slain in the spirit

It's not of GOD.

 

Not biblical for christians. Then it has no place in the christian life.

 

Most likely all those watching Ananias and Sapphira being carted off for burial, believed in being “slain in the spirit.” Probably were not too many volunteering to be next. Sorry I couldn't resist.

 

As a young teen, I helped an Uncle of mine start a church in southern Massachusetts, by playing the piano for his small and struggling church. One Sunday, during my offeratory, a young woman stood up, began to babble and sway until she passed out. It looked like she was in extreme pain! (I'm still offeratory shy because of it!)

My Uncle was still pretty green out of Bible college and didn't know what to do, so he called an ambulance. The woman immediately "awoke" from her "trance" and was adament that she had been slain in the spirit while listening to me play. My Uncle was extremely embarrased, and the paramedics were confused. The children began to snicker quietly, and the adults began to quietly seethe in righteous indignation over the whole embarrassing ordeal.

None of it was edifying, in fact, I believe it was all a big show. The lady was visiting and was unfamiliar with Baptist beliefs. It really caused a lot of confusion, which God is not the author of.

 

Shy One, you don't have to be shy. Frankly, I'm seeing a lot about you from your posts.

You're either currently in a charismatic-type church, and are considering leaving, or have recently left one. I'm guessing this from your other thread titled "Speaking in Tongues." Slain in the spirit and speaking in tongues go pretty much hand-in-hand.

So here's my story: As some of y'all know, I'm in the military.

When I was going through a training school in October of 1996, I was only able to attend the base chapel. The students who had been there longer convinced me to go to the "contemporary" service instead of the traditional, citing the fact that the traditional was more Methodist or Presbyterian. So while I'm there, they had us stand and sing the same verse over and over for at least half an hour.

Two major things happened during this time. The first was, the guy in front of me got "slain in the spirit." Most of the people with me, who weren't practicing Christians (in the military training environment, you go to chapel on Sundays to get out of cleaning the dormitory, not because you want to), didn't have a clue what was going on with this guy. I, however, was nearly laughing my butt off, because this guy caused himself serious physical damage with the way he fell. I'm almost positive he knocked himself out, because he didn't realize it was a hard wood floor.

So anyway, we're still singing the verse, over and over--and for those that are wondering, no, I didn't raise my hands, and I didn't sing along, I just merely stood there while everyone else was swaying back and forth and having a good ol' time--and about that time, the guy that's leading this group starts gibbering. My jaw dropped. First the guy that hurt himself getting slain in the spirit, and now the church leader "speaking in tongues."

Well, I do something a lot of military guys know about: I start to fall asleep on my feet. Seemed like the thing to do, since the service wasn't edifying anyone, especially me. That's when I hear the guy speaking in tongues suddenly says: "Vote for Clinton." My eyes popped wide open, and I jerked straight up. I looked around, and the people around me are just swaying back and forth, singing the verse over and over, and the leader has continued "speaking in tongues." Seeing no one else's reaction to what he said, I told myself that I dreamed it as I was falling asleep, and put it out of my mind. A couple of minutes later, I'm starting to fall asleep again, and I hear the leader say: "We gotta make Clinton president." This time, I not jerked wide awake, I stayed that way. Especially since, this time, I made myself quite conspicuous in looking around to see if anyone else heard this.

Later that evening, I asked one of my fellow students if they remembered the leader saying those things; they had no recollection of it.

I know one of two things about this experience. I'm 99.5% sure that God placed a hedge of protection around me, to keep me from being hypnotized and succombing to the suggestions this church "leader" was giving us. Don't get me wrong; this isn't an anti-Clinton thing. The dude could have been saying "beat your dog" or "kick your wife," and I'd still say that God protected me from him.

However, there's that .5% of me that will always wonder if I was supposed to "interpret" for this guy, and I missed my chance!

(just kidding about that last!)

 

Shy one, in short:

Slain in the spirit? Can't be backed scripturally, and if it can't be backed scripturally, then it's man-made. If it's man-made, it's ALWAYS suspect.

Speaking in tongues? Facts: 1) the ONE AND ONLY verse in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:1) that mentions speaking in the "tongue of angels" (which is what 99% of the "speaking in tongues" crowd today is "practicing") doesn't say that Paul spoke in tongues. If we say that it does, then we have to look at verse 3 of that same chapter, and ask the question, did Paul also give up his body to burned?

If he didn't, and he didn't, then we have to conclude that he also did not speak in the "tongue of angels."

2) The only time that the use of the gift of tongues is fully explained, and thus requires us to lean on that explanation for subsequent uses, is in Acts 2, where it is explicitly stated that the gift of tongues was in known languages, but unknown to the men using them.

3) The word "tongue" in today's English would be translated "language." Thus, speaking in an unknown language (1 Corinthians 14) would mean that I could suddenly speak German, or French, or Russian--all of which are unknown tongues to me.

There's much, much more; but the overwhelming evidence is that the gift of tongues, as it is practiced by 99% of the practitioners today, is unbiblical.

 

Don, I have a question here. I have one son that was bored going to our Baptist church and wanted to go to church with one of his friends. We ******ly allowed him to do this, this was about 5 years ago. This church had broken off from the Assembly of God church and taken about half of the members with it. Once when talking to the mother of this friend, she mentioned how much our son enjoyed going to church there, which he did. She mentioned that he had been slain in the spirit and was also running around the church. I had no idea what she was talking about, but she gave me little explanation. I told my husband about this, we talked with our son and he then told us this is what had happened. We asked him to explain it to us, but he couldn't. His father then told him he could never go to church there again. He has since joined the Marines and is stationed in San Diego, and I know he went to the same type of service you described during basic training also. But to this day, I have no idea what "slain in the spirit" actually means, what happens to those that go thru this? And what is this running around the church? The mother told me they did this during the service, I simply can't imagine this, and what does it mean? These very active churches seem to draw the younger generations, or that is what our son told us because he thought our Baptist church was boring and it made him want to sleep. At this time, he is still in San Diego and tells me he is going to a Baptist church, but I also know he could be telling me this because he knows how we feel. With all the bad influences in the military, my husband feels any church is better than no church, but I tend to disagree.
Sue

 

I disagree as well. Not trying to set you against your husband. Your son needs to continue searching out a church, not going to just any church.

"Slain in the spirit" has a loose--and I mean, loose--relationship to when Paul said, "I was in the spirit, and went up to the third heaven" (2 Corinthians 12:2).

Unfortunately, in this passage, (at least to my understanding) Paul is referring to himself, and the incident in question (again, to my knowledge) is in Acts 14.

One must consider that, if I'm correct, the reason Paul was "slain in the spirit" was because he had been stoned (with real rocks, not the other kind of "stoned"). I have yet to see any modern-day practitioner of "slaying in the spirit" encourage others to pick up rocks and throw them at him/her...although I did see Benny Hinn once knock somebody upside the head one time, and that person fell backwards...although he hit them hard enough that their eyes popped open instead of closed....

Running around the church? I can't find any biblical reference for that at all.

My suggestion? "Suggest" to your son that he read 1 Corinthians 14, especially the latter part of the chapter, focusing on verse 33 as the summation of the entire chapter.

Also, have him check out this verse: 1 John 4:1

Remember, the letters to the Corinthians were NOT an encouragement to speak in tongues, or to get "slain in the spirit," but a rebuke for doing things wrong!

 

I will say this, our church is not a carsmatic (spelt wrong) church. But as a saved child of God I've got something to be excited about. I too have been to baptist churches that I thought were quiet boring. The preacher preaching a great message and everyone sitting there like a knot on a log so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I'm glad I go to a church that is not that way. I amen the preacher, and so do others. My preacher will get to preacher in a big way under the influence of the Holy Spirit and kick up his leg and hollar "GLORY". I have even seen a couple of people get up and run a little bit, because they were excited about what the Lord was doing. If we can watch a fottball game and get excited about it and jump up and hollar when they make a touchdown, how much more should we not get excited about the things of God. Like I said there is no people speaking in tounges or falling out in the floor, but our church is the furthest thing from boring that I know. And it is not most of the younger crowd that's doing it. It's mostly those good old fashion preachers and old people that know what it's like to be in an old fashion baptist meeting and give glory to God. People have become so dignified today that they feel it's wrong or out of place to hollar glory or to stand up and wave your hands in the air and give praise to the Lamb of God. Heck, I feel like jumping up right now writing this and praising God. I'm not putting my faith in emotions but I'm gald God gave them to me.
Look at what the Bible says about David, David danced before the Lord. You recon that was some dance as we know dancing today? I don't think so, I believe David was excited about the Lord and couldn't contain himself.
All I'm saying is we need to loose some of this pride and dignifiedness that we have and just worship God.

God speed.

 

Thank you Don for your response. I had already referred him to all those scriptures some years ago, but he just said he likes the excitment in the other church, regardless of what the Bible had to say. I was just curious as to what this "slain in the spirit" was.
Sue

 

Then tell him to grow up.

Shucks, I used to like going to topless bars for the "excitement" (not something I'm proud of, and I definitely ain't bragging, mind you; in fact, I'm quite ashamed of it).

Got as much out of that as your son is apparently getting out of his church.

See what he says to that.

 

Shy One, not a word about what I wrote about "slain in the spirit"?

 

Simply put: Does it really matter if your son goes and gets slain in the spirit? As long as his heart is in the right place, just let him go. Dont try to thwart his beliefs. You wouldn't like it if he tried to do that to you. Just do what you feel, and dont pester him about what he feels. He is just having a different walk with God.

 

Are you sure it's with God?

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Simply put: Does it really matter if your son goes and gets slain in the spirit? As long as his heart is in the right place, just let him go. Dont try to thwart his beliefs. You wouldn't like it if he tried to do that to you. Just do what you feel, and dont pester him about what he feels. He is just having a different walk with God. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And would you say that if he were praying throught he saints or praying to mother Mary, or if he just got sprinkeled with water rather than baptized? Or what if he were one of those with the Jesus name tag and held that Joseph Smith was a prophet with a new revelation?
We should never just stand by and let someone, especaily a loved one, get into something that is false and unbiblical without warning them, again and again.

 

Let me ask the "slain in the spirit" practicioners a question. When you get "slain in the spirit," you fall backwards, right? You have "catchers" assigned who stand behind the person and catch them so they don't hurt themselves.

Well, I find something unusual in the Bible! Believers always "fall on their face" before the Lord. EVERY TIME! The times people fell backward, they were heathens! Now I'm not calling you fine folks heathens, but you ought to change your practice to at least line up biblically!

 

Well, I don't know much about being "slain in the spirit", So I went to Just Bible.com, did a search of the whole bible on "slain in the sprit" and this is what I found.

Revelation 5:6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
So is being "slain in the Spirit" really ANY where in the Bible? And (someone who says they've done this) just what happens to you while you're " slain"?

Paula