Normal Christianity

What is normal Christianity?

I talked with a friend in our church about prophecy and spiritual gifts. She said she had done a "google search" on a couple of authors and there was some controversy attached to their name. As a result, she wondered if what they had to say about spiritual gifts would be unhelpful.

Anyone who exercises faith in spiritual gifts will be considered “controversial," I’m afraid. It’s unfortunate that so much of the church relegates spiritual ministry such as prophecy or deliverance to something that is divisive and weird. It should be normal Christianity.

That being said, there are some valid concerns over certain ministries that emphasize spiritual gifts too much. Rather than seeing gifts as something that should be normative, these ministries chase after the phenomena instead of the fruitfulness of those gifts. For example, they will "ooh and aah" over the latest prophecy or tongues/interpretation but downplay the multitude of passages in the Bible on the subject of worship, attitudes, greed, heaven, hell, suffering, and relationships.

So, all that to say, that yes, we should have concerns about some authors and teachers because of their areas of emphasis. HOWEVER, they may have information that is worthy of study, but I won't swallow everything they say as God's Word. The symbol that comes to mind is the one I used when we were fishing as kids when a fish swallowed everything---“hook, line and sinker.” We need discerning hearts and minds that carefully judge every ministry and gift by God's Word.

But normal Christianity is a para-normal existence. That is, the Christian life is not a scientific life. It is a spiritual life. Some of what we do may be proven scientifically. But science is not the foundation of the Christian life. Faith is.