Resource Search: Charismatic Gifts in the Early Church

Hi, Buddy

And welcome to the forums.

Are you looking for doctrinal charismatic discussion, or critical (meaning language, semantics, meaning) discussion?

Here's examples of the latter variety:

https://www.logos.com/product/7392/spirit-and-kingdom-in-the-writings-of-luke-and-paul 

https://www.logos.com/product/17553/spirit-soul-and-flesh 

My question surrounds what apostolic folks thought was 'spirit' (and thus gifts), especially given jewish backgrounds surrounding angels, demons, etc

Denise,

Thanks for the quick response!

I am interested in anything the Early Church may have to offer when it came to opperating in the Gifts of the Spirit, Glossia and Xenoglossia, to what extent they may have observed 1 Corinthians 12, etc,.

I'm not an expert in ECF (Early Church Fathers), but you may be able to start with the resources you already have.

1. open a Bible that has Reverse-Interlinear capabilities.

2. Right click on "tongues" in Romans 12 and make sure the "lemma" tab is selected.

3. Open the Bible Word Study for γλῶσσα and scroll down to "Lemmas in Passage". This will generate a list of all of your commentary entries that address the word γλῶσσα. Your more technical commentaries should include usage by ECF

An alternative to BWS is when you right-click and select lemma, you can select "search everything" and you will find each place that γλῶσσα appears in your library. OR you could run that search within a collection of resources focusing on your ECF resources.

David, I will be sure to check out your recommendation as well! Thank you for a detailed response!

Hi Buddy:

A little late but hope I can be of help.

Faithlife e books has many resources that probably touch over the topic.

https://ebooks.faithlife.com/search?context=product&query=charismatic%20gifts%20in%20the%20early%20church&sortBy=Relevance&limit=60&page=1

There is a systematic theology that deals with the gift issue:

https://www.logos.com/product/164310/systematic-theology-revised-edition

Another theology book (also in the continuitionism view) is:

https://ebooks.faithlife.com/products/167643/renewal-theology-systematic-theology-from-a-charismatic-perspective

Finally there is a particular pdf available online that by the way has the same title as your post:

http://media.sabda.org/alkitab-2/PDF%20Books/00080%20Kydd%20Charismatic%20Gifts%20in%20the%20Early%20Church.pdf

Now if you want to read about cessationism, then there are way too many resources for that (in my view the easy way out of higher responsibility to the Kingdom work, and a sign of foolish virgin as in the parable).

God is perfect in His normal state, in His dwelling realm all is well. We are the ones living in a fallen region of His Kingdom. When He comes around (Holy Spirit presence), miracles are bound to happen because He is naturally supernatural, and sets right what is not due to the love He has for His adopted children.

The miracle worker is then God Himself, and not any human.

Hope this helps. 

P.S. If you need you could theoretically get the pdf copied and pasted to a word document (docx) and turn it into a Personal Book for searching in Logos.

Late edit: found the following, maybe can help you:

http://fathershouseafc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/CHARISMATIC-GIFTS-IN-THE-EARLY-CENTURIES-OF-THE-CHURCH.pdf

I found this in the article on Prophecy in the Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments:

"The more the church became institutionalized, the less free expression of charismatic gifts, and prophecy in particular, was encouraged. This trend progressed throughout the second century of Christian history. Gradually the prophets were silenced as the bishops assumed their ministry and usurped their place. The fundamental issue raised by Montanism was whether or not the church should be led by prophets. The verdict was a resounding no. In the face of this threat to its institutional life, the church closed ranks. The Montanists and prophecy itself were pushed to one side. Thus Montanism represents the last flare-up of prophecy in the early church and its virtual demise. Eventually Montanism, and by implication prophecy itself, was condemned in about A.D. 200 by Asian synods."

So you might want to do some reading up on Montanism. This book in particular looks interesting. The author is "a world-renowned specialist on Montanism." He "led an international team of archaeologists and historians that discovered the long-lost site of Pepouza, Montanism’s most holy city."

Prophets and Gravestones: An Imaginative History of Montanists and Other Early Christians

Then there's this:

2000 Years Of Charismatic Christianity: A 21st Century Look at Church History from a Pentecostal/Charismatic Perspective

The whole of Part One of Divine Healing of the Body by J. Sidlow Baxter is on Divine Healing through the Centuries. He has chapters on the Patristic Period, The "Midway Period" (his term, covering the period from the Fall of Rome to the Protestant Reformation), and The More Recent Period (post-Reformation).

There's also Spirit Baptism: A Pentecostal Alternative, by Harold D. Hunter, which includes Chapter 5: Patristic Literature and Chapter 6: Selected Literature from 600–1900.

I also found this sub-bibliography in Divine Healing by Sam Storms. None of these is available in Logos, but I've provided links to the Kindle edition where available.

Works on the Holy Spirit in the History of the Church

Burgess, Stanley M. The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1989.*

Burgess, Stanley M. The Spirit & the Church: Antiquity. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1984.*

Burgess, Stanley M. The Holy Spirit: Medieval, Roman Catholic and Reformation Traditions. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1997.*

Kydd, Ronald. Charismatic Gifts in the Early Church. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1984.

McDonnell, Kilian, and Montague, George T. Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1991.

EDIT: I found one more:

Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, Volume 1 & 2 by Craig Keener has a chapter on Supernaturalism in Earlier Christian History.

Thank you for such a great suggested resource list! I’ll be sure to check all of them out. Personal books is swift becoming a valuable study tool within Logos. I’d be glad to add many more “personal“ books that haven’t hit the Logos platform yet. Again, thank you for your time and recommendations!

Hi Rosie:

As always, superb input.  Let me ask you: do you keep a database of resources per area? do you have a particular system of classification?

If you do systematize resources can you share your system please.

I usually go searching for particular interesting concepts that come up during resource reading, and find many interesting topics, articles, etc. But usually due to some other thing coming up, I usually do not particularly save for further search ability other than file the pdf.

I tried to do an excel spreadsheet of interesting (and relevant in my view) list, but have not tagged by area.

Maybe doing a PB that besides listing resources specially important for a topic, can also have links to particular locations within the resource with key content is a good idea, problem is what taxonomy to use (loci of themes)?

Thanks for any input on any of the above.

Let me ask you: do you keep a database of resources per area?

No. I make bibliographies in Word when I'm in the middle of researching some topic, and they include books that I have on my physical shelves as well as in Logos and Kindle, and even books I don't own. I tend to go overboard in making up those bibliographies and then not getting around to reading or accessing all of the books.

 do you have a particular system of classification?

Sporadic. I try to tag books when I buy them, but I actually don't get around to it more often than not, and my tagging system isn't worth sharing. It's just normal stuff that anyone would think of and/or my own areas of interest (e.g., I have a tag for Film and one for Technology), and it only works well when I use it, which I don't much.

But I'm good at searching for books related to a given topic even when I don't have them tagged already, so that's how I came up with that list on the spot.

But I'm good at searching for books related to a given topic even when I don't have them tagged already, so that's how I came up with that list on the spot.

Amazing gift that you have, thanks for sharing. I will use this as a basis for brainstorming to see if there are ways I can come up to try to identify the most relevant books in my library.

Blessings.

But I'm good at searching for books related to a given topic even when I don't have them tagged already, so that's how I came up with that list on the spot.

Amazing gift that you have, thanks for sharing. I will use this as a basis for brainstorming to see if there are ways I can come up to try to identify the most relevant books in my library.

Well, I'll try to pass on a little of my technique.

I searched my Library for "charismatic gifts" "early church"

Some of the hits I found using that search mentioned titles of books that looked relevant ("Charismatic Experiences in History", "Pentecostal Phenomena in Church History", and "A Brief History of Glossolalia"), so I searched for those titles to see where else those books were being referenced and found a few other good resources that way.

So I guess I should add those three titles to the list, though they are not available in Logos or Kindle. All are out of print and only available on the used market, so that's why I hadn't included them above. But someone doing serious research on this topic might want to look for them in a library or buy the used books.

Hinson, E. Glenn. “A Brief History of Glossolalia.” In Glossolalia: Tongue Speaking in Biblical, Historical, and Psychological Perspective. By Frank Stagg, E. Glenn Hinson, and Wayne E. Oates. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967.

Klaude Kendrick, “Pentecostal Phenomena in Church History” in Gwen Jones, ed., Conference on the Holy Spirit Digest (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1983), I, 124–128.

Robeck, C. M., ed. Charismatic Experiences in History (Hendrickson, 1985).

Thank you for the tips Rosie.

I use Library sorting and search, but it takes more time to find things by searching if one has not a collection that limits the amount of resources.