BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Bible Basics Are Ghosts Real?

Dave, Angelfire is a good site to start a free web site.

Ah.... finally found the verse I was thinking of

From 1 John 4
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.

I have had contact with spirits, and I know they weren't demons.

When Jesus was accused of being possessed by demons, he said:

"How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divied against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come." ~ Mark 3:23

I believe if a spirit comes to us with intention of helping us and not themselves, they could not be demon.

Dave, I have always thought your posts were so insightful! I'm happy to finally have the chance to interact with you - and I'm very glad you're here!

To add this, I still believe the same about the ghost topic, but to know and understand where others come is very insightful. I enjoy respectfully discussing topics that we might not agree on. You learn something about me. I learn something about you. Who knows what one of us will say to inspire or have the other one think deeper about.

The key is respect. I cannot talk with my mother-in-law much because she gets extremely worked up over religion and politics and we typically agree on the religion part. I don't like the confrontation. I would prefer to be able state my belief even when it might not be popular and not have WWIII occur. :)Think of what she is missing by not learning more about me on those "disagreeable" topics.

My grandmother always swore that ghosts were real because of an encounter she had. Though from her description, I would have to argue that it was demonic. I wasn't there, but it was horrible what she described. Then again, this woman believed that worms came from horse hair that fell in water and that all pregnant women were to be secluded because they would mark their baby. I loved that woman

Thank you Deanna, its a real pleasure to meet you. Anybody interested in inspiration and dreams is very akin to me. Rebecca, you hit the nail on the head!! In our respect and acceptance of each other we have the freedom to make very deep choices-decisions about the course of our life whereas in rejection, intolerance, or fear we will hold onto whatever we have because of insecurity and would never change. I am so happy to know both of you!!!! Dave

Glad to meet you, Dave. Hope to hear more from you in the future.

Hi Deanna,

I've just been reading in 1 John myself--great letter. John was writing to a group of churches dealing with false teachers, some denying Jesus was the Christ, some denying he had come in the flesh. In context, the spirits are those of false teachers (false prophets), as opposed to people teaching the gospel accurately, who would be indwelt with the Spirit of God. So John tells his readers to test these teachers by asking them whether Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (the two things, Christ and flesh, that they denied). If they said no, they were not from God, but as the rest of the verse just after the portion you quoted says, "this is the spirit of the antichrist..." Note that he is not talking about the spirits of dead people wandering the earth. The context is truth and error. Now I wouldn't really say to try this at home, but if anyone did see what they thought was the spirit of a dead person, they might ask it whether Jesus is the Christ and has come in the flesh, and see what happens. Me, I would never seek to communicate with such a thing.

In the quote from Mark, (and forgive me if I'm missing your point on this one) the context again has nothing to do with ghosts/spirits of dead people, but demon possession. I think what you're getting at is that a spirit might have good intentions toward us...and thus not be a demon. I live by what Scripture teaches, and that is that our enemy is the father of lies. I believe that if he thought that we might be misled by a demon posing as a benevolent spirit supposedly trying to help us, he would assign a demon to that task post haste. The deception might even be more effective if what the spirit told you actually did help you. Then you might be convinced that listening to ghosts/demons was a good thing.

This is, of course, the orthodox Christian view, obviously not shared by many other posters.

Thanks for joining the conversation!

I totally agree Rebecca. I have a close relative that I actually cannot talk about religion OR politics with. And it's disappointing. They can both be pretty big parts of life.

Your Grandma sounds like a hoot

LOL. She was.

Maybe we can do our own respectful discussions and get it all off our chest without being handed back our heads.

HA HA!! I LOVE that idea Rebecca.

It's interesting how wildly varying each sect of Christianity can be. I was raised a Southern Baptist, and am now part of Unity Christ Church. They are so different, it's crazy LOL!

As a Southern Baptist I didn't actually have any interest in asking about the ghosts. But with Unity I've found quite a few who more fringe beliefs {like me}

Recently a friend of mine passed away. I was trying to write a song for his memorial service, but it just didn't seem to be coming out right. It was a struggle. Then I clearly heard him in my mind say "does that song really sound like me?" I had to laugh because, no, it didn't. Within 10 minutes I wrote such a lovely song, and it totally felt right. And it felt like the Holy Spirit working through me when it was created - it just felt beautiful and perfect and lovely and it happened so quickly.

I was so humbled by the experience, and just felt so blessed.

When I feel humbled and blessed, I always feel closer to God.