What the "Assembly" is "About in the Psalms: Special Attention to Ps 95

In Scripture a Spiritually minded worshiper comes to the assembly (i.e. gathering) of the People of God desiring five things:

1) The worshiper desires to come into the Presence of God (cf. 27.4,8; 42.1-2; 63.1;

  73.25)

2) The worshiper desires to experience the forgiveness of God (32.1-5; 51.10-12; Isa. 6.1-7)

3) The worshiper desires to give God a gift (Deut. 16.16; Ps. 69.30-31; 107.21-22; Heb. 13.15)

4) The worshiper desires to promise God something (Ps. 116; 119.57-64)

5) The worshiper desires to edify fellow worshippers and to be edified him/herself (Ps. 22.25; Heb. 

    3.12-13; 10.25)

From Psalm 95 we learn a way of structuring the assembly/gathering.  This structure helps to highlight the themes listed above:

1) Invitation/Call to Worship (Ps. 95.1)

Here “we” invite others to join in the worship of God. This is not responding to the Gospel but responding to the mandate to worship God.  This begins the gathering/assembly.  Songs like “O Come Let Us Adore Him”; “We Bring the Sacrifice of Praise;” and “O Worship the King” fall could be used in this section of worship.

2) Engagement (Ps. 95.1b-2)

             

Here the service turns from calling others to worship to focusing upon God himself. This phase of the gathering contain songs about God.  His greatness, grace, love, etc, are themes for this phase.  Songs like “Awesome God”; “Thank You, Lord”; “Our God He is Alive” contribute to this theme.

3) Exaltation (Ps. 95.3)

             

This is similar to #2 but nuances it by “placing” God on the throne.  In this movement we are in essence proclaiming God’s Lordship.  Songs like “Majesty”; “Mighty Is Our God;” “We Exalt Thee”; “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.”

4) Adoration (Ps. 95.6)          

            

 Adoration is generally quieter, slower, reflectiveor meditative.  Songs that could contribute to this movement are almost exclusively in the first person addressing God directly with “I” or “we.” “On Bended Knee”; “We Bow Down”; “Christ, We do All Adore Thee.”

5) Intimacy (Ps. 95.7b)

            

 Here we express our love for, our longing to do God’s will and our desire to be with him.  Songs like “Abide with Me”; “I Want to be Where You Are”; “As the Deer”; “I Need Thee Every Hour.”

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Barton W. Stone & the Debate Culture

I grew up in a "debating culture" or perhaps it was a "sub-culture."  If the minister did not like what was going on a mile down the road then a public challenge was issued.  At times this was done through the local paper.  I recall debates on various aspects of the Holy Spirit (indwelling to tongues), orphan homes, real wine on the table (but never what kind of bread!! but I will never forget the statement 'can we have meat and potatoes on the Lord's table?'), what version you can use and the like.   I vividly recall a debate between a Nazarene minister and a minister from the Churches of Christ about "who" was the real church.  I know I will get abused for saying this . . . but I ALMOST became a Nazarene that day purely on the basis of the spirit demonstrated that day.  It was not a pretty sight!

I must say that I am not opposed to debates on philosophical grounds.  Yet, I am very resistant to engage in them because I find them often to be places where the sinful nature is fed . . . perhaps it exposes my own weaknesses.

From my reading of the NT Paul never engaged in anything like what I have been exposed to . . . discussion is not necessarily debate.  Barton W. Stone, a man of great passion and conviction, expressed (in 1842) near the end of his life what he thought debates had done to our Movement and what they continue to do to Christianity.  This was important to Stone and shared his concerns in his advice to young preachers, near the end of his life.  Reflect on his words and see if they do not "ring" with truth:

"It is a common saying among the preachers of this day, "Old men for counsel young men for war."  This is often advanced in justification of the public debates . . .  Do they [i.e. old men] counel you to engage in such debates? . . .  I will fearlessly answer, that no old man of piety, and intelligence, will give such advice, unless in an extraordinary case. For they know by long experience that such debates tend to strife, deaden piety -- destroy the spirit of prayer -- puff up the vain mind, annihilate the tast of the marrow, and fatness of the living word, and destroy the comforts of true, heavenly religion."

In Stone's view, few men had enough Christianity rooted deep in their souls to engage in religious debates.  He observes a fact that I find to be a truism (at least in my own experience):

"Seldom do we see in the same person, a warrior and a humble devoted christian.  Rara avis in terra. Such acquire a controverial habit and temper . . .

Then Stone address the opinion that the Apostles gave us a positive example in this manner:

"I know it is said in justification of such debates that Paul disputed in the synagogue at Athens, the School of Tyrannus, with the Jews and others.  Read the verse correctly, and the force of the objection is removed -- He reasoned or dialogued with them.  This should be the constant practice of every faithful minister of Christ.  Would to God, it were the practice of all our young preachers, to reason out of the scriptures on the important things of the gospel!

"But 'young men of war.' What war? not against flesh and blood, . . . but against the powers of sin and hell, with spiritual weapons afforded to us from above -- not against men, but against their sins . . ."

(Barton W. Stone, "To Young Preachers," Christian Messenger 12 [August 1842], pp. 316-317).

I may be wrong (wouldn't be the first time) but I think Brother Stone was on to something here.  I agree that debates tend to strife, deaden piety -- destroy the spirit of prayer -- puff up the vain mind. How many debates do we see on the necessity of prayer? What could be closer to the Christian walk. I have had challenges to public debate and when I asked the challenger to pray with me they refused.  Do they appeal to the carnal nature: lust for victory, the thrill of defeating the foe . . . Just my opinion.  But we can "reason" together like saints and people filled with the Fruit of the Spirit and the the spirit of war.

Shalom,

Bobby Valentine

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The Messianic Age is the Age of the Holy Spirit: Fourteen Spirit Saturated Themes of the Christian Life

Quotable Quote

Does the Holy Spirit do anything now except what the Word does? Do we get help, any kind or in any way, from God except what we get by studying the Bible? ... Does God answer our prayers by saying, 'Study the Bible?" - James A. Harding (1902)

I am continually amazed at the number of "baptized" believers who are as yet unconvinced that God's Holy Spirit dwells within them and among God's people.  I am continually amazed at the number of "baptized" believers who argue that God's Holy Spirit does not actually do anything in this world except through the "written word" ... i.e. the Bible.  These disciples speak of the sufficiency of the word yet I wonder if what they do when the word points to the sufficiency and power of God's Holy Spirit? The Bible is not a person within the Trinity.

Fourteen Spirit themes in the Messianic Age

According to the Word there are many activities of the Christian and the Gathered People that are empowered by the Holy Spirit himself - the third person of the Trinity.  It is quite clear in any reading of the Scriptures that believers actually need the Holy Spirit in and among them. 

1) Baptism. "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body" (1 Cor 12.13).  "He saved us ... through the water of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3.5).  The Holy Spirit is the active agent in our baptism.  The Holy Spirit is the one who imparts the new life of Christ to us.  It is the Holy Spirit who becomes the bond uniting the baptized with Christ and with other Christians.  Baptism is the work of God's Spirit.

2) Sanctification. "You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor 6.11).  As the Holy Spirit, his work is to make us holy, to sanctify us (2 Thess 2.13; 1 Pet 1.2). What the Holy Spirit begins in his work in baptism is carried on by the Holy Spirit throughout our lives.

3) Christian Growth. "By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control ..." (Gal 5.22). The fruit of the Christian life are the product of the Holy Spirit.

4) Love. "[B]ecause God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Rom 5.5; cf. Gal 5.22).  The Holy Spirit is agent of bringing love to humans. The Spirit is the Spirit of God (Rom 8.9) and God is love (1 Jn 4.16), therefore there is a close connection to be expected between the Holy Spirit and love. Love is the acid test of discipleship and the greatest of all Spiritual gifts (1 Cor 13.13).  Where the Holy Spirit is ... there is love.

5) Joy. "in spite of persecution you received the the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit" (1 Thes 1.6).  The Holy Spirit "inspires" or yields "fruit" in the lives of God's children.  Joy, along with love, is a "mark" of the kingdom of God (Rom 14.17).

6) Morality.  The Holy Spirit is the basis of Christian ethical conduct (1 Cor 6.9-20; Rom 8.1-7)

7) Service & Obedience to God. "we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit" (Rom 7.6). All Christian service is done in the Holy Spirit and is made possible by that same Spirit.

8) Worship.  Christian worship is done by and in the Holy Spirit (Jn 4.23-24). Paul declares we "worship by the Spirit of God" (Phil 3.3). We offer "Spiritual sacrifices" to God (1 Pt 2.5) and specific "acts" are even offered "in the Spirit" or "with the Spirit" (1 Cor 14.15; on singing Eph 5.18-19).

9) Prayer. Prayer is offered to God "in the Spirit" (Eph 6.18; Jude 20).  This is not praying "in the New Testament." The presence of the Holy Spirit makes possible the tender address to the Creator God, "Abba, Father" (Gal 4.6).  And the Holy Spirit intercedes when "we do not know how to pray as we ought" (Rom 8.26).

10) Preaching. In one of the few places where the words "Spirit," "word" and "only" come together in the Bible it does not say the Spirit words only through the word - just the opposite! "because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit ..." (1 Thes 1.5). The Holy Spirit inspired the prophets (1 Pt 1.11) and the Gospel that is his sword (Eph 6.17).

11) Leadership and Ministry. The Holy Spirit qualifies and calls persons for leadership in the NT (Acts 20.28; 1 Cor 12.4, 28).

12) Guarding the Truth.  The indwelling Holy Spirit makes possible the defense of the apostolic teaching. "Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you - guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in you" (NIV).

13) Endurance of Suffering. It is by the Holy Spirit that Christians are able to meed persecution and suffering (1 Pt 4.14).

The Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts

 The brief survey above demonstrates just how significant the Holy Spirit is in the age of the Messiah.  We live in the Age of the Spirit. I want to further demonstrate how "active" the Holy Spirit is in the life of the church by listing every occurrence of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts.  Sometimes Luke's second book is called "The Acts of the Apostles" but most scholars suggest that it is more properly titled "The Acts of the Holy Spirit."  Surely they are not far from the mark. Please note just how often the Spirit is designated the agent, the doer, the mover, the originator, etc ... and how often this is "beyond the sacred page."

Acts
1.2 "instructions through the Holy Spirit"
1.5 "baptized with/in the Holy Spirit"
1.8 "the Holy Spirit comes on you"
1.16 "which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago"
2.4 "filled with the Holy Spirit ... as the Holy Spirit enabled them"
2.17 "I will pour my Spirit on all people"
2.18 "pour out my Spirit"
2.33 "received from the Father the gift of the Holy Spirit"
2.38 "received the gift of the Holy Spirit"
4.8 "Peter filled with the Holy Spirit"
4.25 "spoke by the Holy Spirit"
4.31 "filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God"
5.3 "lied to the Holy Spirit"
5.9 "test the Spirit of the Lord"
6.3 "chose seven ... full of the Spirit and wisdom"
6.5 "full of faith and the Holy Spirit"
6.10 "the Spirit by whom he spoke"
7.51 "you resist the Holy Spirit"
7.55 "Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit"
8.15 "that they might receive the Holy Spirit"
8.16 "because of the Holy Spirit"
8.17 "they received the Holy Spirit"
8.18 "the Spirit was given ... "
8.19 "they recieved the Holy Spirit"
8.29 "the Spirit told Philip, Go ... "
8.39 "the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip"
9.17 "filled with the Holy Spirit"
9.31 "strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit"
10.19 "the Spirit said to him, Simon ..."
10.38 "God anointed Jesus ... with the Holy Spirit and power"
10.44 "Holy Spirit came on all who heard"
10.45 "gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out"
10.47 "received the Holy Spirit as we have"
11.12 "the Spirit told me to have no hesitation"
11.15 "the Holy Spirit came on them as he had on us"
11.16 "baptized with the Holy Spirit"
11.24 "He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit"
11.28 "Agabus stood up and predicted through the Spirit that a severe famine would spread"
13.2 "the Holy Spirit said, 'set apart for me ..."
13.4 "sent on their way by the Holy Spirit"
13.9 "Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit"
13.52 "the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit"
15.8 "he accepted them by giving them the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us"
15.28 "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us ..."
16.6 "having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word"
16.7 "the Spirit of Jesus would not allow it"
19.2 "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?"
19.6 "the Holy Spirit came on them"
20.22 "compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem"
20.23 "in every city the Holy Spirit warns me"
20.28 "which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers"
21.4 "through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go"
21.11 "The Holy Spirit says"
28.25 "the Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers"

 Conclusion(s)

I sandwiched the book of Acts between the thirteenth and fourteenth theme.  I did this because we sometimes simply need to be overwhelmed by the testimony of the written word about the Spirit of God in our lives. To testify too, to say what Acts actually says is not an attack on the written word of God - it is simply to believe that word! I suggest that the reverse is actually an attack upon the apostolic word.  The question in scripture is not can the Holy Spirit work "separate and apart from the word!" That is not the biblical question at all.  The question is "does the word word separate from the Holy Spirit?" The difference is massive!  So on to number 14 ...

14) Spiritual Power. The above themes may be summarized up in the thought that the Holy Spirit is the source of Spiritual strength for living the Christian life - the power to see it through (Eph 3.16,17). All these represent but the "first fruits" of the Spirit (Rom 8.23), for the power of the Spirit will result ultimately in the resurrection of our mortal bodies in the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8.1). In the final analysis it is the Holy Spirit living in us that marks us as a Christian for without the Holy Spirit we cannot be God's (Rom 8.9). The great James A. Harding with whom we began this post has words of wisdom that state succinctly the truth on this matter ...

"Scripture does not teach that the Bible alone thoroughly furnishes the man of God for every good work, but that the Bible in addition to what had already been given does so ... I am as far as the East is from the West from believing neither God, Christ, nor the Holy Spirit can help us except by talking to us [in the word]."  (1906)

We knew this truth over a century ago.  We have forgotten it, perhaps, because we do not read the Bible enough to know. How ironic is that.

Open our eyes, O Glorious Father, as you did Elisha's servant, to know we are surrounded and engulfed by your gracious Presence. Grant us your Spirit of wisdom and revelation that we may come to experience you and the hope to which you have called us. Grant us power through your Holy Spirit, in our inner being to walk as Jesus walked, to love as Jesus loved, and to bless the poor as Jesus did. Amen.

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So You're a Minister ... Leaves from a Journal Spanning 20 Years

What does it mean to be a "minister?"  I believe this is a critical question for both congregations and those who are "ministers." I have officially been in full time "ministry" for twenty years as of 2012.  That is hard to believe actually! I did ministry type stuff before 1992 but that is the official year.  During that time I have witnessed or experienced nearly everything under the sun so I want to reflect on this vocation. What follows are pages from my journal ... These are actual snippets from various pages on the struggles for identity.  Throughout I was talking to and for myself.  The only changes I have made were those necessary to make this into a post and omitting any detailed personal information.

Just Who Are You?

Sometimes the best insight comes from a non-traditional source. The rock band Creed, one of my favorites, has a great song called "A Thousand Faces."  "I stand surrounded by the walls That once confined me Knowing I'll be underneath them When they crumble When they fall.  With clarity my scars remind me Ask yourself what's just under my skin ... You wear a thousand faces, tell me, tell me which is you."  The song goes on to lament "Dug my grave, thrashed my name Yet here I stand so you won't fade away ..." What a powerful song. It calls us to find out who we really are. Who I am.  We have a thousand faces with a thousand different people and we loose ourselves in the process. The song also testifies to the one who stays though some "thrash my name."

So Who Am I? We cannot even agree on the term to call ourselves such is the convoluted sense of identity among us. Young men (and women) are recruited (almost like the military does at times!), fed a line, given a vision and some basic training - frequently inadequate - and unleashed to "front line." Suddenly one is confronted with the truth of a thousand different faces.  In any given week a minister is teacher, preacher, crises counselor, priest, a comforter, an encourager, marriage counselor, a care giver, administrator, referee, companion, diplomat, mechanic, janitor, secretary, the congregational role model! This is just a sampling of the thousand faces btw.  Some of these roles (= faces) the preacher/minister is completely unprepared and untrained to deal with.  All of these faces/roles worn in a fragile glass house.

Throughout the pages of my journal there are probably hundreds of examples of the last paragraph. I recall being in a home Bible study (to pick just one of those many examples) at an elder's house in the late 1990s and have it suddenly turn into a marital counseling session. Another of physically removing a revolver from a person's hands praying that the "whole armor of God" is bullet proof.  I recall having a 15 year knocking on our door at 2 am in complete break down, pregnant. Scared. Her question, "will you come with me to tell my parents."

When the minister inadequately "performs" in any of these areas, some of which were never addressed in his training, he is dealt with, at times, very unkindly.  Usually the harshest critic in all of this is the minister himself but he starts to buy into the thousand faces premise. His sense of failure and inadequacy is reinforced by unwise criticism.  To be honest in that one area that the preacher himself may deem most important, the Bible, he is often inadequately trained.(in the Journal several more far more grave examples are given. I omit them for a myriad of reasons)

The minister must develop a sense of identity. Like Creed sings he must be able to answer the question "tell me which one is you!"  Churches often have unrealistic, if not unbiblical, and unspoken expectations of the minister.  The minister short changes the church because he willingly tries to wear those thousand faces and thus looses his real gift.  To many churches (including elders) come to view the minister as an employee and he is never actually seen as part of the overall Body.  Those with eyes to see pick up on this truth rather quickly.

Struggles to Find "the" Face

I have learned that many congregations are shaped and molded as much by the comfort of how it has always been done as by anything the Bible actually says.  Biblical authority is the trump card that is used only when our pet identity markers are questioned.  This sociological observation holds true still when it comes to many individual ministers.  In most ministerial training the "candidate" is admonished to devour, digest, and internalize God's prescription for ministry from those books we call Pastoral Epistles (1-2 Timothy & Titus).  The professor in college says the "pattern" for the preacher is found here.  Thus as the preacher is seeking to define his own face he is presented with a dilemma.  To quote Donald Crittenden, few Churches of Christ (if any) actually believe or "accept as the proper province of the minister the full catalog of duties assigned to Timothy and Titus."  I wrote in my journal several years ago next to this quote "this is a true statement if there ever was one."

But the minister must be able to say who he is. We need to be able to define our task, our vocation, better than anyone.  It may take a few trips around the block to really understanding how important this matter is. We share in the life of the church as a member, as all members do. However our task within the body is very defined.  The words of Paul apply to ministers as much as any other Christian,

"[D]o not think more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment ... For as in one body we have many members, and not all members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us ... ministry ... teaching ... exhorting ..." (Romans 12.3b-8)

What the minister needs to do is develop not so much a philosophy of ministry as he needs to develop a theological understanding of who he is and what God has called him to do within the body.  I have my first job description from a church.  They were good and loving people.  I was to dumb at the time to know what it was I was really supposed to be doing. That job description omitted prayer entirely! Apparently Acts 6.4 was limited to the first century.

Over the past twenty years my own sense of identity has been forged through reading hundreds of articles, dozens of books, and finding the courage to say,  "I disagree."  My personal, written by me, job description takes seriously the words of Paul quoted above (similar ones are found in 1 Cor 12 and Ephesians 4) and his words to Timothy and Titus and the ministry of Moses. these words are in my Bible

"I am a sinner saved by the grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ.  Though I never wanted to be one, God has made me a minister within the body of Christ. Thus God demands that I drench my life with Scripture. Therefore I require an immersion in biblical study.  I need hours to reflect prayerfully with the aid of every tool and especially the Holy Spirit to come to grips with the text. God is calling me to more than information the Spirit is calling me to worship with his body through these pages. This is my task."

This short statement reflects lots of evolution and further understanding. It will likely evolve again. But as flawed as it is it is, this is my self-definition as a minister and everything flows out of it. The prayer of Martin Luther is so appropriate even after we understand our role.

Lord God, you have made me a pastor in your church. You see how unfit I am to undertake this great and difficult office, and if it were not for your help, I would have ruined it all long ago. Therefore I cry to you for aid. I offer my mouth and my heart to your service. I desire to teach the people - and for myself, I would learn ever more diligently meditate on your Word. Use me as your instrument, but never forsake me, for if I am left alone I shall easily bring it all to destruction. Amen.

To answer the question from Creed, this is who I am. This is the face that defines me. Every minister needs to be able to answer that question. I am a sinner, saved by grace, being God's flawed conduit for that message of grace. Preaching is rooted first in the Great Indicative!

Broken Mirrors

Creed sings "Now I'm forced to look behind, I'm forced to look at you ... Broken mirrors paint the floor but can't you tell the truth." The church that fails to grasp who and what the minister is complicit in his spiritual death. Since 1992 I have seen many gifted people - my friends - buy into the sales pitch of the recruiters only to be sacrificed upon the altar of "ministry." All I have to do is look at my own graduating class of my to see the shattered lives.  I may be mistaken but of my class there are, I believe, only two that are still preaching.  From that class there are those who do not attend church at all, those whose families and marriages have been shattered like my own, even those who are now atheists.  Why is it a person will spend years getting a "degree" and are throwing in the towel within two years (which is the average life expectancy of a minister ... how does that compare to the "career" of the average NFL player?).

The problem, as I see it, is the thousand faces churches demand of the minister. The most insidious part is that frequently these "faces" are not even written down. Then when he fails they "dug my grave" and "trashed my name."  Many a preacher feels as if he is hired to be the Master of Ceremonies of Everything in the local church. When he flops it is not simply the "members" that are let down he often feels he has failed God.  This is when the powder keg is burning in the life of the minister and he is driven to "succeed" but success is not defined Spiritually or biblically.  I have been victim of these broken mirrors myself and could not tell the truth (about myself).  Thus I have felt the desire on more than one occasion of "throwing in the towel." One time I was literally within mere seconds of doing it on the spot! I wanted out.

My Salvation as a Minister

The only thing that has kept me going as a minister, especially in the last several years, has been the beginning of my personal statement above.  "I am a sinner saved by the grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ."  This is my salvation as a Christian but also as a minister. I know before I even start that I will fail in wearing all the Mardi Gras faces just right. I know I am incompetent to fulfill all the roles and expectations that well meaning, but misinformed, people have of me.  Knowing that my ministry exits by and through the grace of God alone takes the pressure off.  God does not expect me to be perfect.  I am perfected in Christ. God does not expect me to do it all.  He expects me to surrender to him so He can do it all through me. Knowing who I am frees me to be what God has called me to be.  I am a teacher/preacher who exists in holy covenant with the rest of the body in a symbiotic relationship of mutual blessing and accountability.  The blood of Jesus bathes and sanctifies my wholly inadequate effort to wear a thousand faces.  Indeed the washing of the blood is what makes me see clearly the truth that sets me free.

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Holy of Holies: Returning to Eden 2 - Song of Songs and the History of Denying Sexuality

"While the king was on his couch,
my nard gave forth its fragrance.
My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh
that lies between my breasts."

Most of us reading the quotation from Song of Songs 1.13 probably did not know that it is really not talking about a woman's perfumed body with her lover lying on top of her. Rather this text is really about the "grace of baptism." Yes baptism! Or at least that is what one of the greatest scholars in the history of Christianity believed. Origen argued for this interpretation in his massive 10 volume commentary on the Song of Songs [1]. As strange as it may seem but readings from the Song of Songs were frequently part of baptismal liturgies in the early church. How can a text that appears to be plainly about the physical desire and intimacy between two lovers in covenant "really" be about baptism? In a word: allegory! For much of its history in the Christian era the Song of Songs has been the victim of allegory. But why?

Ancient Pre-Christian Interpretation

Allegory is the invention of Plato. In the fourth century BC, Plato raised questions about the worthiness of the Greek gods as Homer had portrayed them in the Greek "Bible" - the Iliad and Odyssey. Allegory became the vehicle by which platonic philosophers were able to salvage their legacy and save the gods. In the second century AD both Christian and Jewish scholars employed allegory in interpretation of the Song of Songs. But the question remains, why? Allegory is rooted foundationally in a worldview that is alien to the Creator God of the Hebrews at its very core.

It is easier to raise the question than answer it. It seems clear that allegorical readings of the Song do not pre-date the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. If Plato invented allegory to "save" the gods because he was embarrassed by them we may be able to make a parallel that Christian allegory of the Song was likewise an attempt to "save" a sacred text because the interpreters were embarrassed by it. This embarrassment says more about the interpreters however than it does the God of the Bible.

The earliest interpretation of the Song of Songs by Jews is actually the translation we know as the Septuagint. The Song had been translated into Greek by the second century BC and displays little if any interest in allegory or "spiritualization" of the Song. In fact the translators often bring out an even more blunt and erotic sense than the Hebrew original. For example in 1.2b the text reads "for your love is better than wine." The LXX renders the text "for your breasts are better than wine." This same phenomena is followed in the LXX at 1.4; 4.10; 5.1; & 7.12. [2]. Breasts replace love, certainly a heightened sense of sexuality rather than a distancing from it.

Origen (AD 184/5-253/4), and the early rabbis, were well aware that the Song had a more historical and literal beginning. Origen knew the Song was in fact a "wedding song." Keel, likewise, points to three rabbinic texts from the first and second centuries AD to show that the literal meaning of the Song was understood and widespread in Judaism. Most interesting, for my purposes, is Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel (AD 140ish) who ties the Song to an ancient dancing tradition in Israel that goes all the way back to the time of the Judges (Judges 21.20ff). The Rabbi says

There were no days better for Israelites than the fifteenth of Ab [in August] and the Day of Atonement [in October]. For on those days Jerusalemite girls go out in borrowed white dresses – so as not to shame those who owned none. All the dresses had to be immersed. And the Jerusalemite girls go out and dance in the vineyards. What did they say? “Young man, lift your eyes and see – choose what you want! Don’t look for beauty, look for family.” … “Go forth you daughters of Jerusalem and behold King Solomon with the crown with his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart” (Cant 3.11)” (Mishnah Ta’an 4.8)

Origen and Rabbi Yohanan

It is almost certain that the allegorical approach to the Song began among the Jews after the destruction of the Temple. Again the question is why? The Jews appropriated allegory for reasons the church did not but for the same purpose. Both "Judaism" and "Christianity" were facing serious and world shifting crises in the period of AD 70 to beginning of the third century. First, Judaism (if it were to survive at all) had to come to terms with the question of identity. Second, Judaism had to define itself against the "upstart" group that laid claim to the historical heritage of Israel - the church.

For the church's part it likewise had to deal with the issue of identity - 'we" are "Israel" not 'them". We are the Bride, not them. God divorced them and married us (are you getting the feeling that Song of Songs might be useful for this kind debate). The church also had an internal battle going on. In the second century there were those that not only wanted to say God had divorced the Jews, but that their entire heritage was of no value - this included the "Scriptures" the church had appropriated. So the rabbis are doing 'exegesis' on two fronts and so are the Church Fathers. Both are reading in the context of polemics against the other group - we cannot miss how important this is.

This historic battle defined Christianity as we know it. Song of Songs and its interpretation was one of the battlefields. We see this in Origen and one of the great Jewish exegetes of the day, Rabbi Yohanan. Both men set the course for interpretation for centuries. Both flourished in Palestine in the 240s, both were the leaders in their respective communities, both were giants of learning, both spent a great deal of time in Caesarea. Origen wrote/preached his Commentary on the Song in the 240s and Yohanan did too. These men probably heard each other speaking publicly but at the very least we know they knew each other's arguments. Each is engaging the Song through polemics against the other and not simply reading the Song itself. In a very enlightening study Reuven Kimelman notes that one can parallel Origen and Yohanan using the same arguments, on the same verses, to undo the others exegesis. The issues are complex: the oral law literally takes on the function in Judaism that the NT does in Christianity. That is the teachings of the oral law interpret and apply and at times supersede the written Torah, Jesus functions that way in Christianity. Here is a short list of the issues as they are hammered out:

1) Covenant mediated by Moses versus one negotiated by him
2) NT versus the oral Torah
3) Christ versus Abraham
4) The heavenly versus the earthly Jerusalem
5) Israel being repudiated versus Israel being disciplined [3]

For the rabbis the tool of allegory became the way they could argue that God had not cast off his people but that the Song tells the story of his continuing love for Israel. Israel has been disciplined but not divorced and the Song, allegorically understood, assures Israel that the Messiah will come and redeem her. The rabbis are not Platonists but they use a platonic tool.

The early church had the same struggle as Judaism. Christians had to justify their own existence in the world and did so in opposition to Judaism. Christianity claimed to be the legitimate heir to the people of Israel prior to the destruction of the Temple.

This justification, I remind you, took place after the destruction of the Temple and for the most part in the second century, continues to shape and mold how people think about a myriad of issues. Origen, and others, told the same story as the rabbis from the Song but about the church! The church is now Israel, the church has replaced Israel. This view, hammered out in the midst of severe struggle - often with the blood of martyrs near by - where extremes are often proclaimed, cannot be reconciled with the NT view shared in the first century that Gentiles are grafted by the grace of God into Israel, they did not replace Israel.

Two other considerations shape Origen and most of these early Church Fathers. The rabbis were not platonists. Origen, I am sad to say, was. His cultural worldview was platonic. Like Plato before him he found some things "objectionable" in his sacred text and through allegory was able to "save" the text by finding the "true spiritual meaning" in the text.

Origen, likewise, had to do battle with the Marcionites - that internal front I mentioned above. The Marcionites were true Platonists, like Origen, but their solution was to simply cast the Scriptures of Israel aside. Reject them altogether!

Origen knew that could not be done so he needed a method to remove what the platonic world found objectionable. We actually owe Origen and many other Church Fathers a debt of gratitude - though thoroughly children of their times (as we all are) they saved the Scriptures of Israel for the church from the Marcionites. This is a historical fact and we are and have been shaped by their legacy in ways that most Christians simply, and quite literally, have no clue [4].

It is often difficult to be calm when the parties involved are struggling for their very lives. In circumstances like that perspectives and positions are taken that likely would not be in the calm noon-day sun. But Origen did not live in that noon day sun neither did Rabbi Yohanan. Sadly many still embrace their rhetoric in far less trying times.

Neo-Platonism and the Song of Songs

In reference the Song of Songs, the objectionable material was precisely its content: sexuality. When the message of Jesus and the Kingdom of God crossed into Gentile fields many people embraced the faith that were culturally Greek and essentially Platonic. The church would struggle with this on multiple levels. Platonic thought, as good a story teller Plato was, however is fundamentally anti-biblical.

Platonism is anti-biblical because it is anti-Creation. This worldview asserts that physical matter and the physical body, with its needs is by nature, base, unspiritual, and ultimately evil. True spirituality, in the Platonic worldview, is liberation from the body and its degrading "needs." This worldview was at the root of the denial of the physical incarnation of the Word of God to be literally flesh but only "seemed" to be flesh. This worldview lay at the heart of the Gnostic denial of the physical bodily resurrection of not only Jesus but of all the saints. This worldview rather promotes the immortality of the soul and the pure spiritual state all Greeks longed for rather than a resurrected and renewed earth. This worldview is pagan to the core. Sex is a very physical function that Platonic love wishes to eschew. It is sad, very sad, the church embraced this pagan notion that has haunted Christians ever since. C. S. Lewis notes quite well the impact of this view on sexuality even within marriage in the Christian faith. His focus is on the medieval period,

The views of the medieval churchmen on the sexual act within marriage ... are limited by two complementary agreements. On the one hand, nobody ever asserted that the act was intrinsically sinful. On the other hand, all were agreed that some evil element was present in every concrete instance of this act since the Fall.

Perhaps it was not the act itself but ...

the emotion which is the efficient cause [of sex], remains guilty. But the concrete sexual act, that is, the act PLUS its unavoidable efficient cause [i.e. the desire for sex], remains guilty. [5]

It isn't difficult to see how, or why, one enmeshed in a Platonic worldview would have a nightmare reading the Song of Songs. The Song does not simply talk about the things of the body ... it celebrates them! While it is true that the Bible condemns lust for another person's wife or husband the Bible never describes sexual desire as evil - rather sexual desire is good!!

For centuries the church, because of Platonism, promoted virginity and celibacy as spiritual ideals. The heroes of faith were those who renounced the body and its sexual desires (monks, priests, nuns, etc). The Desert Fathers fled to the remotest parts of the world to seek refuge from the female body - but separation from women hardly delivered these men from the power of sexuality.

These ideas swirling around about the Song of Songs, Platonism and sexuality are hardly harmless ideas that cause Christians to have unbiblical views regarding creation, the body and sex. There are profound day to day ramifications not least of which has been the demonization of the female members of the human race by those who claim to be disciples of Christ. "She" becomes the very symbol of the evil from which the chaste monk wishes to flee! Not only will Platonism bear fruit in outright doctrinal heresy but its pragmatic fruit is the legacy of women being the target of oppression, as the handmaids of Satan, and all manner of such stuff.

The Persistence of Allegory

Origen's commentary, forged in a life and death struggle for survival and identity, set the agenda for Christian exegesis of the Song for all practical purposes till the modern period. The polemic against the Marcionites became a forgotten memory, the debased nature of sexuality became an assumed maxim, and the cross fertilization with Judaism continued even if often unrecognized. The greatest expositor of the Song in the medieval period was Bernard of Clairvaux (AD 1090-1153)[6] and I plan to treat him alone in a separate blog.

By the high middle ages Rashi, the Jewish theologian, had tweaked an interpretation of the Song that reflected a historical narrative of Israel. Nicholas of Lyra (AD 1270-1349) one of the few medieval churchman who knew Hebrew became heavily influenced by Rashi and basically took his interpretation of the Song and Christianized it. In his rewriting of Rashi the "narrative" in the Song looks like this

1) The Exodus of the Jews from Egypt (1.1-10)
2) Journey through the Desert (1.11-4.6)
3) Entry into the Promised Land (4.6-16)
4) God's Love for the Wayward People (ch's 5-6)
5) The Coming of Christ (ch 7)
6) The Early Church till Constantine (ch 8)
Concluding with a brief look to the conversion of the "synagogue to Christ." [7]

Nicholas' understanding was carried into the infant English language through John Wyclif who authored two commentaries on the Song and gave the English their first version of the Song (for more on Wyclif and his Bible see HERE).

Wyclif and his disciples disliked the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Allegory was termed "goostli vndurstondyng" in their writings. In the Song of Songs, which was translated from the Latin Vulgate into "English" between 1370 and 1390, rides a very fine line between allegory and literal understanding of the book. It is through the Wycliff Bible that the word "spouse" became an English word and lent itself to a more allegorical interpretation. On the whole, however, Wyclif's Bible leaves it to the reader to interpret the text and in the words of Mary Dove, "the Wycliffite Bible Song of Songs ... is more literal than any English translation made during the Reformation" [8].

The most common reading of the Song has come to English readers through the King James Version and allegorization of the Song through hymnody based upon that version. The KJV continues, sadly, what I have come to call "sanctified Platonism" by misleading the reader of the Song through the use of headings. Throughout the KJV the Song never refers to the historical woman or the historical man rather Christ and the church are the only voices that are heard in the Song. "The church's love unto Christ," "Christ awaketh the church," "Christ's love for the church," and "Calling all Gentiles" are among the interpretive headings that mislead the reader of the text. One of the hymns I can remember from my earliest days shows both the power of allegory and its ability to cause the disciple of Christ to miss what the Holy Spirit actually wrote. "Lily of the Valley" is based on Song of Songs 2.1 where the female lover speaks. The Song unambiguously identifies the female lover as the speaker of these words who identifies her as "the rose of Sharon," yet the hymn identifies "lily of the valley" as Jesus. Some may object and say this is rather innocent but if we never actually hear what the Spirit said then there is a real problem.

Wrapping Up

The Song of Songs was, until the modern period, one of the most popular and important works in the canon. It cannot be denied that it furnished many Christians with deep Spiritual insights and a basis for lectio divina. This is simply the Holy Spirit blessing us and working within our flawed understandings and ever flawed hermeneutics. In the modern, post-Enlightenment period, many Christians have continued to surrender creation (and the body) for some form of semi-pagan piety mistaken for Spirituality. Biblical Spirituality is, without exception, creation affirming. Yet several things the modern period has forced upon us as disciples of Christ are

1) the recognition that many interpretations were never grounded in the actual biblical text rather they were grounded in the existential situation the readers brought to the text

2) the recognition that there was a "history" to the Song of Songs before the history of allegory and it seems to have entered the canon without allegorical help.

3) the recognition that even as the early church struggled with the issue of sexuality on its blind side, it confessed that the Scriptures of Israel are in fact the Word of God and that creation was "good" thus the continued rejection of Gnosticism as heresy.

4) One of the great theological values of the Song of Songs, as God gave it, is that it quite literally forces us to wrestle with the question of the goodness of the physical. If forces us to see the physical as actually Spiritual! That is creation issues forth from the creative work of the Triune God and filled with the Holy Spirit's glory.

The Song of Songs is about the things the Platonist regards as degrading, embarrassing and evil. It is about the the joy of physical beauty. It is about kissing. It is about desiring our mate. It is about the bliss of sexual union. It is about passion and communion. The Song of Songs declares that these things, far from being embarrassing, degrading or evil, they are holy, Spiritual, and of God himself. They are very good.

The monks did not completely miss the boat they understood that the "this" is about "that." The problem is that they failed to see the Flame of Yahweh (8.6c) himself imaged and mirrored in the passionate love of the wife and her husband - this is the glory of the Song of Songs.


NOTES:

1] See Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 411.

2] Weston W. Fields, "Early and Medieval Jewish Interpretation of the Song of Songs," Grace Theological Journal 1 (1980), 223-224. See Othmar Keel, The Song of Songs (Minneapolis: Fortress 1994), 7-6

3] Reuven Kimelman, "Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs: A Third-Century Jewish-Christian Disputation," Harvard Theological Review (1980): 567-595.

4] A very readable introduction to these momentous issues is Ronald E. Heine's excellent book Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church (Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2007) especially the chapter "The Struggle concerning the Law in the Second Century," pp. 47-74. For a broadly illuminating look at the struggles of the "elder brother" and the "younger brother" see Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP 2002), 225-274.

5] C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 14-15.

6] See the sympathetic overview by Wm. Loyd Allen, "Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs: Why they Matter," Review and Expositor 105 (2008), 403-416.

7] Mary Dove, "Nicholas of Lyra and the literal senses of the Song of Songs," in Nicholas of Lyra: the Senses of Scripture, ed. Philip Krey and Lesley Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 129-146.

8] Mary Dove, "Love ad litteram: The Lollard Translations of the Song of Songs," Reformation 9 (2004), 1-23. Quote from p. 22.

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Desperately Seeking SPIRIT-uality: Connecting to God's Refreshing Spirit

This post dates way back to the turn of the Millennium. I received an invitation from Jerry Rushford (on the recommendation of Tom Olbricht) to teach at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures. Lots of water has gone under the bridge since 2001, and my own thinking has matured and gone through the Valley of Achor, yet I hope that the direction of my thinking then continues to point in the right direction. I might say things slightly different now than then and I pray my depth is deeper now but overall I still believe this presentation. This presentation at Pepperdine was what I would call "soundings" and I invite you to ruminate upon them in that "spirit" as well.

Desperately Seeking SPIRIT-uality: Connecting to God's Refreshing Spirit
Pepperdine University Bible Lectures

Opening

On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor which brought the USA into World War II. While most anguished that night over the loss of life and the prospect of an arduous road ahead, one man perceived things differently. This man had been fighting a war for three years already. This man had watched France fall in lightening speed. This man had endured Nazi bombers blasting English cities. This man for three years had not slept peacefully. But ironically that all changed on December 7. This man saw Pearl Harbor not as defeat but as victory. On December 8, 1941 this man wrote these words,

"So we HAD won after all! I had studied the American Civil War ... American blood flowed in my veins ... I thought of a remark ... that the United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate! Being saturated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful."

That man's name was Winston Churchill.

The mere presence the USA in that bloody war convinced Churchill he had already gained victory. The United States had done nothing, as of yet, but he slept the sleep of the saved and thankful. In the midst of the chaos of England, the news of Pearl Harbor was the news of power, not weakness, to Churchill. The day of infamy was a day of victory simply because that "gigantic boiler" was now pumping on England's behalf.

I can identify with Churchill. I stand before you today not as a spiritual master but as a pygmy. I stand as one, who for so long, who felt as if I was meeting the onslaught of forces beyond my stamina ... alone! I stand before you as one who has often had that fitful sleep of uneasiness. But one day, much to my joy, I "discovered" that boiler much more potent than the mighty United States was on my side ... God's Refreshing SPIRIT.

First Move: Non-SPIRIT-ual Confessions

I grew up in North Alabama Churches of Christ. In fact I cannot remember when I did not go to "church." My dad led a wonderful and godly example of quietly reading his Bible every night sitting by his bed. He often had some study books (Nave's Topical Study Bible, Unger's Bible Handbook, Strong's and even Josephus!) spread out as he delved into God's Word. That image of my dad has remained vivid in my mind to this day. In my family we prayed especially at meal times. I went to college and got a BS in Bible, went to graduate school for the MA and MDiv, I have been preaching for years and I cultivated those practices. Bible reading and praying in gratitude for the blessings the Lord provided for me, Pamella, Rachael and Talya.

Be that as it may ... in all honesty we were not giants of prayer or spiritual discernment. Prayer was more a perfunctory matter than a vehicle to intimacy with our Abba. I confess that I did not have a SPIRIT-ual relationship with God, his Son, or his Spirit. This became apparent to me around 1998 when a sister asked of me two things. She wanted me to

1) teach her to pray
2) teach her to worship

She said she wanted to have a "deeper relationship with God." I freely confess that I would have been much more comfortable is she would have asked me to teach her to study the Bible.

"Relationship with God" had always been viewed suspiciously in my neck of the woods. That was a Baptist phrase. I was accustomed to speak of "being a member of the church." I had a "relationship with the church" ... not God, Jesus and certainly not with the SPIRIT himself.

I again confess, sadly now, that this sister caused angst in my life. My religion was almost completely cerebral ... it was a head faith. I loved God, Jesus and even the Spirit though the he made me nervous. Something was awry!

As Robert Richardson cautioned in that Restoration classic of spirituality, Communings in the Sanctuary, "it is this religion {i.e. of the head/intellect} that inspires that spiritual pride which dogmatizes in matters of opinion and that intolerant bigotry which persecutes in matters of faith" (p.24) ...

This relationship talk could be just a smokescreen for shoddy bible study. Indeed, spirituality (or piety as spirituality is sometimes reduced to) has been, at times, disparaged by some significant leaders in Churches of Christ. R. H. Boll, for example, was renown in his day as man of prayer. But in the eyes of his nemesis, R. L. Whiteside, this made him suspect. Whiteside, commenting directly on Boll's spiritual demeanor, chides "when a man boasts {something Boll did not do btw} of his honesty, veracity, piety and devotion ... well anybody but dupes become suspicious" (Christ and His Kingdom, pp. 23f). I can relate to RLWs words because I have believed them and lived them.

Signs of the Refreshing SPIRIT

But the simple questions of that dear sister would not go away. Like a poltergeist floating around my noggin I began to come to grips with the terrifying fact that though I had been baptized, and took the Lord's Supper routinely, and deeply studied the Bible ... I did not know how to pray, and though I was a Christian I had precious little "relationship with God, Christ or his Spirit." I was comfortable talking about God but I was not comfortable communing with God.

I firmly believed, by this time, in God's saving grace and I believed in the indwelling Spirit. I proclaimed we were saved by God's grace through faith (to the best of my ability). But now, I suspect, that I misunderstood the PURPOSE of my salvation.

I believe, now, that God did not send his Son simply to remove the stain of sin. He did do that. But the goal, the reason, was not simply to forgive sin (though he does that praise his name). Rather Jesus shed his blood so that we (I) could have restored communion with God. The goal of salvation was not the removal of sins. That was a means to the goal. The telos was restoration of communion, the restoration of fellowship ... Restoration of intimate intimacy.

We all believe that we will be in God's Presence in the eschaton. But now I believe we have that glorious fellowship NOW ... the goal of our salvation. We have that through God's refreshing Holy Spirit. Many of our Fathers understood what I did not clearly. To quote from Robert Richardson again,

"To establish and maintain this communion is the great end of religion. To unite the soul to God; to erect in the human heart a living temple for his abode; to secure the enjoyment of that Divine presence which is the earnest of eternal blessedness: these are its noble and exalted aims -- its truest, holiest purposes. And oh! how intimate is that fellowship to which we are thus introduced by the true and living Word ... As sons to a compassionate father, we approach him to hear his words; to rejoice in his power, wisdom, and love; to cast our cares upon him and to repose in the faithful assurances of his unceasing favor" (Communings, p. 45)

Interestingly, it was from walking with giants of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement like Robert Richardson, James A. Harding and K. C. Moser that I felt God seeking my heart as well as my brain. I began to see that SPIRIT-uality was not simply being good or even pious. SPIRIT-uality is nothing short than the Holy Spirit himself God's communion and operation in our lives. And slowly (and I mean slowly) I began to learn that it is ok to "walk with the Spirit."

Signposts of God's Refreshing Spirit

This notion of communion with God, I believe now, one of the central unifying themes of all Scripture. God created us for communion. God recreates us through his Son for communion. God wants to be with his creation! That is why he sacrificed his Son. That is why he sent his Spirit.

There are many texts in the canon that point to this theme and goal. However three that have come to mean so much to me are two from Paul and one from Moses.

1) Ephesians 1.13-18; 2.18,22 (know him better; access through the Spirit; know hope)

2) Ephesians 3.14-19 (strength and knowledge of the depth of Christ's love through the Spirit)

3) Exodus 24.1-11. (God's gracious Presence ... I want to eat and drink in his Presence, I want to "see God")

{In the Pepperdine presentation I spent significant time with each of these important, and in the case of Exodus unknown texts}

Plugging into the River of the Refreshing Spirit

SPIRIT-uality is not works righteousness. It is not a new legalism. It is not a means to manipulate God. Rather SPIRIT-uality is a gift of grace from the Holy Spirit. I take Paul as my guide on this point. "SPIRITUAL" is used as an adjective at least 24x by Paul. This is so important and we must grasp this point. Spiritual does not mean mental, an internal disposition or some such notion. Paul's use of SPIRITUAL as an adjective means BY, OF, FLOWING OUT OF, COMING FROM God's Refreshing Holy Spirit. SPIRITUALITY is the product of or Fruit of God himself in the Person of his Spirit. God's own Spirit conceives and forms the life of Christ within us. Our spirits are formed by THE SPIRIT ... that is what we seek.

Thus when I called this class "Desperately Seeking SPIRIT-uality" I mean desperately craving to be caught up in God's rhythm of grace for life. I mean surrendering to the raging current of the River of the Spirit. I mean coming to know, to be known and to see God as the elders of Israel did and as Paul says in Eph 1.

I share the following suggestions that have been helpful to me. If I had to answer that dear sister today these are things I would share with her. There is nothing original or revolutionary here ...

First. Ruminato. "to consider, to meditate upon, to ingest and chew upon." Lectio divina ... an ancient way of SPIRITUAL reading. I am convinced that no one in the restoration tradition has taught more on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a disciple than James A. Harding. From him we learn that the Spirit renews and deepens our commitment to the written word as HIS instrument. Scripture is a "means of grace" he says, a sacrament so to speak of communing with God himself. If I ever get a chance to delve more in Harding's life I would love to write a book about his theology of the Spirit. Desperately seeking SPIRIT-uality means we are committed to serious study of God's word, but as a Nigerian Christian put it to me, "we don't need any more leaders with heads full of Greek and hearts full of lust!"

Ruminato, lectio divina, is a way of reading that says "if I took this passage seriously what would I have to change right now?" What a dangerous question to submit to the Refreshing Holy Spirit ... we may not like the answer!

This is a way of reading in which we "savor the word" {at this point I have written in the margin that Billy Wilson, a keynote speaker, used a chocolate illustration}. The word is like a delicious lozenge we carry in our mouths all day. 

I would like to recommend ruminating on images of God like Father, Husband, Lover, Mother ... get caught up, and even lost, in these metaphors and watch how the Spirit nourishes your soul.

Second. Prayer. I have learned that prayer is easy to begin but difficult to develop. But over the last few years I have discovered that the Spirit has provided a magnificent "prayerbook" for the saints. Since 1997 I have been not just studying and ruminating on Scripture but I have begun to pray the Bible. The Psalms of course are a treasure trove but they are not alone. Here Scripture is not a means to doctrinal precision but an instrument bearing our spirit to the Holy Spirit. Nothing, I believe, can help us plug into the river of the Spirit more than simply praying his word back to him. We will find even in the Story itself prayer warriors like Moses himself who engaged God in wrestling prayer through Scripture.

But I have discovered that the saints in Scripture are not the only prayer treasures providentially preserved by the Spirit for us. I have discovered, ironically, the value of God's church, the community of disciples down through the centuries. You will recall Paul's words in Eph 1 and 3 about the role of the community in discovering the riches of fellowship with God. Does that mean only the living saints? Clearly not! Have we not inherited a wealth of SPIRIT-ual riches? I confess that I did not think so in years past ... I had that opinion by the way with practically NO knowledge of that heritage. But today I do believe so.

Many Christians have written down their prayers. These prayers are not inspired like the Psalms. Yet they are often incredibly helpful, amazingly rich and ... inspiring! Their faith in the darkness, I claim as my own. Their courage and boldness in the face of satanic onslaught, I claim as my own. Their words rising to the throne of God like sweet incense ... have become mine.

{At this point I referred to specific examples of earthy, earnest, SPIRIT-ual prayer. Manasseh's Prayer of Repentance. Tobias' prayer for a God-centered marriage. The church's prayer to glorify God in Te Deum. Etc.}

Some of these great prayers of the past have been preserved in books like The Prymer or The Book of Hours. These are wonderful tools to cultivate a river of the Spirit into the mundane tasks of life. Through some we are daily focused upon the Incarnation, death and resurrection of our Lord. Our prayers become centered in the rhythm of grace rather than our individual whims.

I have found that these resources have enriched my prayer life tremendously. They have not by any means diminished spontaneous prayer. Rather I have found that I have found a disposition towards prayer that I credit the work of the SPIRIT for. Perhaps this is something like what Paul meant when he urged us to "pray IN the Spirit."

Third. Sabbath. This is a strange suggestion to the ears of us in Churches of Christ. Sabbath is not simply a saturday but a period of rest and cessation of activity to enjoy the things of God. George MacDonald once wrote that sleep is God's contrivance for giving us the help he cannot get into us when we are awake ...

The sabbath principle is one of the finest examples of the rhythm of grace. Here GOD works and we simply "let it be." When I stop my work nothing essential stops. The world goes on. It is both humbling and liberating to know that the burden of the care of the world does not depend upon me. Evening and Morning is the biblical rhythm beginning in Genesis 1. God is working before we are created or rise from bed and he continues to work when we return to sleep or rest. In our lives we are graciously invited to join in his work in the power he supplies through his own Spirit.

Taking a break, a sabbath, allows us to slow down and let the Spirit give us rest and perhaps a "tune up."

Concluding Remarks

I am still a spiritual pygmy. But I do believe that God has blessed me in profound ways over the last few years through his Refreshing Spirit. I have lots of flesh yet to crucify but I join Churchill in saying, by God's grace of the SPIRIT-ual, I now sleep the sleep of the saved and the thankful.

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Romans 8 scripture reading

I have brazenly swiped this from Jay Guin ... Nothing but scripture. This is the kind of think that LTC should be promoting ...

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The Problem with Preachers ...

What a dangerous title! I am after all a "preacher." Here it is Lord's Day afternoon and I got home a little while ago. Here sitting on my couch lamenting BAMA's loss (but hey it was a great football game. Florida over Sooners!) reflecting for a brief moment upon what I have done on this day. I gathered with God's People in the Presence of his Majesty. We opened the "book divine" to hear afresh the empowering, liberating and convicting Word of the Lord. In the last three weeks we have explored how Matthew presents Jesus as the "Hinge," both the "End" and the "Beginning." Matthew sees Jesus the Hinge as the Goal of the "Old Testament" Story, he sees Jesus as the "Fulfillment" of the Promises in the Hebrew Bible and he sees the Hinge of Jesus' Identity as the "Son of God" embedded in the Hebrew traditions of old. As we have looked at the opening chapters of Matthew I have been astonished at the wondrous depth and texture to Matthew. It is deep indeed.

As I sat in a moment of reflection I was reminded of Eugene Lowry's bold words: "The problem with preaching is that we have been trained to be answer people ... By the time we get ready to start preparing next Sunday's sermon we already know what we believe and hence when we engage a text we often bring ourselves to the text rather than letting the text come to us ..."

What insight! What Lowry seems to be saying is that we preachers often "come to the text" as if we are in control. We already have an agenda and so often the biblical text is nothing else but a "second" to what we already want to say. In some sense we have kidnapped God's Word! This is heavy duty stuff. Have I done this?

Is there a difference between using a text and preaching a text? I have seen sermons where scripture was certainly used but it was not scripture that was preached. Is this a problem with preachers? I am sure that I have been guilty of this myself and for that I am grateful for the never ending mercy of our Abba.

What can we do to overcome this problem? How can we let the text "come to us?" How can we give up control of the text and let it take the lead (it is after all the living word of God right?).

First I believe we need to embrace the text in all its complexity. The dimensions to Matthew's Gospel is mind numbingly vast. Let the text overwhelm us. Embrace its intertextualities, its echoes of previous parts of the Story, get lost in the text.

Second, as we enter into a conversation with the text cultivate the mindset that we do not know what we are getting into. We do not come to the text with a "topic" but let God's message through that portion of the biblical narrative be used by God's own Spirit to address us and our community. I have found that lectio divina is an essential part of sermon preparation ... here we embrace the text, love the text, we eat the text. And like Ezekiel of old we find that eating God's Word is not without effect.

Third, and this is probably repetition, is surrender. We must sacrifice our ideas to the word. We must be willing to be led, to embrace even mystery for a time as we enter into the text because we do not know where it will take us. Like Israel of old we know where we are going but the direction of each day was determined by a Cloud and not themselves.

There is a difference between the word "ministry" and "preacher." All Christians minister in some capacity. Preaching is one aspect of the ministry of God's kingdom of priests. As preachers, not just ministers, we have to at times deal with the "problem with preachers ..." that is of using God's word rather than preaching it. None of us want to be guilty but we all are. Thus my mid-afternoon reflections are upon this struggle to be a tool to be used by the word rather than being a person in charge who uses God's word as his own tool.

If this makes no sense ... blame it on Bama's loss.

Shalom,
Bobby V

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When Spirituality is "Too Spiritual"

"There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant for man (i.e. Humans, B.V.) to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it." (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 65)

C. S. Lewis points to a biblical truth, embraced by historic Christianity, and yet one that is often misunderstood by many Western Evangelical Christians today. Spirituality is a something we all desperately desire and yet often fundamentally misunderstand. The great American author, Emily Dickinson, captures what many imagine spirituality to be. Dickinson lived across the street from her "church" yet refused to attend. She would lower cookies from her window to the children on the street below to show her kindness towards them. She gave gifts but only from a distance yet the fellowship across the street was meaningless to her. She considered herself very spiritual however.   She testifies "I do not care for the body. I love the timid soul, the blushing, shrinking soul." She goes on to say "the mind alone without corporeal form" is what is really important. Her's is a classic interior, and disembodied, spirituality. "Spirituality" is seen to be an inner journey cut off from community and from the world. She typifies the understanding of so many as she thinks "spirituality" is simply flight from the contamination of creation ... from matter ... from the flesh. But Lewis says such a view is not what Christians believe ... or at least should not believe.

C. S. Lewis is correct however! When we embrace a world denying "spirituality" we have, ironically, become too spiritual. Lewis's views reflect the worldview of biblical and historic Christianity, while Dickinson's comes dangerously close to gnosticism. But the physical and material body is important to God. He made it, as Lewis says. Paul says we eagerly await the "redemption of our bodies" (Rom 8.23). It is in the body that we worship and serve God (Rom 12.1-2). Creation is the realm of "SPIRIT-uality."

One of the consequences of embracing a biblical worldview is that spirituality is taken out of the extraordinary and placed back into the realm of ordinary. Sitting in silence for days is not necessarily spirituality. It can, however, be a spiritual discipline. Rather biblical spirituality is embodied just as much in serving the poor as in cloister. Paul prays that true spirituality will manifest itself through the recognition of genuine community within an ethnically polarized "church" (Eph 1.18). Biblical  Spirituality is communal not individualistic. Spirituality, in its biblical expression, is "earthy" in nature. However, we often understand that word (due to our history) with post-Enlightenment eyes and it is redefined as immaterial, interior and private. We must be on guard against this distortion of our faith.

Seeking Shalom,
Bobby V

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Spirit Lives Lead to Spirit Led Worship: HS & Disciple Part 3

Spirit Lives Lead to Spirit Led Worship

This is my third in a series of thoughts on the Holy Spirit and the disciple from Paul's letter we call "Ephesians." The previous two are:

Holy Spirit & the Disciple Part 1

Holy Spirit & the Disciple Part 2

I am currently engaged in intense study of Ephesians for a series of lessons I am calling Christian Community 101 to begin on June 3rd if all goes according to plan. This post continues those ruminations on passages related to the Holy Spirit in Ephesians. I hope to share my study of Eph. 5.18-21. The translations are my own.

"Do not get drunk on wine ...
But be filled with/by/in the Spirit,
SPEAKING to one another
with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,
SINGING and MAKING MUSIC with your hearts to the Lord.

GIVING thanks to God
for all things
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
SUBMITTING yourselves to one another
out of reverence for Christ."

Ephesians 5.18-21 though often broken up in our English translations is rather a long single sentence in the Greek text. The sentence is part of the larger paragraph beginning with v.15.

Context of the Passage

In the context of our passage Paul has developed his argument in the letter (see the previous posts for this). In the preceding sections/paragraphs (4.17-24; 4.25-5.2; 5.3-14) Paul has used the metaphor of "walking" (4.17; 5,2 8) to contrast the lifestyle of those who reside "in Christ" and those who do not. That is those who make up the "one new man/humanity." The context is thus one of ethics and the daily conduct of the saint before the fallen pagan world. The verb occurs at the beginning of the present paragraph in v.15 "Be very careful, then how you live/walk ..." spelling out the ethical implications of being awakened from the sleep and having Christ shine on us (5.14). This stands sort of like a heading to the paragraph and is explained by a series of three antithesis of "not ... but".

The three contrasts in the paragraph of 5.15-21:

1) "Not as unwise but as wise (v.15b)

2) "Not as foolish but understand (v.17)

3) "Not drunk with wine but filled with/by the Spirit" (v.18)

Some Insight from Historical Context

Our text is the third contrast of two Spirits; that of Bacchus and the Spirit of the Lord. This contrast amplifies what it means for the Christian to live carefully and wisely by being filled with the Holy Spirit.

What I want to call attention to is that there are two imperatives in our text: "do not get drunk" and "be filled with/by the Spirit." In the pagan enviroment of these early Christians Bacchus/Dionysus was a potent and deadly force. Dionysus was the Greek god of grapes and wine. Euripides, famous for his Bacchae (see a good English translation in Greek Tagedies, vol 3, David Greene and Richard Lattimore, editors, University of Chicago Press).

The Dionysiac Mysteries were relatively "young" in the ancient world (apparently they was not old in Homer's day). The general features of these mysteries were orgiastic and ecstatic celebrations. Weakened by fasting, the devotees in wild ecstatic dance worked themselves into delirium. In this state they ate the raw flesh, with the blood in it, of animals that had been seized. Throughout the Eastern Empire traveling guilds depicted this in dramtic form. Some cities had a "Villa Item" or "House of Mysteries" like the famous one in Pompeii. The House of Mystery in Pompeii has paintings preserved depicting flagellation followed by ecstatic dance (for more on the Dionysiac Mysteries see Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, pp. 205-210 and Euripides, The Bacchae). For more specific background on Eph. 5.18 see the article by C. Rogers, "The Dionysian Background of Ephesians 5.18," Bibliotheca Sacra 136 (1979): 249-257.

Dionysus was a popular god among the masses, as were his mysteries. Free flowing wine was often associated with pagan worship so Paul is justly concerned about it here in Ephesians. Indeed, some scholars see here a real problem among the Roman Asian churches just as there had been a problem with drunkenness in the Corinthian congregation (1 Cor. 11.17-22).

Reading the Text

Paul commands the readers of this letter not to get filled (drunk) with the spirit of wine (Baccuhus). Its behavior is antithetical to one who belongs to Christ.

Paul does, however, want Christians to be filled (drunk?) with a Spirit. Indeed, he even commands it. "Be filled with/by the Spirit." It is even possible to render these two antithetical commands as "Never be drunk ... Always be filled with the Spirit" (cf. Gordon Fee, God's Empowering Presence, p. 720). Paul comes back to what is basically the root of all authentic Christian behavior; that is behavior that is the result of being Spirit people. People filled with (drunk?) with the Holy Spirit. People who live by the Spirit and walk by the Spirit. It seems to me that this is what Paul said earlier in Galatians 5.16. "I mean this: Live by the Spirit, and then you will not indulge your physical cravings" (Goodspeed's New Testament: An American Translation).

The actual expression of the imperative is unusual. Paul says not "be full of the Spirit" as though one were full of teh Spirit of God in the same manner another is filled with Bacchae. Rather, he says be filled "by the Spirit with emphasis on being filled to the full through the Spirit's presence. It seems to me that Paul is purposefully using this language recalling the language in his prayer in 3.14-21. There Paul prays that we be empowered by the Spirit so that as Christ dwells in them, by the Spirit, they become the "fullness of God." Christians then are to be full of God's Spirit who mediates the presence of the Father and the Son (cf 2.22).

What follows next are a series of five participles that modify the imperative "be filled by the Spirit." These are a type of adjectival particple called "dependent participles of result." A participle of result is "used to indicate the actual outcome or result of the action of teh main verb (cf. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, p. 637).

For my purposes what the participle of result means is they demonstrate what it means to be filled by/with the Spirit. I indicated the participles at the beginning of my post in the translation of the text. Once again they are "speaking," "singing," "making music/melody," "giving thanks," and "submitting." It is commonly heard in some pulpits that we are commanded to sing in this text but that is not the case. We are commanded to be filled with/by the Spirit. Singing, in this text, is simply one of the results of being filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

Rather than drunken pagan songs, Christians show their wisdom by being filled with the Spirit and singing (Holy) Spirit songs. Christians show their understanding of the will of God by being filled with the Spirit thus making melodies to the Lord. Christians filled with the Spirit are full of thanksgiving for the grace that has been poured out upon them. And perhaps most difficult of all is Christians filled with the Spirit submit to each other our of reverance for the One who made it all possible ... Christ.

A few Church Fathers, like John Chrysostom, compared Christians to a flute. The Holy Spirit is said to "play" a Christian like a muscian would the flute. The "breath" (i.e. spirit) flows through the Christian producing a certain melody and harmony just as the "breath" (i.e. spirit) of the musician flows through the flute. What an insightful understanding of the text.

Paul says that when Christians are "never full" of Bacchae, but "always full" of the Spirit certain patterns of behavior come to the fore like a fine tuned instrument. The result of being filled with the Spirit is:

1) We are constantly encouraging one another with our Spirit songs

2) We are constantly giving praise to the Lord

3) We are constantly giving thanksgiving

4) We are always in submission to one another to bring "harmony" in the family of God.

This last point is of particular relevance to the letter of Ephesians. It will be recalled from our earlier study that Paul is at pains to show that Gentiles are equal heirs to the promises of God to Israel. There remained some kind of hostility between these ethnic groups. But Paul says that one who is filled with/by the Spirit "submits to the other ..." even those we don't like ... out of reverence for Jesus the Christ. This kind of behavior comes only from the Spirit.

No where in this text is it hinted at that that these processes are the result of the "word" (as some are wont to suggest). Paul says they are the result of the filling of the Holy Spirit in the life of disciples.

In short I summarize this passage under the heading "Spirit Lives Lead to Spirit Led Worship."

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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The Holy Spirit & the Disciple, Part 2

The Holy Spirit and the Disciple, Part 2

Here I continue my reflections on Ephesians 1 and the Spirit as prayed for by Paul. Part 1 of Holy Spirit & the Disciple is located HERE on my blog ...

In bringing his thanksgiving to a close Paul informs the “Ephesians” of his continued prayers on their behalf. This prayer text is one of two in Ephesians (the other being in 3.14-21 and should be read carefully as well). The text itself is another long, single sentence with only a minor break in v.21. The main verb, “I do not stop giving thanks,” comes in v.16; vv. 17-19a give the content of the prayer on behalf of the those who read the letter, and vv. 19b-21 are an extended circumstantial clause modifying “the exceeding greatness of his power” (of v.19a).

The Meaning of “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation”

It is not just any thing that Paul prays for. He prays explicitly and specifically that God “give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation . . .” The “Spirit” is the object of the verb “give/grant” so it does not take long to recognize the crucial role of the Holy Spirit in this prayer (as he does in 3.14-21 too). The prayer is for God to grant the Spirit, characterized by the terms “wisdom and revelation.” Through the Spirit’s wisdom and revelation they will come to have a deeper knowledge of God and through the Spirit’s enlightenment of the heart Christians can have insight into their eschatological hope and God’s power for in their/our behalf.

This seems pretty straightforward to me. BUT there a few “word only” brethren who want to deny that “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” refers to the Holy Spirit. They often give a potpourri of reasons why this cannot be: 1) the Spirit only indwells through the word; 2) they claim that because there is no article in front of “pneuma” that this simply means “a wise spirit.”

My response to this is:

#1) denying the indwelling, or claiming only through the word, flies in the face of what has been said in 1.13-14. Paul has already made a factual statement that Christians are “sealed” in the Holy Spirit and that he is deposited in us as a first installment on our inheritance (cf. 4.30 where Paul makes this statement again).

#2) My response to number the article argument is that those who make it know nothing about Greek syntax. Syntactically the absence of the article is not a valid objection to this being a reference to the Holy Spirit. There are in fact number of cases where the Spirit is anarthrous (i.e. with no article). Here are a some: Mt. 12.28; Mk. 1.8; Lk. 1.15, 35, 41, 67; Rom. 1.4; 1 Pet. 1.2. Further, there is a grammatical reason for the absence of the article and that is its absence from the two nouns in the genitive as well. Paul would ordinarily write either “THE Spirit of THE wisdom and THE revelation” or “Spirit of wisdom and revelation,” both of which mean the same exactly the same thing. That is, in these kinds of constructions Paul almost always uses the article with both the accusative and its qualifying genitive, or he uses it with neither.

Further the phrase “Spirit of wisdom and revelation” is a semitism derived from Isaiah 11.2. Here the Spirit that rests upon the Messiah is described as “pneuma sophias kai suneseus” (= the Spirit of wisdom and revelation.” One should note also the anarthrous usage in Isa. 11.2, LXX too).

The alternative understanding of this phrase is, to me, pure nonsense. I’ll grant the possibility that one could make sense out of “a wise spirit” or “a wise disposition.” But to speak that way about revelation is pure nonsense. What, one wonders, can “a spirit of revelation” possibly mean in ANY sense in English?

What is the Spirit to Do?

Paul prays for God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to “grant you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation.” Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is not that they simply be indwelled by the Holy Spirit but that he be ACTIVE in their/our lives. Paul asks that God grant the Spirit “so that you may know him better.”

What? These people have already heard the gospel and obeyed the message being sealed in the Spirit -- surely they know God!! And why not just tell them to read and reread the Letter? Paul’s use of the word “epignosis” (“know,” see BDAG, p. 369) here does not refer to more facts or doctrinal knowledge. Paul prays that they “epignosis” HIM (that is God himself).

One of our great Restoration fathers, Robert Richardson, wrote that we do not have a relationship with a book but with a God who longs for relationship with his creation -- he was right. That is what Paul is discussing here. It is not enough to have memorized Ephesians (though there is nothing wrong with that).

Paul appeals to the God who has granted all spiritual blessings to us in Christ to act again through his Spirit to enable us to KNOW HIM. Paul has this idea in mind in Philippians 3.15 where he writes “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too, God will make clear [literally, “will reveal”] to you.”

Only a person who has been walking with God, getting to know him through his Spirit, will grasp certain truths Paul says. Paul has already spoken of God grace being “lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding” (1.8), now he prays that God, through the Holy Spirit, will make this a living reality. The Today’s English Bible captures well the meaning of Paul:

“I remember you in my prayers and ask God . . . to give you the Spirit, who will make you wise and reveal God to you, so that you will know him.”

Though the NIV makes it appear as though Paul is making a separate petition, v. 18 (cf. RSV, ESV) tells us how the Spirit will enable us to know God -- by “enlightening the eyes.” Paul uses “photismos” here that means to “illuminate.” What specifically will the Spirit grant us insight or illuminate our heart in regard to (in this text):

#1) to understand the goal of our salvation that is the “hope to which he has called us.” This, as many other things in this prayer, relates back to the great thanksgiving in 3-14. Paul has told the Ephesians (and us) that God “chose” them in 1.4. We are not to simply see the fact of election in Christ but the significance of that calling into hope. Can we imagine the change that would take place in our churches today if Christians suddenly had their hearts ILLUMINED and grasped the significance of the hope into which they were called. We would live our lives in the shadow of the Second Coming. Not in arrogant smugness but in confident and joyful EXPECTATION of his appearing. Paul prays that the Spirit enlighten their hearts to understand this: he did not simply suggest rereading v.18 a million times -- this type of knowledge needs the work of God’s Spirit and that is why Paul prays for it.

#2) to see the glorious riches of God’s inheritance among the saints. This is especially important in light of the unity theme in Ephesians (see part 1). How many Christians do not see the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints? The Jewish Christians didn’t see it in the Gentiles and the Gentiles failed to see it in the Jews. It is a spiritual (i.e. of the Spirit) insight from the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to one who has grasped the necessity of unity in the Body, who will not tolerate division over petty matters for the glory of God’s inheritance is to precious to that person for that.

#3) Paul also prays that the Spirit enlighten the eyes of the heart/mind to grasp the incredible resources given to live the Christian life. In particular Christians need to grasp the great “POWER” that is available to us. The power that created the universe, the power that raised Jesus from the dead (v.v. 19-20) is IN Christians. That power, that great “seal” is none other than the Spirit himself. You will recall the social context of magic and demonology in Ephesus. How are these Christians going to live in a manner that is worthy of the calling in face of the great Artemis? and Fate? and Hecate? How can they face the “powers” and principalities and thrones (all of which refer to spiritual realities and not city council persons). How will they be able to defeat their own selfish attitudes? How will they overcome the intense racial hatred between Jews and Gentiles? (blacks and whites?) Paul says God has given them/us more power than was necessary to raise the dead! The Spirit works in us “like a mighty strength.” In ch.3 Paul makes it even more explicit “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with POWER in your INNER BEING . . .”(3.16).

It seems pretty plain to me that Paul teaches in Ephesians the following about the Holy Spirit:

1) we are sealed by the Spirit as an act of ownership and protection

2) God, by giving the Spirit, has made a down-payment on our eternal future guaranteeing our inheritance in his Presence

3) the Spirit of wisdom and revelation is given so we may know GOD -- so that we can “experience” God and have spiritual insight that we would not otherwise have

4) about the hope to which we were called

5) about the glorious inheritance God has among the saints from all walks of life

6) about the power God makes available to us in our inner being through the Spirit.

The Spirit is acting in Ephesians 1 outside of the written word. Paul is praying for him to do just that. We cannot make Ephesians 1 mean something it could not mean to them so we must admit that Paul does not tell them to go read the Bible -- they are already reading it (at least part of it in the form of Ephesians) but that is not enough. They need spiritual power that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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