I understand the guidance of the Holy Spirit, having been blessed with such on possibly too many occasions (or not enough), but what to make of it when two people both claiming to be under God's guidance arrive at separate and contradicting conclusions?
You stop walking with each other, if you can't agree to disagree. The problem with this is, that you both might know His voice, but you may not have the same understanding. Eventually you'll both find out the truth, and usually it will be what neither of you expected it was, but maybe not for you because of course both can't be wrong. lol
I can readily assure you that if something to the extent of Paul's road to Damascus experience were to happen to you (as has to me on more than one occasion) you would not forget the details. Do you forget any of the details when you accepted Christ?
A little long in this part, but here goes.
I know what I know as a man, but apparently you have allowed the intellect to override the reality of those experiences by another for the details no less. Ask me how many were in the pews, when I walked down the aisle on what I call "my coming to Jesus day or to be a bit more accurate night." As I walked down the aisle, did I pass a woman, man, man, child, woman, etc., was the carpet blue, green, or was it just wood and was there carpet? I couldn't tell you, but if you asked me a couple of times, I might come up with something to satisfy the asking and the detail might even be a bit different in the next telling. I might even be able to tell you what I was wearing. lol
What won't change is that the experience of being filled as I was with an unexplainable light over the darkness within me even as the tears ran down my cheeks, while on my knees will not. Unless you believe it didn't happen or meant less to me because I lack the details of my environment or what others were doing or saying at that moment in time instead of my having an inward reflection/focus? If from your words above that is what you believe, you keep believing that brother gnat (humor), because it matters naught to me whether you or anyone else thinks it does or doesn't. Not your testimony, just as Paul's is his in Acts, as does everyone who professes belief in Christ Jesus has to give. It doesn't matter if you believe it or not for lack of detail/consistency, unless you think it matters if another believes your own testimony as true or not for lack of a period or a comma in the retelling.
You can't even begin to imagine, nor can I, that Saul from one moment talking with the Son of God who he had been persecuting, to the next being unable to see and staying in that condition for days, and the truthfulness of Luke's writing is now questioned because his telling (first telling might not have been from Paul to him for as far I know it doesn't say and could have come from another) years later conflicted from one telling to the next....by You and others! Ah, but you're only questioning the details of the two writings of the same experience not the testimony itself...or are you? If this is doubtful, or unknown, what it does to scripture but make it all questionable??? What if Jesus hadn't come through the door so Thomas could see him, and touch him? Would he have continued to doubt what the others were telling him? What would the division have been between these apostles? Some seeing truth, and one seeing a fable.
You would have done better to be called Thomas instead brother.
For you are casting doubt on the very testimony that probably has even moved others to seek our Lord as they never would have if they known your "contradiction", because you're just being honest. Ah huh, Brother gnat!
I hope no one in reading your words or perceiving your logic is ever turned away from our Jesus, like self-righteous Christians have been doing to unbelievers for years. For you have presented no other alternative! Though you still have time, and to do so without taking away from the testimony!
I was going to delete the following but have decided to allow it to stand. You know less than you think you know, and the cynicism that you display because it doesn't align perfectly with what "you believe" as evidence to the contrary, is for me amazing! Oh, I am not mad or upset. Pride in one's intellect goes a long way, in this world, but since I myself do not have such to go by in that area, a failing I know, I must fall on but my own experiences of life and the people I've dealt with these 68 years, to stand on.
I must apologize for feeling sorry for you because I do. The doubt/surety you have must be comforting for it allows you to continue to dig...you're almost to China Brother. For you in truth in this respect are no different than the atheist that says there is no God. You say instead that a testimony of a man, is more important for the details because the truth of the story now can't be known for the confusion caused. For confusion is what you cause brother. It might not be your intent, but there you have it. You may argue that that is not true and you're not saying that at all, but a seeker/teller of the truth! Yet to the less intelligent that is exactly what it appears that you are saying it to be, so it must be so.
And therein lies the rub. There are four separate Gospel messages found in the New Testament texts. The one preached by Jesus, and ratified by Peter, but altered by James the brother, and a fourth that is radically different, according to the visions of Paul.
I have a long time friend who likes to share the Gospel, but when I ask him which one, he's then not too sure.
Does your friend still share the Gospel with others and if so which one or is he still unsure of which one would be right to use? Or have you left him to his own devices now that you have shared your insight with him?
With the Love of Christ Jesus.
YBIC
Nick
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