MadHermit

Adstar: "No one can strive to have any of the gifts of the Spirit." Read 1 Cor 12:31 and 14:1. In both texts Paul commands us to "strive for spiritual gifts." The real question is how to strive. Here are 5 tips: (1) First, begin by longing to speak in tongues in obedience to God's command and Paul's example. (2) Then seek the Giver, not the gift. If you continue to seek the gift, you are in danger of turning tongues into a spiritual fetish. Above all, don't attend a charismatic church where you are encouraged, "Just speak it out and fluency in tongues will follow!" This is a recipe for speaking in the flesh. Remember, you need to honor the Spirit's timing. The Holy Spirit does not jump just because you crack your whip! (3) The best way is to allow yourself to get lost in praise until your words seem inadequate to express the awe and joy you feel as you feast on the Spirit's presence. Then out of the sublime frustration of that feeling of inadequacy, authentic tongues will overwhelm you. You will feel like a chosen divine instrument under the Spirit's control. (4) If you can wonder later whether what you just experienced was real, assume that you probably did not experience the real thing. The real thing is so wonderful, so powerful that it is beyond doubting and indeed is self-authenticating. (5) Finally, look for the "fruits of the Spirit" and other spiritual gifts and abilities that are bestowed on you, together with the gift of tongues. In m my case, I received the gift of "The word of knowledge" and my academic performance was suddenly spectacularly improved. But my fellow believer, Mark, received the gift of healing after the gift of tongues and healing testimonies from his ministry are legendary around here.

As a young man, I once travelled across eastern Canada on a bus of young witnesses for Youth with a Mission. The bus was driven by the founder of YWAM, Loren Cunningham. Loren shared with us the leaps of faith and resulting miracles he experienced as he trusted God to use him to reach the lost, many of whom had never heard of Jesus. In awe of his testimonies, I asked Loren if there was a special secret to his success. His answer surprised me. He said, "My spiritual breakthrough came only after I was intellectually honest enough to become an atheist." In other words, his spiritual quest reaquired ruthless intellectual honesty as he confronted his doubts and the hard questions for apologetics. The Domino theory of Scripture is not just intellectually misguided; it is frankly evil. That is because it makes one's faith vulnerable to perceived errors in the Bible and, in so doing, makes the seeker intellectually rigid and incapable of honest and open inquiry. It is far better to endure the pain of discomfort created by loose end's in one's theology than to prematurely and dishonestly close the inner debate by taking a stand on Scripture which one knows is not yet intellectually justified.

(2) THE SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR Yown's list includes this role for which you can get a Masters degree at some Catholic seminaries. My cousin Lloyd was a conventional evangelical and looked at Catholics with the typical evangelical jaundiced eye. Then, when his marriage seemed on the rocks and he had tried counseling and other remedies, he finally connected with a Catholic spiritual director. He glowingly told me that those encounters blessed him and saved his marriage! One of the most helpful and beloved evangelical authors is Philip Yancey. Philip met celebrated Catholic spiritual director, Brennan Manning and confessed and confided in him that, despite all the accolades for his books, he himself had never had a convincing experience of God's presence. Brennan replied, :"Go on one of my silent prayer retreats and I guarantee you that you will experience God's presence convincingly. Yancey took up the challenge and reported that, under Brennan's skillful leadership, he marvelously did experience God's presence on that retreat. Spiritual directors are trained in skilled listening, practical psychology, Scripture, and the best of ancient contemplative traditions ranging from the Desert Fathers to the spiritual insights of monastic orders. They recognize that most professing Christians reduce prayer to petitions, praise, and thanksgiving, but have no clue as to how to listen for the guiding voice of God. God intends prayer to be a 2-way conversation. Prayerful listening requires practice and great self-discipline and a good Catholic prayer retreat with a Spiritual Director is designed to develop these holy habits.

(1) Like other terms in Yown's New Spirituality List, the description of "Palms Up, Palms Down" is distorted. In fact, it is an old Quaker prayer practice designated to help prayer warriors with 2 problems that hamper petitionary prayer: Jesus insists that we pray with faith, but most of us fear that we lack the requisite faith to secure an answer to certain difficult situations. So we unconsciously just try to believe. But the very concept of "trying" presupposes doubt and probable failure and the Palms Up, Palms Down technique is an often effective way to bypass this problem. When we petition God, we often find ourselves impaled on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, we tend to launch into our petitions with no sense of whether what we are asking for is God's will. On the other hand, when we hedge our bets by inserting "Lord, if it be your will," we unwittingly unleash the doubt about the legitimacy and effectiveness of our petitions that was lurking just under the surface of our minds. The Palms Up, Palms Down method can rescue us from these 2 problems. (a) In the Palms Down phase of meditation, we hold are palms up at our sides and meditate on the thought that we are turning the needs in question over to God so that He can take charge of this situation in the life of the troubled soul. We are not telling God what to do, but rather are trusting that the need in question is now the object of God's loving and active attention. We then very slowly rotate our hands in a large semi-circle until they arrive palms down on our knees. This method helps us to replace anxiety-provoking overthinking with simple childlike trust that Father knows best. We take deep satisfaction in the realization that we have placed the needy soul in the palm of God's hands. We allow a few minutes to complete this phase. (b) In the Palms Up phase, we place our hands palms up on our knees and meditate on the thought that we are now receiving by faith all the grace, power, and guidance that we will need to be part of the solution to the other person's needs, recognizing that effective prayer often requires perseverance and God often expect us to be part of the answer to the needs in question. For years, I have attended a small weekly prayer group, at which we often practice the Palms Down, Palms Up method. It creates a powerful sense of the Spirit's active presence and energizes our petitions when we shift to specific requests of the Lord. The method helps us realize that God will respond to the true need behind our requests, if not to the literal requests. It has helped us receive the faith needed to facilitate several miracles and other marvelous answers to prayer.

Please follow my new thread "You should strive to speak in tongues.' Here let me just say this: I am a lifelong charismatic and have both spoken in authentic tongues and in retrospect realize that I somes spoke in tongues "of the flesh." But in one of my most convincing early instances, the experience was the most electrifying and life-changing experience of my life. I will describe it in my thread. I'm convinced that the real thing can be so convincing, so poserful, so loving, and so life-changing that it makes it worthwhile to wade through all the false manifestations to get to the real thing. In fact, I'm so skeptical by nature that I doubt I would even be a Christian today, were it not for one particular tongues experience. In that experience a Lutheran pastor interrupted me and told me that he didn't believe in tongues. But I simply touched him gently and the Holy Spirit overpowered him and he literally exploded in tongues!

A 7-POINT CHARISMATIC MANIFESTO (1) Paul repeatedly commands us to (1) follow his example (1 Cor 4:16: 11:1; Phil 3:17) and his example includes a life that demonstrates the power of the Spirit (1 Cor 4:16, 19-20) and not just applying correct doctrinal principles. (2) Following Paul's example includes fulfilling his spiritual priorities. In 1 Corinthians Paul wants us all to speak in tongues (14:5) and thanks God that he speaks in tongues (privately) more than everyone (14:18). Paul's wish and example are in effect a command for 2 reasons: (3) Paul commands us all to "pray in the Spirit" (Eph 6:18), I. e. to pray with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and the only example he gives of praying in the Spirit is speaking in tongues (1b Cor 14:15). (4) 1 Cor 12:29-30 has been misinterpreted to imply that God does not intend everyone to receive the gifts of prophecy and speaking in tongues. But Paul is merely observing that not every believer actually exercises these spiritual gifts. We know this be (a) because Paul wants us all to speak in tongues and then assures us "you can all prophesy one by one." He thereby implies that at least these 2 charisms are for every believer. (b) because Paul twice Paul commands us to "strive for" spiritual gifts" (1 Cor 12:31: 14:1) and both times he then discusses the gifts of tongues and prophecy. So at least he has both gifts in mind as required objects of spiritual striving. (5) Modern evangelicals pervert Paul's teaching by twisting his insistence that tongues be interpreted in a public meeting attended bu outsiders into an anti-tongues polemic. In fact, Paul teaches that private tongues "builds up" the believer (1 Cor 14:4), that praying tongues enhances praise and worship and should be privately practiced (14:28). The importance of prayer in tongues for Paul is reinforced by his gratitude that he speaks in tongues more than everyone. (6) No academic commentary offers a biblical justification (eg. 1 Cor 13:8, 1o) for the cessationist view. The cessationist view is anti-Scriptural and grieves the Holy Spirit by disparaging the spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit has to offer. (7) Acts 2 is not normative for glossolalia and tongues Greek: glossai) need not be human languages. The tongues in Acts 2 doubles as prophecy (2:18 citing Joel 2:27-28) because the witnesses understand it, but the tongues in 10:44-47 and 19:1-6 is neither understood nor interpreted and is distinguished from prophesy (19:6). Indeed, Paul construes the apparent gibberish as "the tongues of angels" (1 Cor 13:1). Greek descriptions of speaking in tongues at Delphic construe it as gibberish that needs to be interpreted by a prophet of Apollo. So the word "glossai" need not mean "human languages."

Hazard: "Jesus rose bodily from the tomb. The Father raised Jesus." Luke 24: 34-39, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. 35, And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread. 36, ¶ And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 37, But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. 38, And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? 39, Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. Hazard, this is an apologetics section. That means it explores ways of rationally defending the faith. So the pontifications of your prooftexts merely beg the question, since the scholarly consensus is (1) that the resurrection narratives are riddled with contradictions and (2) that none of the Gospel Easter stories can be traced to eyewitness testimony. But thanks for teeing up my next planned thread on ADCs and NDEs (After-death Contacts and Near-Death Experiences). As you will learn, ADCs and NDEs are often accompanied by physical verifications that are even more impressive than Gospel reports about the Risen Jesus. I repeat: the Shroud of Turin is evidentially relevant for 2 reasons: (1) To an impartial observer, the claim that the Roman soldiers did what they always did with crucified corpses is more credible than the unprecedented miracle of Jesus' bodily resurrection. A conventional explanation of the empty tomb is that the Romans waited until Saturday evening out of respect for the Jewish Sabbath and Joseph of Arimathea's request and then removed Jesus' corpse to put it with the other 2 crucified corpses, so that the 3 bodies could be thrown into a criminal's burial pit or just left in a field to be eaten by vultures and dogs. This was standard Roman practice and it provides a more credible explanation for the empty tomb than a bodily resurrection that no one witnessed. (2) But as a Christian apologist, I want to defend Christ's bodily resurrection. The Shroud of Turin is potentially helpful for such a defense in 2 ways. (1) The soldiers would be expected to remove the corpse, linen shroud and all. So the fact that the shroud is left behind and the head cloth is rolled up suggests that no soldiers removed the body. (2) The fact that secular scientists can't replicate the Shroud image and admit that it seems to have been made by an unknown radiation energy suggests the possibility that the image was made the resurrection miracle. Hazard, you have offered no defense in reply to my refutation. So display some integrity and actually watch the video. (I

First, we must endorse all 3 Synoptic Gospels which agree that Jesus' corpse was wrapped in a shroud (Greek: "sindon," a large piece of linen like the Shroud of Turin (Mark 15:46; Matt 27:54; Luke 23:53). Second, according to John 19:40, the corpse was wrapped "according to the burial custom of the Jews." Israeli experts on ancient fabrics marvel at how perfectly the creation of the Shroud of Turin employed strict rabbinic guidelines for the measurements and composition of such a shroud. On this see the recommended YouTube video. Third, "There is really no ancient papyrus support for understanding the term ("othonia" in John 19:40) to refer to strips of cloth, and there is no evidence that the Jews wrapped their corpses with bands or strips." "The plural ("othonia") may be a plural of category designating no more than one object or a plural of extension indicating the size of a piece." (I am quoting Raymond Brown's magisterial 2-volume Commentary on John who bases his assertions on scholarly research on this question, including Blass-Debrunner's advanced grammar of Koine Greek.)

If you bothered to watch the suggestion video, you'd realize that skeptics who have dismissed Jesus' resurrection as superstitious legend have investigate the Shroud and found its authenticity compelling. They are then forced to consider the possibility of the Resurrection because no scientist can explain how the Shroud's image was made and they admit that the most likely possibility is that it was made through some unknown radiation, but not heat radiation. Contrary to what has been claimed here, the nature of the Shroud fits neatly with John's description of the tomb and satisfies in detail the ancient rabbinic specifications and units of measurement for such a Shroud in a way that would be unknown to a Medieval forger. Also, if you watched the video, you'd realize that the image is unbeliebably bloody (contrary to what one poster alleges) and neatly fits the expectations of wounds from Roman flogging and crucifixion. When I encounter evangelical closed minds on this issue and a refusal to even watch relevant videos, I just assume tht they don't place much value on the atoning efficacy of the blood of Jesus, even though they would protest to the contrary. The possibility that rare Type AB blood and both the Shroud and the Oviedo face cloth from ancient Jerusalem thrills me to the core like no conventional Christian apologetics can do.

Google "New Evidence: The Shroud of Turin" and watch the 42 plus minute video, one of the most intriguing I have ever seen! Among other insights, you will learn these 5 facts: (1) The pieces cut from the Shroud of Turin for C-14 dating are provably a repair job from the Middle Ages. So that test is invalid. New nonC-14 tests on the Shroud date it to a range consistent with an origin in Jesus' time. (2) The man in the Shroud was crucified and the bloodstains are not only real, but consistent both with crucifixion and Jesus' piror beating with a Roman flagellum. (3) The face cloth (soudarion) of Oviedo has the same rare blood type AB and the same blood spatter pattern as the Shroud of Turin, prompting Shroud scholars to conclude that both this face cloth and the Shroud once covered the same corpse. This is significant because the face cloth was brought to Oviedo from Jerusalem around 400 AD, almost a thousand years prior to the bogus dating of the Shroud piece tested by C-14 dating. (4) Israeli experts on ancient tapestry have demonstrated that the Shroud must made according to strict ancient rabbinic requirements, measured in Hebrew cubits, and sprinkled with ancient pollen grains unique to the Palestine region. (5) Scientists cannot replicate the Shroud's image and have no idea how it was made. It is made from some kind of radiation, but not from heat or fire. The energy of Jesus' resurrection? (5) ( (5

One of the most destructive teachings encountered by bright honest seekers is the Domino Theory of Scripture, the contention that if you determine that the Bible is in error in one significant way, then it is totally unworthy of belief. I have known Christians deeply committed to the Lord and the Gospel with a vibrant personal relationship with Christ who threw out their faith because they embraced this Domino theory that their church taught them, but either encountered what they considered errors in Scripture or became convinced of the truth of evolution and imagined that they then had to reject their faith in the biblical God. We need to recognize that many feel they can't love God completely unless they love Him honestly, and for them that means confronting uncomfortable truths that prevent them from embracing biblical inerrancy. We also need to recognize that someone's faith commitment and relationship with Christ is more important than their assent to our personal theology.

I simply want to mention the 2 earliest interpretations of the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit in the early church: The Didache (The Teaching of the 12 Apostles--95 AD) identifies the sin as a rejection of a Spirit-anointed Christian prophet's message. Irenaeus (180 AD) agrees, In other words, if the Spirit confirms to my spirit that a prophetic word comes from the Lord and applies to me and I ignore that confirmation, I have sinned against the Spirit. These understandings are important because the meaning of the Gospel sayings in question is left unclear.

"The great cloud of witnesses" includes the list of OT saints discussed in chap. 11. But what Hebrews does not say is crucial to the point: it does not say, "Seeing that we are preceded by so great a cloud of witnesses." We are rather surrounded by them. The image is of a great arena where we, the living spiritual athletes, run our races, while deceased saints witness our efforts, cheering us on, and even sending us aid. It is helpful to note that "witnesses" in Hebrews always designates eyewitnesses; dead saints are actually monitoring our progress. This text inspired the line in the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in the communion of saints."