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Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit Monday's Meditation: Three Important Questions
Monday, May 17, 2010 at 12:02AM The other day I came across a statement from Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California. I posted it on Facebook because I thought it was a treasure and wanted to share this treasure with all seven of my friends. Then the trouble started: not everyone considered it such a treasure. Here's the treasure/trouble:
"It's hard to have the same fruit as the early church when we value a book they didn't have more than we do the Holy Spirit they did have."It seems some people considered Bill’s comment a challenge to the importance of scripture. “What do you do with the scripture that says ‘faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God?’” asked one friend. Another posted: “How would we know which fruit is of the Holy Spirit and which fruit is from elsewhere without objective guidance?” It became a three-way discussion. The comments piled up, one after another, until no one else in their right mind would want read them all. But today, I would like to invite each of you into the conversation.
Without presuming to speak for Bill Johnson, here are three questions his statement provokes:
- I think any reasonable comparison between the 1st century church in the Middle East and the 21st century church in North America points out that we are nowhere near as fruitful. Since we have the Bible in abundance (in fact, the greatest availability of the Bible in the history of the world) what must be lacking in our day?
- Why are so many 21st century North American believers concerned about “subjectivity” when it comes to the dynamic of the Holy Spirit (who is God), but not at all concerned about the inherent “subjectivity” involved in interpreting scripture (which is not God). The wide-spread availability of the scripture does not eliminate the need for listening to the Spirit's leading. In fact, it should give us more confidence to risk obedience to his living, daily voice.
- Why is the gospel flourishing in South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and most of Asia--where the dynamic of the Holy Spirit is celebrated, while Evangelicalism is increasingly considered irrelevant in the West--where the Holy Spirit is perhaps honored in name but rarely in practice?
Reader Comments (30)
@ Matt: I'm just now finding your comment response to me.
My comment response - "rejecting his quibble" - was pretty much the same as yours to me. If I cannot clock in and take a sick day, neither can a pastor "clock in" and "take a sick day." Now, the metaphor breaks down, here; I am not known to Ray personally; I don't view him as my "pastor." What I'm trying to get at is that you cannot have a conversation without having a conversation. And that may require more robust protection of both sides' involvement. I don't know that I have that in his "quibble." I don't know that I don't; but I don't sense that I do, either. And it is easy to say "bring it on" - it is harder to have a conversation that actually illuminates what the different ideas are, let alone resolve an important disputation that actually touches people's lives. Tithing, for example.
Ever have a conversation with someone about racial politics whose answer for every and all disputation is "you are a racist?" Pretty frustrating, isn't it? It's like talking about "the son of God" with a Jehovah's Witness. The very language you are using comes from different assumptions. Those are extreme examples. ... I mean to say in a much milder way that we cannot talk about things if we cannot talk about them. Blog fora may not always be the most appropropriate way; it has both advantages and disadvantages.
First, thank you for as always, posing a relevant and provoking question.
My initial reaction would be to say legalism in the churches. Man’s attempt to reach God so deeply thwarts God’s reach down to mankind (the Holy Spirit & Jesus) that we miss the point. We in America do not truly understand grace – that we CAN NEVER EARN our way into Heaven. The second we think we can, we void Jesus’ priceless gift of atonement and justification for us. It is a free gift and we are now to walk in it!
Because we do not understand grace, we cannot understand that God LOVES US. He love, love, loves us!! We do not wish to walk closely with Him because we fear that we have once again “disappointed Him” or did something so we are no longer “loveable”. But if we do our hail Mary’s and don’t swear – only then does God love us. I think there are initial tears in Heaven because we will simply realize how much we missed the point – HE LOVES US!!!
My second view would be to say like the others, American culture values ANYTHING but Jesus Christ. It is quite a masterpiece Satan has laid out – pay attention to ANYTHING other than what you are supposed to be doing (walking in a loving relationship with our Savior and friend).
The importance of Scripture cannot be valued enough. God’s reveled Word ensures that us as the sheep are not doing in the name of God, things that God hates. But I would rather have a genuine-hearted effort to walk in the Spirit and mess up a little bit than to ignore the Holy Spirit completely. For if as a collective group we walk in the Spirit, won’t the Creator of Heaven and earth be faithful to pry us back in the right direction?? We must be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is a person, not an “it”, He has emotions and can be grieved…I can’t imagine how I would feel being an uninvited guest to my own house for 1,000s of years….
What a great discussion!
First, I want to call out a total stranger... Charles, I don't know you, but I like you cause you're here at Ray's blog. So please don't take this personally, but you can't clock-in AND take a sick day. You're already here, so you might as well do some work. Much respect! :)
Secondly, I want to affirm Grinder's call for both/and...
In order to avoid the messy, maintenance-heavy, subjectivity of living in the tension between the two, congregations & denominations feel compelled to choose sides in a Bible vs. Spirit bout. The resulting polarity is easy to see in the western church. But in praxis, I think both sides are lacking because I've been to both ends.
I believe this is a false choice where both alternatives deny the work and divinity of the Spirit. After all, who do we think breathed every inspired word? And who do we think moves in our midst with gifts, signs, wonders, power, comfort, and conviction?
Instead of choosing, we have the unique opportunity to embrace both the Spirit AND the Word. You’d think that would be a no-brainer, but unfortunately, it’s like my golf game... when my driver’s working, my short game falls apart. When I’m putting well, I can’t hit a fairway off the tee.
In my experience, we don’t lack Bible or Spirit... we have camps for each. Hence two opposite reactions to the original Bill Johnson quote. What we lack is a single camp where both the Word and the Spirit abide.
Should we not invite the Spirit into our hermeneutics? Should it not be a Spirit-led science to interpret the scriptures? And what if our experience of God through the activity of the Spirit was informed by a deep biblical understanding? And when we inevitably botch things up, is it not sound Biblical doctrine that brings correction and calls us back to God’s heart? Isn’t that the reason we have many of the epistles?
Imagine the same Spirit that inspired the Word working in us to interpret it, and then empowering us to act accordingly... to behave like we believe.
Maybe then my regard for the Spirit would not be my alibi for my ignorance of His Word. Maybe then my love of the Word would not result in attempts to constrain the power of the Spirit within my eisegesis.
Maybe, just maybe, it would shift my hearing:doing ratio and I would do the stuff Jesus did.
That is a good point samwise, God revealed Himself and still reveals Himself to people who do not have Scripture and these men and women were able to walk with Him and know Him.
But, the blessing of having Scripture is that we can learn the ways in which God often interacts with men and we can know the revelations of God's Nature that these men were given. For example, Abraham, Noah, Enoch, ect all walked with God, but their revelation of the Nature of God was nothing compared to what Jesus revealed to His disciples (Matthew 13:17). The revelation of God found in the Person of Jesus is the most valuable thing that humanity has been given because in it we have the clearest, perfect revelation of the Creator (such is why it has been so clinged to and worth dieing for since it has been shown to man)
Abraham mostly knew God as One who was with him and promised to bless him, Noah mostly knew God as One who liked him, but definately didn't like the sin of mankind. In fact, only David (and even David only partially) came to a revelation of the Goodness of the Lord and His Love towards mankind (but more so they only understood of His love towards Israel). In fact all the saints in the Old Testament didn't have a perfect revelation of God even though they were able to step out into incredible realms of faith in the things the knew about Him.
One of the things I love to meditate on is Jesus' spiritual development. It is amazing because the key revelations that God gave other men of the past, and the spiritual annointings that come when your heart believes these Truths, were all understood by Jesus and thus in operation in His Life. For example, He had the revelation that His Father knew everything (a Truth that Samuel the prophet understood)--thus they were able to walk in an Annointing where God would regulary reveal secrets of people's lives to them. We see that Jesus also walked in the Miraculous Realm that Elijah and Elisha walked in. This came from the understanding that God is greater than the natural world and He walked in an Annointing where He would regulary do supernatural things. (Though the revelation of God that Jesus had compared to Elijah and Elisha was radically different, in that Jesus understood that God loved all men and wanted to bless all men, thus His supernatural acts were all focused on blessing people whereas Elijah and Elisha often used to power of God to kill). But i personally believe that because Jesus honored what God had done in these other men's lives, that it allowed Him to see God in that way and thus He was given an Annointing that enabled Him to reveal His Father to men in that way.
Ok I really got off track there haha.
BUT Scripture reveals the Nature of God, and then its our job to actually pursue Him in a way that we know by experience that which has been passed down from the generations and given to us by men who knew God in that way.
haha, which is like one of the core messages that P Ray and the peeps on the leadership team of our church have been trumpting for years
Great post, Ray!
Yes, I think the western church has replaced a good portion of their relationship with God (in all 3 aspects of the Godhead) with worship of his letter to us. It is a beautiful love letter, isn't it? But I still would rather have the relationship.
I think I'll post the same quote on my Facebook wall and see how many friends I can lose on a Monday. ;-)