WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT PSYCHICS - And how it validates that abilities are a gift from God through the Holy Spirit.
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I grew up going to Catholic schools, attending church every Sunday, and my faith is incredibly strong, as is my spirituality. It's unwavering to a fault. It's fair to say that I've read the bible quite a bit through the years and kept some scriptures and teachings tucked aside for reference when it came to skeptics, fundamentalists or religious fanatics who would tell me that my gift as a psychic medium doesn't exist, or is the work of evil and that I should somehow be convinced to stop healing and helping people (as if that were a bad thing). I'd continually hear that the bible says that what I do is evil, yet no one ever sited the specific scripture that validates their claim, hold a meaningful discussion on the topic, or show me how I've ever done anything other than help people on an emotional or spiritual level. I've always known that my gifts were from God, and that what I was doing was of the highest good, and out of pure love, not evil, so I knew that it would take more than a few scriptures to convince misguided people. They'd have to witness what I do, the healing that it offers people, and truly read what the bible says about prophets and seers.
I was unpacking a box recently and found an old book of mine, written by Echo Bodine that addresses this very topic. Her accounting of the scriptures and writings within the bible are spot on, and really puts things in perspective when it comes to what the bible truly says about psychics and mediums, and what Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit have shown and expressed. My hope in sharing this excerpt from Echo Bodine's book, is that the information will enlighten and educate people with where our gift comes from, and why we have them.
Many blessings, Audra Loibl, Psychic Medium
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WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT PSYCHICS Written by Echo Bodine
The bible itself does not support the idea that psychic abilities are evil. One thing I've come to learn is that the bible itself, in the form we have it today, is not a perfect record of the events and times it contains. This is not to say that the bible is wrong, or that we can simply ignore the parts we don't like. What I mean is that the bible we read in church every Sunday is a translation several times over, and even the New Testament prophets were writing fifty to seventy years after the events they describe.
For instance, it's important to remember that the original scriptures that became the Old Testament were written in Hebrew, which were then translated into Greek and then Latin, which is the language that first English translation is based on. Much of the New Testament was written in Greek, and then translated into Latin, and then English and other languages.
The King James version was first produced in 1611, and over the centuries, it has been revised several times. The revised standard version, published in 1952, remains the most popular translation, while the new revised standard version was published in 1989, and other versions are being developed every year. Currently, there are over three thousand versions of the bible, and over two hundred denominations within Christianity.
►►THE OLD TESTAMENT
By my count, the Old Testament contains close to five hundred references to seers and prophets (at one time, prophets were referred to as seers), and the majority of them are positive. In fact, eighteen of the thirty nine books in the Old Testament are messages from or about Hebrew prophets. And described in the Old Testament, the abilities of the prophets - the ability to see visions, hear voices, and sense spirits and God - are exactly the same abilities of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and clairsentience. Something I find interesting is that in Old Testament times priests and prophets usually hung out together, and often when God was mad at one of them, he was mad at the other. I also found several scriptures that warn people about discerning false prophets form true prophets. See Lamentations 2:14, Lamentations 2:20, Lamentations 4:13, Ezekiel 13:2-4, Ezekiel 13:19-10, Ezekiel 13:17-23, Ezekial 14:9-10, Hoseah 4:4-6, Micah 3:5-7, Micah 3:11, Zephaniah 3:4, and Zecharia 13:2-5.
One thing the Old Testament makes very clear is that prophets and fortune tellers are not the same thing. Prophets were considered to be messengers of God, whereas fortune tellers were clumped in the same category as sorcerers, diviners, enchanters, and witchcraft. See Leviticus 19:26, Leviticus 19:31, Leviticus 20:6, and Deuteronomy 18:10-14.
These scriptures make perfect sense to me, and none of it says that what I do for people is wrong. Don't turn to fortune tellers. Turn to God. Don't get distracted by sorcerers or enchanters. Don't get involved in black magic and hurt others.
The bible makes it clear that we should turn to God in times of need. I've seen so many "New Age junkies" who have no idea what spirituality is all about. They go from psychic to psychic hoping to be entertained and distracted from their own lives. I've seen people who have lost loved ones become so obsessed with communicating with them after death that they forget to live their lives. In both cases, psychic abilities are not at fault, but the purposes that people put them to become unhealthy and even self-destructive. The message in the scriptures is the same. They simply warn people to turn to God and not get distracted by those who would lead them away, such as scam artists and magic charmers. This advice is just as applicable for today.
►►THE NEW TESTAMENT
The New Testament mainly describes the ministry and death of Jesus, who was a Hebrew rabbi named Jeshua ben Joseph (Teacher Jesus son of Joseph). After Jesus' crucifixion, the New Testament describes the acts of his disciples (or apostils) and the beginnings of Christianity.
During his era, Jeshua was considered a radical teacher, healer, and prophet. He taught the Jews and Gentiles that God was a loving God, and that they could talk to him directly without having to go to priests and prophets. In essence, he taught spiritual principles and broke the laws of the Old Testament when he felt they weren't necessary or had become a distraction from worshiping God and doing his works, such as when he would heal on the Sabbath even though the priests insisted it must be a day of rest.
As Ken Davis says in "Don't Know Much About The Bible" about modern age: "The bible was composed a long time ago for a very different group of people than we are today. People have to determine what laws are appropriate to desert nomads four thousand years ago, and which are universal laws that transcend time." This is exactly what Jesus did in his ministry, by interpreting the Old Testament for the people of his time.
Jesus performed miracles, healed the sick, and raised the dead. He taught the crowds by telling stories and parables. He came to teach us how to live our lives and to show us our potential as children of God. Jesus had visions (clairvoyance), he knew what others were thinking (clairaudience), and he knew how people felt (clairsentience). He taught his disciples how to prophesy and heal, and he said, "These gifts I give unto you and greater works shall you do" (John 14:12).
Before his crucifixion, he told his disciples that God was going to send another comforter (or counselor) who would never leave us, and that is the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). According to the bible, after the death of Jesus, a young Pharisee named Saul had been given the authority to arrest the followers of Jesus. On his way to Damascus, Saul had a spiritual awakening that changed his life forever. First, he was visited by Jesus, who asked him why he was persecuting him. Saul then went blind for three days, until he was healed by Ananias (Acts 9:17). In order to reflect and embody this life-changing experience, Saul changed his name to Paul, and he began spreading the teachings of Jesus. He traveled extensively and started many churches. He was an educated man, and he wrote letters and instructions to the various churches he started, and some of these letters are now part of the bible. Even though Jesus said Simon Peter was the man who would build his church, Paul was without a doubt one of the main figures who began Christianity.
In Paul's letters to the Corinthians, he talks about the "Gifts of the Spirit", and this is where we clearly see that the counselor that Jesus referred to (the Holy Spirit) has given all of us the gift of Prophecy (1 Corinthians 12); "And now, dear brothers and sisters, I will write about the special abilities the Holy Spirit gives to each of us, for I must correct your misunderstandings about them".
● 1 Corinthians 12:8-11: "To one person the spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another he gives the gift of special knowledge. He gives special faith to another and to someone else the power to heal the sick. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and to another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to know whether it is really the Spirit of God or another spirit that is speaking. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages and another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.
● 1 Corinthians 14:1: "Let love be your highest goal, but also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives, especially the gift of prophecy."
● 1 Corinthians 12:3: "But one who prophesies is helping others grow in the Lord, encouraging and comforting them.
● 1 Corinthians 14:5: "I wish you all had the gift of speaking in tongues, but even more I wish you were all able to prophesy. For prophecy is a greater and more useful gift than speaking in tongues."
● 1 Corinthians 14:22: "So you see that speaking in tongues is a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for the benefit of believers, not unbelievers."
● 1 Corinthians 12:27-28: "Now all of you together are Christ's body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it. Here is a list of some of the members that God has placed in the body of Christ: first are apostles, second are prophets, third are teachers, then those who do miracles, those who have the gift of healing, those who can help others, those who speak in unknown languages."
It should be noted that nowhere in Corinthians are the words "evil" or Satan" ever mentioned when Paul is describing the Gifts of the Spirit, and he clearly points out that the Gift of Prophecy (which is the result of psychic abilities) comes from the Holy Spirit.
This next quote, not written by Paul but from Acts, is important because it refutes another thing many fundamentalists believe - that only certain people can prophesy:
Acts 2:17-18: "In the last days, God said, I will pour out my spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit upon all my servants, men and women alike, and they will prophesy."
