Monday 28 October 2019

Personal divine revelations and the snare of generalisation

I seems that quite a few people have divine revelations of one kind or another - knowing, visions, understanding, miracles...

I regard this as the most profound source of insight. However...

Such experience often does people no good, or harm - because they try to make this personal gift into something public, universal or in some way general.

This may be for reasons of pride, or to try and gain prophetic status... or it may be from a humble desire to do good - but it is usually an error.

As a rule, I'm pretty sure God works with individuals, communicates one to one. To describe such interactions is rather like reporting to third parties a private conversation between husband and wife. It is a kind of betrayal.

It seems right to acknowledge that such things happen and are vitally important. But we should not, or seldom and only selectively, discuss the details.