Thursday, May 24, 2007

Faith or Feeling

It seems to me, if we're not going to trash a decent portion of the New Testament, we have to assume the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which inspired the first church is meant to inspire any church thereafter. The works that Christ did, and the Apostles did, and the church at Corinth did, we can do, and even greater works than they did. That is a promise from Christ, it was the experience of the church in scripture, and nothing but bad exegesis of I Corinthians 13 could make it an unexpected experience for the church today. 

But how does one experience such inspiration? Somehow that inspiration must be discernible to the person inspired or nothing inspired could happen. Since inspiration, generally, is not by fiat, something felt must trigger the action which is being inspired. It has to be felt, perceived in some way, or there would be no way to initiate the supernatural. 

That makes some folks nervous, especially those who have had it rammed into their heads that Christianity is a matter of faith and not feelings. On one level that is most certainly true: becoming a Christian is about buying into an historical record, accepting certain facts by faith. Walking as a Christian thereafter is a matter of trusting God's promises, not depending on feelings. Feelings don't impact facts, and yet, even accepting facts by faith requires the conviction of the Holy Spirit to be present and that is the very definition of inspiration!

Inspiration happens in the present rather than the past. The past can set a pattern to gauge present experience by, but inspiration itself is experienced in the now. One must feel something in the moment in order to move by and with it. Without such an impulse, Spirit-inspired manifestations would not have occurred in the past, and they definitely won't happen now. 

Where manifestations of the Spirit are not happening now, and where they ceased happening in history, they ceased not because God stopped inspiring them but because believers ceased paying attention to the inspiration that produces them. Inspiration is not a matter of will or decision (they operate quite easily enough without inspiration), but Spirit-initiated impulse does have to be acted upon by discerning, willing Christians or nothing happens.

So what kind of feelings are we talking about? Anyone involved with Pentecostalism or the Charismatic Movement for any amount of time can recount stories of folk doing bizarre, even the harmful things, because of a feeling. On the other hand, they would also be able to recount stories of people not doing what is clearly commanded in scripture because folk didn't "feel" led. Either of these extremes CANNOT represent the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

That still leaves plenty of room in between those extremes for the experience of legitimate inspiration from Holy Spirit. Such would have to fall within bounds (at least generally) of what is described in the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul's epistles. The Old Testament isn't germane, because the experience of the Holy Spirit is different in the New Testament than in the old. To dismiss out-of-hand the possibility of biblically described and promised experience is to harden in unbelief and miss out on the legitimate and miraculous.    

The Spirit of God inspires and the willing believer senses an awareness-- perhaps an urge, maybe a sudden certainty, even being provoked in spirit, but something. Something rather than nothing. The feeling should be validated (at least generally) by the scriptural precedent, but it's a false dichotomy to say that our experience as Christians is by faith or it's by feeling. The fact of the matter is: if one wants to live out the biblical promise, it's both.

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