[OBW]

Igzy,

you will probably respond to my previous emails before reading this one. But I do not completely disagree with the issues of experience, or of having a sense of things. But I am wondering whether the real importance is the problem. Is having a sense of things or realization, what is important? Or is it being one who is believing and obeying?

At some level, getting a feeling about something may be no more than a realization of something real or right. But is it more important to realize it or to live it? Is having an experience the important thing? Does the bulk of the NT support a life of experience, or of living? You can say that to live is to experience what you live. But the things that we mostly talk about as "experience" in terms of spiritual things is about feelings, thoughts, revelation, etc., and not about what you live. What you do with what you have is the only real experience that matters. Yes, you have to believe. But that is not the sum of our living. It is the base upon which we live. So, as I see it, orthopraxy is the bulk of Christian existence and experience. Orthodoxy is just the foundation.

Living for spiritual experience and private "aha" moments is the wrong focus. It defines experience as an extension of orthodoxy rather than orthopraxy. And that seems very misplaced.