At the heart of what unites Jack Deere, Archibald Alexander, and Thomas Boys is a deep resistance to the idea that God has become distant or silent since the closing of the Biblical canon. Although they lived in different centuries and belonged to distinct Protestant traditions, each man maintained that the living God still intervenes directly in the personal lives of believers. They rejected the cold rationalism of their respective eras, insisting instead that genuine Christianity involves an active, experiential relationship with the Holy Spirit rather than mere intellectual assent to historical doctrines (e.g., mysticism and charismaticism instead of rationalism, deism, and cessationism). All three theologians shared an unwavering commitment to the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture. None of them believed that modern dreams, visions, or miraculous gifts add new doctrine to the Bible or carry the infallible authority of apostolic revelation. Instead, Alexander, Boys, and Deere each argued that every spiritual impression or supernatural occurrence must be carefully tested against the written Word of God, treating Scripture as the unchanging standard by which all human experience is judged.

Another thing in common they have is how they all pushed back against cessationist skepticism within the church. In their own contexts, they observed that many Christians dismissed supernatural experiences out of fear of fanaticism, emotional excess, or doctrinal error. Rather than throwing out the genuine to protect against the counterfeit, Deere, Alexander, and Boys argued that denying God’s ongoing work is both unscriptural and spiritually impoverishing for believers. Each figure also brought serious academic rigor and Biblical scholarship to their defense of spiritual experience, refuting the stereotype that openness to the supernatural belongs only to the unlearned. Archibald Alexander was the founding professor of Princeton Theological Seminary, Thomas Boys was an accomplished Hebrew scholar and Bible translator at Cambridge, and Jack Deere served as an Old Testament professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. Their scholarly credentials gave weight to their insistence that careful exegesis of Scripture leaves ample room for God’s ongoing, miraculous activity.

In their pastoral and theological writings, all three evaluated supernatural encounters primarily by their spiritual fruit rather than their sensational nature. Whether examining a providential dream, a healing, or a sudden inner conviction, they looked for evidence of genuine repentance, deeper humility, and a stronger love for Christ. For Alexander, Boys, and Deere, an experience was only worth affirming if it drew a person closer to God and produced lasting obedience. A historical bridge connects the three men through the enduring influence of their books on the continuationist debate. In the nineteenth century, Thomas Boys wrote The Suppressed Evidence (Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1832) to document how miraculous faith and divine interventions persisted throughout church history long after the apostles died. Around the same time in America, Archibald Alexander published Thoughts on Religious Experience (Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1841; Banner of Truth, 1978), dedicating a chapter to proving that God still uses dreams and visions to awaken sinners and guide believers.

More than a century later, Jack Deere echoed the voices of Boys and Alexander together in Surprised by the Power of the Spirit (Zondervan, 1993), and Surprised by the Voice of God (Zondervan, 1993), and his updated Why I Am Still versions. Having transitioned from a strict cessationist seminary professor to a proponent of miraculous gifts, Deere searched church history for orthodox witnesses who refused to put God in a box. He found in Boys and Alexander two respected, conservative predecessors whose writings dismantled the claim that historic Protestantism universally rejected modern miracles and visions. All three men recognized the danger of spiritual pride and self-deception when navigating subjective experiences. Archibald Alexander warned extensively against mistaking natural imagination or vanity for divine communication, just as Thomas Boys cautioned against reckless enthusiasm, and Jack Deere devoted entire chapters to the practical pitfalls of mishearing God. Their shared pastoral realism enabled them to affirm the supernatural without falling into gullibility.

Each theologian viewed the supernatural activity of God as an expression of His pastoral care and sovereign grace toward His people. They did not treat miracles, dreams, or inner leadings as spectacles meant to entertain the curious, but as merciful tools God uses to comfort the afflicted, rescue the lost, and direct His servants in times of urgent need. In their view, denying that God still acts in these ways meant limiting the very grace and comfort He promises to His church. All three represent a continuous thread of orthodox Christian thought that harmonizes a high view of the Bible with a vibrant expectation of the Holy Spirit’s work. By standing firm against both unbiblical fanaticism and unbelieving skepticism, these three scholars demonstrated that fidelity to Scripture and openness to God’s supernatural voice are not competing ideas, but complementary truths of the Christian life.