• Thanks for the many gracious offers in response to my badgering. Ruslan and his family are all set. I’m sure he would appreciate prayer for his message — they’re on a tight and busy schedule while they’re in the states.
• I’m working on a presbytery-related study on the Holy Spirit, so prepare yourselves for random comments in coming months. Here’s my view: most of our doctrines regarding the Spirit are defensive in nature, guarding against error (a good thing). And yet, so much of what we have in Christ we have either in or through the Spirit. While it’s certainly true that much of the work of the Spirit is for the purpose of illuminating the person and work of Christ, I believe it is worth time and effort to explore how that illumination takes place, in order that we might attend to it with greater care.
• I doubt I will try to offer much in the way of new perspectives; theology is not my gift. But I would like to raise questions that others might answer. For example, when the church in Jerusalem is told to “pick out” men “full of the Spirit and wisdom” in Acts 6, what does that mean? Does that mean they exhibited the fruit of the Spirit that Paul delineates in Gal. 5? In other words, were the disciples simply requesting men who were loving, joyful, peaceful, and so on? Or was there an x-factor that the disciples expected the church to be able to identify? For myself, I would say certainly the former — the presence of the Spirit bears fruit that is readily identifiable — but also (probably) the latter as well. Wisdom is itself a fruit of the Spirit, so if the disciples were simply looking for nine additional character traits, they could have said so. It appears, rather, that they assumed people knew what “filled with the Spirit” looked like, or felt like.
• There are other layers here. Aren’t all believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit? If this is the case, then what is meant by “men full of the Spirit…”? Are certain lives more conducive to the presence and work of the Holy Spirit than others? Or, more likely, is the Spirit manifested to a greater degree in certain lives at certain times, and to a lesser degree at others? Wouldn’t this corroborate the notion of “keeping in step with the Spirit” (also Gal. 5) vs. “grieving the Holy Spirit” (Eph4:30)?
• So, doing lots of reading. I’ve found that study of this beloved Person of the Trinity creates longing and, I don’t know, care or sensitivity I suppose I would say. It is a separate question, just how we ought to think about a person of the Trinity who can be “grieved.” True, the OT speaks of the Father as being grieved, but this is different. There is something about grieving God’s Spirit who dwells within me that makes me long to live with greater care. And you can just as easily flip this around and speak of what it means to “keep in step” with the Spirit. How do I, for lack of better language, facilitate or live a life agreeable to the Spirit’s work in and through me? It’s a question worth asking, and answering, as best we can.
Thanks for reading… again.