Recently a friend brought to my attention some posted FaceBook videos of some lectures that I gave at a Pentecostal Bible school while visiting friends in another country. Portions of the lecture (from about 5 minutes to about 15 minutes apiece) are in 4 parts: 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Category Archives: Holy Spirit
What does it mean to be led by the Spirit?—Galatians 5:18
What does it mean to be led by the Spirit? In terms of particulars, that depends somewhat on which biblical passage one is examining.
Some of the context of the Spirit’s leading in Galatians 5:18 is moral. Instead of our lives being circumscribed by written laws, God writes his law in our hearts. Thus we “walk” by the Spirit (5:16), are “led” by the Spirit (5:18), and put our steps in the footsteps of the Spirit (5:25). We follow the ways that he directs for us. Those who do this aren’t “under the law,” because we fulfill the moral demands of the law anyway (5:18, 23). We have promptings or movings that go beyond conscience. (Since conscience can be misinformed [1 Tim 4:2], learning to distinguish them can be important; but the Spirit can reshape our conscience with grace and right desire [cf. the Spirit’s godly desire in Gal 5:16-17]). That we are “led by the Spirit” presumably means that, ideally, we are following the Spirit.
Yet putting our steps in the steps of the Spirit (5:25; for further explanation of this sense in 5:25, see either of my Galatians commentaries) can have broader application than this. As Jesus did whatever he saw his Father doing (John 5:19), so we learn to discern God’s heart in Christ by the Spirit and follow along. This doesn’t mean that we always hear everything perfectly (cf. 2 Kgs 4:27; 1 Cor 13:9), but we do know the pattern, the way Christ laid before us by the way of love (5:14; 6:2). Love is certainly a key fruit of the Spirit (5:22).
Similarly, in the context of Romans 8:14, being “led by the Spirit” contrasts with being ruled by fleshly passion (8:5-13). It also involves a personal experience with the Spirit, a relationship as God’s sons and daughters (8:15-16).
Paul’s primary focus in “led by the Spirit” in Gal 5 may be moral transformation, but those who understand the Spirit’s leading exclusively in these terms commit a fallacy of drawing conclusions that are too general from particular cases. The Spirit’s moral leading is a particular example belonging to a wider experience with the Spirit. Note the following:
Neh 9:19-20 (NASB): “… The pillar of cloud did not leave them by day, To guide them on their way, Nor the pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they were to go. You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them …”
Ps 139:7, 10 (NASB): “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? … Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me”
Ps 143:10 (NASB): “Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”
Isa 63:13-14 (NIV): “who led them through the depths? Like a horse in open country, they did not stumble; like cattle that go down to the plain, they were given rest by the Spirit of the LORD. This is how you guided your people to make for yourself a glorious name.”
Matt 4:1: “Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit for the purpose of being tested by the devil.”
Luke 4:1 (ESV): “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness” (cf. 4:14 [NIV} afterward: “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside”)
John 16:13 (NRSV): “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come”
These passages depict a range of way that God’s Spirit leads us, probably including Spirit-directed wisdom, intuition, and even God ordering our steps beyond our own recognition. The psalmist needs protection from enemies and also (as in Paul) guidance in God’s will (Ps 143:10). God’s Spirit is everywhere and always working in the psalmist’s life (Ps 139:7-10). Some other passages (Neh 9:19-20; Isa 63:13-14) refer directly to the exodus event, where God led his people in the wilderness by the pillar of fire (e.g., Exod 13:18; Deut 8:2, 15; 29:5; Ps 78:52; 106:9; 136:16; Jer 2:6; Amos 2:10), giving them direction where to move next as needed (e.g., Neh 9:12; Ps 78:14). They had to depend completely on him.
The Spirit leading Jesus into the wilderness (Matt 4:1; Luke 4:1), and perhaps even Paul’s language of being led by the Spirit, evokes this same imagery of God’s past leading of his people in the wilderness. From Jesus’s example, we see that sometimes the Spirit even leads us into, as well as through, hardships. From John 16:13 we learn about our intimate relationship with God, the Spirit revealing to us Jesus’s heart just as Jesus came to reveal the Father’s heart (cf. 15:15). Moreover, although Acts uses different wording, there we see the Spirit guiding God’s servants in sharing Christ with others (e.g., Acts 8:29; 10:19; 16:6-7; 19:21).
What does it mean to be led by the Spirit? In terms of particulars, that depends somewhat on which biblical passage one is examining. But overall, it means depending on God’s guidance in our lives, so we walk in the paths he wants us to walk. We don’t always in every case know exactly what his leading us, but our trust is more in his ability to lead us than in our ability to hear him. We follow our best sense of his leading, and trust in him to order our steps.
As we grow in our sensitivity to the Spirit, however, there is one area where we can be sure that his presence in our life will lead us: what is truly the leading of the Spirit will guide us in ways pleasing to God, always opposed to inclinations that do not. That is, the Spirit will never contradict the moral point that God’s Spirit already revealed in Scripture; the Spirit will empower us to live according to God’s heart.
Filled with the Spirit, Worship God in Spiritual Songs—Ephesians 5:18-20
In my times in Africa, I have often noticed women singing while they work. My wife, son and daughter, who are from Africa, tend to do the same. Well, I guess I have sometimes done the same, though normally when I think nobody is around. (They all sing a lot better than I do.)
But this need not be a characteristic limited to African life, as we shall see with respect to Eph 5:18-20.
In my work on Acts, I initially treated Eph 5:18 as a different expression of being filled with the Spirit than what we find in Acts. Luke’s emphasis about the Spirit in Acts is empowerment for mission (Acts 1:8), with filling by the Spirit usually expressed in Luke’s work by Spirit-inspired (prophetic-like) speech for God (2:17-18; cf. 4:8, 31; 13:9; 19:6; 28:25; Luke 1:15-17, 41-42, 67). In keeping with Acts’ emphasis on mission to the nations (Acts 1:8), this inspired speech is often expressed by worshiping God in other people’s languages (2:4; 10:46; 19:6).
I argued that Paul aproaches tongues (in 1 Corinthians) and being filled with the Spirit (in Ephesians) from a different, if complementary, perspective. In 1 Cor 14, Paul focuses on the role of tongues in private prayer, also viewing it in the context of gifts from the Spirit generally (1 Cor 12—14). Although Paul prays in tongues privately more than do all the Corinthians (14:18), Paul emphasizes that in corporate worship tongues should be interpreted so as to benefit all the hearers. He is correcting abuses in Corinth, but the believers there presumably learned the practice through him, perhaps some of them even in the sort of collective outpourings of the Spirit like those sometimes narrated in Acts. But the way Paul articulates his focus differs from that which Luke associates with corporate outpourings of the Spirit narrated in Acts (e.g., 4:31; 13:52), which sometimes mention tongues (2:4; 10:46; 19:6).
In Eph 5:18-20, I argued, Paul emphasizes a different expression of being filled with the Spirit, and he is probably urging a regular or continuous experience with God. He is not narrating collective experiences, often (as in Acts 2, 10, 13 and 19; not 4) inauguratory ones, as Luke is doing in Acts. (The Greek term for “filled” also differs from the usual term used by Luke, except in Acts 13:52, but that might be merely stylistic preference.)
In Eph 5:18, we are to be filled and ruled by the Spirit in contrast to being filled and controlled by wine (cf. Acts 2:13-15). A drunk (or otherwise stoned or high) person may utter or sing nonsense, but being filled with the Spirit in the sense of Eph 5:18 leads to better content in one’s speech. The command “be filled with the Spirit” is followed by a string of subordinate participial clauses that express what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit, especially in relation to one another (5:19-21):
- Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and Spirit-moved songs
- Singing and praising [possibly even, “psalming”] the Lord with [all] your hearts (for the pairing of these same Greek terms for singing and praising, cf. LXX Ps 20:14 [ET 21:13]; 26:6 [27:6]; 32:3 [33:3]; 56:8 [57:7]; 67:5, 33 [68:4, 32]; 103:33 [104:33]; 104:2 [105:2]; 107:2 [108:1]; 143:9 [144:9])
- Always giving thanks for everything to [our] God and Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
- Submitting to each other because you reverence Christ
Yet Eph 5:18 is not nearly as distant from Acts as I have sometimes thought. Here, too, being filled with the Spirit is expressed in Spirit-inspired speech. Here this Spirit-inspired speech is expressed in worship in 5:19; but the tongues passages in Acts probably also involve worship (note 2:11; 10:46, with kai connecting the tongues and magnifying God more closely than te … kai in 19:6, which probably distinguishes the tongues from other prophetic speech). Paul elsewhere treats tongues in terms of prayer (1 Cor 14:13-15) and blessing and thanking God (14:16-17), so if Acts describes the same experience (albeit from a different angle), tongues there probably involves especially worship as well.
The worship in Eph 5:18 is not surely limited to, yet surely includes, tongues. “Spiritual songs” likely means “songs from the Spirit”; since Paul elsewhere speaks of tongues as a gift of the Spirit (1 Cor 12:10), and speaks of its use in song (14:13-15), this would include singing in tongues. This conclusion might follow all the more if we construed “spiritual” as referring to the human spirit, since Paul elsewhere depicts singing in a tongue and interpreting it as singing with his spirit and with his mind, respectively (14:13-15).
Again, Paul’s understanding of worship in Eph 5:18 is not limited to tongues. Paul speaks of psalms and hymns, which undoubtedly include biblical psalms (as in the synagogue). As for hymns, some scholars identify what they believe are pre-Pauline hymns in Paul’s letters. I am more inclined to see these as exalted prose (grand rhetoric), since they do not fit the structure of Greek hymns, and I am inclined to attribute most of them to Paul. (Greeks used specially exalted language for the divine or sublime; Paul applies such exalted prose especially to Christ.) Nevertheless, Paul seems to take for granted that his audience accepts as common ground what he articulates in these praises of Christ. His affirmations in these passages therefore reflect wider Christian beliefs, and such beliefs were undoubtedly expressed in actual worship.
All of this suggests that a key New Testament expression of being filled with the Spirit, not only in Luke’s writings but also in Paul’s letters, is that even our lips yield to the Spirit’s leading. (The tongue is, after all, the most difficult organ to subdue—cf. Jms 3:2!) Moreover, we can often expect that when we experience the empowerment of the Spirit, this will be expressed in worship to God.
So far I have not commented on the final subordinate clause that flows from being filled with the Spirit (5:18): submitting to one another (5:21). Humbly submitting to and serving one another an overarching Christian principle (cf. Mark 10:43-45; John 13:14-15; Rom 12:10) that Paul applies to various relationships relevant to his audience (Eph 5:22—6:9). But in Acts, also, the Spirit produces loving devotion to and service for one another (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-35).
People of the Spirit are people who, both when gathered together and as part of our normal lifestyle, joyfully praise God and care for others.
“In Christ”: united with Christ, immersed in Christ
I knew biblical passages about our solidarity with Christ—we are “in Christ,” we are the body of Christ, and so on. But I wasn’t sure how that connected with our personal spiritual experience of Christ. Was it related to Christ living in us (Gal 2:20)? Was it related to experiencing his resurrection life through the Spirit? After all, ancient Israelites were corporately related to Jacob without a personal experience of Jacob. Humanity is sinful without humans today having ever personally met a guy named Adam.
But of course, as I learned, the nature of the relationship is not exactly the same. We are reckoned in Adam in Rom 5:12-21 as Adam’s heirs, as descendants and fellow sinners. We become reckoned in Christ through baptism into Christ, not through genetic descent. “Adam” might dwell in us in some sense (in terms of solidarity as descendants and sinners), but the Spirit of Christ makes Christ present to us more dynamically (Rom 8:9).
Solidarity with Christ
Paul emphasizes that believers’ solidarity with Christ brings deliverance greater than the defeat effected by our solidarity with Adam (Rom 5:12-21). He then goes on to develop the theme of our union with Christ rather than with the “old person” (6:6) in Adam. Baptized into Christ (6:3-4), we share Christ’s death and resurrection (6:3-6a, 11). Paul can take for granted that being baptized into Christ entails baptism into his death because he understands that immersion into Christ includes sharing his experience. It is not merely theoretical.
“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by this baptism into this death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life. For since we’ve been grafted together/united with/identified with him in the image of his death, still more certainly we shall be united/identified with him in the image of his resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him … So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:3-5a, 11, ESV)
This sense of solidarity with Christ is not limited to one passage. Not also Colossians 3: “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3 NASB); “Christ who is your life” (3:4, NRSV); you “have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (3:10 NIV).
Paul finds partial analogies for this solidarity in shared experience in terms of sharers with Adam in sin (Rom 5:12-21) and Israel’s shared experience with Moses. In 1 Cor 10:2, by analogy with Christian experience of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, Israelites were “baptized into Moses” (though, Paul warns, they failed to persevere). We may think similarly how Jesus recapitulates elements of Israel’s experience in the early chapters of Matthew’s Gospel.
Being baptized into Christ means that we have clothed ourselves with Christ (Gal 3:27); we share in him a new identity. We have put on the new person, recreated in God’s image (Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:9-10), as humanity was created in God’s image in the beginning (Gen 1:26). Obviously this solidarity has a forensic dimension: that is, how God views us in Christ. Yet it also must impact reality on our side as well as God’s. We are called to be what we are in Christ. In Christ, we must put off the old person (what we were in Adam) and put on the new, recreated in God’s image (Eph 4:22-24; cf. Col 3:8). We must live according to the new identity God has conferred on us in Christ.
Paul says that as we bore Adam’s mortal image, we shall also bear the immortal image of Christ (1 Cor 15:49). Progressively (2 Cor 3:17) and ultimately (Rom 8:29) we are conformed to the image of Christ, who is God’s image (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). We are conformed to this image by being shaped by the fruit of the Spirit within us (Gal 5:22-23), essentially by Christ living in us (Gal 2:20).
Immersed in Christ
How is this sharing of Christ effected in us? The Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9) lives in us.
The Spirit baptizes us into Christ: “by/in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Cor 12:13). Ancient Jewish baptisms were ritual immersions, so the picture here is of the Spirit immersing us in Christ. This picture suggests that being clothed with Christ is not limited only to the way God sees us.
Paul’s expressions would make sense to those already familiar with early Christian language inherited from John the Baptist: “he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit” (Matt 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5; 11:16). (There is also a narrower sense of this phrase in the NT, but at this point I am using the phrase in the more general way.)
Not surprisingly, then, Luke, who speaks of the church being baptized in the Spirit, in his narratives parallels the ministries of the Jerusalem Jesus movement (led by Peter) and the Diaspora mission (led by Paul) with Jesus’s ministry. The same Lord worked in both Peter and Paul (Gal 2:7-8).
Because the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ, being immersed in the Spirit entails being immersed in Christ. We read the Gospels as the story of our hero, but also our model, and the one the Spirit empowers us to follow. Thus in three successive paragraphs, Mark announces Jesus as the Spirit-baptizer (Mark 1:8), the pioneer of the Spirit-baptized life (1:9-11), and as the model of what this looks like as the Spirit thrusts him into conflict with the spiritual enemy (1:12-13). Jesus keeps warning disciples that they must share both his faith (9:19, 23, 29; 11:21-24) and his suffering (8:34; 13:13).
Walking in Christ
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted and constructed in him” (Col 2:6-7)
“This is how we know that we’re in him: whoever claims to dwell in him ought to walk just as he walked” (1 John 2:5-6)
Our solidarity with Adamic humanity comes by birth. In Adam, we share glorious DNA designed to reflect God’s image yet alienated from God’s presence and purpose by human sin.
Our solidarity with Christ comes by baptism, yes, in water, at the entrance into new life, but also in the Spirit. We share Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection because we are immersed in him. Through the mind of the Spirit (Rom 8:5), the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16), we grow to think in his ways and act how Jesus would. The old adage, “What would Jesus do?” is more than a slogan; it invites us to think and act as Jesus thinks and acts, just as Jesus acted only as he saw the Father acting (John 5:19-20). The Spirit communicates Christ himself in the preaching of the gospel (see John 16:7-11; 1 Thess 2:13). Because Christ lives in us by the Spirit (John 14:17), we bear his fruit like branches on the vine (15:4-5), continuing many aspects of his mission (20:21-22). To walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:16) is also to walk in Christ (Col 2:6).
To the extent that we recognize that God has effected our solidarity with Christ, we can appropriate that identity as members of Christ (i.e., of his body; Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 6:15; Eph 4:25). We can remember that Christ lives in us and trust his character to live through us. The better we know what he is like, the more we can reflect that character by faith. Because we are each unique members of his body, we will individually reflect different aspects of his ministry. None of us is the entire body of Christ to himself.
It should be able to go without saying, but unfortunately often can’t go without saying, that we do not take the place of Jesus; the opposite must be the case: Jesus as Lord reigns in us so as to make his heart known. This comes through our direct relationship with the head, Jesus Christ, who is the source of our new life: Eph 4:15-16; Col 2:19; 3:4a).
We aren’t Jesus, but we are his agents. And when those agents work together, those around can see a fuller picture of Christ’s character through his body functioning together. As his body we together ideally reveal his character, his heart, his purposes, so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us (Gal 2:20). Immersed in Christ, clothed in Christ, we want our lives to reveal Christ in what we say and do and think. Together as the diverse members of Christ’s body, we are invited to show the world what Christ among them would do, proving God’s transforming power even to the heavenly rulers (Eph 3:10). Ideally, we as Christ’s body should mature into unity in trusting and knowing Christ (Eph 4:12-13). No one has seen God, but by loving one another we give the world a taste of God (1 John 4:12), and we know that we live in him and he in us because he has given us his Spirit (1 John 4:13).
Scholars debate today the meaning of “baptism in the Spirit.” More important than those debates about wording, however (which I deliberately sidestep in this post) is that we really embrace all that the Spirit wants to do in us. God desires to enable us to live like those immersed in his Spirit, and immersed in Christ. God wants people to continue to see what Jesus is like as the Spirit of Christ works in and through us.
Craig’s conversion testimony
This testimony is not meant as empirical evidence that would persuade somebody else. It is simply what happened to me. (If I were going to make up a conversion testimony, this wouldn’t be it! And if I were to choose my own background, I would’ve grown up a Christian instead of converting later. But this is what happened, so this is what I have to share, at least as a short and partial version.)
Epistemology and historical arguments—a few thoughts
No one believes only what they can prove historically. For example, most of us can remember experiences from years ago that we surely believe happened but that we cannot “prove” to others’ satisfaction without finding corroborating witnesses or documentary evidence. Unless, of course, our very testimony counts as evidence—which, if we are reasonably reliable persons, it normally should, except where counterevidence argues otherwise.
In many disciplines, people of different convictions work together. A Christian herpetologist who attributes life to divine design on any level has a markedly different perspective on life than does an atheist herpetologist. Yet when it comes to details of reptile anatomy, they share mostly common ground.
The humanities tend to be more complicated on a number of levels, but there are some parallels. For example, an atheist and a Christian have vastly different personal approaches to the Bible, but both may use historical methods. Their beliefs will inevitably color the ways they approach the evidence, and even what data they admit as evidence, but there will still be a shared body of common ground or at least common data to work from.
Simply because they work from some common ground, however, does not mean that neither of them has beliefs outside that common ground. Valuable as experimentation is in the scientific sphere, virtually no one actually lives like that is the only method of ascertaining truth personally (taking no one else’s word for anything without testing it empirically). (Admittedly, as a toddler I likely did want to test electrical outlets personally regardless of parental warnings to the contrary.)
Still less does anyone live like only what is verifiable by historical means actually happened. When those within the guild of New Testament scholarship speak of historical probabilities, they speak in terms of what is probable by normal historiographic criteria. But since probabilities are not invariably correct, and because estimates of probabilities are subject to the limited information and criteria considered, it is also probable that they will sometimes be mistaken. Many who use these methods have sufficient epistemic humility to recognize that these methods give us only a basic picture.
On the basis of historiographic methods, scholars often come to very diverse conclusions. This diversity reflects not only the methods but the data that we take into consideration. As in computer language: garbage in, garbage out. I believe that a wider range of data, which I have tried to bring to bear in my recent Christobiography and some other works, suggests that on average most passages in, say, Mark’s Gospel, reflect reliable information about events. Some scholars will disagree, but hopefully they will at least expand their perspective to include the new data I seek to bring to bear on the subject.
I believe that historiography can give us general estimates, but it cannot tell us everything that ever happened. This does not mean that I believe that only what I can demonstrate historically happened. This just means that this is all that I have evidence available to demonstrate. Sometimes those unaccustomed to the way scholars in a discipline talk to one another misunderstand the point.
There is also the question of epistemology. None of us do live like only what we can prove historically happened. In the case of the Gospels, I can argue historically that they tell us a lot about Jesus. I cannot provide historical evidence for every point. But I personally believe that they offer more than enough information about Jesus to invite us to place our trust in him—and therefore accept his verdict on the Scriptures already accepted among his people, and the authorization of his commissioned agents whose message appears in the New Testament.
I also personally believe, as a Christian, that the Spirit attests Scripture. (That was Calvin’s view; it’s also my experience as a charismatic.) To someone who does not experience the Spirit, that sounds utterly subjective; but that is because in that sphere Christians and their detractors have different epistemologies.
Thus I can make a limited historical argument in a scholarly setting that permits only historical arguments, but personally believe more because of what I regard as a complementary epistemology. Skeptics are apt to jump on that observation, but I distinguish between my historical arguments, and consequently what I expect my hearers to accept on the basis of such arguments, from my personal beliefs and experience. I am happy to share the latter, but it is normally persuasive only to those who share my epistemological convictions in those areas.
Not making this distinction can produce problems. For example, someone may assume that what they cannot demonstrate, based on historical grounds apart from the testimony of the text, did not happen. But not demonstrating that something happened is not the same as demonstrating that it did not happen. Likewise, people do not always understand what scholars working within a discipline mean by their language. When a scholar offers a narrower historical argument that suggests that “X probably happened, but evidence for Y is tenuous,” this does not necessarily mean that they do not believe that X and Y happened. It simply means that they do not have much evidence for Y.
The genre of certain kinds of academic work simply takes for granted that scholars are making judgments based on the historical data available. In this genre of writing, one does not intrude with other epistemological approaches such as, “The Holy Spirit tells me this is true!” Usually writers do not even stop to explain that the basis of their considerations suffers from methodological limitations. For example, the testimony in front of us is itself evidence, if it proves generally consistent with the data where we can test it.
If anyone has followed my attempt to make the distinctions thus far, my points are: the genre of academic works related to historiography limits arguments to historiographic grounds. If one has other epistemic reasons to believe something happened (e.g., personal experience of its happening), one has reason to believe more than one has argued for in the academic work. My own experience of the Spirit and what I see as divine activity makes this seem a no-brainer for me. But that does not make it ethical for me to claim historical evidence where I lack that.
Some skeptics complain that my experience of the Spirit and Christian commitments will bias me; of course, I would argue that skeptical approaches can bias skeptics. When we discuss together, we have to do so based on the data in front of us. It is not ethical to make up historical data. At the same time, some other people complain that I should, but do not, defend every detail of Scripture in my academic works. Historical method does not allow us to defend (or dispute) every detail. But I am a Jesus-follower, who does accept the Scripture he accepted and the message and agents that he commissioned. I do trust the Spirit, the Spirit that I experience. So I do believe far more than what I defend historically (and seek to defend historically less than I personally believe). It is a question of appropriate genre and the epistemologies accepted in those genres.
Church government, contemporary apostles, etc. (27 minutes)
Interview regarding church government, contemporary apostles, etc.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVqGF5RpyDk&t=5s
Spanish subtitles provided. I apologize that my lips and sound don’t sync too well. (Shall I pretend that I was practicing ventriloquism??)
Cessationism interview (35 minutes)
The interviewers, Luis and José, continue the interview. They asked me about Calvinism, cessationism, and “Strange Fire.” THIS part of the interview is more about the epistemic possibility of miracles (i.e., responding to those who deny biblical miracles by fiat). (In response to the Calvinism question, I pointed out that only one stream of Calvinism is cessationist; e.g., John Piper is not …)
False prophets
Lamenting that some people are taken in by false prophets, teachers, etc. Christ’s REAL servants sacrificially serve others and seek Christ’s honor. Those who seek the honor for themselves are liable to become false prophets, teachers, etc. The video is 8 minutes and 41 seconds.
Spiritual Gifts in 1 Cor 12—14 (part 1)
Some kinds of church bodies accept only particular kinds of gifts, hence amputate certain kinds of members. Some other kinds of churches pile together the amputated members and celebrate that they are an ideal body. Yet ideally, a body that is whole welcomes all its members.
Some value teaching but disregard prophecy (but 1 Thess 5:20!); some exalt tongues but resent teaching; and so forth. We need to appreciate all the gifts. By definition, gifts given by God’s grace are good. We just need to make sure that we use them in the right ways!
Purpose of gifts: Build up Christ’s body (1 Cor 12)
We should therefore keep in mind the purpose of gifts: to build up Christ’s body. God gives us gifts especially to minister to others. If we use them to boast of our superiority we abuse them. We dare not despise others’ gifts, no matter how small they seem. Nor dare we minimize the value of our own gifts.
In explaining this point, Paul waxes eloquent. Many Corinthian Christians unimpressed with Paul’s rhetoric, so he uses here the rhetorical technique called anaphora: three times he repeats but varies the same sort of expression: “varieties of … but the same” (12:4-6). Then he offers his thesis in 12:7: “But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (NASB). Then he again uses rhetorical repetition, linking diverse gifts with the phrase, “to another …” (12:8-10, varying the Greek terms for “another”). In 12:11, he returns to “the same Spirit,” as in 12:4, bracketing the entire section.
Then he elaborates on the point that the body works as one yet has many members (12:12, 14, 20, 27). He dwells on this point at length; dwelling-on-a-point was an approach that orators used when they wanted to reinforce a matter. Paul takes his body metaphor to grotesquely graphic lengths: we don’t want our eye or foot declaring independence from body! Today we might even think of tissues that become harmful to the rest of the body, as in the case of cancers or gangrene (cf. 2 Tim 2:17). God forbid that any of us should become gangrene to the rest of the body of Christ! We should use our gifts to serve the rest of the body, and also recognize that we ourselves need the rest of the body and its gifts.
We don’t routinely amputate members of our body because we think some less important than the others. We don’t tear out some members because we think, “That one’s dispensable! Oh, here, I’ve got two eyeballs, let me get rid of one!” We don’t normally regard any of our members as dispensable, because all of them have functions that contribute to the whole. Indeed, Paul says, we work harder to protect weaker members and to clothe the less public members (12:22-26).
Paul goes on to note gift-roles in 12:28-30. Of these, he ranks only the first three: apostles, prophets, and teachers. (Those of us who are teachers can let out a big cheer now!) The others are unranked, although Paul probably lists tongues last because of its abuse in Corinth (1 Cor 14).
The way of love (1 Cor 13)
1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14 are about spiritual gifts, and it’s no coincidence that 1 Corinthians 13 lies right between them. (Those of you who are good with math may have already noticed this pattern.) 1 Corinthians 13 is no mere abstract treatise on love, despite Paul’s use of epideictic rhetoric here to praise the character of love. 1 Corinthians 13 is showing why love is central in the proper use of spiritual gifts.
We should note the verses that frame Paul’s elaboration about love: 1 Cor 12:31 and 1 Cor 14:1. These verses are explicit that we can seek for spiritual gifts; it is not simply a matter of what we are born or born again recognizing, but we can pray for God to give us particular gifts (1 Cor 12:31; 1 Cor 14:1, 39). (God is, of course, sovereign in which ones he gives us, knowing what is best for the body as a whole; 12:7.) But Paul is also clear which gifts we should particularly seek. Love seeks the best gifts—best being defined by love as those gifts that build up the body.
Paul demonstrates that, without love, use of gifts is worthless. Gifts are valuable but we abuse them if we do not deploy them to serve and love. In 1 Cor 13:1-3, Paul declares that love greater than all God’s gifts to us; in modern terms, love rather than unmerited gifts is a sign of “spirituality.” (Even if love, too, is a fruit of God working within us; Gal 5:22; 1 John 4:19.)
Paul uses hyperbole, or rhetorical overstatement, here, to reinforce his point graphically. Even if I spoke in all tongues, communicating in all languages, I would be nothing without love! (Most Anglo Americans speak just one language. Most of my African friends speak three or four. But even if we spoke all languages …) Having all knowledge—a status that not even the world’s greatest scholars dare claim—and all faith so as to move mountains (a hyperbole borrowed from Jesus), would not grant us status before God. Even if we work hard to develop these gifts, these skills are gifts, not merits, and they are worthless without love.
The point, of course, is not that God’s gifts are bad. God’s gifts are by definition good. But if we use them only to honor ourselves and not to build up Christ’s body, if we deploy them selfishly rather than to serve lovingly, we miss the point for which God gave us the gifts. He gives us gifts so we can participate together as Christ’s body in building one another up, in being agents of God for one another.
In 1 Cor 13:4-7, Paul describes what love is like. Sometimes we think that Paul is merely praising love. He is praising love, but he is also implicitly reproving the Corinthians. Love is not jealous (zêloi; 13:4)—but the Corinthians are (3:3). Love is not arrogant (phusioô; 13:4)—but the Corinthians are (4:6, 18-19; 5:2). Love does not seek for oneself (ou zêtei ta heautês; 13:5); in 10:24 Paul exhorts the Corinthians to seek not for oneself but for others (i.e., not one’s rights but preventing others from stumbling).
Paul again waxes eloquent with rhetorical patterning in 13:7: four times he begins with panta (“all things”). Love, he declares, puts up with all things (13:7a). This evokes Paul’s earlier example of himself in 9:12: he puts up with all things (using the same term, stegô) to prevent others from stumbling.
(Continued in part 2)