My review of Benoit, Not By Ignorance (Review copyrighted and sponsored by The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship, Inc.)

Frank W. R. Benoit, Not by Ignorance: An Explanation of Cessationism (Sisters, OR: Deep River Books, 2020; Spanish first edition 2017, Sevilla, España), 264 pp. $15.99 paperback.

The FULL review in English is available HERE.
The full review in Spanish is available HERE.
In both cases, the reviews are copyrighted and sponsored by The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship, Inc.

EXCERPTED from my review:

The title is derived from Paul’s, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant” (1 Cor 12:1). His hope: After having read Not by Ignorance, should a person continue to reject cessationism, it will no longer be due to confusion about its teachings.

…

Having dwelt in both the cessationist and non-cessationist camps and done some small amount of research in the field, this reviewer would welcome any book that tries “to give a clear, understandable, biblical, and historical explanation of the doctrine of cessationism” (189).

Benoit does not try to create new material but rather summarizes the “state of the question” from a cessationist side: that the so-called sign gifts and revelatory gifts (particularly prophecy and tongues) ended with the apostolic era.

Positively, Benoit shows an irenic spirit and (unlike many) interacted with Spanish literature. Nevertheless, my conclusions about the presentation were mainly negative.

His bibliography, while lengthy, is shallow and outdated. This is disappointing, given that his desire is to summarize all relevant cessationist and non-cessationist/continuationist literature.

He relies on others for his exegesis and church historical literature, and the weaknesses of his argument derive from that dependence.

I quote from my conclusion:

[In effect Benoit says], I can assure you, reader, that: (1) cessationism, once properly understood, has a solid case; (2) the evidence, in the form that I present it, shows why it has a solid case; (3) there is no additional evidence out there—I have hunted for it!—that might convince you it does not have a solid case [Gary: this point depends on our confidence in his research in secondary literature which is unreliable]; (4) if you continue to reject cessationism, you do so without sufficient cause. I suggest that items (2) and (3) do not stand up to examination; that item (4) is thereby rendered moot. Point (1) is, of course, not for us to say in a book review.

OTHER RESOURCES:
Search for “Spiritual Gifts” in this blog.
My commentary on 1 Corinthians. Available from Logos, Amazon, Publicaciones Kerigma.

“My review of Benoit, Not By Ignorance,” by Gary S. Shogren, Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica