Objection: I Saw Laughter Break Out in a Healing Service, and That Isn’t One of the Nine Ways the Holy Spirit Moves According to 1 Corinthians 12

I have had this happen in some of my services, and I was not the least bit concerned that this could not be pigeonholed into one of the nine manifestations of the Spirit that Paul enumerates in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11.  This objection’s flaw is exposed by Hebrews 2:3-4.  Paul said that God bore witness with signs, wonders, diverse miracles AND gifts of the Holy Ghost.  This shows that some signs, wonders and diverse miracles are NOT the nine ways the Holy Spirit moves in 1 Corinthians 12.  This kind of thing can be a sign and a wonder even though it does not involve tongues, interpretation, prophecy, a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, discerning of spirits, gifts of healings, working of miracles or special faith for a specific situation.

I remember the first time supernatural laughter broke out in one of my services.  I was preaching in a church with an old-time Pentecostal pastor.  People got healed while they were laughing (a detail that has persisted since then in such services).  Someone’s lungs were healed and someone else was healed of a bad case of depression!  I was sure that pastor would never have me back after this particular manifestation of the Holy Spirit.  To my shock, he lamented that he hadn’t seen MORE of this in the present day.  He went on to tell me about such moves back in the 1940’s (there’s nothing new under the sun) and even sang a “Holy Ghost drinking song” they sung back in that era during such services.  It was good to know that this wasn’t some new phenomenon that just appeared in the 1990’s, though there was a strong wave of such manifestations back then in the United States.