else I have to refuse to accept it. Step 3 doesn't fare any better.
See: it is perplexing to be asked to believe that there is a continuation of the apostolic gifts -- under the qualification that these are nothing like the apostolic gifts. In a previous question, Bryan, you asked me why I thought these gifts were "for Apostles Only," and I answered -- but here you are now arguing that there were gifts for the Apostles only, and our expectations for what we might experience -- that is, what you say "continues" -- have to be lowered in order to see if there is anything there at all.
When that happens, you betray all the bold rhetoric about sonship, and "Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever" and the presence of the Holy Spirit as just bluster. You personally do not believe that you are experiencing a continuation of the Apostolic gifts, and what you say you are experiencing is, frankly, not required for any believer in the NT. So for me to say that I'm doing well to look in God's word with God's people and receive God's blessing in the fruit of the Spirit -- Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, etc. -- as sufficient is not any kind of heresy or blasphemy. It's simply not accepting watered-down versions of "signs and wonders."
I think God is alive, and is living in His people. I think regeneration is a work of God only. But I am equally certain that what is not necessary is a continuation of Apostolic signs and wonders unless there is an on-going necessity for Apostles.
