Experiencing the Spirit without twisting the Word: can it be done?

Pentecostals tend to experience things—healings, visions, words from God—and then look to Scripture to explain it. In contrast, Conservatives tend to look to Scripture before applying it to their life. Okay—we're all different.

In practice this means that less mature Pentecostals can easily get caught out if they don't ground their experience in Scripture:

• they may see God heal a couple of people through a particular phrase, and then think that it is that phrase which God listens to. This is a spell because it relies on technique, not God;

• they may hear from God a few things that are powerfully confirmed through bearing good fruit, and now they continue to look to these experiences without any rigorous study of the Word. "That's not how you find God's will", they say, even backing it with verses such as Zechariah 4:6 "not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit". They have set the Spirit against the Word;

• Christians start speaking in tongues, which is backed by the experiences of the early Christians in Acts, and this may become the primary means by which you are verified to be a true believer—all other works of the Spirit are forgotten;

The hope is for these Pentecostals to continue to pursue the experience of God through the Spirit, but not at the expense of rightly dividing the Word of Truth. Mature Pentecostals, then, keep turning back to the Spirit and the Word any time they are distracted.

Conservatives can be immature too, but in an equal but opposite way. As such, they can get caught out if they don't take the steps of faith to walk into what God wants them to experience:

• they can discount hearing of experiences like the above as either figments of imagination, counterfeits, or hallucinations. This nullifies the testimonies of believers;

• they may argue those who experienced God in Scripture were once-off or special, and such experiences are not for today. This neuters large portions of Scripture;

• they can be adept at finding God's general will from the principles and commands of Scripture, but inept at finding God's specific will for them today. This is setting the Word against the Spirit, when they were never at odds.

The hope is for these Conservatives to use their objective framework as a way in which to guide their experiences of God. This guide-rail of solid principles and understanding of the Word will help them not go astray when they press into God.

What's the way forward?

The essential principle to move us towards maturity in this situation is that the Spirit is in step with the Word. But what does that really mean? For those of a more spiritual background, I think looking at how the Spirit relates to Christ will help greatly. For those with more of an intellectual background, I trust the language of 'relative' and 'objective' will clarify it for you.