Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—? Gal 3
It seems as though the apostles recognized the Spirit’s movement, affirmed the fruit, and pastorally addressed the people.
It was not that Paul wrote 1 Cor to primarily teach them about the ways of the Spirit, but to do so in response to what was already happening among them.
Even in Acts the running argument of the faith community was that “if the Spirit has poured himself out onto the communit of the Gentiles, what’s stopping us from accepting and baptizing them into the family of God?”
Throughout the N.T. there is a slight tension of the Spirit being a step ahead and then the leaders of the church praying and affirming and pastoring people in the midst of their experience.
Not to say that there wasn’t any concrete teaching on the person of the Spirit. There is, and we see Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John all doing that.
Disclaimer: My point here is not to argue for a teaching of the person of the Spirit, which is fundamental to everything Christian. Please hear everything I am saying in light of that.
The challenge that arises to us is to be able to hold the foundation of Scripture and yet be able to see beyond(beyond the experience of the NT, but not beyond the theological restraints of Scripture), and pastor people through the move of the Spirit in their lives.
It was Paul’s argument(1 Cor.10:11, 12:13) that it was the activity of the Spirit in our midst that showed us to be an eschtological community in the here and now. A forestaste of what’s to come. This is done, and seen, by not only what is popularly known as the “charismatic” gifts, but also seen primarily through the fruit of the Spirit(Gal 4).
Gifts of grace: Charisma, the word used for gifts in the NT means gift of grace. The gifts of the Spirit are His grace to us.
Here are a few ways I believe we can encourage and model for people in our community how to practically apply and pursure the gifts of the Spirit.
-Express and proclaim a robust theology of the gifts of the Spirit. Sam Storms, in his book, “Spiritual Journeys of a Charismatic Calvinist”,made a good point when he said, that some churches are “continuationist(gifts continued to present) in theology, but cessasionist(gifts ceased after early church) in practice.” The question then becomes how do we speak about the person of the Spirit and His gifts? Through vocal appreciation and embracing of the gifts of the Spirit, people would sense an atmosphere of openness to step out and practice the gifts of grace.
-Affirm and acknowledge when we see gifts being practiced. A lof of people in our community are exercising the gifts of the Spirit, and we should acknowledge and affirm when we see a gifting. Not only does this encourage the individual, but it also is an act of gratitude to the Spirit who is supplying the gift itself.
-Teach: In 2 of Paul’s longest letters(Romans and 1 Cor) he taught and instructed on the gifts of the Spirit(Rom 12, 1 Cor 12-14). We need to do pracitcal teaching on the gifts and pastor people through them. A rock solid foundation of the person of the Spirit pushes people to know Him, and love Him.
-Eximplify: We ourselves as leaders should ask for and pursue ,as Paul says in 1 Cor 14, to exercise the gifts ourselves. Here, there is a danger, to have unrealisitic and ungodly expectaions over ourselves, that since we are leaders in the church, we should operate in all of the gifts, and if we don’t, de-legitimize those gifts, only because we’ve never practiced them.
We must remember that the Spirit is sovereign, and Paul says He distributes gifts as he wills. Really important to remember this.
Finally, we want to understand that in all of these things, the goal is three fold:
1) the edification of the body(1 Cor 12/14)
2)the prophetic witness of the church in our culture and cities(the whole of 1 Cor).
3)the glory and name of Christ
How do you pastor yourself, and others to embrace the mystery of the person of the Spirit?
How do you practically teach others about the gifts, the person, and the corporate response to the Holy Spirit?