This is the type of agnostic approach to our world that our Lord commended in Luke 16:8. People like Timmy are less apt to be carried away by mysticism than people of faith who take everything at face value.
Nevertheless, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).
Many have been turned off the good because of the bad. That is why Jesus said "Because of whom the way of truth will be evil spoken against." People begin throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
__________________ ...MY THOUGHTS, ANYWAY.
"Many Christians do not try to understand what was written in a verse in the Bible. Instead they approach the passage to prove what they already believe."
These are valid questions. I am not afraid to answer them.
1. If God performed a miracle in actuality, would you be able to recognize it as such?
It would, in fact, be impossible for anyone to determine whether a particular miracle really was performed by God, as an intentional act on His part. Just as it was impossible for Pharaoh to know if Aaron's rod turning into a snake was done by God's power. Even after Aaron's rod-snake devoured the magicians' rod-snakes, there is still no way to know by watching this spectacle which snakes, if any, were divinely produced and which, if any, were not.
That story illustrates the problem beautifully, if unintentionally. Feat number one: rod turns into snake. Amazing! But: oh no! Magicians do it, too! Aaron's feat is no long amazing enough. Aaron's snake devours the others! Amazing (again)! But is it amazing enough, now? We have no way of knowing. Who knows, those magicians might have kept up this battle of miracles, if only they had been more skilled in their arts.
2. Also, if God DID actually hear your prayer, how would you know He heard it?
At various times in my Christian life, I have prayed for things and have seen those things happen. I prayed with my young (at the time) boys that our cat would return home safely, after being missing for several days. Within minutes, he showed up at the door meowing. God could have done that. Or it could have been coincidence. Or maybe some other explanation (my grandmother's ghost leading him home? ). No way of knowing. Of course, at the time, I believed it was God answering our prayer, and it may have been.
Of course, if I were to mention an example of a prayer not being answered -- with a "yes"! -- it would not be very interesting. This happens to all Christians a lot more than they may want to admit. If they do admit it, they will probably use that answer I alluded to just now: they will say God always answers, and sometimes the answer is "no". In other words, they will believe in prayer whether it is effective or not.
To answer the question more directly, I would have no way of knowing whether God heard my prayers, regardless of whether He heard and acted on them or not. No one does. Taking it on faith is not knowing. It is choosing to believe that He heard them, regardless of whether He actually did or not.
Good stuff! Nothing wrong with asking for proof that can be proven!
Good stuff! Nothing wrong with asking for proof that can be proven!
Why did Jesus say that leaping off the temple to see if angels would carry Him was tempting God?
__________________ ...MY THOUGHTS, ANYWAY.
"Many Christians do not try to understand what was written in a verse in the Bible. Instead they approach the passage to prove what they already believe."
Why did Jesus say that leaping off the temple to see if angels would carry Him was tempting God?
Who's to say that Jesus said that? What proof do you have, and did you hear him say that?
Sorry if I seem like a doubting Thomas. God gave me eyes, ears, and a mind. What goes on in my mind should be the result of the first two, not the other way around.
Science proves there is a God, and blind faith destroys Him.
Who's to say that Jesus said that? What proof do you have, and did you hear him say that?
The bible says He said that.
Matthew 4:6-7 KJV And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. (7) Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Do you disagree with the Bible here, just so I know where you are coming from?
Quote:
Sorry if I seem like a doubting Thomas. God gave me eyes, ears, and a mind. What goes on in my mind should be the result of the first two, not the other way around.
Science proves there is a God, and blind faith destroys Him.
If Heb 11:1's "faith is the evidence of things not seen" is "blind faith", then blind faith exalts Him! Do you think Heb 11:1 is proposing blind faith?
Doubting Thomas was told that one is blessed who has not seen and yet believed.
John 20:29 KJV Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
That is faith.
__________________ ...MY THOUGHTS, ANYWAY.
"Many Christians do not try to understand what was written in a verse in the Bible. Instead they approach the passage to prove what they already believe."
Timmy, if you ever decide to be really honest with your questions and throw them at God He'll respond in most amazing ways.
I can't answer your questions. I know God has answered mine...but the answers are so personal I can't articulate most of them.
Bro Blume, really, God can handle being questioned. For real. He hasn't struck me with lightning yet. Makes me feel pretty safe telling anyone else they'll be safe...
__________________
You become free from who you have become, by becoming who you were meant to be. ~Mark from another forum I post on
God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. ~Romans 3:24 from The Message
1. In Acts 2 those who rec'd the HG spoke in many different languages and each of the crowd heard ALL the disciples speaking in their own native tongue. This is not consistent with the "HEAVENLY LANGUAGE" position.
2. Why are there not similar manifestations accompanied with infilling as the Day of Pentecost?
...
There have been instances of people understanding what was being said by a person who was speaking in tongues even though the person speaking did not know what he was saying. Over the years I've heard several instances of that. I would imagine some of them have been embellished and maybe some of them are urban legends.
I remember a man named Louis who had been in the military and stationed in Japan after World War 2 telling me something he had actually heard. He had learned a few words of Japanese, simple stuff like counting and some other simple phrases. He was in a church service one time and someone gave a brief message in tongues. He started off by counting from 1 to 10 in Japanese and Lewis wondered, "What's this?" The person continued speaking what Louis recognized to be Japanese but did not understand what was being said. Then the interpretation was given that in ten days, something was going to happen. Louis didn't know if anything actually happened in 10 days but he did recognize the counting from 1 to 10 in Japanese.
I read some time ago about an instance that Jack Hayford related. He was on an airplane on his way home from Portland, Oregon and in conversation the person next to him said that he was raised on an Indian reservation in Oklahoma, that his mother was Kiowa and he did not speak English until he started school. Jack Haybordfelt impressed to speak to person next to him in tongues. He hesitated but the impression would not go away. Finally, just before they departed the plane he told the person that he had heard something and wondered if maybe it meant something to him. The man agreed and Jack Hayford uttered a few phrases in tongues in a conversational tone. The man said, "That's a pre-Kiowan language from which our Kiowa Indian tongue came." He continued, "I don't know all the words you spoke, but I do know the idea they express." He went on, "It's something about the light that's coming down from above."
Several years ago I read a book titled, "Experiencing the Spirit" by Robert Heidler who graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary with a Th.M. in New Testament Literature and Exegisis. I have actually read this book more than once, have recommended it to others, and have given away several copies. This book plus "They Speak With Other Tongues" by John Sherrill are two that I recommend to anyone who wants to know more about the Holy Ghost Baptism and speaking with tongues. Robert Heidler was a pastor and a teacher who did not believe in speaking with tongues or that any of the other gifts of the Spirit were available today. He and his wife later both received the HGB and the book is about their experiences. in 1993 when he was in Moscow and was invited to speak in a church. He had developed a friendship with the pastor and his wife. Their names were Kostya and Helena. The pastor could not speak English but his wife did and had spent a year in England at a Bible School. As the service began, the pastor stepped to the microphone and began to pray in English with no trace of an accent, "Holy Spirit of God, we welcome you here today..." and continued on. Robert Heidler was amazed. Afterward he spoke to Helena and said, "I thought Kostya didn't know English. He was praying in perfect English during the Church service." She smiled and said, "Oh! He doesn't know English. That's his prayer language. He didn't understand anything he said!" She went on to explain that when she and Kostya were dating, she would always know what was on his heart since, when they prayed together, he would pray in "tongues" in English and she, knowing English, could understand everything he was praying!
In 1964 John and Elizabeth Sherrill wrote a book titled “They Speak With Other Tongues.” The book has gone through several printings and about 2.5 million copies have been sold worldwide. I read it about 40 years ago and was blessed by it. I guess there is no way to know how many people have been informed and influenced by it and how many have received the experience known as “the Pentecostal Experience” or “The Baptism in the Holy Spirit” because of that book.
Here is an excerpt from chapter 2, pages 23-27.
I first heard of Harald Bredesen through Mrs. Norman Vincent Peale, a coeditor, with her husband of “Guideposts.” We were holding a regular Monday night editorial meeting when she came in a little out of breath.
“I’m sorry to be late,” she said. Then, even before her coat was off, “...I’ve just had dinner with a young man who’s given me a real jolt --and a lot to think about.”
I had worked with Ruth Peale for ten years. Everyone on the staff valued her for a quality of balance and levelheaded good sense. She could always be counted on to bring us back to earth, should our thinking ever become too abstract or wishful. I make a point of this because of the strangeness of the story that Ruth told us that evening. It sounded so fanciful that if it had come from someone else, I might have dismissed it rather quickly.
“Have you ever heard the expression ‘speaking in tongues’?” she asked. Most of us had a vague recollection of the phrase. It came from the Bible, I thought.
“’Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels...’ That one?” I said.
“That’s one reference, “ Ruth said. “It’s mentioned in the gospels and Paul speaks of it several times, but most of the references are in the Book of Acts. Apparently, speaking in tongues was a big part of the life of the early Church. Far more than I’d realized.
“Well, my dinner guest said that he had had this experience himself. Not only he, but some of his friends too. Norman and I sat spellbound for two hours while he told us about people all over the country who are having this happen to them. Apparently, the ‘tongue’ sometimes turns out to be a real language, which someone listening will understand, although the speaker has never learned it and has no idea what he is saying. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But there’s something about this man....” She paused. “Well, I for one want to know more about it”
After the meeting I told Ruth that I would like to meet her speaker in tongues. I thought it might make a good story for the magazine. I did meet him. But the deeper I got into the subject, the more I realized that I had stumbled onto something too big for a single magazine article.
Harald Bredesen is an ordained minister, pastor of the First Reformed Church, Mount Vernon, New York. He is about my age, then in his late thirties. He had a clerical collar, a bald spot and an excitement that was contagious. Bredesen and I had lunch together in a restaurant near my office, and there, in a setting of coffee cups and sugar shakers, he told me a story that seemed to come from a different world.
A few years earlier, Harald Bredesen, although he’d been busily involved in the work of his church, had also been a dissatisfied young man. It seemed to him that his religious life had no vitality to it, especially when he compared his experiences with those of the earliest Christians.
“There was an excitement, a stirring of life in the young Church” Bredesen said. “The Church today; by and large, has lost this. You’ve felt it, I’m sure. Where are the changed lives? Where are the healings? Where is the belief that men will die for?”
At home in the evenings Bredesen had begun to read the biblical accounts of the early churches with these questions in mind, and almost instantly fell upon a clue. The more he read, the more he became convinced that first-century Christians received their vitality from the Holy Spirit, and more especially from an experience called, in the New Testament, the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Bredesen determined that he was going to have this experience for himself, and he went about it by taking a vacation. He headed for the Allegheny Mountains, ensconced himself in a mountain cabin and there began to pray around the clock. He made up his mind to stay in that cabin until he reached a new level of communication with God. Day after day he kept up his prayer vigil.
At last one morning while he was standing outside the cabin praying aloud, a stillness seemed to settle over the hills. Every fiber of Bredesen’s body tensed, as if his whole being were entering into a new plane of awareness. He stopped speaking for a moment. And when he began again, out of his mouth came, and here are his words as I wrote them down that day:
“...the most beautiful outpouring of vowels and consonants and also some strange, guttural syllables. I could not recognize any of it. It was as though I was listening to a foreign language, except that it was coming out of my own mouth.”
Amazed, curious and a bit frightened, Bredesen ran down the mountain, still talking aloud in this tongue. He came to the edge of a small community. On the stoop of a cabin sat an old man. Bredesen continued to speak in the tongue that was coming so easily and naturally from his lips. The man answered, talking rapidly in a language that Bredesen did not know. When it became obvious that they were not communicating, the old man spoke in English.
“How can you speak Polish but not understand it?” the man asked.
“I was speaking Polish?”
The man laughed, thinking that Bredesen was joking. “Of course it was Polish,” he said.
But Bredesen wasn’t joking. As far as he could recall, he had never before heard the language.
I was still drumming the tabletop over that one, when he told me of a second experience, this one in a lobby of a New York hotel. Bredesen was attending a breakfast meeting and had left his hat on a chair outside the dining room. When the time came to leave, he found the chair occupied not by his hat, but by a pretty young lady.
At the time Bredesen was a bachelor, and his male instincts prompted him to extend the conversation beyond a formal excuse-me-have-you-seen-my-hat? The girl noticed the clerical collar, and in a few minutes they were deep in a conversation on religion. After a while the young lady volunteered the information that her own religious life somehow left her dissatisfied. And soon Bredesen was telling her that he too had felt this lack but that he had found a new dimension in his devotional life through speaking in tongues.
“Through what?” asked the girl.
“Speaking in a language that God gives you,” Bredesen said, and went on to tell her a little about his experience. In the girl’s eyes he read disbelief and also something like apprehension.
“Can you speak in these tongues any time you want to?” she said, and he thought she edged imperceptibly to the far side of her chair.
“They’re given us for prayer.”
“Well, can you pray in tongues whenever you want to?”
“Yes. Would you like me to pray this way now?”
The girl looked around the lobby, outright alarm in her eyes this time.
“I won’t embarrass you” said Bredesen, and with that he bowed his head slightly and after a short silent prayer began speaking words that to him were unintelligible. The sounds were clipped and full of ps and ks. When he finished, he opened his eyes and saw that the girl’s face was ashen.
“Why ... why ... I understood you. You were praising God. You were speaking a very old form of Arabic.”
“How do you know?” asked Bredesen.
Then he learned that the girl was the daughter of an Egyptologist, that she herself spoke several modern Arabic dialects and had studied archaic Arabic.
“You pronounced the words perfectly,” she said. “Where on earth did you learn old Arabic?”
Harald Bredesen shook his head. “I didn’t” he said. “I didn’t even know there was such a language.”
My interview with Harald Bredesen left me more puzzled than enlightened. Surely there was a logical explanation for the tales he’d told me. Otherwise what he was claiming were out-and-out miracles, and this just didn’t jibe with anything I knew of the world today.
Timmy, if you ever decide to be really honest with your questions and throw them at God He'll respond in most amazing ways.
I can't answer your questions. I know God has answered mine...but the answers are so personal I can't articulate most of them.
Bro Blume, really, God can handle being questioned. For real. He hasn't struck me with lightning yet. Makes me feel pretty safe telling anyone else they'll be safe...
I agree. There is nothing wrong with asking questions. But the idea that we TEST or TEMPT God by seeing if His word is really true through throwing ourselves in peril, for example, is something Jesus distinctly said we should not do.
__________________ ...MY THOUGHTS, ANYWAY.
"Many Christians do not try to understand what was written in a verse in the Bible. Instead they approach the passage to prove what they already believe."
Feat number one: rod turns into snake. Amazing! But: oh no! Magicians do it, too! Aaron's feat is no long amazing enough. Aaron's snake devours the others! Amazing (again)! But is it amazing enough, now? We have no way of knowing. Who knows, those magicians might have kept up this battle of miracles, if only they had been more skilled in their arts.
). No way of knowing. Of course, at the time, I believed it was God answering our prayer, and it may have been. 
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