Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 4071. When I am asked to compare the doctrine of the Spirit across the Reformed, charismatic and dispensational traditions, I always begin by reassuring people that the disagreements, real and important as they are, sit on top of a vast shared foundation. On the doctrine of the Spirit these three great families of Bible-believing…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04038. Being drunk in the Spirit describes a state, claimed in some charismatic meetings, in which believers stagger, slur their words, laugh uncontrollably, or behave as though intoxicated, all of it attributed to an overwhelming dose of the Spirit’s presence. It became widely known through the Toronto Blessing and similar movements of the 1990s,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04037. Being slain in the Spirit is one of the most familiar sights in charismatic worship, and one of the most easily misread. A preacher lays a hand on someone, or sometimes only sweeps an arm in their direction, and the person topples backward into the arms of a waiting catcher. I have watched…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 04036. The phrase second blessing describes the belief that there is a definite work of grace beyond conversion, a later crisis experience in which the believer is lifted onto a higher plane of the Christian life, often identified with a baptism in the Spirit understood as separate from and after salvation. The idea has…