If you authenticate that voice you hear head is the holy spirit by comparing its message with scripture...?

Question

(1) What's the point of the voice anyway?

(2) How did the people who wrote scripture make sure it was the Holy Spirit?

(3) In what other realms of human discussion is the evaluation of imaginary voices a serious topic?

Answer 1

1) Specific application or exhortation.

2) By their personal encounter with the living God.

3) Two part answer -- A. Not all such communications are imaginary. B. Imaginary voices are studied in psychology.

Answer 2

I do not use scripture to authenticate that little voice in my head that I call the voice of the Holy Spirit. In fact, sometimes what it tells me is in direct conflict to the interpretation that mankind has put on the inspired word.

The Bible, as wonderful as its concepts are, was written by man. Even if the concepts were those of God, man has still played a role in the interpretation and writing of the words so I can not in good concience take each word as that of God. When I question something...I ask Him....and He has always answered.

How do I know it is Him and not merely a figment of my own imagination? Because when I follow what He has told me, it brings results. I am very fortunate indeed to have had the priviledge of experiencing many miracles in my life at the hand of God....and I am not about to trade that for approval from some vain human being who has no more value than I.

Answer 3

I imagine that some self-styled Christians fit your description, Deirdre. And it's easy to have contempt for religious people like this, whose notion of the holy spirit leads them to commit acts of intolerance & hatred. It's harder to decide what to think about other religious Christians who may be led by the "spirit of God" or the "holy spirit" to do what seem to be very good things. These Christians may for instance found hospitals, protest for peace, deliver help to the poor & unemployed and alcholic via the Salvation Army, etc. I also find it very, very hard to judge a professed Christian like Joan of Arc. She claimed to have heard messages from the Catholic saints St. Margaret, St. Catherine and St. Michael, although apparently not directly from God. Supposedly, these saintly voices (or her own preferences) ordered her to wear men's clothing, take up the culturally "unwomanly" profession of arms, and clad in armor, to lead the French armies to victory over an English army that was then occupying northern France. Joan eventually was captured and tried as a witch and a heretic and burned at the stake by the English and their allies the Burgundians. Then sometime afterwards, the Catholic church declared her a saint, and she is a considered one of France's national heroes. By your standards, Desiree, do you think that she was simply crazy? On the other hand, suppose she wasn't. Then how can pious Roman Catholics who venerate her memory excuse her cross-dressing, and what should Protestant Christians make of her war-making and her taking inspiration from saints that Protestants don't necessarily believe in?

Answer 4

I've never actually heard a voice being the Holy Spirit, it's much more of a feeling to me. It's farely indescribable, but I guess I could say it makes me feel overwhelmingly safe. It's hard to say unless you've felt it before.

Answer 5

You're just jealous because the voices speak to me.

Answer 6

The voices in my head scare me, litterally..... some are bad others are good, some are just my thoughts. I assume its all my thoughts though.

Answer 7

OH NOOOO!!!
I think the squirrel is dead!!
Now, I'll just have to go to WalMart and buy a new pair of shoes...

WHY??
Well, we need a COFFIN for the poor li'l guy, don't we???

Answer 8

It's the final link in the circular logic chain. =0)

*crunch, crunch*

Answer 9

If it lines up with the Book of Squirrel, then it's all good.