Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
I'm not so sure about the conclusion implied in your initial question....The early disciples were not that way... Their Jesus was alive... I doubt if they lived for the next high.
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Let me re-cast my poorly presented argument. First some background, then an observation, then a hypothesis.
I had a substance-abuse issue, before becoming a Christian, even after trying to become a Christian. One time I remember telling a pastor in a Charismatic group of my difficulties, and he said that I needed to get "baptized in the Spirit", so after the meeting they all laid hands on me and I waited for the power rush. Nothing. I remember one of the people around me saying, essentially, "Oogah boogah boogah!!" (they practiced speaking in tongues). I never heard any language like that. Didn't sound like an angel either.
Eventually I had my baptism of the Spirit in the Local Church, yelling O LORD JEEEEZUSSS!!! and so forth. Wow - problems all gone!! Spirit arrived! Wonderful! Like
Awoken I eventually found myself dry, and once again struggling with old behaviors. The Local Church elders didn't really want to engage it on face value. They typically waved it off. They didn't want to hear about it. Not part of the plan. (Maybe that's why they want "good building materials. No problems to deal with).
Years later, I was reading of the "New Apostolic Reformation", and watching videos of the glassy-eyed parishoners lining up to be "slain" by the touch of the so-called apostle, and I began to wonder if this was a similar phenomenon. Certainly the some of the "new apostles" I viewed, and read about, were hucksters: manufacturing "experiences" for the gullible. I could see that. Some of course may be real, but a LOT of it really got my "counterfeit alerts" buttons flashing. They did an abysmal job presenting the Word of God, they were proclaiming "riches" in the material sense, they manipulated "healing", they would make "oracular" pronouncements based on nothing but a feeling they had. Subjective, anyone? Some of them were caught in gross sin. But they couldn't stop being "apostles"!! They were hooked on the rush of being "the man", so they'd go find a new group to stand in front of. And still the sheep would line up... amazing.
So I got thinking, why would God allow these overwhelming experiences? The OT has some variant of "then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily", and the NT has variants thereof also. Even Jesus, they said of Him, "He is beside himself" (Mark 3:21). The ecstatic experience has its place, but what is its purpose? So I proffered a hypothesis: that is God's incentive for us to keep going. To get through the "dry" patches. "We were eyewitnesses of His glory", wrote the apostle John - he never forgot it. We (I hypothesize) want "the bright cloud of glory", and apparently God wants it for us, too.
But the merchandisers usurp that craving and package and sell counterfeits. Eventually we settle for a coffee mug or a poster on the wall. A talisman of the experience, long since passed.