Comments on: Some Uncommon Understandings of Familiar Scriptures https://parables.blog/some-uncommon-understandings-of-familiar-scriptures/ Fri, 19 Jan 2024 16:37:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 By: Benjamin https://parables.blog/some-uncommon-understandings-of-familiar-scriptures/#comment-13110 Fri, 19 Jan 2024 16:37:32 +0000 https://parables.blog/?p=12222#comment-13110 Thank you for the interesting article, brother. I do have one question about the “violent shaking” being a manifestation of the holy spirit. For years, I have seen believers assure me of various “uncontrollable” movements being a sign of being under the influence of the Spirit. But if one of the fruits of the Spirit is self control, why would this same Spirit manifest as a lack of self control? I have been baptized in the Spirit myself, but the whole experience, ecstatic as it was, was orderly, and manifested the actual given fruit of the Spirit. Nor can I find any scriptural precedent for anyone become uncontrolled when they fell under the influence of the Spirit. Not only that, but many in these meetings appear to fall backwards, a sign of judgment in the scriptures, rather than forwards, a sign of worship.

To summarize, if the Spirit may act in ways counter to the way it’s fruit it is described, how are we to discern anything? If the Spirit of self control may act in an uncontrolled manner (such as the shaking violently described above), could not people also argue that other manifestations counter to the scriptural fruit are also from the Holy Spirit? If someone does not believe a manifestation to be of the Holy Spirit because it runs against the described fruit of the Spirit in the scriptures, would it not be harsh to curse that person’s descendants when they were testing the spirits according to the scriptural standard?

]]>