Nathan Diehl

Have you ever heard of being slain in the spirit?

As wikipedia puts it, slain in the spirit is “a religious phenomenon in which a person enters a state with loss of all motor control over their body and falls to the floor during an event perceived as a personal encounter with God’s glory and power, usually associated with occasions of public prayer ministry when the laying on of hands is practiced.”

When I was a junior or senior in high school, I went to youth group in Fort Wayne with my best friend. There were about 300 teens there. After service, there was a prayer line, and people were getting slain in the spirit right down the line. I was so excited to experience more of what God had for me. I wanted all God had for me–not just part of it.
As the guy praying–I’ll call him Billy–came to me, he place his hand on my forehead. He prayed for me, and I stood there, ready for an awesome encounter with God. When I didn’t go down, he lightly pushed on my forehead. I realized he was pushing on me, and I didn’t go down, because I wanted God to knock me out, not Billy to push me over. So Billy pushed a little harder. At this point, I was like, ‘What the heck is going on?’ He then stopped pushing and kept praying for me, before he moved on to the next person.
Talk about disappointment!

Notice the wikipedia description said, ‘public prayer ministry’ and ‘laying on of hands’.
my thoughts: 1. why wouldn’t such an intimate experience happen during one-on-one time? 2. why when ‘laying on of hands?’

So then I went to the Bible. I wanted to find evidence of being slain in the spirit. There is pretty much nothing. When there is, it is face-down, not face-up, or it’s a conscious choice to lay down–no references to an uncontrollable loss of motor function when someone touches you in a public setting.
Please take a moment and look at these verses: (note: this is NOT an exhaustive listing) Genesis 17:3, Joshua 5:14, Judges 13:20, 1 Kings 8:10, 11, Ezekiel 1:28, Matthew 17:6, Matthew 28:4, Mark 3:11, Mark 9:20, John 18:6, Acts 9:4-8, Revelation 1:17

I would note that at the time of my experience of not being slain in the spirit, I truly believed it was of God and was biblical. I’m honestly not sure why I believed this, as I’m quite certain my dad (my pastor) never taught me it was, so I’m not sure what gave me the impression it was Godly and biblical.

That’s not to say God couldn’t knock me out if he wanted to, because I am very, very confident God could slay me (or you) in the spirit (or physically) any time He wanted. I just haven’t been able to scripturally support our modern ‘slain in the spirit’ ritual.

Thoughts on this?
Do you have any similar experiences to what I experienced in high school?
Have a missed a key scripture indicating a scriptural precedent for being slain in the spirit?

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