Caught, Not Taught

Title: Four miniatures of the life of Christ from a gospel book of 1311 (Presentation, Baptism, Transfiguration, Entry into Jerusalem) Artist: T'oros the Deacon (Armenian, act. late 13th–early 14th century)

What I’ve Learned About the Holy Spirit in Different Contexts

I admit here that my pneumatology (or understanding of the Holy Spirit) is rather unclear. I’ve read devotional books and studied him in systematic theology classes. According to the Nicene creed, he “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” According to Jesus, he is given to us “to guide us into all truth” and to “convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment” (John 16). Paul tells us that “where [he] is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3). I also understand him to be a major player throughout the Old Testament as the one who hovered over the chaos before creation, and the one who fills judges, warriors, prophets, and kings to complete the tasks given and speak the words of God.

Then there are the less formal analogies offered. I have been told that the Holy Spirit is the “power source” for the Christian life, the one I must “plug in to” in order to live triumphantly. Others have explained that he is the chocolate syrup poured into the bottom of my glass of milk. To be fully influenced by him in my life, I have to “stir” him up so that my life (milk) is fully permeated, nice and “chocolatey” all the way through.

While I’ve been taught quite a bit about him, what I “caught” is far more telling. In the Southern Baptist world, I understood him as the interrupter of all of our plans. He was the one that would tell a person, in the middle of a sermon, to say something completely different. He also “changed” worship song selections on the spot, or stretched out praise choruses well past the allotted time to give people the time they needed to respond to an altar call.  Per a story circulating among youth groups, he once told a girl driving somewhere to pull into a gas station, go inside, and stand on her head. Apparently, this was in answer to a statement the clerk made, that he would not believe unless someone came in and stood on their head right then and there. The Spirit was working behind the scenes, and didn’t tell either the girl or the clerk about the other. The girl’s outlandish obedience led to the salvation of the clerk. But heaven forbid we go so far as those Pentecostals. The Holy Spirit led them to do all kinds of odd things like laugh, speak in tongues, convulse, and even commit the grave sin of dancing. Surely that must not be his work! We spoke of them as examples of things that went too far. We like our spontaneous emotional movements, but within reasonable bounds.

Here, I found myself fearful of him. I never knew what he might lead me to do and if it really was him who was speaking. 

Then, I moved into the Reformed world. I “caught” that he was “the one of whom we do not speak.” If we did, it was in rather hushed tones. It seemed the Spirit’s main purpose was to help us understand truth as we sat with all of our bible translations and commentaries. He seemed to lurk around the edges of our efforts, waiting as a last resort when our understanding or attempts at righteousness failed. We were deeply suspicious of anything “Spirit-led.” He does not interrupt the carefully planned and executed public worship gatherings. If that happens, then we can be assured it is not him. And we especially didn’t speak about those Pentecostals. We didn’t have to. It was clear they didn’t really know him. 

Here, I didn’t know whether I should say his name unless I read it out loud in a bible verse.

Then I entered the Anglican stream. Everyone spoke of him as if he were always with us. His presence and work were just, well, normal. I have been encouraged to trust him to lead me, to look for his work in the everyday, in natural life situations. I am to tune my “inner ear” to hear him as I pray the daily office and read the appointed scripture. His speaking and leading are inherently expected and only supernatural as far as it is the leading of God and not just "circumstantial." His leading is deeply personal and we encounter him through introspection and meditation. The Anglican world seems to have personalized him, which I think is important because he is a person. Pentecostals? No problem! Why wouldn’t the Spirit do whatever he wants to do?

Here, I have caught that if the Spirit seems to lead contrary to what scripture seems to say, I can disregard scripture, or have to figure out ways to get scripture to conform to my inner experience.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this post is not an attempt to offer a pneumatology. It’s an invitation to think about the things all of us have caught apart from what we have been explicitly taught. It’s interesting to pay attention not only to what others teach, but how they talk about the tenets of faith in more casual conversations. 

What have we “caught” about sin? Salvation? Scripture? Church? What are the underlying assumptions that reveal themselves in how we talk, not only what we say?

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Two things have been helpful for me to remember as I traverse these different pneumatological perspectives. The first occurred in the Reformed world. As I confessed my fear of the Holy Spirit, I was reminded, “Alex, the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. Are you afraid of Jesus?” I couldn’t help but smile at myself. No, I’m not afraid of him. Why should I fear the one he sent?

The second I learned from J. I. Packer’s book, Keep In Step With The Spirit. He says, “...the Spirit is here to glorify Christ and that his main and constant task is to mediate Jesus’ presence to us….” While I am not sure that this completely encapsulates his ministry, it provides a grounding point for me in this relationship I have with the Holy Spirit, who is indeed a person. I don’t have to get my teaching correct in order to draw near to him, but I can be open to questioning my assumptions. 

I think there are some truths in each of the theological “worlds” I found myself, and I would probably do well to listen to “those Pentecostals” as Packer himself suggested.