I believe that critical thinking is a vital tool to ensure that things taught in the Church are truly Biblical. For years I've been hearing people making claims of how they "got drunk in the Spirit" and claim this phenomenon to be one of the ways in which God "moves".
From Kenneth Hagin to Rodney Howard-Browne to John Scotland to Todd Bentley, getting "drunk in the Spirit" seems to be one of the best ways to know if a "revival" is going on in your church. The passage of Scripture often used to justify this bizarre and unbiblical behavior comes from a misinterpretation of Ephesians 5:18 (in many instances from the KJV) which people often quote which says: "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit"
However, since sound hermeneutics and accurate exegesis is the frequent enemy of many within the modern church, people often resort to arbitrarily interpreting Scripture, to justify what I call Psuedo-Biblical Charismatic Existentialism, which places great emphasis on mysticism and subjective experience. They'll always go back and say "but it's in the Bible!" - but if we read a few verses before and after verse 18 in Ephesians 5 we will get a clearer picture of what the Scripture is instructing us to do:
"...Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ..." - Ephesians 5:14-20
Now, we see from this passage that the scripture says to be FILLED with the Spirit in contrast to being DRUNK with wine; it does not teach to get DRUNK with or in the Spirit.
Now, the Bible clearly condemns drunkeness as a sin, furthermore the Bible constantly exhorts us to be sober. If it is wrong to get drunk "naturally" why on earth would it be any better to get drunk "spiritually"? If "natural" sins are trespasses against God, why would spiritualizing it make it more acceptable? Really now, would it be OK to commit "spiritual" incest? Or "spiritual" theft? Or "spiritual" murder? Delving a bit deeper into the content of the passage we can also ask:
1. Can we really walk circumspectly and not as fools if we are drunk?
2. Can we redeem the time if we are nor operating with our full faculties?
3. Can we offer up an acceptable sacrifice of worship to God if we aren't in our right minds?
4. Do we give thanks to God for contradicting His word by making it OK for us to enjoy sin spiritually since its wrong to do it in a physical sense?
If God is all-wise, I don't think there's any way that we can divorce logic and sound reasoning from the Bible. Let's spend some more time thinking about the stuff we believe; we should use our heads to discern - and not our presuppositions and goosebumps.
Hermeneutics, Exegesis and Spiritualizing Physical Sins
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For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
(Romans 7:22-25)
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
(Romans 12:2-3)
These are just the first two verses of Scripture that spring to mind, but there are so, so many places in the Bible exhorting us to be of sober and alert mind. In contrast, I cannot think of one place throughout the whole Bible, when read in context, that we are instructed to unleash our minds to allow them to wander where they will, and be cast to the mercy of whatever shall lay hold of them.
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