This is an excert from a book I'm reading called "Dream Langauge" by James W. and Michal Ann Goll about dreams and spiritual gifts and a Christian view on how to understand them:
Most Christians today are virutally ignorant of the rich heritage of dream langauge and revelation bequeathed to them by the Church throughout its history. Acutally, this legacy is older than the Church. Christian dream langauge, like the Church itself, has its roots in acient Judaism. With such a long history, why is this important dimension of Christian experience either unknown or dismissed by so many beleivers?
Part of the problem lies with the influence of cessationist teaching. Cessationism is the belief that the impartation of spiritual gifts, particularly the sign gifts of prophecy, healing, miracles, and tongues, ceased with the death of the last apostle or when the written canon of Scripture was completed. This teaching holds that the gifts of the Spirit were necessary in the formative days of the Church, but are no longer needed since we now have the completed Bible as our authority, revelation, and guide for Christian living.
Cessationist teaching has done great damage to the Church by discouraging countless beleivers from pursuing and experiencing the fullest life in the Spirit that they might otherwise enjoy. Scripture itself says that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8). In other words, God never changes. What God did long ago, and throughout history, He does today and will continue to always do. He is eternally the God of NOW. Dream langauge is the langauge of the ages. This is one of the mysterious ways that God intersects our lives. He invades our comfort zones. He visits us in the night and simply speaks to us.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
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