Reason and Mysticism

What strange kind of man spends days sitting around reasoning and debating, giving cogent arguments for his position, and then goes all mystic one night, has a vision, and lets that direct where he lives and what he does for the next 18 months?

The kind of guy who is like the Apostle Paul.

Acts 18 starts with Paul in Corinth, spending his days off work in the synagogue reasoning and debating, giving argument for the truth of the Gospel. After a couple weeks of resistance from the Jews, Paul moves next door to a non-Jewish guy’s house and continues preaching. One night God speaks to Paul in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”

Because of the vision Paul stays in Corinth for a year and a half.

Are we prepared for both of those things? Would we be able to reason and debate? Would we be able to receive a vision from God and obey?

Our modern world has pitted reason against mysticism. Someone who believe in miracles, visions, angels, and demons must be unreasonable. The woman of science and logic must inevitably reject the supernatural as something that never existed or perhaps existed back in the times of Jesus.

We need to break down that false dichotomy. We need a new framework – a new plausibility structure – that can encompass both the miraculousness of the resurrection and visions from the Lord that are meant to guide our day-to-day life as well as the depth of logical thought and reasoning that can lay out why the Gospel makes sense.

I want so much to be a person that bridges the gap that satan has driven into the heart of the church that separates the “charismatic” from the “evangelical” and the gifts of the Spirit from the word of God. Let’s be rid of the lie that separates truth from power and logic from passion.

I want to be someone who knows when to leverage reasoning and mental powers that God has gifted his people with and when to simply say yes and obey a dream or vision that God has given.

It’s that kind of person that Jesus formed his disciples into in the first century as they followed him from town to town and village to village, with him repeating over and over again “I only do what the Father tells me to.” That’s the kind of person that Paul was. That’s the kind of person that will be fully equipped to proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel boldly in a society that is increasingly devoid of the trappings of Christendom and firmly against Christians.

I’m praying for it for myself, for Threshingfloor, and for God’s people across this country and world.