Rejection of the Charasmatics and Biblical Literalism

Without getting into whether you threw out the baby with the bathwater yet, I do think you have two different subjects going here that you have confused together. God set you free from the charismatic definition of the working of the Holy Spirit, which I agree is a good thing. It seems that He did this quite directly. But He revealed nothing to you about literalism as such. This is a connection you yourself made. I don't make that connection. When I left the charismatic context I looked for other literalist churches. There are plenty of them out there. (And there are some things I miss from the charismatics I have to admit, although I think they have some major things wrong). The charismatics are Bible literalists, that is true, but so are many denominations that nevertheless do not agree with one another on other points of interpretation. It's always risky to get into estimating how many groups share a particular belief, but just from my own experience, most of the churches I'm familiar with are Bible literalist churches, although many of these I would have doctrinal problems with as far as their interpretations go. At least they declare believe in the Bible as the inerrant word of God though. OK, that's what I gathered. God set you free from the charismatics but you did have literalism lumped together with the charismatics and went on to investigate literalism as such, but God didn't inspire you in that part of your effort as He did concerning the infilling of the Holy Spirit. What do you mean "abandon the church?" All churches or the charismatic churches or what? But if it had not been a charismatic church you would not have been struggling with the charismatic interpretation of the gifts, tongues, the infilling of the Holy Spirit, so if it was a literalist church and you were having THAT problem it would have been a separate problem. God seems to have led you out of the charismatic assumptions, but I don't see His hand in your struggles over literalism. I don't understand this distinction you are making, how you understand what "the church" is or its relation to "the dogma."

I'll answer this too. Christians certainly have direct experience of God and direct leadings from God, but some of the experiences reported by charismatics just don't hold up as from God, and cause believers much unnecessary anxiety -- the common formula for instance that the evidence of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh, the other subject here, Randman, is Bible literalism. Since you don't hold to a young earth, do you then claim to find evidence for an old earth in the Bible or do you reject a literal reading of Genesis?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Too many obviously excellent Christians have never spoken in tongues for it to be necessary. I never give an opinion about such things that is only my own. I've read a great deal on the subject. The basis for all experience is the Bible -- if the experience contradicts the Bible it's not from God. Open and shut.In the case of tongues it simply didn't occur after the first few centuries, and has only been revived as a supposed necessity in the last 150 or so years. There was a reason for it in the early church that no longer applies: When the gospel was a new thing it came with "signs and wonders" to verify that its source was God. After it spread and people believed by faith, such signs were no longer needed. The overall message of scripture is that we "walk by faith, not by sight," faith being superior to evidence except in extraordinary situations. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I disagree. The Holy Spirit does powerfully affect people, especially in times of revival, but the gifts of healings and tongues and miracles are not even normally part of that kind of experience. I won't say they don't happen at all any more, but to expect them to happen as part of normal Christianity I just don't see. Too too many great Christians, certainly Holy Spirit filled and led, didn't experience anything of the sort. Even the ones with the greatest personal experiences. And there are too too many charlatans who seem to have something supernatural in their ministry but are hucksters and haven't the slightest evidence of conformity to the character of Christ.I agree that scripture doesn't say in so many words that the gifts were only for the times of the apostles, but the fact that they died out just can't be chalked up to an inferiority of faith from that point on. While I know some very dedicated charismatics, I don't know any I'd class with Jonathan Edwards or John Bunyan or most of the Puritans, some of whom had wonderful experiences of the Holy Spirit without the supernatural gifts.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, and their job was to preach this new doctrine to the pagan world. It was brand new and God accompanied it with His power to demonstrate its source. Well I'm now afraid of it. Some is so obviously against the Bible and yet supernatural it has to be demonic. I wish I could remember the best arguments though. I agree that the bit at the end of the love passage doesn't refer to it. But there are other scripture-based arguments. And the fact that these things did NOT continue in the church in itself has to be evidence..

I basically agree with you, but I think you misunderstand what happened at Pentecost. Yes, the assembled Jews from all over the Hellenic world heard the word of God in their own tongue. But there were many languages represented there and they each heard their own language spoken by different speakers. It isn't as if a person from Parthia understood what was spoken to the Cappadocians, etc. So you wouldn't necessarily understand something spoken in tongues if it were in, say, an African dialect. And some charismatics claim that the tongues are real languages, and would be intelligible if someone who spoke that language were present. But it seems odd to me that the language would be spoken when such a person isn't present, which is what happens all the time.

All I can say to this is that it is wrong to assume that what once happened is on the level of a command that it always happen.But I get what you are saying. Since the charismatics claim that they derive this from the Bible, you think if their view is false that it's the Bible that can't be trusted.I just figure they misunderstand the Bible.As for the rest of your discussion about Bible literalism, that's been rehashed so many times here I don't want to get into it. You trust the modern commentators and critics and I don't, and that's part of it. The rest isn't going to get resolved between you and me here and I don't want to get into it.But these are two different subjects. Rejecting the charismatics does not mean for me rejecting Bible inerrancy.

sorry, duplicate.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I do know what Randman means because I've experienced this myself although I doubt the source of it. I simply don't KNOW what the source of it is, and in my case I did NOT experience the presence of the Lord with it. But I not only spoke these sounds that just came tumbling out of me, I also sang them. It was great fun. The "fluency" is in how they just roll off your tongue without the slightest effort on your part or the slightest understanding of what you are "saying" (if indeed you are saying something and who knows?)But the sounds follow a definite pattern. They may be gibberish, I don't know, but they aren't JUST gibberish because they follow a definite sound pattern. Whole "phrases" will repeat. You hear them repeat, although duplicating them consciously would be impossible, at least in the beginning. By now I might be able to duplicate the sounds from memory but I'm not even sure of that. I've tried to put a stop to the whole thing.

Really, "had no idea?" You weren't in a charismatic church at the time?It just happened to me spontaneously the same way you describe but I certainly knew what it was since I was in a charismatic church.

In the Bible the people heard their OWN languages spoken. There wasn't anything miraculous about the hearing, though there was about the speaking. And there is no hint that the tongue was "intelligible to anyone who hears it" but only to those whose language was being spoken.

It often isn't unambiguous or crystal clear. You trust those who make the best case in your judgment. That's all you can do. But there are some things that are open and shut and obvious to anyone. When someone who had a vision they think was from God and say they were taught something in that vision to tell the church, but what they were taught contradicts what the Bible says, you know their vision wasn't from God. So, if this someone says the teaching was about "Twelve Steps to the Throne of Grace," which is an example from my own experience, but you know that scripture says "come boldly to the throne of grace" then you know there are no intervening steps and that teaching did not come from God.

quote:

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Hbr 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

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No, this is an interpretation I have gleaned from many different sources discussing this subject. Why do you think there is only one person? I wouldn't be saying what I'm saying if I didn't think it true, but I *already* told you and am telling you *again* that I don't give my own opinion on these things, but what I've learned from many teachings on the subject by many different teachers.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, thanks. I'm glad someone -- even an agnostic !! --can tell it is not fakery. I know it's not, not my own experience, and I never thought others' experiences of it were either. It doesn't sound fake. That many people just can't be good at making up sound patterns. And I can't see it as a psychological thing either. It's something as you say "deeper" than any of that. The problem for Christians is that something similar happens in the trance states of some pagan rites. Or so I've heard. I suppose I should find out more about that.

Actually, there is a lot of testimony from the early church that tongues had ceased by the 2nd century. Here's the Wikipedia article on Cessationism This article is challenged so there is another one to read on the subject, but I see nothing that changes this basic historical fact.