Of Donkeys and Men

It seems that I have difficulty understanding the Holy Spirit, but then I think most people do. It's not easy to understand God who is the Spirit anymore than it is easy to understand God the Father. In fact, I know much about Jesus through the gospels, but I'm not sure I really understand Jesus, at least not as well as I would like.

So understanding the Holy Spirit requires that I do some real research through the pages of the Holy Scriptures. Now, God is a truthful God and in Him there is no deceit, no lies, no beating around the bush. So I thought I would have a bit of a conversation with God, you know, get His ideas about the Holy Spirit. After all, He is the Spirit, so why not go to the Source? So I will call myself the interviewer, you know, just like broadcast news, and interview God on this important subject.

Interviewer: God (do I call you Mr. God? His Reverence? Father?), good morning, Sir. I would like to know more about the Holy Spirit. When did the Spirit first get involved in all of this?

God: This what?

Interviewer: You know, the Creation, man, animals, the whole ball of wax, so to speak.

God: Haven't you read My Words? “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1, HCSB) My Spirit has always been with Me, my Spirit is Me and my Spirit was there at the beginning of creation.

Interviewer: Oh, I see. So it's safe to say the Spirit was in on this creation phase.

Now, then, did people have the Spirit, you know, the Spirit living in them, or the “indwelling” as some call it, back in the old days.?

God: Old days? One day to me is the same as a thousand years. (2 Peter 3:8)A thousand years means nothing to me. Time means nothing to me. What do you mean, “old days?”

Interviewer: Right, I forgot. Excuse me, please. I mean, before your Son came to the earth?

God: A little light on Bible reading, are we? Haven't you read my messenger, Joel? “After this, I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity;” (Joel 2:28a, HCSB) Peter, another of my messengers, understood this when he preached to a large crowd of Jewish believers. Peter understood that I meant for the Spirit to come after my Son returned to heaven, following His work on earth.

Interviewer: So this “indwelling” thing is for people after Jesus died and rose from the dead?

God: Peter explained my words very carefully. “'Repent,' Peter said to them, 'and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'” (Acts 2:38, HCSB) My Spirit is a gift to those who call on the name of my Son, Jesus.

Interviewer: So that's why some people can speak in tongues or prophecy? They got that gift when they believed in Jesus?

God: You are confusing the gift of the Spirit and the gifts the Spirit gives. The two are not one and the same, as some would tell you.

Interviewer: But I have friends who say that if you can't speak in tongues you don't have the Holy Spirit? Isn't that right?

God: That's a classic misunderstanding of my Spirit.

Interviewer: But when the apostles got the Spirit, they immediately spoke in tongues, or foreign languages, different dialects. Right?

God: I see we're having trouble with the time thing again.

Interviewer: I don't get it.

God: I poured out my Spirit on my church, the church my Son died for. The Spirit was given as my gift. My spirit can give gifts as He chooses. As soon as my Spirit was poured out on the church on the day of Pentecost (a special Jewish holy day), He gave the apostles all of the gifts He had for man.

Interviewer: But those apostles speaking in tongues, that was a sign they had the Spirit, right? They could talk to folks in their own language about Jesus.

God: Is that what you think happened? A little more Bible study, perhaps?

Interviewer: Right. Can you help me on that, please Sir?

God: In those tongues, as men call them, they spoke in those different languages about Me, about my magnificent, wonderful acts throughout time. They were praising Me.

Interviewer: But I thought you gave them that ability so that they could preach the gospel, spread the word.

God: Peter used his own language to speak to the crowd. He even got louder so that everyone could hear him. (Acts 2:14)

Interviewer: How did they learn those languages so fast? My friend says that he can teach me to speak in tongues. Is that true?

God: Do you understand the word “gift” in your language? I gave them the ability to speak in those languages, they didn't learn them.

Interviewer: Does every Christian have that ability?

God: It's not the most important gift. There are many others. Not everyone had the gift in the past.

Interviewer: Really?

God: Have you not read what my apostle, Paul, said to the Christians living in the city of Corinth? He reminded those believers that not everyone had the same gift, but that my Spirit was involved in every one of them. They were dividing my church, my Son's body, over the gifts, trying to say one gift was more important than another. He then told them that they should desire the greater gifts after naming miracles, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, knowledge, faith and so on as gifts of the Spirit. If there is something greater than those, they should desire the greater, not the lesser.

Interviewer: And?

God: Of course, love is the greatest. (I Corinthians 13)I am love. That is the best description of Who I Am. Have you not read my messenger, John? (I John 4:8b) Wouldn't you rather have the gift giver more than the gift itself?

Interviewer: Please explain that idea for me.

God: When someone gives a gift to another person, it's not the gift that the other person wants, it's the person who is giving the gift, that person's love, that person's heart. Isn't that why a man gives a ring to a woman, to show his love for her? The ring is just a symbol of his love for her. She wants the ring so she can always remember he loves her. But more than the ring, she wants him, his love. It's the same with my gifts. I have given the Spirit so that you may know that I love you. The greatest gift was my Son, who, by the way, is also the Spirit. But that's for another session.

Interviewer: But how about speaking in tongues? If I can't learn how to do it, how do I get it? Pardon me for being so simple.

God: I can make anything talk. My Son told the religious bigots of His days on earth that He could make the stones talk. (Luke 19:40)

Interviewer: Really? Not just Christians?

God: I once used a donkey to tell a man he was going the wrong way. He didn't get it, even when the donkey talked to him. (Numbers 23, 24) Humans who don't really want to understand Me will get it wrong about the gifts of the Spirit, too.

Interviewer: So if I can't speak in tongues, what should I tell my friend?

God: Tell him to go talk to some donkeys.

(My humble apology to God, using the above technique to try and explain a troubling misunderstanding. Lord, may you be glorified. Amen)

Is the Holy Spirit for Everyone?

He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.

But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him

and said, "You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?

And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time." Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.

Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. (Acts 13:7-12, ESV)

It seems that we often think we understand a subject only to find out later that we were wrong about some aspect, some small point. God does amazing things, and all we have to do is accept what He does. But for some reason, we aren't happy when God does something that seems different than a preconceived notion we have about how He should act in a given situation. I mean, really. Strike a man blind! It must be the Holy Spirit working through Paul who struck Elymas blind. Talk about a misunderstanding. All Elymas was doing was trying to give a different point of view, another way to look at things. Surely you don't believe that God will hurt people with the Holy Spirit, do you? Okay, okay, I know that the Holy Spirit killed Annanias and Saphira for lying. I think I get it. But now here is poor Elymas, simply trying to keep Sergius Paulus from falling into the trap of believing everything Paul is telling him and zap! Elymas is stricken blind. Not only that. Did you see the language Paul used? He called Elymas a son of the devil. Now how does Paul know what is in Elymas' heart? Paul said he was full of deceit and villainy. Pretty bad stuff. I wonder if Paul could have been sued for libel? Does the Holy Spirit do this kind of thing? Seems odd to me.

Oh, I guess I didn't understand the whole story. Elymas is an Arabic name meaning magician or sorcerer. His real name was Bar Jesus, or son of Joshua. It seems that Elymas is Jewish. Oh, here it is. In Deuteronomy 18:9-14 it says that all kinds of magic arts, divination, sorcery, etc., were strictly forbidden under the Old Law. So what's Elymas, a Jewish man, doing playing around with something that was strictly forbidden for Jews to do? Ah, there's that word, villainy. Turning a buck. Old Elymas is just trying to get ahead in this world, using something that is strictly forbidden in the Jewish religion, to get a bit of the good life. Where's the money coming from? Oh, yeah. Sergius Paulus. If Sergius Paulus believes the things that Paul is telling him (the good news), he'll stop believing all of the lies that Elymas has been telling him. It seems that even in our times politicians often consult with astrologers, mediums, etc., to try to figure out how to stay ahead in the game, whether running for office of running a country.

But this is shocking. If God used the Holy Spirit to kill Annanias and Saphira and used the Holy Spirit to blind Elymas, what does that mean for me? I thought the Holy Spirit only did good things. You know, like give me strength for hard times. Get me out of a jam. Heal my poor friend.

But that raises another problem for me. That means that all the stuff Jesus said about, well, you know, the hot place, eternal punishment, just might be true. If I don't stay faithful to Jesus, will He really consign me to eternal pain and separation from Him? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?