1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

our experiences

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by donnA, Oct 3, 2005.

Top Posters
Page 1 of 2
  1. donnA

    donnA Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2000
    Messages:
    23,354
    Likes Received:
    0
    How do we measure our christian or I should say 'religeous' 'spiritual' experiences? By what do we compare them? How do we know if they are legitimate? And just what does legitimate ean in reference to 'religeous' 'spiritual' experiences?
     
    #1 donnA, Oct 3, 2005
  2. bapmom

    bapmom New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2005
    Messages:
    3,091
    Likes Received:
    0
    what sort of experiences are you talking about, donnA?
     
    #2 bapmom, Oct 3, 2005
  3. donnA

    donnA Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2000
    Messages:
    23,354
    Likes Received:
    0
    Anything labeled christian, spiritual, religeous. Not our everyday out in the world going to work and grocery shopping experiences.
    If someone said they experienced something 'spiritual' how would you judge it?
     
    #3 donnA, Oct 3, 2005
  4. bapmom

    bapmom New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2005
    Messages:
    3,091
    Likes Received:
    0
    donnA,

    it depends on what they said they experienced. Just because something is spiritual does not mean that it is of God. When it lines up with God's Word than I see no problem. Also, many MANY people are now equating EMOTIONAL with SPIRITUAL. They say they had some sort of "spiritual" experience, when Id actually classify it as an emotional experience. Emotional also does not preclude that it is of God, of course, as God made our emotions and He works through them at times. But just because there was great emotion does not mean that it is a greatly spiritual or Godly experience.
     
    #4 bapmom, Oct 3, 2005
  5. Gold Dragon

    Gold Dragon Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2005
    Messages:
    5,143
    Likes Received:
    149
    Faith:
    Non Baptist Christian
    I thought of this passage. Jesus gave us these words to judge for false prophets. It may (or may not) also be useful for judging false experiences.

     
    #5 Gold Dragon, Oct 3, 2005
  6. bapmom

    bapmom New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2005
    Messages:
    3,091
    Likes Received:
    0
    donnA,

    Im also very hesitant to judge anyone else's spiritual experiences, since experiences are so subjective.
     
    #6 bapmom, Oct 3, 2005
  7. donnA

    donnA Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2000
    Messages:
    23,354
    Likes Received:
    0
    What about judging them against scripture?
     
    #7 donnA, Oct 3, 2005
  8. bapmom

    bapmom New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2005
    Messages:
    3,091
    Likes Received:
    0
    If it is possible, if there is a scipture that applies, than we are told to judge the spirits to make sure they are of God.
     
    #8 bapmom, Oct 3, 2005
  9. donnA

    donnA Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2000
    Messages:
    23,354
    Likes Received:
    0
    Then do you think our expereiences need to be scriptural to be from God?
    Which kinds of expereiences do you think are not in scripture but might be true anyway?
     
    #9 donnA, Oct 3, 2005
  10. bapmom

    bapmom New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2005
    Messages:
    3,091
    Likes Received:
    0
    donnA,

    Im still not totally sure that I even really understand what you are talking about. Let me be specific, and see what happens.

    Ive been reading my Bible and praying, and there have been times when I just felt God's presence more vividly than usual. This is an experience which I find no problem with.

    A) I don't get any doctrine from it
    B) I don't "require" that sort of experience in other people in order to believe that they are saved, or truly walking with God, or anything else.


    However, if I had an experience in which I saw a being of light or some sort of "man with a glow", Id have to think twice about that. Thats an extreme, and I don't know if you are even including that sort of experience in your thoughts here.

    Then there are those times when people say that "something just comes over them!" and all of a sudden they are speaking in tongues, laughing, barking, whatever, and they claim this is a "spiritual experience." I don't see any proof of that in the Bible, especially the last ones. Tongues was not an emotional response to God, it was a sign that came on certain believers in Bible times as a proof that the Holy Spirit had come upon them. It was a sign to unbelievers, and it was real languages, not gibberish. I bring this up, because very often people talking about "spiritual experiences" are talking about tongues or barking or laughing or any other other things going on in some charismatic churches.

    I still don't really know if this helps, donnA. Do you have a specific problem you are trying to help someone with?
     
    #10 bapmom, Oct 3, 2005
  11. jaded_chaos

    jaded_chaos New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2005
    Messages:
    29
    Likes Received:
    0
    I think its up to the invididual as to whether or not their experiance is legitimate or not. There's no way anyone else would know for sure since they didn't experiance it.
     
    #11 jaded_chaos, Oct 3, 2005
  12. donnA

    donnA Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2000
    Messages:
    23,354
    Likes Received:
    0
    jaded, but aren't you saying experience is their authority, and we should accept that? Isn't scripture to be our authority?
    Your statement means whatever I think is biblical is, and no one has the right to judge that it isn't.
    I'm not saying the expereince didn't happen, just asking is it biblical? Lots of people have lots of 'spiritual' experiences, but are they of God or not, we can't know for sure by reading scripture.
    Either the written word of God is our authority in our lives or it in nothing to us at all.
     
    #12 donnA, Oct 3, 2005
  13. bapmom

    bapmom New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2005
    Messages:
    3,091
    Likes Received:
    0
    donnA,

    I don't think that we should be basing the truth of anything we believe on an experience we had. All of our truth-telling should be based on what the Bible says.
     
    #13 bapmom, Oct 3, 2005
  14. donnA

    donnA Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2000
    Messages:
    23,354
    Likes Received:
    0
    bapmom, thats like what I am asking.
    I once heard of someone who claims to have seen Jesus, He came and sat down on the riding lawn mower and talked to her.
    Yet scripture tells us Jesus went back into heaven and will return at the end(I guess here it depends on your rapture view). After the ascention we do not see Jesus in scripture making an appearence on earth till the rapture(again depends on your view).
    We are to judge her expereince based on scripture.
    Paul told us that if anyone, him or even an angel, told us anyother gospel other then the one he'd already told us (whats in the scriptures)we were not to believe them. What is he saying? Compare what we are told/taught against scripture. The bible calls it testing the spirits.
    In one of the other forums theres a thread about slain in the spirit. What do we do with the people who claim to have been slain in the spirit?
    We test it against scripture.
     
    #14 donnA, Oct 3, 2005
  15. donnA

    donnA Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2000
    Messages:
    23,354
    Likes Received:
    0
    Exactly, thats it! [​IMG]
     
    #15 donnA, Oct 3, 2005
  16. bapmom

    bapmom New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2005
    Messages:
    3,091
    Likes Received:
    0
    Amen!
     
    #16 bapmom, Oct 3, 2005
  17. jaded_chaos

    jaded_chaos New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2005
    Messages:
    29
    Likes Received:
    0
    I'm not saying the experiance is the authority, but I'm just saying its up to the person to believe whether or not it was authentic. No one else can judge another's experiance since they weren't there. I believe we should turn to the Bible if there's something in it that would help clarify the question of an experiance though.
     
    #17 jaded_chaos, Oct 3, 2005
  18. SAMPLEWOW

    SAMPLEWOW New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 7, 2005
    Messages:
    399
    Likes Received:
    1
    I think one should be very I mean very carful anytime the word judge comes up. [​IMG] God is very clear on judging .
     
    #18 SAMPLEWOW, Oct 3, 2005
  19. donnA

    donnA Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2000
    Messages:
    23,354
    Likes Received:
    0
    It doesn't really matter if the person believes it was authentic, each expereince we have is an authentic expereince, but they aren't all biblical, and in some cases, antibiblical. And yes we have the right to judge what is called christian when it is not.

    Sample, I did not mention judgeing people, but expereinces, and we are to use scripture to judge anything claiming to be christian.
    If you visited a church where people claimed they knew they were saved the moment the were dipped in the water (thats when their salvation took place) because they saw the Holy Spirit decending like dove over them as their proof, would you judge that(based on scripture) or say we shouldn't judge?
    Do you think claims of being slain in the spirt shouldn't be judged against scripture?
    What about the woman on the lawn mower claiming Jesus sat down beside her and talked with her?
     
    #19 donnA, Oct 3, 2005
  20. SAMPLEWOW

    SAMPLEWOW New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 7, 2005
    Messages:
    399
    Likes Received:
    1
    I'm not trying to start a war here but I do think that one should be very ,very carful it the judging department .

    Pick your battles!


    Doe's your proving their wrong ,make you sin! :confused:
     
    #20 SAMPLEWOW, Oct 3, 2005
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)
Page 1 of 2
Loading...