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Reuben_J
Guest
You sound very bitter and very angry. I want to be a brother though we can have differences.We have no record that Peter asked for this gift. He was chosen. I have been to the charismatic meetings. They stress gifts. It is what makes their world go round. They seek them. The humble say, God do with me what you will. They do not ask to be made great. Those who are made great are chosen. They are drafted. They may make themselves disposed to grace and service, but thy also shun accolades.
I did not say, if that’s what you think, that Peter asked for the gift. In fact my statement alluded to the fact that charismatic gift is given at the pleasure of God. We don’t earn it nor we can deserve it by any of our actions. It’s God’s discretion. That’s why it comes with big responsibility - it means to serve. My experience is that not everyone wants this gift. We ask leaders to preach, teach, lead prayers or leading outreaches, most would rather not take up the duty if there are others who are more gifted. It’s not for personally glory and surely it must be exercised properly.
You are saying they were doing this and that. Surely if you are reasonable you cannot lump everybody to be the same. Okay, I acknowledge what you experienced. I do not condon abuse. I hope I make that clear.
What I was saying charismatic gifts are Biblical, whether you agree or not. Discernment is a gift. Surely the Synod of Bishops execised the gift of discernment when they are given a duty by the Pope to arrive at some important decisions. Why the gift? Because God empowers them to upbuild His church. That empowerment spills down even to your local parish on people put by God there to build that local church. The empowerment even goes down to the domestic church - the family. But gifts are given not asked.
The language you use.It seems evident from the prophesies that fly around these meetings like popping popcorn that there are a lot more prophets than discerners. If you say that there needs to be discernment to figure out what is from God and what is not, then you are agreeing that some of these thousands of prophesies that are happening in thousands of pentacostal/charismatic meetings are not of God. What are the consequences to claing you are speaking for God and that being false? Did you ever utter one of these so called prophesies? Have you done it more than once? Did the things you prophesied come to pass? I have seen this happen and the opposite come to pass. Even so, they continue the act unfazed. They are undeterred and keep at it. Doesn’t anyone see this is crazy, truly crazy, and why?
Yes, most of the so-called prophecies are actually not prophecy at all.
There are many type of prophecies. Some are just encouraging while very few if there is ever, directive prophecy. Directive prophecy all the more needs careful discernment. Do they have a team of people who discerned in the meeting you attend? It should have.
The gift of prophecy is not foretelling. Very seldom that would be. And whether to know a foretelling prophecy is true or not, only time will tell whether it comes to pass. I have not heard of any foretellling prophecy in a local context, though you cannot rule out that it does not happen.
I suppose in a prayer meeting situation most prophecies would be in the category of exhortation and encouragement. So what’s wrong with that if it can encourage people?
Again your language. What can I say? Most probably what I have said must have touched a nerve and if they make you angry, I apologize, because that was not my intention at all.I believe in miracles. I believe in prophesy. I do not believe they happen wholesale by the boatload as is claimed by the excitable people who stir themselves up at these meetings taking place all over the country. I do not need to explore this. I need to make myself available to God and whatever he wills for me and repent of my sins and love Him by obeying Him. We need to be sober minded.
Peace and may God bless you.
I did not claim they appear with the advent of Charismatic movement.This is nonsense. There is no evidence that miracles disappeared and did not happen. The lives of the saints are replete with them, not only in the Christian age, but earlier with the Jews. St. Augustine may have been surprised, but that does not provide a shred of prove that throughout Christendom which extended all across North Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe there were no supernatural phenomenon occurring in the lives of thousands of Christians. To claim that they reappeared with the advent of the charismatic movement is ignorance. There were miracles and great mystics, like St. Padre Pio, throughout the Christian age. The charismatics I know act like they discovered a lost treasure. The difference with them is they think every Tom, **** and Harry is a prophet and healer. The evidence I have seen disproves this. There are lots of claims and little substance. I have seen many times people claim a “word of knowledge” that something was going to happen. One very nice lady, God bless her, told me that I had a word of knowledge in something I said to her. I am telling you that I had no such thing.
Perhaps it does us a lot more good if there is less hate and judgment and more love here.
Bye.