Need everywhere

My job allows me to travel quite a bit. I was traveling last weekend through a very interesting region. It is the southern region of a presently volatile country, there is a lot of internal squabbling going on right now, though it has yet to turn widely violent. I was driving down the road, headed to a very rural area to attend a church where the pastor recently has come under persecution for its orthodox beliefs by local religious authorities.
Along the rural, agricultural farmland the winding road took me by several fertilizer polluted holding ponds. Many of the local residents, wearing old clothes and looking quite haggard, were trying to catch fish out of those ponds. Poor housing, some in ruins with clothes still hanging out in the weather, dotted the landscape. In the cemeteries, many graves were adorned with the flags of the last rebel seperatist group to claim the area, still holding loyalty to that group rather than the present government. The area has been under intense drought over the past decade, worsening year by year, and many farmers have been driven out of business by bad weather, and government intervention. There are a lot of places in this world that need the Gospel.

The Holy Spirit, Ch 3

In Luke's view of the coming of the Spirit, we see it arriving in broad daylight with a crowd of people looking on. The Spirit enables miraculous gifts to be used to evangelize these crowds who are from different locations of the Mediterranean. The power of the Spirit is shown as Peter preaches and the crowd is convicted, and 3000 are added to the Christian community in a day. The ushering in of a new era is accompanied by the sound of a rushing wind, tongues of fire, and the Spirit comes down as they are all together praying. This coming of the Spirit is seen to pass on the Messianic empowering onto the believing community.
In John, we see a different event altogether when he breathes on the disciples and says, "Receive the Spirit". John's Gospel seems to be speaking of an indwelling sense of the Spirit purchased by Christ's death. Jesus may breathe on the disciples paralleling God breathing the first breath of life into Adam. It may emphasize us being in union with Christ in life now through faith rather than in union with the world.

Luke emphasizes a functional and ministerial aspect of the Spirit's coming, John focuses on the inner and relational function of the Spirit. Luke can be seen as the horizontal, and radical effect of the Holy Spirit on ministry as John gives us the vertical view of access and union with Christ through the Spirit that leads to this ministry.

The Holy Spirit, Ch 2

The Holy Spirit can be called "the Spirit of Christ". We see that Holy Spirit was involved from before the cradle until after the grave in Jesus' life. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, much like the Spirit hovered over the waters in creation, and Jesus was conceived. The sanctifying effect of this is deep yet summed up in this: Jesus was fully man from His birth by a human mother, yet his origins are holy and undefiled by the conception.
Second, the Spirit empowered Jesus at His baptism and drove Him into the wilderness to be tempted. By the Spirit His ministry was one of power and authority. The Spirit that had forged the created order was redeeming it in the Person of Christ. Jesus offered Himself up in the Spirit on the cross as Hebrews tells. The Spirit also "declared" Jesus to be the Son of God in His resurrection from the dead via Romans 1:4. At all points, Jesus was empowered by the Spirit in all aspects of His mission. Now He has ascended, the Spirit testifies concerning Him and empowers His servants to speak the gospel by the Spirit to a lost world.
At all points it is the Spirit of Christ. God is three, and the three are one. This unity within diversity is clearly seen and understood by this interrelation of Christ and the Spirit in His life and ministry and resurrection.

Book Review, The Holy Spirit, Ch 1

I am having to re-read Sinclair Ferguson's "The Holy Spirit" for an upcoming seminary course, so I'm going to condense each chapter into a small review in order to help myself remember it, and be able to refer to it later for the class.

Chapter 1 deals with the Holy Spirit and His history in the ongoing process of biblical revelation. The Spirit is present from creation in revelation, and frequents the OT by empowering prophets, and judges, and working in situations to cause God's intended ends. But in the OT we don't find a strong and distinct "other person" aspect of the Spirit. Many have thought as to whether or not the Spirit could be distinctly a person, or merely a quality of God (i.e. the arm of the Lord).

Since "ruach", the Hebrew word for wind or spirit has at its basis an animation or energy, it is considerably vague as to whether this is mere action of God, or personality at times. There are hints in the OT as to the belief that the Spirit has a "hypostasis", or being, apart from the Father. David prays for God to not take His Spirit away, and speaks of it in a personal, relational sense. While it is vague at times, the OT does speak of God's Spirit in a way associating divine activity, personal activity, and hypostatically distinct (less though). The NT, however, fully articulates all three persons of the Trinity. The Spirit, the Son, and even the Father (John 1:18) are not fully revealed until the revelation of Christ.

So the Spirit is, from the OT, associated with the Divine covenant redemption of God to His people. In the NT the Spirit is revealed distinctly as a person, yet is still as fully integrated in God's covenant of redemption as before.

A blast from the past

Ah my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost Love, yet strike
Cast down, yet help afford
Sure I will do the like

I will complain, yet praise
I will bewail, approve
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament, and love

George Herbert "Bittersweet" 1633

All joy...

James 1:2-6 has taken on a special significance for me in the past few months. I find myself coming back to the verse again and again as my view of circumstances changes. Like a buoy cut loose on the rough sea, I find myself driven again and again into the rocks by certain moods and emotions. As the cliff faces cut at me and lacerate all workings of grace, I have to remember "Count is all joy when you fall into various trials". The greek verb "count" (hegesasthe) means to do some mental work in your view....adjust your perception of the situation. Trick yourself? No...just see "trials" in light of verse 4. Trials are working patience, so that you may be complete. Now if you value your peace more than your spiritual maturity, this will not be good news. But after you've fought that battle you are ready to move to verse 5...ask for wisdom to see the trial in this way, and don't doubt that God can give it. If you doubt, you will continue to see the trial as against your faith, and not for your faith...so do not doubt...don't be tossed about.

We know biblical wisdom is not man's wisdom. Man would not say to count trials as a joy. We don't value trials, nor patience, nor completeness.