"Maturity?"
I have a big question: how can we know who is and isn't scripturally mature??? I bet if you ask the followers of many false teacher they will tell you he, or she, IS scripturally mature and that is why they believe him. I have met, online, many who claim spiritual maturity but through their words and action do not show it. The older they are and longer they have been Christian, or if they are a minister or theologian, the more likely they are to claim maturity. I will admit I am NOT scripturally mature and I truly don’t think ANYONE alive today is. I think the best term for us today is scriptural adolescent. Some are father along in their adolescence then others but todays church is still finding itself deceived and following people down rabbit holes. (I would put Billy Graham in late adolescent but even he I would not put as mature.)
The apostles were scripturally mature. Many in the early church were scripturally mature.
Too many today are touting their maturity yet are no more mature than most of us. Unfortunately discernment is low in the church today. I am NOT saying the the Holy Spirit doesn’t give people dreams and visions and words but that MOST so called dreams, visions, and words do not come from him. Many are so desperate to hear something they will cause themselves to hear what they want and say it is the spirit talking to them. In the OT in exile the people of Israel were having dreams of rescue and the Lord told Daniel I did not send these dreams. I think the same is happening today people are having these dreams etc. and saying it is from God when he is not sending them. Like the ancient Israelis many are creating the dreams etc. in the our minds and then deceiving many with them. How many vague word have been given over the years that still are being touted as words from the lord or dreams from the lord despite nothing concrete to be able to know fulfillment of it. God is not vague he is not going to give you a word that has 1000 possible interpretations. He wouldn’t give the date of the rapture in code without a specific way to decode it.
Remember when you are wrong it isn't just a “oops made a mistake sorry” situation. You have not only harmed your witness you have made God look to be a liar to the unbeliever. The latter being much worse than the former. Harming your witness has the effect of making you ineffective. People will no longer listen to you because you have a tract record of being wrong. On top of that you make Christians as a whole look bad as other Christians will be lumped in with you and you thus have harmed their witness as well. When we get a dream or a word or a vision we must pray about it and compare it to scripture and be certain about releasing it. When we are wrong we MUST admit being wrong and then we MUST be even more careful in the future with what we release.
Yes he still speaks to us and give us dreams and visions but by far almost all of the dreams and visions and words people in the church report are from God are either from satan or their own minds.
Paul
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