Tag Archives: Gifts of the Spirit

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Pneumatology 101

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 28-minute message. Or watch the video here on Facebook (the message starts about 25 minutes into the recording). Or read the text summary below.

Today (28 May – this post is going out a bit late – sorry) is Pentecost, where we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit of God. We talk a lot in church about God the Father and God the Son, but much less about God the Holy Spirit. So, today I thought to share 10 fun facts about Holy Spirit, so that we have a better understanding and appreciation of who s/he is. Let’s call it “Pneumatology 101”! Are you ready? Here we go!

  1. Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity (along with the Father and Son) and therefore is God, as much as the Father and Son are God. Three persons in one being. The Spirit is as much God as the Father and Son are.
  2. Holy Spirit is a person, as much as the Father and Son are persons. Theologically, we can debate what ‘person’ means in the Godhead. But, through our exposure to God the Father in the first Testament and God the Son in the Second Testament, we have no trouble thinking of Father and Son as persons. The same must apply to the Spirit, who is the third person of the Triune Godhead. This means we can talk with, relate to and pray to Holy Spirit, just as we pray to Father and Son. To help me think of the Spirit as a person, I drop the definite article ‘the’ and refer to the Spirit as ‘Holy Spirit’, as if that is their name, like Jesus is the Son’s name.
  3. Holy Spirit is genderless, neither male nor female, gender neutral or gender fluid. God the Father is presented to us as a father, thus male. And God the son is presented to us as a son, as Jesus, a man, thus male. But Holy Spirit is not clearly presented with gender. It is as wrong to refer to Holy Spirit as ‘he’ as it is to refer to Spirit as ‘her’. Both are equally incorrect. All we can be sure of, is that Holy Spirit is not an ‘it’ – Holy Spirit is a person, not a power, force, wind, etc. They are a person. I choose to refer to Spirit as ‘her’, to recognise and emphasise that God is neither male nor female, or rather, that God incorporates both male and female. It helps to demasculinise my thinking about God.
  4. Holy Spirit is active in creation – the Spirit was hovering above the waters of the deep in Genesis 1. And Holy Spirit is continually active in creating the world we live in (Psalm 104:30). Spirit is creative, artistic, extravagant, producing, making, bringing into being, empowering, enabling – all things creative.
  5. Holy Spirit plays the key role in our sanctification. Jesus enables our salvation, but Spirit enables our becoming more and more Christlike as we journey through the ups and downs of life (1 Corinthians 6:11). Holy Spirit is the one who takes up residence on our hearts – in the temple of our body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). She transforms us from the inside out, into the likeness of Christ.
  6. Holy Spirit nurtures in us the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) – these are qualities of living that exemplify Christlikeness, thus the manifestation of sanctification.
  7. Holy Spirit gives to every Christian one or more gifts – Gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12). Some of these gifts appear quite ordinary (giving, mercy, helps, hospitality), while others appear quite supernatural (healing, prophecy, tongues, words of knowledge). But they are all Gifts of the Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and thus all are supernatural gifts from God. And you have at least one.
  8. Holy Spirit operates autonomously. She is not a cash machine that dispenses goodies on demand. She decides when and to whom to give what. 1 Corinthians 12:11 tells us that she gives gifts just as she determines. Numbers 11 has a story about 70 men selected by Moses to receive the Spirit of God; but two other men who were not selected receive the Spirit even more powerfully. Joshua is put out by this, but Moses stops him – the Spirit decides who gets what, when and how much.
  9. Holy Spirit empowers the church for mission. She is interested in each of us as individuals, but her empowerment of us is for the work of the church. 1 Corinthians 12:7 tells us that gifts are given for the ‘common good’, not for personal edification. They are not for us ourselves and our own spiritual growth, but rather for us to serve more effectively in God’s mission to save the world.
  10. And finally (not that there are only 10 characteristics of Holy Spirit!), Holy Spirit seems deeply committed to diversity. At Pentecost (Acts 2) many people, speaking many languages, from different parts of the world, receive the gift of tongues or hear the Gospel in their own languages – they are united in their diversity through the outpouring of Holy Spirit. Acts 2 continue continues to talk about diverse people, languages, gifts, men and women, young and old, rich and poor. Psalm 104, which speaks about Holy Spirit, emphasises the great diversity of animals in God’s creation.

It is my hope that these ideas, which you may agree with more or less, will stimulate your interest in Holy Spirit, learning more about her and getting to know her better.

Featured image from https://www.christiantruthcenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/holy-spirit.jpg

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Revealing God to the world

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 21-minute message. Or watch the video of the message on Facebook here (message starts at about 28 minutes).

We are in the season of Epiphany – epiphany meaning, God’s revelation of God’s self to the world.

John 2:1-11 tells the story of Jesus’ first miracle according to John: turning water into wine in Cana. I unpack this under three headings:

  1. Gifting. In this story, Jesus seems, perhaps, uncertain about his gifts. But his mother, Mary, is much more certain. She prompts Jesus to do something about the wedding banquet running out of wine. And even though Jesus is reluctant to get involved, she tells the servants to “do whatever he tells you”. She has confidence in Jesus, she recognised his gifting, and she prompts him to exercise his gifts.
  2. Common good. You’d think Jesus’ first miracle would be spectacular. A extraordinary miracle would help establish his brand as the Messiah. But instead, his first miracle, while exceptional (he made around 600l of choice wine), was rather everyday and ordinary – common. He addressed the rather domestic needs of a couple who had just got married. I really love Jesus for this miracle for the common good – it reminds us that he is interested in and willing to intervene in our daily lives.
  3. God’s revelation. John concludes this passage in v11 by saying, “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” God’s glory is revealed through this miracle – the epiphany! And as a result of that, his disciples believed in him.

As Jesus exercised his gifting, for the common good, God was revealed and people believed.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11 tells us about the gifts of the Spirit, and is part of a larger chapter about the church – the body of Christ – being made up of many parts, each of which is vitally important to the whole. I unpack this under the same three headings:

  1. Gifting. Paul tells us that Holy Spirit gives a gift or gifts to every believer. Every Christian receives one or more gifts, Gifts of the Spirit, according to the good judgement of Holy Spirit. Whether we recognise our gifts or not, whether we recognise them as gifts of the Spirit or just natural talents, we have gifts from Holy Spirit. People often don’t recognise their gifts – often others recognise them first, like Mary did with Jesus. In those cases, we may need to prompt someone else to recognise their gift.
  2. Common good. Paul tells us that the gifts are given not for personal use and benefit, but for building up the common good. Here ‘common’ refers not to the ordinary, but to the ‘collective’. The gifts are for the benefit of the community of believers, and indeed for the world. They are not intended to benefit us, but rather to help us benefit others. The only way we can contribute to the common or collective good is to exercise the gifts we have.
  3. God’s revelation. As we exercise the Gifts of the Spirit, God is revealed and people can come to believe in God. Our exercising of our gifts reveals the character and values of God, and shows people who God is and what interests and concerns God, and that reveals God and can draw people to God. We, as the collective – the church – need to reveal God, and we do this best when we exercise the gifts God the Spirit has given us.

And so, when we recognise, accept and exercise our gifts, we contribute to the good of the collective, and God is revealed to the world and people may come to believe.

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Introducing Holy Spirit

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 22-minute message. Or watch the video on Facebook (the message starts about 29 minutes into the service). Or read the key points below.

1. Pre-existent Spirit. The Spirit of God has been present since before the beginning. Spirit was already hovering over the waters at the time of creation in Genesis 1:2. Holy Spirit has always been.

2. God – the third person. Holy Spirit is God, as much as Jesus is God and the Father is God. Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.

3. Person just like God. Holy Spirit is a person, just as the Father is a person and the Son is a person. Holy Spirit has personality, emotions, intentions and actions. Holy Spirit is not a force, not a love that binds together Father and Son, not the breathe of God. Holy Spirit is a person. Thus we must (in English) refer to Holy Spirit with the word “who’, not “which”, for example, we must say, “The Spirit who was poured out at Pentecost,” not ‘which was poured out’.

4. Holy Spirit as a name. ‘The Father’ and ‘the Son’ are titles or offices. Similarly, ‘the Holy Spirit’ is a title or office. But when we talk with the Father and Son, we use their names: “Father”, “Yahweh”, “Jesus”, “Christ”, etc. What can we call Holy Spirit, then? I suggest we drop the definitive article “the” and call Holy Spirit “Holy Spirit”, as a name.

5. Pronouns. If Holy Spirit is a person with whom we can talk and relate, do we refer to Spirit as ‘him’? In the Bible, Jesus always refers to Holy Spirit with a personal pronoun: he, him. However, we know that God is not ‘male’, not a ‘man’. God transcends gender. So God the Spirit is no more male than female. So we can use either ‘he’ or ‘she’. Unfortunately, English does not have a gender-inclusive pronoun (‘they’ or ‘ze’ are being used, but have not yet caught on). So I prefer to use ‘she’, to contribute to a deconstruction of the misperception that God is male.

6. Gifts vs relationship. Christians often chase after the gifts of the Spirit, when rather we should chase after a relationship with Holy Spirit. Spirit is not a cash dispenser of spiritual gifts. Spirit is a person, who desires to be in relationship with us. And in the context of that relationship, she gives us gifts. The focus is the relationship, not the gifts.

7. Sanctification. We are saved through the enabling of the Spirit. Christ did the work for our salvation, but Spirit enables our regeneration (our being born again) and our sanctification (our becoming increasingly Christlike). We need Spirit for every moment of our journey as Christians.

8. Fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit are the result of having Holy Spirit residing in us, and of us relinquishing ourselves to Spirit. When we allow Spirit to work in us, we will begin to be transformed into the likeness of Christ, and we will bear the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

9. Gifts of the Spirit. As much as we don’t run after gifts from Holy Spirit, we do need and desire the spiritual gifts, and Holy Spirit is the one who gives them to us, as she determines, to enable the building up of the body of Christ and to empower us for God’s mission.

10. Presence of God. And finally, Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who is present among us now. The Father and Son sit in heaven; but Holy Spirit is among us. So, we sometimes refer to her as the go-between God, because she connects us to God the Father and God the Son. When we experience the presence of God, we are experiencing Holy Spirit.

In light of all this, can we see how important Holy Spirit is? How wonderful it is to have a relationship with her? To experience her working in our lives? Holy Spirit has been poured out into the lives of all believers. Let us embrace her presence and grow in faith through her.

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To each one … for the common good

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 6-minute message. Or watch the YouTube video below, or read the text summary after that.

1 Corinthians 12 is part of a longer narrative from Paul about the church. Chapter 12 focuses specifically on the gifts of Holy Spirit. This seems particularly apt for our focus this week on Stewarding our Communion (that is the fellowship of our church – see Sunday’s message on this topic). Verse 7 reads:

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.

Paul then goes on to list a variety of spiritual gifts (wisdom, knowledge, healing, and so on). And he concludes his paragraph, saying that “All these are the works of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.”

I want to make two quick, simple but vital points from verse 7:

  1. …to each one… Paul is clear here, and throughout this chapter, that EVERY ONE receives a gift from Holy Spirit. It is not just a privileged few, or those who are ordained, or those who have an up-front public ministry who have received a gift from the Spirit. It is EACH ONE. That includes you! You have received a gift – at least one, perhaps more – from Holy Spirit. You may not recognise it, but you have received it.
  2. …for the common good. The gifts are given to each one, but not for our own benefit. Rather, gifts are given for the collective – the common good – which I’ve been referring to as the COMMUNION. While gifts can be helpful in our personal spiritual life, their primary purpose is to build up the collective, to benefit all of us, to grow the church. When we horde the Spirit’s gift for ourselves, we are not stewarding it.

The challenge then is simple and direct:

  • What is your gift?
  • How are you putting it to work in the communion of the church?
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