thoughts from the shower:
- the Gentiles didn't pray properly, but that didn't mean the early Christians stopped praying.
when we are advised to 'have nothing to do with these people', it obviously didn't mean cut out all similar activity.
when the gnostics and other early church sects came about, people decided that 'having nothing to do with them' meant dropping the things they had in similar, including their 'supernatural' spiritual gifts.
I put supernatural in quotes because I know that they still acted on the gift of mercy, love, pastoring, etc etc. and these ARE spiritual!
- when people tell me to look at the history of the church as their defense against my testimonies, and to look at the history of the church to make decisions, i scour
something felt so wrong about it - and I now know why.
These people are telling me to look at the church history experiences of the past in order to make decisions in my theology! This is what I believe is dangerous with a lot of 'traditionalistic' churches. These people tell me, 'Why do you think the church's supernatural ability died out for so long?' 'How is it that it sprang up all of a sudden about a century ago?' (i'll answer these below)
I use experience to either confirm or negate (only in the positive direction. if you're experience doesn't match up with another one, you just did not have the same magnitude of an experience. HOWEVER, if your experience goes beyond what your theology says is possible, investigate your experience more and you may need to consider that your theology was wrong). This does NOT mean that you add things to your theology based on an experience; your experience was confirmation/negation. I AM suggesting to you go back and take a better look at Scripture to come to a better conclusion in your theology.
One thing that people look down on the Charismatic church for is 'validating their theology based on experience'. I don't think that is the case anymore. (I'm not sure if this was ever the case other than a couple of preachers... and we all know not to judge a denomination based on a couple of preachers)
Now, you tell me who the one making dangerous decisions about theology is.
Answers to Questions:
'Why do you think the church's supernatural ability died out for so long?'
**because people wanted to imitate the church's powers - so they did, via witchcraft and sorcery, following omens/signs to live, producing fake prophets, producing real psychics, becoming spiritual apart from God. (note: they imitated because they saw REAL POWER). I would say, a lot of confirmation is given by imitators; it almost always means that there is a valid REAL force that they can see. When people started imitating the church, it got difficult for non-Christians to distinguish between the two. So, 'taking heart' to the wise advice of their forefathers, they tried to have nothing to do with their evil brethren, and gave up all of their spiritual authority in order to have new believers more easily accept them.
It doesn't sound so bad, giving up something in order for new believers to come in. But it IS bad. If we were to give up prayer because it made people uncomfortable, would you? NO.
Plus, they made it hard for us now. When people stopped caring about what others thought, when they started getting intimate with God no matter what the cost, there was an outpouring of intimacy and spiritual power. Recovering from such a hard journey is tough for the 'resurrected'. It's hard to work against church history that lacks spiritual gifts because people have not been taught about the spiritual gifts for so long! A lot of people think it is fake BECAUSE they have never been taught it! what a foolish way to make decisions =/
'How is it that it sprang up all of a sudden about a century ago?'
**wups. i answered this above. c/p: When people stopped caring about what others thought, when they started getting intimate with God no matter what the cost, there was an outpouring of intimacy and spiritual power.
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