Dividing the Christian Dispensation

Christians usually divide religious history into three periods called "dispensations:" Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian. However, Church of Christ members have a tendency to further divide the Christian dispensation into two sub-dispensations: the active God era (miraculous) and the Bible alone era (post-miraculous).

The dividing line between these sub-dispensations is supposed to have been the death of the last man to whom an apostle gave spiritual gifts (through the laying on of hands). We say the Bible became God’s only way of communicating with humanity after that historical point.

This division is advocated most by those who deny any personal indwelling or guidance of the Holy Spirit outside scripture, and they're usually motivated by a desire to counter signal the Pentecostals and charismatics who believe in regular modern tongue speaking and miraculous happenings.

However, we should ask ourselves if there's any danger in dividing the Christian dispensation. Personally, I see a danger in rendering considerable portions of the New Testament irrelevant to modern Christians. The Spirit, and his work, are mentioned well over two hundred times in the New Testament, but only about five of those references involve scripture. We're left with only a fraction of the New Testament if we further eliminate instances of the miraculous or semi-miraculous.

Should twenty-first century Christians ignore hundreds of references to the Spirit’s work because we assume he went into retirement during the second century? What kind of guidance do modern Christians really have if we've been left with a Bible written entirely during dispensations with different rules of spiritual engagement? Is the Bible just a history book that's lost its ability to guide us?

God worked through scripture, miracles, and prophets in the Old Testament. He worked through scripture, apostles, spiritually gifted people, and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. However, in the modern era we're told he only works through scripture… but none of it was written during our sub-dispensation.

One example of the problems created by dividing the Christian dispensation is 1 Corinthians 11-14. These three chapters constitute the longest New Testament passage about how Christians should conduct our worship assemblies. But if we break the passage down we discover that half of chapter 11 is dedicated to head coverings (which we dismiss as culturally irrelevant), all of chapter 12 is about spiritual gifts we believe ended after the second century, 13 is a short digression on the nature of love, and 14 is about prophesy and tongue speaking (which we no longer believe in). In the final calculation, at least three-quarters of the New Testament’s most important passage on the worship assembly is supposedly irrelevant to twenty-first century Christians.

Dividing the Christian dispensation into two sub-dispensations is more dangerous than many seem to realize. Ironically, we've rendered the Bible more irrelevant to modern readers by claiming it's the only way God now communicates with us. How can modern Christians compare their lives to biblical heroes when they don't believe God interacts with them in a comparable way?

I'm not suggesting we should embrace modern tongue speaking just to make the Bible more relevant, but I am suggesting we should assume more continuity than we often do. How much of the New Testament can we render irrelevant to the modern world before our young people and converts begin assuming the Bible is an ancient book with no ability to guide their twenty-first century lives?