Re: [TruthTalk] Read it and weep!

[Terry Clifton]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 10/8/2004 8:04:01 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Been to a church lately whose members are in full agreement with each other?  John No John, I honestly have never been in a church where this was so.  Having said that, let me point out that my experience does not establish the truth.  Neither does yours or anyone elses.  God's word establishes what is true, whether we have seen it with our own eyes or not.Terry Also,  if you are saying that we should disregard our experiences, then I do not agree.   If God's truth is just that, truth, there is nothing to fear from human experience.   Human experience is considered a validation of truth.   Miracles are and were an appeal to this experience.  I know brethren who claim to have seen as many as a dozen "resurrections."  I do not believe this to be true in spite of the fact that God CAN accomplish this.   I do not believe because of experience.   My experience begins with the biblical record.   No where close to a dozen resurrections are recorded in the whole of the biblical message.  I do not include the resurrections that apparently took place at the Resurrection event because those open graves are tied to the resurrection of Christ and all that surrounded that historic event.   The biblical record tells me that my brother's testimony could be true.   The second consideration is my experience.   I have been to events, "spirit filled" events (and I do believe in such) that were credited with resurrections from the dead.   I was there.  Didn't happen.  I have to say that this bothers me because  of the nature of the deception.  I will say that my experience is probably no more reliable than my ability to interpret scripture.   The blessing in this unreliability is that, because of my awareness that I could be wrong both intellectually and experientially, I continue to seek and search out for the truth.   John I simply said that if your experience does not agree with scripture, then there is something wrong, and it is not the Bible.  I think that you are correct in believing that we are individuals who are not all popped out of the same mold.  The Lord made us all different, so we will have differences, but there are fundamentals that we must agree on to be part of the body of Christ.  A list of these fundamental things is available for $29.95.  No checks please. Terry