(L, M)br...
Illustration
(L, M)
This lesson is a perfect illustration of a very interesting discovery I made a while back. (Probably, like most discoveries, it has been made before, but I wasn't aware of it.) In the midst of controversy among people in my community a few years back over various charismatic experiences, I had posed to me the question of how in fact one does judge whether an experience is truly of the Spirit or not. I looked up every scriptural reference to God's Spirit that I could find and found that, more than anything else, associated with the giving of God's Spirit would be some sort of statement about the power to proclaim. In the RSV of this lesson it says, "... they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness." So the truest test of the Spirit is simply this. Has this suspected experience of the Spirit given the recipient more power to proclaim the gospel in word or deed? If so, it is to be believed. If not, then no matter how dramatic, it is suspect.
-- Shearburn
This lesson is a perfect illustration of a very interesting discovery I made a while back. (Probably, like most discoveries, it has been made before, but I wasn't aware of it.) In the midst of controversy among people in my community a few years back over various charismatic experiences, I had posed to me the question of how in fact one does judge whether an experience is truly of the Spirit or not. I looked up every scriptural reference to God's Spirit that I could find and found that, more than anything else, associated with the giving of God's Spirit would be some sort of statement about the power to proclaim. In the RSV of this lesson it says, "... they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness." So the truest test of the Spirit is simply this. Has this suspected experience of the Spirit given the recipient more power to proclaim the gospel in word or deed? If so, it is to be believed. If not, then no matter how dramatic, it is suspect.
-- Shearburn
