Praise dancers?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Ah, but the Book gives us instruction in just the situation you described:

1Co 14:26 How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.
1Co 14:27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.
1Co 14:28 But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.
1Co 14:29 Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.
1Co 14:30 If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace.
1Co 14:31 For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.
1Co 14:32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
1Co 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

There is no real dichotomy between 'going by the Book' and 'being led by the Spirit'. If we go by the Book, we will go by the Spirit, for the Book directs us to be led by the Spirit. And if we are led by the Spirit, we will follow the Book, because the Spirit leads us into all truth, and God's Word is the truth.

And it's not just 'a book', it is the Word of God - it is ALIVE, living, powerful. It is Spirit and it is Life. It was in the beginning with God, and it was God, and it was made flesh and dwelt among us.

I understand what you are getting at, I too use to think in those terms, of there being a distinction between the Word and the Spirit. We used to say 'you gotta worship God in Spirit AND in Truth. All Spirit and no Truth is fanaticism, and all Truth and no Spirit is dead dogmaticism.' But I have since learned there is no dichotomy. One cannot worship God in Truth and yet not worship God in Spirit, because that would be contrary to the Truth! So if you aren't worshipping in Spirit you are NOT worshipping according to the Truth! Likewise, you cannot worship God in the Spirit and yet be devoid of Truth, because the Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit will lead a person into the Truth. If the Spirit is not leading a person into the Truth, then it needs to be asked - what exactly is that 'spirit' that one is following?

I doubt if you came and worshipped with us, or if I came and worshipped with you, that either one of us would be completely 'out of sync' with the other, by the way. As I said, I understand what you are trying to say. We certainly need to be led by the Spirit. But people who only worship God, praise God, or pray, for example, when they 'feel the impulse of the Spirit moving them', tend to be rather unstable and spiritually immature. I know this because I was one of such people.

EXACTLY! Amen.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

I've must of missed those in my lifetime.

We have the Peter Ruckmanites down here and other assorted Independent Fundamental case Baptists who are dead as fried chicken. So, I can't make the "More Pentecostal" connection. Sorry.

They are either black, or 'Regular Baptists' or 'Primitive Baptists' or 'Free Will Baptists'.

[votivesoul]

Of course there is Bible for the order of things.

But we need the Spirit to elucidate our understanding of any given text. We also need an in the moment understanding of what God is trying to accomplish in and among His people, so that all is done decently and in order, so that all are edified. And that only comes from the active participation and leading of the Holy Spirit.

It's about timing. I've compared it once to an orchestra. When do the cellos come in? When do the flute players play? When should the violins come in, and how loudly?

It's the same with the Body. For example, we may all prophesy one by one. But in what order? Who goes first? For how long? Who's next?

See what I mean? It is the Spirit that makes such determinations, because, even with Paul's instructions, the Bible isn't enough. There must be an additional, in the moment unction from the Holy Spirit to make us able to do the very things the Word says we can and ought to do (like prophesy one by one).

I agree that mature saints should be able to easily be in sync with one another and the Holy Spirit, and see God bless and anoint and edify. But not everyone is in such a place, and so, the order and decency tends to get marred.

In such a moment, who decides who was in order and who flubbed things up? It's very subjective. Paul wrote to let the judges decide, but just who are the judges? He doesn't indicate. Some think it's the "pastor" or only the so-called ministers. Some think everyone's a judge, and can determine for themselves what is and isn't from the Holy Spirit.

Again, it comes down to having an in the moment unction from the Holy Spirit, that is more than just subjective clamoring. We can surely go to the Word and point out the principles of the Scripture, but we can't use the Bible to show a person that they, and not the other person, was out of order and indecent, because they tried shouting with the voice of triumph while someone else was trying to prophesy.

That's a job for the Holy Spirit alone, with but also in addition to, the Word, since the Word doesn't sufficiently cover the subject. There just isn't chapter and verse for every single nuance and circumstance that may or may not come up over the course of a meeting, or even one's lifetime in the faith.

I mean, we don't study the Talmud, after all!

[Godsdrummer]

We can wrangle this back and forth as we seem to do a lot on AFF. I can only reflect on past experience, learning, and present experience, couple with the word. Over the years experiences have brought new understanding to passages, that were unclear on the past.

My understanding was limited to what I had experienced. In my youth, the word of God came through the mouth piece of the preacher. We were taught he was the mouth piece of God, to the saints, and only the preacher. There was a distinct division between the ministry and saints. Preachers spoke the work of God and saints accepted the word, period, because it came from the mouth piece of God, the preacher.

On occasion there were tongues and interpretation, most times these messages backed up the words of the preacher. This was the limit of the gifts of the spirit in the churches until my mid life. There were a few times a stronger word would be spoken by a preacher that we deemed to be a prophetic word.

In recent years in our search for a new church, we started to attend a non denominational church. This church was strong in the prophetic, the first time a prophetic word was spoken, I was very skeptical. This was beyond any experience I had come across in all my 40+ years in ministry.
The second or third Sunday we were in attendance a word was spoken to me, directly. I experience a move of God on my person, that I can only describe as much like when I received the baptism of the spirit, when I was 7 years old. (yes I still remember it like yesterday) The difference was I did not shout, dance in the spirit or any of those things that usually happen when on receives the baptism of the spirit, many times. But from that time on till even today, my whole outlook of life changed. Actually my life changed.

The whole point to this is that, too many times we limit our walk with God to only those things we know as passed down to us by the limited knowledge of those that first brought faith into our lives. When God is limitless.

We used to have a slogan "we have the whole truth". What we had was a limited portion of what we thought was the whole truth of salvation. But there was so much more that we lacked.

If I could impart any tid bit of thought to anyone, it would be never feel you have it all. But continue to study that you may never find yourself in the place Paul wrote about, being still on the milk of the word, and not the meat. When you should be teaching others you still need and can only handle milk.

[shazeep]

Amen. You do not want to be in the position of having even what you have taken, it is not pretty. I am learning to have a healthy lack of respect for my own opinion