The Same, Only Different

I recently came across an excellent post from Phil Johnson called You're Probably a Cessationist Too.  In it, he makes the point that what most continuationists claim (at least those outside the studios of TBN) is that the modern "sign" gifts are not really the same gifts described in the New Testament - despite the fact that they call them by the same names. For example he says of charismatic apologist Jack Deere:

One of Deere's main lines of defense against critics of the charismatic movement is his insistence that modern charismatic gifts are actually lesser gifts than those available in the apostolic era, and therefore, he suggests, they should not be held to apostolic standards.

Trouble is, these "lesser gifts" are nowhere described in Scripture. It seems to me the issue is not cessationism or continuationism, the issue is consistency.  If I'm going to claim that a gift described in scripture is still applicable today, I must also claim that it works today the same way it did in the first century - or show from scripture, why that is not the case.  Charismatic proponents often point out that there is no verse we can cite to definitively say the sign gifts have ceased.  That's true. However, I would point out there's also no verse we can cite that says they changed form either.

We can't have it both ways.  Either they continue today as they did in scripture or they do not.  If they do not, we should stop trying to match people's subjective personal experiences to terms used in the New Testament to describe miraculous events.