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Posted by Kate on 11/24/2008, 4:57 pm, in reply to "Alice doesn't live here anymore"
A friend, who was also feeling her spirit squashed by the legalism, found a little church that was just starting up. They were meeting in people's homes for prayer and Bible study on Wednesday nights. I went, dragging my semi-reluctant husband along (he was always wary of changing the status quo, but often went along with what I wanted to try).
They seemed like a nice group of people, we prayed, talked about the Bible, sang a few songs, and then prayed some more. And then the pastor's wife said her foot had been bothering her (she wa diabetic), so the pastor's son, a young man about 20, prayed for his mom's foot.
It was...the weirdest prayer I had ever heard. He prayed for his mom. He prayed for her foot. He thanked the foot for being a good foot and carrying his mom around all these years. At that point my husband and I gave each other the 'okay, this is really messed up' look. THEN...he started babbling incoherently. A few people joined him. And we started glancing at the door, wondering if we should bolt, but not sure how to exit gracefully.
After all this was over, the pastor and his wife were a little embarrassed, said they could tell we'd never experienced any sort of Charismatic worship or prayer, apologized for making us feel uncomfortable as visitors, and then whipped out the Bible and explained it all. Okay, I saw it in print right there, it must be right.
Then I went back to my 'non-denominational' Southern Baptist church, asked the pastor there about it, and HE whipped out HIS Bible, and explained, quite thoroughly, that tongues were not a gift for today, and that people who speak in tongues today are faking it, under hypnosis or hysteria, or possibly demon possessed. And everything he said was all right there, in black and white in the same book.
And so I was introduced to 'conflicting doctrines'.
We ended up leaving the first church for the second for three reasons:
1. My friend and her family started going to the new church.
2. The new pastor and the people there all seemed a lot nicer.
3. I just knew in my heart of hearts that the old pastor was wrong when he didn't marry that couple who had been living together.
2 Corinthians 3:6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
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