Is there anything wrong with an intellectual faith?

[quidam65]

I have a particular interest in the philosophical and intellectual aspects of the Christian religion, but at the same time, I feel like it's a dead faith to me. Allow me to elaborate. I used to obsess with learning everything I could about Christianity and made sure I had it all right, but multiple times I felt like the Pharisees in the Bible who certainly focused on getting everything right but still missed the point. Also, I feel like there can be a sense of pride or arrogance among the more intellectually inclined, which is what drew me to focus more on introversion and being Spirit-filled. I also started embracing more theologically diverse denominations as I am uncertain about what I believe aside from the basic tenets of the Christian faith that we all share.

Are intellectualism and attempting to understand everything necessarily bad things?

As my pastor friend Brother Nick says, you need to find the balance.

It is important to know what you believe. But you also have to have the Spirit inside you (and that can be in any church, not just those in the Pentecostal/charismatic movement though I have nothing against my brothers and sisters in Christ who attend there).

 

[Major1]

As my pastor friend Brother Nick says, you need to find the balance.

It is important to know what you believe. But you also have to have the Spirit inside you (and that can be in any church, not just those in the Pentecostal/charismatic movement though I have nothing against my brothers and sisters in Christ who attend there).

Absolutely!

One of the great failures in Churched people today is that they do not know why they believe what they believe. That always lead to them being manipulated by a chrasmatic leader.

So many dear people believe that worship is participating in tongues or slain in the spirit or tolling around on the floor which is nothing more that an individual trying to show everyone else how spiritual he/she is when worship is actually where we should be focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ and how wonderful He is.

Anything that takes away from that focus is IMO questionable.

 

[Johnsloan]

Absolutely!

One of the great failures in Churched people today is that they do not know why they believe what they believe. That always lead to them being manipulated by a chrasmatic leader.

So many dear people believe that worship is participating in tongues or slain in the spirit or tolling around on the floor which is nothing more that an individual trying to show everyone else how spiritual he/she is when worship is actually where we should be focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ and how wonderful He is.

Anything that takes away from that focus is IMO questionable.

So what does it mean to focus on the Lord Jesus? We know how wonderfull He is. what now?
So here is something other than what you just said.

And its direct from scripture . Those who worship will worship in spirit and truth.

So is scripture correct or is it what you said?

I tend to think scripture is correct. You are acussing the Charasmatic leaders.

How do you know that worshipping the Lord is not praying in tounges?

 

[ToBeLoved]

So what does it mean to focus on the Lord Jesus? We know how wonderfull He is. what now?
So here is something other than what you just said.

And its direct from scripture . Those who worship will worship in spirit and truth.

So is scripture correct or is it what you said?

I tend to think scripture is correct. You are acussing the Charasmatic leaders.

How do you know that worshipping the Lord is not praying in tounges?

How do you know that tongues is not the Holy Spirit praying for us, just being vocalized through the tongue speaker?

I Don’t even know that it is the person praying or speaking to God in tongues.

 

[Biblicist]

About 10 years ago we attended a service at a local Pentecostal church. About an hour into the presentation 2 young women fell into the floor and began to roll around. There dresses bunched up around their waists and every man in the church was watching to see what they could see. Now Do YOU think that is focusing of worshipping Jesus Christ?????

This does seem to be a bit of a cheap shot.
To be even handed, as there are many individuals within our assemblies who are still in the flesh, be they with unsaved visitors, cessationists or with those who have been there for awhile and for whatever reason they have failed to embrace the fullness of the Spirit, then maybe they are still in the flesh and of course Pentecostals and charismatics can easily view the cessationist mindset and humanism as being essentially one and the same, which might not always be fair at times. So as you can see, this type of accusation can easily be turned around.

I wonder how many men and women there were who were uncomfortably trying to keep and eye on things where they could feel the need to approach the ushers so that they can cover up these ladies; I know that I have been in this situation before as well - it is not something that a male can easily address.

 

[Biblicist]

Are intellectualism and attempting to understand everything necessarily bad things?

As this is my first time on this particular thread, where I felt that the forum was probably not the best venue to address such an issue; I realise that at least one other person has pointed out both the fallacy and impracticality of anyone hoping to 'understand everything', or where they even come close to doing so. In fact, someone who was well read and had an inclination to be a teacher or even an academic would not even bother entertaining such a thought.

For many of those who have taken on the role of the Biblical Office of the teacher, to the point where they have joined the Christian Academy and performed admirably with furthering the Kingdom of God, even though they will have gone through their own trials, just as everyone else has, they will still find great joy (and pain) with performing this admirable task.

 

[Major1]

This does seem to be a bit of a cheap shot.
To be even handed, as there are many individuals within our assemblies who are still in the flesh, be they with unsaved visitors, cessationists or with those who have been there for awhile and for whatever reason they have failed to embrace the fullness of the Spirit, then maybe they are still in the flesh and of course Pentecostals and charismatics can easily view the cessationist mindset and humanism as being essentially one and the same, which might not always be fair at times. So as you can see, this type of accusation can easily be turned around.

I wonder how many men and women there were who were uncomfortably trying to keep and eye on things where they could feel the need to approach the ushers so that they can cover up these ladies; I know that I have been in this situation before as well - it is not something that a male can easily address.

It is my thinking that the only reason you would call it a "cheap shot" is because you are a Chrasmatic Pentacostal and it speaks to you bias. But none the less, the truth is the truth.

 

[Major1]

No dear friend you never answerd any question in fact I asked four.
You may well call your self a sinner but dont drag me down with yor lack of understanding.

I am not a sinner. According to God. I am holy,sanctified,justified and precious in His sight.
I am beyond reproach in regard to sin.
Your wordsa are life in death. You call your self a sinner fine. Thats up to you. You will be what you say you are.

I know the new covanant. I know what I am in Christ, Seems you dont. so please leave me out of your thinking and lack of understanding

So please answer all the questions and I will add one more.
Where in the new covanant does God call us sinners?

Please read once again comments #54 and #59.

 

[Johnsloan]

First things first. Speaking of, as you just said...........
"your thinking and lack of your understanding".

Over the years there have been numerous kinds of holiness movements that have had good intentions. Unfortunately, many have their promotion of holiness accompanied with the false teaching that we can achieve sinless perfection here on earth.

Are we sinless because we are forgiven, cleansed and given the Holy Spirit? Absolutely not. We are regenerated in our human spirit, given a new nature, but the old nature has not been removed.

What does the Bible say about sin and what is the biblical definition? The Bible says, “Sin is the transgression of the law” (I John 3:4). So any command by God that is not obeyed perfectly would be defined as sin. The apostle John makes it clear that, “All unrighteousness is sin” (I Jn. 5:17). So one would have to be perfectly righteous to not sin any longer. Paul also states, “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23) which would include everything we do. And James makes a general statement about ones conscience and omission “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).

With these basic guidelines (and there are more) we can understand what the Bible defines as sin and how we are to act to not be considered participating in sin.

Everyone has Sin, believers and non-believers alike. The Bible states: “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” We have a fallen nature and for this reason we need to be born again or have a spiritual birth. Adam introduced sin. It resulted in both spiritual and physical death for him, spiritual first. Only Adam became a sinner by sinning. We die physically because of Adam’s sin passed on to all succeeding generations spiritually, genetically. We are all born with a built-in death warrant, which is our sin nature, because we have inherited this sin nature from Adam. We are born already spiritually dead (separated from God).

Rom 3:10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; v.12 “there is none who does good, no, not one.” Jesus said to the rich young ruler who approached him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God” (Mark 10:18). Only God is intrinsically good, only God by His nature does good and does it all the time.

It is only after we have a new nature that we can even do good! And it comes from our new nature not the old. As Paul makes clear “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. 7:18).
Are We Sinless

Ok I see you are going to do again what you done on the other thread. You could not answer my questions and ran round in circles, and then dissaperd and never replid to my last post. You are doing the same here. You like to teach with no scripture or knowledge on what you are trying to teach. If you cant answer a few simple questions theres nothing for us to talk on. You are a cheery picker..

 

[Biblicist]

It is my thinking that the only reason you would call it a "cheap shot" is because you are a Chrasmatic Pentacostal and it speaks to you bias. But none the less, the truth is the truth.

Please tell me, what is a "Charismatic Pentecostal" as I have never come across one of these strange individuals - are they maybe peculiar to North America?

 

[Major1]

Please tell me, what is a "Charismatic Pentecostal" as I have never come across one of these strange individuals - are they maybe peculiar to North America?

Glad you asked.

what is a Chrasmatic Pentacostal - Bing video

 

[HatGuy]

I have a particular interest in the philosophical and intellectual aspects of the Christian religion, but at the same time, I feel like it's a dead faith to me. Allow me to elaborate. I used to obsess with learning everything I could about Christianity and made sure I had it all right, but multiple times I felt like the Pharisees in the Bible who certainly focused on getting everything right but still missed the point. Also, I feel like there can be a sense of pride or arrogance among the more intellectually inclined, which is what drew me to focus more on introversion and being Spirit-filled. I also started embracing more theologically diverse denominations as I am uncertain about what I believe aside from the basic tenets of the Christian faith that we all share.

Are intellectualism and attempting to understand everything necessarily bad things?

Worship the Lord with all your mind, heart, strength, etc.

Nothing wrong with trying to understand everything. But the Word of God is living and active. You need to understand it through meditating on it and its meaning, otherwise it becomes dry and simple intellectualism.

Do yourself a favour and research Luther's approach of Oratio, Meditatio, Tensio. If it intrigues you, see John Kleinig's book, Grace Upon Grace. Best book on Christian spirituality I've ever read. As a fellow intellectual sort of person, this helped me to get back to a healthy spirituality. (His website has some free articles to start you off).

 

[Major1]

Ok I see you are going to do again what you done on the other thread. You could not answer my questions and ran round in circles, and then dissaperd and never replid to my last post. You are doing the same here. You like to teach with no scripture or knowledge on what you are trying to teach. If you cant answer a few simple questions theres nothing for us to talk on. You are a cheery picker..

If you have a question that YOU do not believe has been addressed, why don't you just ask it now instead of claiming that it has not been spoken to?

 

[HatGuy]

Years ago John Wesley, one of the founders of the Holiness Movement, introduced into the Christian community the idea that Christian perfection can be achieved in this life through a second work of grace - the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Although his "Christian perfection" idea does excuse sins of ignorance. And thus many Holiness types have to maintain an ignorance of their own sinfulness in order to maintain their testimony that

Wesley never equated the "second work of grace" as Baptism of the Holy Spirit. That was a later development from the Holiness / Pentecostal guys.

As far as I can remember, he also never used "sinless perfection". He did not like the term.

 

[Johnsloan]

If you have a question that YOU do not believe has been addressed, why don't you just ask it now instead of claiming that it has not been spoken to?

This is what you done in the other thread. Why cant you address the questions given?

 

[W2L]

Is faith intelectual?

 

[Major1]

Is faith intelectual?

Hebrews 11:1: ...........
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Simply put, the biblical definition of faith is “trusting in something you cannot explicitly prove.”

This definition of faith contains two aspects:
1). intellectual assent
2). and trust.

Intellectual assent is believing something to be true.
Trust is actually relying on the fact that the something is true.

A chair is often used to help illustrate this. Intellectual assent is recognizing that a chair is a chair and agreeing that it is designed to support a person who sits on it.
Trust is actually sitting in the chair.
What is the definition of faith?

 

[W2L]

Hebrews 11:1: ...........
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Simply put, the biblical definition of faith is “trusting in something you cannot explicitly prove.”

This definition of faith contains two aspects:
1). intellectual assent
2). and trust.

Intellectual assent is believing something to be true.
Trust is actually relying on the fact that the something is true.

A chair is often used to help illustrate this. Intellectual assent is recognizing that a chair is a chair and agreeing that it is designed to support a person who sits on it.
Trust is actually sitting in the chair.
What is the definition of faith?

Thanks.

 

[Major1]

Thanks.

It is a blessing to speak with you!

 

[Major1]

Wesley never equated the "second work of grace" as Baptism of the Holy Spirit. That was a later development from the Holiness / Pentecostal guys.

As far as I can remember, he also never used "sinless perfection". He did not like the term.

Or to quote Wesley himself from...........
http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/plain_account/

It is there we read.......

"Perhaps the general prejudice against Christian perfection may chiefly arise from a misapprehension of the nature of it. We willingly allow, and continually declare, there is no such perfection in this life, as implies either a dispensation from doing good, and attending all the ordinances of God, or a freedom from ignorance, mistake, temptation, and a thousand infirmities necessarily connected with flesh and blood."

"We Secondly believe, that there is no such perfection in this life, as implies an entire deliverance, either from ignorance, or mistake, in things not essential to salvation, or from manifold temptations, or from numberless infirmities, wherewith the corruptible body more or less presses down the soul. We cannot find any ground in Scripture to suppose, that any inhabitant of a house of clay is wholly exempt either from bodily infirmities, or from ignorance of many things; or to imagine any is incapable of mistake, or falling into divers temptations."

Seems the more ignorant a person is to his own sin, the more he can nonetheless be reckoned to have attained to a state of sinless perfection.