The Scripture or Experience ?

[JEBrady]

I would disagree.

His experience quite obviously had life-changing power. How would he be able to look you in the eye in the power of the Holy Spirit had he not had that incredibly powerful, life-changing experience?

I think maybe we're not communicating well. I'm not saying that you should go based on other's experiences, but I am saying that other people's experiences can be the catalyst for them realizing that they can have their own, powerful, life-changing experience.

Pete, please understand that my friend Ned's experience was naked and open to me. I knew he had changed, sincerely, utterly. I saw the change, but I could not care less, nor did I want what he had AT ALL based on his testimony, as close as I was to him. His personal testimony was of no interest to me. No interest. I did not want God based on his personal testimony. I can't be more forthcoming with you, nor more honest.

Pete, when Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was, Peter confessed Him as Lord. Jesus unequivocally stated that Peter only knew this because God AND NO MAN had revealed it to him. That revelation of the lordship of Jesus is the basis of the church. I didn't care about Ned's testimony. I was discounting it to his face. But then God called me. He used Ned, I got completely blindsided. The Lord had revealed his Lordship to me many years before, but I didn't accept or follow him. At this moment in time, God had mercy on me and gave me place of repentance. I confessed him as Lord by saying in my heart one word- yes. I knew that he was lord in my heart. I knew at that very moment i was saved. Pete, the gospel saved me. My friend's testimony had nothing to do with it.

His life-changing experience had absolutely no power to influence me to accept Christ. God had to call me personally. I'm trying to clarify things with this post, because I don't understand this:

"I am saying that other people's experiences can be the catalyst for them realizing that they can have their own, powerful, life-changing experience."

It certainly wasn't true in my personal experience. And that's the issue we're debating.

 

[Tobias]

Pete, when Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was, Peter confessed Him as Lord. Jesus unequivocally stated that Peter only knew this because God AND NO MAN had revealed it to him. That revelation of the lordship of Jesus is the basis of the church. I didn't care about Ned's testimony. I was discounting it to his face. But then God called me. He used Ned, I got completely blindsided. The Lord had revealed his Lordship to me many years before, but I didn't accept or follow him. At this moment in time, God had mercy on me and gave me place of repentance. I confessed him as Lord by saying in my heart one word- yes. I knew that he was lord in my heart. I knew at that very moment i was saved. Pete, the gospel saved me. My friend's testimony had nothing to do with it.

Peter's confession of faith concerning the lordship of Jesus was not based on scriptural knowledge. It was based upon revelation of the Spirit; which in this discussion we are claiming as "experience." Same as all the times God opens up the scriptures to anyone, and they finally "get it". What's the difference between a theologian understanding a passage of scripture, or the Holy Spirit revealing His intentions behind the same passage to a teenager in the back of a minivan? Experience! Either you are going to experience God, or lean on your own understanding.

Nobody is claiming that Man's experience is greater than the Bible. That would be a different discussion for an interfaith forum. The difference here is minimal. From my perspective, I see that Church tradition teaches us that the Bible is the foundation (because they have nothing else closer to God to put their foundations upon). But my experience with the Holy Spirit gives me reason to question the wording of this doctrine. Especially when traditional believers tell me I must ignore the Voice of my God in favor of tradition, faulty doctrine, or misinterpretation of scripture.

Those who do not hear the Voice of God should commit themselves to following scripture. But once His Voice is known, then no private interpretation of scripture should ever take His place.


The Bible has been translated into many languages, and in many cultures it just sits on people's shelf and does nothing for them. But once someone full of the Holy Ghost comes and shares an experience with these people, suddenly the Bible takes on a whole new interest.

Personally I think it's a no-brainer. God over scriptures every time! The Bible tells us countless times to obey God. God, to my knowledge, has never told us to follow the scriptures instead of Him. He never said that He would stop talking to us, or stop leading us; nor any time has He said that the Scriptures were taking over for Him because He was going on vacation.

 

[Tobias]

The Bible as a foundation is much better than man's doctrines, man's experience, or man's traditions. Those who have gone before us and laid this as the foundation of the Church have done well.

The only problem where it fails us is in light of God personally speaking to us. This was not much of an issue before. But now with the Gifts of the Spirit and God's anointing upon us, we have reason to question whether the Bible really can be used as a foundation is such a complete way. Will God always back up His holy scriptures? Will He never tell us to do anything that is contrary to them?

I say He is a jealous God, and wishes us to follow Him only. The Bible is a tool, not He Himself. If we are unwilling to listen to Him and Him alone, then our reasons for not wanting to do so are usually impure.

 

[probinson]

Pete, please understand that my friend Ned's experience was naked and open to me. I knew he had changed, sincerely, utterly. I saw the change, but I could not care less, nor did I want what he had AT ALL based on his testimony, as close as I was to him. His personal testimony was of no interest to me. No interest. I did not want God based on his personal testimony. I can't be more forthcoming with you, nor more honest.

That doesn't mean his experience wasn't powerful, which is what you said;

But Pete, his experience had no power.

What you seem to be saying is that his experience had no power to you. But it is to deny the life-changing experience that your friend had to say it had no power at all.

Pete, when Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was, Peter confessed Him as Lord. Jesus unequivocally stated that Peter only knew this because God AND NO MAN had revealed it to him. That revelation of the lordship of Jesus is the basis of the church. I didn't care about Ned's testimony. I was discounting it to his face. But then God called me. He used Ned, I got completely blindsided. The Lord had revealed his Lordship to me many years before, but I didn't accept or follow him. At this moment in time, God had mercy on me and gave me place of repentance. I confessed him as Lord by saying in my heart one word- yes. I knew that he was lord in my heart. I knew at that very moment i was saved. Pete, the gospel saved me. My friend's testimony had nothing to do with it.

Ask yourself this to see if you can understand what I'm trying to say; would your friend have shared the Gospel with you had he not had that experience? I'm almost certain the answer is "no", he would not. Therefore, your friend's experience most definitely played a part in your salvation. Your friend planted and watered (along with others I'm sure) and God gave the increase.

In any event, you've kind of moved the goal posts on me. This discussion began as experience vs. scripture, not experience vs. the leading of the Holy Spirit, which ironically, is an experience in and of itself.

His life-changing experience had absolutely no power to influence me to accept Christ. God had to call me personally. I'm trying to clarify things with this post, because I don't understand this:

"I am saying that other people's experiences can be the catalyst for them realizing that they can have their own, powerful, life-changing experience."

It certainly wasn't true in my personal experience. And that's the issue we're debating.

But just because it was not true for you doesn't mean it's not true for anyone else. There are people all over the place that have been changed because they saw someone be an example, or as I prefer to say, re-present Christ to them. When one's life is a living epistle, that is every bit as powerful as reading scripture to them. That is what we're debating.

 

[Alive_Again]

His life-changing experience had absolutely no power to influence me to accept Christ. God had to call me personally. I'm trying to clarify things with this post, because I don't understand this:

It may seem that way to you, but it's not that way in the Spirit. If Ned is walking in the Spirit, his life is a fragrant offering pleasing unto God. His words gave God glory and Words of life change the atmosphere around you. You may not have heard in the Spirit until later, but we're all born of the seed of the sowing of the Word. Ultimately it would not be Ned's words per sae, but rather the voice of the Spirit whether it was reflected in his testimony or in the Word of God. Ned's testimony no doubt was in agreement with the Word and eventually the Word took root in you.

Many times when someone witnesses to you, you have angels working to bring you to a place of decision. That's not always worked immediately, but don't discount the role Ned played, assuming he's a true believer. Nothing happens by itself.

When I was born again, I was alone, and God moved, but I understand that it's through intercession and praise that the work of God moves forth.

When I came back from my long backsliding, someone (several people actually) interceded for me. I was alone and no one spoke to me. Any work in the Spirit furthers the move of God around us.

 

[JEBrady]

What you seem to be saying is that his experience had no power to you. But it is to deny the life-changing experience that your friend had to say it had no power at all.

Yes, that's what I was trying to get across- that his experience didn't have the power to change me, although it changed him profoundly.

And he certainly wouldn't have witnessed Christ to me if he hadn't been changed. So it's not entirely true to say the change in him had no effect on me, it just wasn't going to change me without God getting involved. Just, as I suppose, the scripture isn't going to change anyone else unless God gets involved.

 

[mrhappy3]

This debate has left my head hurting.

Its fascinating, but further endorses, that my brain is smaller than I imagined. And I fall into the category of those who The "Lord revealed himself to" without any real understanding of scripture being known to me.

I suppose, the air conditoner switching it self on, the white mist/cloud in the room, and the internal breaking of chains and heaviness lifting off me, was definitely NOT recorded in the holy writ.

Call it extra biblical, but it certainly done the trick !

shalom.

 

[Tobias]

99% of this exercise is just a lesson in honesty. We have been toting the party line for so long now, we don't even know where we've broken free from the rest of the pack.

On the back of our bulletins we state that "The Bible is the foundation of this church". As Charismatics we are built upon the same foundations as the Fundamentalist and Evangelical churches. We try to hold on to that. We try to appease them when they criticize. But in the end, we must admit that God is doing a new thing here.

We are looking for those anointed by the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us. We are not so interested in a dry and boring, albeit scripturally sound message from the pulpit. We are after that move of the Spirit; when God comes down and opens the scriptures to our understanding, and works signs and wonders! We have been accused of being "experience based Christians", to which I say, "Yes, we most definitely are!!!"

Belief in the Bible does not come immediately with salvation. Salvation itself is an experience. God is meant to be experienced. That is His promise to us. There is a religion that focuses on learning the stories of all the people in the Bible that had experiences with God, while believing that none of these are ever going to happen to us! This is similar to the religion of the Pharisees, who honored the prophets of old but killed off any new ones that God might have sent their way. This religion wants the control of worshiping a God who did things in the past, but conveniently does nothing new in the World today.

Most of the time, our only problem is that we believe that we believe in the Bible as our only foundation! But in practice, we seek out those who are full of the Spirit. We look to those who have experienced the Lord work in their lives in a mighty way, and expect them to preach to us in a style that includes the backing up of what they have to say with the scriptures. So in essence, we look for more than just sound scriptural teaching. We look to the scriptures AND the anointing as the qualifier for those who we trust to teach us.

Nobody has bothered to update our foundations and admit to this. The leaders of our churches still teach that it is the scriptures only that they look to. I say this is slightly dishonest. I think it's time for a new foundation to be laid, one where the most accurate representation of our faith is spelled out in words that people can hold on to. Right now this inaccurate foundation make us sound closer to our Evangelical brothers; but it's not one we can rely upon in times of extreme trials and persecution. At this point it is costing us too much to try to fit in with the rest of the Evangelical Movement.

JMHO

 

[JimB]

Scripture and experience go together, each confirms the other. If you quote a scripture and add, say, your misinterpretation to it, it will not work for you or anyone else. Hence, experience (signs) either confirm or disannul what you believe the scripture teaches. Either the Word works or it isn’t the Word. Experience will determine that.

Then there are times when we believe something or experience something that may or may not be true. If I can find where scripture (rightly divided, of course) supports my experience, I can conclude it is valid but if scripture does not support it, I need to be wary of it.

~Jim

It’s never about knowing the answers; it’s about living them. ~Stephanie Klein​

 

[JEBrady]

Scripture and experience go together, each confirms the other. If you quote a scripture and add, say, your misinterpretation to it, it will not work for you or anyone else. Hence, experience (signs) either confirm or disannul what you believe the scripture teaches. Either the Word works or it isn’t the Word. Experience will determine that.

Then there are times when we believe something or experience something that may or may not be true. If I can find where scripture (rightly divided, of course) supports my experience, I can conclude it is valid but if scripture does not support it, I need to be wary of it.

~Jim

It’s never about knowing the answers; it’s about living them. ~Stephanie Klein​

The words experience and signs aren't analogous. That's why I asked you what you meant in a previous post by "experience". Signs are healings, miracles, supernatural occurrences. Those things are meant to confirm the gospel, but once saved, we receive the spirit of God, and he leads us into all truth- not through signs, but through the inward leading and witness. He is that voice that tells us, "this is the way- walk in it".

God caused the wind but wasn't in it; the earthquake, but wasn't in it; the fire, but wasn't in it. But when the prophet heard the still, small voice he covered his face in his mantle. Blessed are those who don't see, and yet they believe!

We see through a glass darkly, and all sorts of supernatural things happen in our lives, but we don't have it all understood, even the things God does in our lives he doesn't always give us full knowledge of, and that's the way it is in this tent because we walk by faith and not by sight. We conclude all sorts of things based on experience, and can get it all wrong reasoning on our own because we don't see the whole picture. Circumstances/experiences in themselves create just as much an opportunity for deception as for revelation, and they can be used to test us to see if we are going to be faithful when things don't go the way we expect.

The way we apprehend truth is by knowing the voice of the Lord and obeying Him, not judging the word of God by "what (we think) works". That's the reason scripture trumps experience, and why anyone who puts experience first is flirting with disaster. The way to rightly divide the word is by being a doer of the word. Otherwise, we don't grow in the knowledge of the Lord. Scripture is the anchor, the judge and arbiter and all of it is not so hard to understand, in spite of man's ability to twist and distort it.

For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

 

[Tobias]

The words experience and signs aren't analogous.


The way we apprehend truth is by knowing the voice of the Lord and obeying Him, not judging the word of God by "what (we think) works". That's the reason scripture trumps experience, and why anyone who puts experience first is flirting with disaster. The way to rightly divide the word is by being a doer of the word. Otherwise, we don't grow in the knowledge of the Lord. Scripture is the anchor, the judge and arbiter and all of it is not so hard to understand, in spite of man's ability to twist and distort it.

For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

I've been making a distinction between hearing the Voice of God, and the Bible. Many people think it is more important to read the Bible, than it is to hear His voice. In fact, they would ignore God's voice anytime He asks them to do something that does not line up with their understanding of the Bible. Some go so far as to ignore the Voice entirely, thinking it is not trustworthy. They feel that they don't need it because they have the Bible... which they call the Word.

Following the Word of God is our only hope. But I would not limit that to Man's doctrine on Sola Scriptura based upon the Chicago what-cha-ma-call-it. Scholars got together once upon a time in Chicago and decided that Sola Scriptura works if you take the most accurate manuscripts and interpret them just so. IIRC, they left out the possibility of the Holy Spirit revealing the meaning of scripture to you.

This is why I see that there is a distinction between saying we follow the Bible; and saying we follow the voice of God. Many Charismatics have made the two analogous. But that is confusing to anyone who knows the doctrine of Sola Scriptura as applied by the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. We are comparing apples with oranges, and personally I think it is dishonest. Inaccurate to say the least.

"Experience" may be the wrong word to use to describe the times God talks to us, or makes Himself real to us. It is definitely Biblical for us to accept Him when He does so. But it is not the same thing as claiming the Bible as our only foundation. Not when we look to the Holy Spirit to explain the Bible to us; or teach us things not covered in the scriptures.

 

[Tobias]

From the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:



Article XVII.

WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written Word.

WE DENY that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.


and:



We are conscious too that great and grave confusion results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the Bible which God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one's critical reasonings and in principle reducible still further once one has started. This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically they have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move further.

We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified. Amen and Amen.



This sounds a lot better today than what I remember from reading it before. It addresses some key issues with people misinterpreting the Bible, or taking isolated passages out of context.

Here's the link: Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

 

[Faulty]

From the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:



Article XVII.

WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written Word.

WE DENY that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.


and:



We are conscious too that great and grave confusion results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the Bible which God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one's critical reasonings and in principle reducible still further once one has started. This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically they have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move further.

We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified. Amen and Amen.



This sounds a lot better today than what I remember from reading it before. It addresses some key issues with people misinterpreting the Bible, or taking isolated passages out of context.

Here's the link: Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

Never heard of it, but that's some heavy-hitters right there:

"The Chicago Statement was signed by nearly 300 noted evangelical scholars, including James Boice, Norman L. Geisler, John Gerstner, Carl F. H. Henry, Kenneth Kantzer, Harold Lindsell, John Warwick Montgomery, Roger Nicole, J. I. Packer, Robert Preus, Earl Radmacher, Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul, and John Wenham."

You're not really thinking that's where sola scriptura came from are you?

 

[AudioArtist]

Francis Schaeffer is a good people. He written the good arguments about epistemological necessity of the

 

[charityagape]

Experience is just so limited compared to God's Word. Abraham never experienced his descendants become nations, but his lack of experiencing that did not make Gods Word any less true.....he didn't say it couldn't have been Gods Word because it didn't work and Gods word works. Yes Gods Word does work, you just can't always use your experience to confirm.

 

[Optimax]

Personally, I choose experience over scripture. Maybe I'm wrong to do so.

Yep, your wrong to do so.

Experience should always line up with scripture, not the other way around.

Well, now that this issue is settled we can move on.

What's next.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

The Scripture or Experience ?

Yes .






..

but seriously, don't they both help interpret each other?

 

[AudioArtist]

Yep, your wrong to do so.

Experience should always line up with scripture, not the other way around.

Well, now that this issue is settled we can move on.

What's next.

What about dolphins, germs, nuclear power, medicines that doddle up the brain, certain parts of Heaven (that aren't described in Scripture), and the fact that John said there wouldn't be enough books in the world to contain all that Jesus did? (bet certain humans aren't so keen on that verse!)

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Certainty is an idol and the desire of it is covetousness.

it is our work to trust Him . that's what Jesus said .

 

[JimB]

Yes .






..

but seriously, don't they both help interpret each other?

That’s what I believe. To discount an experience because you can’t find a proof text for it may be a mistake, IMO, and does not mean it is not a valid experience. The Bible lays down over-arching principles that guide us in our understanding of experiences we encounter and the Holy Spirit guides us into truth (when we allow Him to). I mean, what did believers have before scripture was canonized, all the way back to Abraham and Adam and Eve.?

~Jim

It’s never about knowing the answers; it’s about living them. ~Stephanie Klein​