Signs and Wonders - Defense and Reflection

Defense and Reflection

The ongoing theological reflection accompanying the Signs and Wonders movement was evidenced by Fuller Theological Seminary’s 1988 Symposium on Power Evangelism, which produced the document entitled, Papers Presented at the Symposium on Power Evangelism. In the same year, C. Peter Wagner released The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit: Encountering the Power of Signs and Wonders Today.

The study of the missiological implications of Signs and Wonders would continue on into the turn of the century with works such as T. O. Kettenring’s The Impact on Confidence for Personal Witnessing through Exposure to Power Evangelism and J. Lee’s Power Evangelism in the Third Wave Movement and Its Implications for Contemporary Church Growth.

The debate would continue. E. B. Dennis confronted the long-standing objections of cessationists with his thesis entitled, The Duration of the Charismata: An Exegetical and Theological Study of 1 Corinthians 13:10, written in 1989.

As reflected by the sources below, the debate over the Signs and Wonders movement and the present-day function of the manifestation gifts would continue on into the 1990s: D. T. Tharp’s Signs and Wonders in the Twentieth Century Evangelical Church: Corinth Revisited, J. A. Algera’s Signs and Wonders of God's Kingdom, J. M. Ruthven’s On the Cessation of Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Postbiblical Miracles and J. I. Packer’s The Kingdom and the Power.