Teaching on Calling on the Name of the Lord

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

It depends. Personal testimonies are often too personal to be of any value. It is nice to know that God did this and God did that for you in the last week. But that only tells me what God did for you, not what I should do for God. Prophesying is better because it can tell me what I need to do for the next week, not just what God did for you in the last. Testimony is about us, but prophesying is about Christ. We should reject all personal matters when we prophesy and focus on Christ.

When I was in Pentecostal churches I sat through a lot of testimonies about how God had given material blessings and claims of unverified healing. I do not consider these personal testimonies superior to second hand teachings about particular biblical insights if they are about Christ.

99% of the time, a person in the denominations will give their testimony regarding physical, material things and what God did for them. Few, if any, will give what Lee called a testimony regarding their experience in life. I can imagine it would be a struggle for most Christians in denominations to be able to speak for 2 minutes about anything of value. Firstly, speaking in meeting, or service, is not encouraged, period, and secondly, their minds would be too focused on matters of the flesh or the world to be able to give a spiritual message.

By the way, you are speaking as if prophesying and personal testimonies are separate things. Prophesying can include real life testimony as well. Normally people will relate the content of the HWFMR to their own personal insight and life experience. Because it is related to something of Christ, it is superior to the so-called "testimonies" of those in denominations.

The biggest problem I find in this kind of analysis is that it is according to Lee's definition of "their experience of life."

For Lee, it is evident that real life, calamities, interactions with people and with God are of no value. It is only those things that relate uniquely to the church, the kingdom, the next age, etc., that have anything to do with the "experience of life." Ascribing to God the finding of a new job, or the caring for a medical malady, each of which may also be attributed to natural or human efforts is too low. Neither is about the so-called "high gospel" or the kingdom (according to Lee). To Lee, the kingdom is only high things. It is not righteousness in small things that are not, in themselves, spiritual. It is not about ascribing to God the glory for things that are not in themselves "high" things.

Now I would agree that what Paul called prophesying in 1 Cor 14 was not about personal testimonies. But neither was it about getting everyone involved in providing the meat of the day's "preaching." And I would agree that a meeting of the church is generally not the place for such a testimony. But that testimony is exactly what should be spoken in the fellowship outside that meeting. It is the meat of the full life of God's image-bearers.