Once again today I have been listening to a Church of God pastor preach to his Sunday morning audience. He was handsome, well dressed and could drop in a few greek words here and there and in general meet every expectation of a COG preacher. What was different was his emphasis on the mind of the spirit. He looked out at the audience and said,” you are here by assignment.” ” In God you are able to understand beyond your five senses.” ” We are able to see the future before it gets here.” ” The flesh and the spirit are always at odds with each other.”
Of course I have heard this often and down through the years. It is a fairly common concept in the COG. But today it dawned on me that this fits the definition of mysticism. ” A doctrine of an immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary understanding, or of a direct, intimate union of the soul with God through contemplation or ecstasy. Then I remembered the conversations I have had when someone would say, in effect; you have to have spiritual understanding to see it my way. In short they had a secret code that cancelled out my understanding. I wonder if it’s possible to avoid mysticism if we hold to a secret language of the spirit?
Discussion
5 comments
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Can you name the COG preacher so we can get a better understanding of what he means.
This sounds like modern dominionism preaching and yes it includes a lot of mysticism.
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The flesh fights to control and we r tempted by satan to sin by the flesh. But we r encouraged not to sin by obeying the word, reading and praying daily. Women were encouraged to wear dresses and not slacks or jeans to church.
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Rick warren is into that mystic special understanding of the word
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I’m not understanding what you mean by mystical in reference to the Spirit of God. Please explain.
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