{"id":9273,"date":"2023-05-28T02:36:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-28T02:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9273"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:10","slug":"too-sober","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9273","title":{"rendered":"TOO SOBER?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I sometimes wonder how much of a role our Western culture&#8217;s (over)emphasis on rationality plays in our experience of the Holy Spirit. (Or <i>lack<\/i> of experience, as the case may be.)<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Generally speaking, we don&#8217;t believe in ghosts or demons or angels.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And miracles are just coincidences.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My question is this: Could we &#8211; would we &#8211; experience more of the supernatural if we were more open to it?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was heralded by a loud sound and then the sight of a flame which separated into tongues and then a tongue of flame descended on each disciple.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They became human candles!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then the disciples started speaking in various foreign tongues &#8211; supernaturally. The whole thing was weird enough that some outsiders concluded that all the disciples were drunk!<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I know this was a one time special deal, but are you and I as Western Christians open to the sort of Spirit which might leave others questioning our sobriety?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I sometimes wonder how much of a role our Western culture&#8217;s (over)emphasis on rationality plays in our experience of the Holy Spirit. (Or lack of experience, as the case may be.) Generally speaking, we don&#8217;t believe in ghosts or demons or angels.\u00a0 And miracles are just coincidences.\u00a0 My question is this: Could we &#8211; would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9274,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9273\/revisions\/9274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}