Holy Spirit

What is the Holy Spirit?

At first this sounds like an exceedingly simple question, but I think the Holy Spirit is possibly one of the most misunderstood parts of Christianity. The ‘fact’ part of this question is that the Holy Spirit is one part of the Trinity, that is, the Father (God), Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. This in itself is a hugely confusing concept, the three-in-one, and hundreds of analogies have been used to explain it, but the one I’ll go with for now is the three different states water can exist in; liquid, solid and gas. Each form has its distinctive characteristics, but are part of the same general substance - water. This analogy has its limitations, but the idea is that just as water can exist in different forms, so can God. And the Holy Spirit is one of the ‘states’ God exists in.

But beyond the basic facts of the Holy Spirit it seems to get a lot more mysterious. What exactly is the Holy Spirit other than a part of God? One of the things that stands out is the way we say the Holy Spirit and it rather than he or she. We wouldn’t talk about the Jesus, and so I think we often forget Holy Spirit is living, and He is on equal footing with God and Jesus, being a part of one and the same Being.

Jesus gave a very clear picture of who the Spirit is in John 14:15-16, “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him for He lives with you and will be in you”. Jesus identified that it would be hard to know the nature of the Spirit, but made it quite clear that it would be God’s presence in the world, and in us, after His ascension. But in addition to this, the Spirit existed before Jesus time as well, with the Old Testament giving many examples of the Spirit at work, and being active amongst Old Testament figures (see for example 2 Samuel 23:2).

What the Holy Spirit actually does is harder to put my finger on, but the way I see it is that it’s God’s living and active presence here on earth. So we may encounter the Spirit in worship or prayer, or we may have Him speak through us in certain situations. Any miracles or such things that come from God are performed through the power of the Holy Spirit, not our own strength. Also, spiritual gifts come from the Holy Spirit, and are called gifts of the Spirit by Paul (1 Corinthians 12). Jesus’ disciples provide a good example of what the Holy Spirit does. During Jesus’ life, they were nothing more than followers who understood little and were unable to do anything much, Jesus constantly chided them as people of “little faith”. After His ascension, they were given the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2), and were transformed into people of wisdom and understanding, who could perform miracles and healings in the name of Jesus, all through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s easy to be sceptical of this change, but the Bible quite clearly gives evidence that this was the case, and it wouldn’t be something they’d really want to write in unless it was true, as the image they’re given beforehand is pretty unflattering!

It’s hard to sort out just who does what when it comes to the Trinity, because in so many ways the three are inseparable, unsurprising seeing as they are all God. But in essence, I would say that the Holy Spirit is God’s supernatural presence here on earth now. Of course God is a part of this world, listening and watching over everything, not some distant entity, but the Spirit is the presence of God here and now. I’d probably liken it to God’s arm, reaching down into the world. His arm is the way in which He acts through the world, distinct from God as a whole, but still integrally part of Him.

Some Bible verses to check out on this topic: Luke 4:18-19; 1 Corinthians 2:10-14; Acts 10:46-48; Psalm 104:30; Genesis 1:2.

Prayer with purpose

What is the point of prayer? Doesn’t God already know our hearts?

For a while I’ve questioned just why we pray, because once you really start thinking about it, you realise that God already knows everything! Then why does Jesus tell us to pray, echoed by other New and Old Testament writers?

Essentially I think prayer is about communication. A core facet of the Christian faith is that God is active and interested in our lives, and wants us to share with Him in life, worship and prayer. I really don’t think it’s about us having to bring our concerns before God or else He won’t know them, or to earn God’s favour. God already knows our thoughts, and also what’s actually good for us. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk to Him. Think of it like any strong relationship. There may be no doubt about the love shared, but there’s still something special and meaningful in actually coming out and saying it face-to-face. Why not the same with God?

Prayer is also a two way street, something I think we forget a lot. It’s one thing to say “God, you know everything, thanks”, and quite another to talk to God about just what’s going on, what you want, and how you understand God to play a part. Just as it can be helpful talking to a friend in good times or bad to work through stuff, so can talking to God. And God speaks to us through prayer too, in various ways for different people.

Similarly, coming before God in prayer is humbling and respectful for us. We can’t simply assume God will provide for our needs, rather we need to come before God and present our requests before Him. I think this is really important, the idea that prayer is a way of showing respect. And that’s where praise comes in too. God doesn’t need our praises, but they are still incredibly important to Him. And we need them as a part of honouring our creator. God’s worthy of them, and thus it’s fitting that we give God our praises, whether He strictly needs them or not.

That’s why I think an empty prayer is next to useless. God looks for prayer with depth and integrity, something you honestly want to bring before Him. Romans 8:26 says “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express”. I think this captures really well what I think of prayer, realising that in the end it’s not the neatly crafted words we put together, but the way we bring the whole of ourselves before God, even when it’s beyond words.

Finally, God listens to prayers. He may not always agree with us, but He listens when we ask honestly for things, and is not oblivious to our wants and desires brought with an honest heart (that is, not with greed, but with love). He’s not above our own requests, and will listen to what we want too. His answer may be different to what we want, but God will always provide an answer, in His own time, and by His own wisdom, which is far greater than ours!

In a different aspect of prayer, that of praying for others, I think the same sorts of ideas apply, especially with God listening to what we ask when we pray. But also that in asking another person to pray for you it’s not about more ‘power’ in more people asking God for the same thing, but rather sharing our own concerns or issues with others around us in a Christian community.

So in considering why we actually pray, I don’t see it in any way to be ‘nagging’ God or letting God know things He doesn’t already, but being willing and open to talk with our God. In any real relationship with another being communication is a given, and God’s no different. I know I've put a lot of emphasis on us and our needs in prayer, and that's deliberate. While I know God values prayer and that it's important for Him too, I think its core importance does centre on us, and God's love for us. God may not need us to pray to Him, but we absolutely need it for our relationship with Him, and so it becomes essential to the Christian faith. As with any relationship, there are times when I can’t help but talk with God, and others when it’s a struggle. But for me, prayer is fundamental to my faith. If I don’t talk to my God, there’s a whole part of my faith missing. If we believe God is active in our lives and listens to us, why wouldn’t we pray? I think it’s only natural.

Some Bible verses to check out on this topic: Romans 8:26; James 5:13-18; Luke 5:15-16; Romans 15:30-33; Matthew 6:7-13.

News!

Hey there!

It's February, and that means I'm back to blogging! I've been busy over January putting together some of the harder topics, and hope to get some more done in the next few weeks.

I'd love some more questions though! Some of my best topics have come from questions from others - things I take for granted, but that warrant questioning deeply. Leave them as a comment here, or email them to me, gregornewton(at)gmail(dot)com

And in other news, today I commenced as youth worker at St Johns Uniting Church in Wahroonga. This is a huge step for me which will continue to put my faith to the test.

All the best for 2008, and I hope this blog continues to be inquisitive and thoughtful, in working through the toughest questions of the Christian faith.

Take care,

Gregor

No blogs in January

I’m taking a break! Partly because I’ll be away for some of January, and partly because I need some time to catch up and put together some much-researched topics, I won’t be posting any blogs in January. But come back on the 3^rd of February for regular weekly thoughtfulness once again.

If you think you’ll forget in that long, or would just like a reminder, or if you have some thoughts, questions or opinions, send me an email at gregornewton(at)gmail(dot)com

See below for this week's blog.

Take care and God bless,

Gregor

Why?

To finish off the year, I want to do something different. This week I simply reflect on why I believe in God. It’s probably something I should have done long ago, so you know where I come from in writing this blog. My faith isn’t a tradition passed down that I cling to for safety or comfort, it’s a dynamic and often troublesome fight to understand myself, the world, and what it all means. This isn’t a long story of my life, telling of how I grew up and so on, but a reflection on what convicts me about God today.

The thing that has the most impact on me is the nature of existence itself. When I spend a night looking up at the stars, musing at the existence of the universe in all its magnitude, and considering things like where it all came from, where it ends, how there can be nothingness beyond it, I can’t help but consider what must be behind it all. How else could everything work without some form of higher power? Concepts of infinity and endlessness are quite simply beyond understanding. It’s the same with the world around me – a creation full of such intricacies that there is no way I can believe they all just happened by chance, no matter how long the earth is meant to have existed. This isn’t discarding science, but saying that there’s more to it than mere chance. Naturally my words don’t do this justice, but you need only consider something like the human body or a fragile ecosystem to see how finely balanced and carefully interrelated everything is to see my point.

The idea of the supernatural is something that convicts me quite a bit too. Much as I’ll often try to argue away seeming miracles and the like, I can’t deny that there are myriad things in this universe that at least appear supernatural in nature, whether they’re coincidences way too huge to be believable, healings, hearing the voice of God or spirits, or events that are simply not possible. Like anyone, I will often try to ignore these, I think we all want to pretend that miracles or the supernatural don’t occur, even as Christians, but the more I see or hear (from authoritative sources) the less I can deny that there’s more to this universe than what can be explained without God.

The Bible is another pretty significant impact for me. Not just believing what it says, but in studying it as a history student I come to see that it is so much more reliable than just being an object of faith. I’ll be looking at some of this more another time in this blog, but the way it all holds together, the way prophesies play out, and the way theology holds true has me thoroughly convinced that it is reliable as a historical source as well as a religious document. Even in taking an objective stance, it still makes way too much sense for me to attribute to chance, despite the questions and troubles that arise at the same time. The Bible is one of the most confusing and disputed works known to man, but for all its seeming problems it has an awful lot that holds together and speaks to me of an authentic God.

And finally my own spiritual journey is pretty special to me. From encounters with God (in whatever sense), to the times I feel without God, to seeing the way God has shaped my life and everything in it, I know that God is with me. This is an area that can’t be explained verbally, and is something that can only be experienced, but it is a core part of why I follow God.

In the end, I don’t claim to be able to prove anything to you about the truth of Christianity. It’s not my goal, and it’s a personal decision we all need to look into ourselves. Here I have only just touched on some of the major things that amaze and convict me about this world. I simply look around me and there’s no way I can’t believe in some form of higher power, and the more I look into it, the more Christianity makes sense. Our understanding of God may not be perfect, and it has questions of its own, but for me a world without God has far more questions than a world with God. That’s why I believe in God, and that’s why I struggle through the questions in this blog, to try with honesty and integrity to understand the faith that shapes who I am and what I do. What I’ve written here is why I believe, and everything else I struggle through in this blog is trying to figure out how the rest of it fits together, testing my faith and leaving nothing untouched. If it’s what I believe in, it’s not good enough just to trust that it works, I have to figure it out for myself.

A chosen people?

Why were the Israelites God’s chosen people?

The Old Testament (pre-Jesus) of the Bible is full of stories and history of the Israelites (now the Jews), and centres on them being God’s chosen people. All the way through the Old Testament, different authors cite God’s specific choosing of them. But why were they the people of God, and not anyone else? And what does that mean of us today? Are the Jews still the only chosen people of God?

This is a challenging question, because the Bible speaks so clearly of the Israelites as God’s chosen people: “And who is like your people Israel – the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to create a name for himself” (2 Samuel 7:23).

When I think about it this does make sense though. The differences between denominations in recent times show that as imperfect people, even within the Church we fail to get things right and have conflict amongst the greater Christian community. Our understandings of God differ, generally in minor details, and these are the cause of disagreements and in some cases conflict.

If God had ‘chosen’ every nation and spoken directly to each nation as He did to the Israelites, then by now the world would have hundreds of different cultures claiming to know the exact nature of God. While they may all be generally right, the minor differences they have would almost certainly end up in conflict, with each claiming to be completely right. The conflicts between Christian denominations now, like Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, are bad enough, without completely isolated communities claiming to know exactly the same God in different ways, and are good evidence of the harm that could be caused if God acted the same way with all nations.

So the way I understand the chosen people of Israel is as an example set by God for the rest of the world. As cultures spread and people moved all around the world, so God spread with them. So in that way, God used his chosen people as the starting point for all people to know Him personally, eventuating in a world where all had the opportunity to know God, and from one source, rather than hundreds of cultural variants that would cause confusion and conflict today. And I think that’s what “create a name for myself” means – God showing Himself through the Israelites. It’s not some ego-related claim, but God saying this is where I’ll start to show my true self to the world.

Similarly, God doesn’t write off other people, but says “foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord, and to worship him… these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer” (Isaiah 56:6-7). The temple in Jerusalem had a special area for foreigners to worship, and clearly they were accepted, albeit in a different way, within the Jewish community. And as I looked at in “Faith for the unreached”, this doesn’t mean that people who have never heard of God by name can’t know Him or be granted eternal life.

In the New Testament, writers like Paul confirm this, by preaching to the Gentiles (the non-Jewish people) and accepting all who believe into the community of Christ. The chosen people of today include all races, nations and cultures, so we are all the chosen people of God.

So I guess in essence my way of understanding this question is quite simple – God had to start somewhere. In considering this, and how this doesn’t exclude non-Israelites from faith, I think I can be quite happy with why the Israelites were the chosen people then, understanding that as the word of God has spread, so all people are God’s chosen people.

As for why it was Israel and not, say, Australia? Well, I guess we can’t really know for certain, but it’s understandable, as they are one of the most ancient population centres, and were prevalent in the early historic world of Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman cultures. They lived in areas close to where written history began (and thus there are many written records of God), and existed around many of the major civilisations that we have records of today. Apart from that, I guess it’s just up to God. After all, why not start there?

Some Bible verses to check out on this topic: 2 Samuel 7:23; 1 Kings 8:41-43; Isaiah 56:3-8; John 10:14-16; Matthew 15:21-28.

God and War?

Why did God encourage the Israelites to fight their neighbours and take their land? How is that the actions of the loving and gracious God of Christianity?

I want to tackle the issue of one of the seeming differences between the Old and the New Testament, that of God encouraging the Israelites to go to war with their neighbours, to kill the people and to take their lands, frequently with God on their side. It’s a huge challenge to me to consider this, as it doesn’t seem to be the same sort of God we worship at first glance.

In really thinking about it, there’s no way I can dismiss war as ‘good’ or even ‘Godly’ so to speak, but I do see it as an important part of a big picture of Judaism and Christianity.

The Old Testament, and particularly the book of Joshua, tells of Israel conquering new lands, and killing the inhabitants in the process. One thing that sticks out for me in this is that it is clear that these countries were morally and ethically wrong. And by this I don’t mean pagan worship, though this was there too, but from what I’ve read (both in the Bible and elsewhere) they were nations that operated in the vein of Sodom and Gomorrah (see Genesis 19:12-13), countries rife with behaviour none of us would consider remotely acceptable by any standards. So although I still don’t like the concept of war in itself, the idea that God was reclaiming a land that was His anyway (as God and Creator) from a ‘sinful’ people and giving it to His people who lived by His moral standards, seems a lot more sound to me. And when the Israelites didn’t do the right things, and lived similarly bad lives, they had the land taken from them at God’s command, being overrun and enslaved by the Egyptians or Babylonians. Thus it went both ways.

Also, a lot of these accounts of war tell of the Israelites defending their own country. Just as we would not consider it ‘sinful’ or wrong to defend our own country, this isn’t such a difficult aspect of Old Testament warfare to comprehend.

The biggest thing that struck me though is that we consider this whole issue from the perspective of death being the end. But in terms of the rest of Christian theology, death is only a step on the journey. So when the Israelites killed their enemies, those who died moved on to the spiritual realm, and if they were living God’s way they moved on to heaven anyway. For those who died, they only moved on to the next stage of their lives more quickly than they would have otherwise. Of course there is likely to be pain and suffering for families, and I don’t pretend to make light of that factor, but when taken as a big picture the deaths of people, for whatever reason, become much less significant and wrong.

Of course this brings up one of the 10 Commandments from Exodus 20:13, which is “do not murder”, but from the original Hebrew it is clear this refers specifically to deliberate, premeditated murder, rather than all forms of killing. Obviously I’m not saying killing people is right, but that the absolute prohibition refers only to specific murder, and it does not preclude God from working in this way.

Another point that I think is important is the context of the Old Testament, when power was shown by military might, and this was an important part of a nation’s identity. The Israelites probably wouldn’t have listened to God very much if they remained oppressed and enslaved for their entire existence, as they would question where their God was. For God to work in these times, He also had to be a part of the times. I’m not saying that God changes His nature, but that He changes the way He works according to His purposes. Just as we change the way we act around different people, so God acts differently according to different needs. I think it's necessary to understand that in the militaristic Old Testament times someone was going to die, and it was simply a matter of who. These were times of conquest and warfare, and conflict was a given. It wasn't a question of whether there would be a war, but when, and who would win.

I think it’s also worth noting that Christianity isn’t all soft and cuddly, as is sometimes portrayed. When I really look into the Bible, I can see that Jesus was a hard man, overturning tables in the Synagogue, and saying “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). While He is described as a Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), and that is the ultimate aspiration of God and of Christians, Jesus recognised that war and conflict were an unfortunately necessary part of a world corrupted by sin and hatred. A parent may wish to have a home where love and peace rule, but at times strict discipline is necessary. That’s the best way I can describe the necessity of war at times. It’s undesirable, but necessary.

Having said this, many a war has been attributed to God in the past, and many leaders have claimed to lead a ‘holy war’, from the dark and distant past to only just recently. I don’t mean to justify these. Of course it’s always possible, but it’s also a good excuse for leaders of Christian nations to use to validate their actions.

Personally I hate war, and I’m quite sure God does too. But it doesn’t mean it’s not necessary sometimes and for good reasons. I would much rather peace, and will fight for it (excuse the pun), but I’m pretty sure God can have a good reason for fighting wars too.

Some Bible verses to check out on this topic: Joshua (all); Isaiah 9:2-7; Matthew 21:12-13.