I actually would tend to disagree, respectfully. In my limited, but I believe relevant, experience, I have found that ordinary folk, fishers and labourers, are just as capable of sudden epiphanies that result in extraordinary courage.

Without commenting directly on whether the event happened literally or metaphorically, or somewhere in between, I'd say that the explanation given by your fellow minister is at least not improbable.

Can a fisherman or labourer not also be an intellectual, or as intelligent as an intellectual? And can an intellectual not also be a labourer or craftsman? And can simple, uneducated people not have epiphanies to which they devote their lives?

Although my formal education is only grade 8, and I was a craftsman and farmer all my life, I did a fair bit of reading and consider myself an intellectual or at least an intelligent and fairly well educated person. Oh, and I did have an "Aha!" moment that changed my life and to which I devoted my life.

I have some college training .. albeit told many times I was stoop ID and told not to think of getting beyond that point ...

One has to ask in true form of I Thessaloneans 5:21 who does ignorance assist ... ye gods?

Then I yam told I believe inconspiracy theory ... tell me how such thoughts get into such a difficult dimension as the absolute function of mind ... something difficult to chisel out ...

Then there are those that don't even believe in the absolute or abstract stateof mind as regression theory ... a set back in thinking?

Where we going in today's idealism in making monis at all costs? is there another side to dinarious koine ... flipped out of this dimension might just be good ... martyrism? It appears to be increasing in our youth ... sewer side as they dig into the crap that gods have generated ... then there is the opposing others ... alien composure? Such is the composition of a motive sol'  a la Scie ... close to wadis in reality a flop ... b'elle I's splat ...

Ma damn thing is in de pool ... la Deis of the loch ... a'mire drip?

When you take into consideration the meaning of the words Holy and spirit as it meant to the Jews of the day you get...

Holy - (qadosh)  to be set apart for a special purpose (not meaning, to be righteous)

Spirit - (ru'ach) wind (to follow a recommended path)

Hence following a previously and already recommended path for special purpose. Compare that to the Pentecost filled with the spirit scripture.

So what would be a forward step, thinking that there is, for human beings, a Next Step?

I believe we sin because we must. When we came out of the trees and grew tired of hunting and gatjering and invented agriculture , from which invented borders, fences, kingdoms, wars (which foster tecknology ) Which ensure our doom. Let the Dolphins take over the planet...thay have a philosophy ruled spiritual system more complex than humanly possible to understand...

So much ensued from our decision to rule nature...(Clap of hands) Ah Well, what's next?

What? We live in a quantum probability existence ?

OK then! WWIII will end with a growing and growning realization that warfare is not heroic fun any more 

and with 101% ownership of The Blackberry I pad XXIII from MicroAppleberry every body on the planet could speak in all languages...and with warfare now universally frowned upon...peacefull techknolwledgey will bring the very poor's standard of living to the level of the prior age well-to-do...

And we start to terra-form mars...

 And, perhaps, manage to flip out of this dimention----

Where we going in today's idealism in making monis at all costs? is there another side to dinarious koine ... flipped out of this dimension might just be good ... martyrism? It appears to be increasing in our youth ... sewer side as they dig into the crap that gods have generated ... then there is the opposing others ... alien composure? Such is the composition of a motive sol'  a la Scie ... close to wadis in reality a flop ... b'elle I's splat ...

(Sigh) I take it you are against something. What? The future. Yeah. It's so damned unpredictable. I wonder: Does it take you 85 years to get to the point of taking the world and your participation in it as it is and that there are many good points in that? And by concentrating on them makes them bigger. And concentrating (Wailing!) about the bad, is to concentrate on them, thinking about them, wasting your time thinking about them -- and has little if any merit unless your thinking about them will effecuate change.

Are you sober when you post? 'comon, really? 

Po' HG ...

He doesn't know the geste of not knowing of what I am told is absolute evil ... being abstractly cognizant ... bad, bad, bad ... thinking! Just do what authority directs ... and what does authority know of baselines without (in the san)? The abstract will rule ...

In a growing computerized world it is projected in a short time the population paradigm (eMe; a root mean factor ... integral?) won't have to process whatever. Then what will the ethereal bunch do ... since they haven't believed in psyche process for 2000 years ... a romantic inclination of conservation of what they knew then? Mostly nut'n ... a'Muse in from outside the paradigm? Is that near OBI or just the imaginary dimension ...

Just call it (me) out of here HG and you'll be close  ... crazy is as crazy observes fromthe Heiseinberg standpoint as posted et'ic, good for an ET Ude ... as oude this is a standpipe that appears early in AUSTRALIA ... a mire icon or Semite suggestion of a sign of whetting the curios idée's and round chi comes ... a weal of Levite? Sometimes cranks the somnolent soul! Thus it spins ... causing pain to that which can't be touched ... as ole; place to put stuff that other's believe thoughtful chits? Approximates fundus ... a vacant or hollow organ as metaphorically empty ... Circa as integral ... a Circus in shattered chits ... few can gather thoughts in the state they're in ... Watched The Silver Lining Facebook last night ... of course some reversion of emotions about this movie are required ... close to Ego or reflective stance?

Is what we don't know dangerous ... abstractions?

Or would it be best to understand the unknown that we shy from?

We can only know what our limited human perception lets us.

Then biblically is our perception restricted by the abstraction of god(s) as illustrated in Genesis 2 and the rejection of the tree of knowledge (logos)? Isn't that a devious thing to say to people instituted by what some romantic abstract was presented to us some 2000 years ago by a conservative extreme like Caesar?

Did you know some people believe not in God (Love, L'uv) not thinking (devil of a thing in a desirous state)? They make up the walking un-dead (dead being when you become wise to this state of knowing nut'n) ... you see this in young people struck byt extreme emotional forces that knocks sense right out of eMe. This is a necessary function for the continuance of life as religion tells us connecting souls is evil; physically, mentally and spiritually ... for any knowledge of these things would be bad for the affairs of authority that suffer Peter Prin (more on this later).

Then there is that everlasting conflict created by the "stranger/alien". How many times does that romantic/conservative book tell us to respect the stranger? Consider that not even the literalists take that statement literally as they do just as they wish often without thought of cause or consequence. Some religions tell us there is no cause or consequence in an absolute world as the restricted soul cannot deal with abstracts (unknowns, incompleteness, darkness) like emotion and intellect. People that get burnt over extreme desires without thought don't even realize there is a medium .. they go directly to "that shouldn't be done under any condition!" They don't any longer and don't wish to see moderate people behave normal ... para-psychic behaviour in an extreme dimension? Where's the dimension of extreme? Have you ever looked about or are you too restricted/confined to an individualised state? Some integration may be required ... but don't spread yourself too thin (ethereal thoughts are seen through).

This is not like Petros, that hard bonnie structure through which people don't receive outside thoughts well ... they just will not listen to reason ... they must experience pain to learn and thus the expression of the poking of the hawg or otherwise skewering ... or the myth of Vlad coming out of the mountains to get the people guilty of avarice as a religion. Is this close to Valcaries or just the pennecost in like of what ascended last week ... cool Eire than you thought?

Some people even think that light energy is physical when even in definition of a literal sense does light have volume or mass? Some say that this weird un-substantial non-material is just out of here in our terms of understanding how Lord Rutherford described that energy.  As such science (observation) was excluded from church thus the light was rejected as the Levite or what is known today as Christ the Light upon how emotions behave alone. Can one deny "badly" or is that illusion/de Luce'n Theory ... in the choicce thing-heh?

Then if what goes up as one energy (ascending) does it come back as opposite (dark, thouights, Shadow) for those that don't believe in reflection, contemplation and resolving of the enigma of mind as an intangeable abstract. This is sometimes known as an odd spectre, or even silouette as cast. Is this something we simply don't wish to know allowing for a rare curios bunch, opposing as different hues of angelic flighty things (UFOS) ... Gabriel is that you in the form of Anna Kareninina ... the Shadow extends ... where you'd be surprized at what you'd learn in distant unconscious states. Consider the icon of sleep as a lesser rest ... allows abstract, just out of here thought, that scares the crap out of people that just refuse to sleep due to stress about losing what they don't believe in ... cognizance of all things? They'd ruther not ...

Would that deal too much responsibility for peoples that have responsibility for nothing or are truly irresponsible? There are certain absolute and abstract implications as in the Peter Prin. one rises to the level of incompetance and then they are caught ... like a hooked phesh (and they still don't know they made a mistake) Take people like high level politicians, nobles, business and church higher arch'n souls ...

Ever noted incompetance in the Aryan type?

They all think they can handle all individual mistakes when they don't even know their own! I could be projecting this in abstention, or as a mire abstract ... you know mire ... what, as a mere mote in space? That's dirt in a vaccuous dimension that's Eire (sear) ethereal? If you get to close to the abstract you'll get sucked right into knowing a wee bit and that's not all that bad untill you find yourself collectivised ... this all happens on the unconscious IDe that few believe in as Ego that we Mrs Understand ... the other way this would be recognizant as it comes back to you in time. It is sort of like anachronism ... something beyond space, time and light of the monstrous situation we're in ... some philosophers condensed this down to leviathon! To those limited mortals ... such is just out-of-their consideration like meis ... a character of myth? They had enough of it and are now out of here too ... only one way or do we return if we didn't learn anything the priori times around ... in a went of space ... so it goes! This is not to be told simply, to allow for those that don't wish to know anything in a mortal array ... then there's the next tier in Jack's device ... deep Seder of understanding ... that's satyr to many or Pan's Fundus ... a hollow organ that mimics the mind in abstract fashion ...

When chi's out-of-it in emotional state you can put anything there to be burn'd ... Bob'n satire? If it weaves and wobbles about the objective ... the un-thinkers can't get it ... maybe some wee Froid Slips as cool ...

"I have known intellectuals who gave their all to a powerful idea, but I find it hard to believe that fishermen and labourers would give their lives to an idea popping out of an Aha moment."

Seems Jesus chose his disciples (or they chose to follow him) because they were ordinary people capable of influencing others and elevating themselves to a greater purpose when called upon.  Jesus was a carpenter, a modest occupation.

It was this little band of labourers and their followers, eg.,Paul,  who inspired a journey towards Christianity, not the leadership of the time, ie., the Roman Empire.

The least among us are as capable of epiphany as the greatest.  "The meek shall inherit the earth".

Picture a primitive fisherman looking at the sea and saying in a restive thought (epiphany) we shouldn't go out there today!

However having worked with professional fisherman, the competitive edge rules and they go on the water when it is insane ... just to test it out ... the consequences are sometimes dark !

120 believers launch a 10-day prayer vigil in response to the Risen Lord's promise: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.... (Acts 1:8)."

Modern Christians probably pray no more than 10 minutes a week and pastors preach 3,000 sermons over the years that have little impact.  But the first band of 120 followers prayed for 10 days solid and then one sermon reaped 3,000 converts in the context of the Spirit's outpouring.  One of the meanings of Pentecost is that witnessing to faith is rather ineffectual apart from the conviction that is imparted by the Spirit.  To unleash that conviction, a lot of prayer is necessary, and most churches and Christians (including myself) don't seem up to the task.  The implication of Jesus' and Paul's teaching about the Spirit is that the Spirit's internal work on the unbeliever's heart makes debate of relatively minor importance because the Spirit does the persuading.  I have seen this implication at work in only a few very prayerful Christians and wish I could develop spiritual disciplines to make this true of my own witness. 

Upon reading the above comment,  and upon reflection, I must admit my error in that sentence.   So, if there was an Aha! moment, what was the Aha?

Through his experience at Pentecost, Peter discovered that he was no longer the coward who denied Jesus thrice in the high priest's courtyard; he was now a fearless witness who defied imprisonment and floggings (Acts 4-5).  But more to your point, I think, the outbursts of glossolalia from people all over the Mediterranean, slowly convinced Peter and the disciples to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles.  Despite Jesus' Great Commission, the Jerusalem church seems to have initially stayed put.  When analogous glossolalia erupted in the house of the Roman centurion Cornelius (Acts 10), Peter realized that the Gospel must be offered to Gentiles, and, on this basis, finally endorsed Paul's Gentile mission at the Jerusalem conference in Acts 15. 

Thus Peter became illuminated, struck by Christ the light or just suffered a Levite Syndrome of lost thought when falling in love?

Enough for the poor rick to hang his head in shame at what he got sucked into when men like to stand alone ... as grossly antisocial ... but you can't admit to it ... or the little woman would have you secured again ...

In a world without thought ... does sects and emotions get unconciously expressed ... like in the subconscious mind? Well ifyou're not allowed to be cognizant,and know of such things what is the option? Thus thinking regresses in general ... results in recessive jinns/gynes ... and all kinds of other alien things!