Discover life according to Jesus in 321. It’s an online course designed to help you think about God, the world and you. Here’s another useful approach to understanding and sharing the mission of Jesus Articles – Speak Life https://321.speaklife.org.uk/course/321
If you were to ask Vincent Van Gogh about his life story, you would either get a complex answer or a picture like ‘The Starry Night’. He was the son of a pastor and wanted to become a minister but his complicated road led him instead to serve God through artistic expression, as he said: ‘to try to understand the real significance of what the great artists, the serious masters, tell us in their masterpieces, that leads to God.
Jesus promised he would send The Holy Spirit to bless, comfort, guide, teach and empower his followers by pouring out abundant spiritual gifts upon us. Why has there been so much division among Christians around this blessing over the years? The problem surely cannot be that of the Holy Spirit so it must point to errors in our understanding, belief or experience. What has been your experience and expectations? Some think he is a force rather than the third person of the Trinity. Then there are ‘Cessasionists’ like John Calvin who believed that spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy and healing ceased with the Apostolic Age. By contrast, John Piper would be an example of a ‘Continuationist’ believing that those gifts and others are for the church today. Christians have fallen out with each other over these things, churches have divided and denominations have been formed. Does the Holy Spirit belong to a bygone era or is he present and active today? Does it matter?
