To Deuteron Pneuma – The Second Wind
By Stephen W. Hiemstra
This morning I will share a prayer and Round up my discussion of the Holy Spirit. After listening, please click here to take a brief listener survey (10 questions).
To listen, click on this link.
Hear the words; Walk the steps; Experience the joy!
By Stephen W. Hiemstra
Spirit of Truth,
All praise and honor, power and dominion, truth and justice are yours because you have made your home with us. You have guided us, provisioned us, and have endowed us with spiritual gifts.
Forgive us when we take your presence for granted, have neglected you guidance and misused your gifts.
Thank you for the many blessings, for never leaving us alone, and reminding us of Jesus’ words.
Draw us to the Father. Open our hearts, illumine our thoughts, and strengthen our hands in your service.
In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.
By Stephen W. Hiemstra
The New Testament offers three pictures of God: The person of Jesus, Jesus’ teaching about God the Father in the parables, and the founding of the church on Pentecost by the Holy Spirit. In this book, I have focused on the image of the Holy Spirit and the church.
The introduction of this book starts with a brief problem statement for the postmodern church and proceeds to cite evidence from the Old Testament of the Holy Spirit’s influence. The remaining sections outline the Holy Spirit’s influence in the writings of Luke, Paul, and John.
A survey of the challenges facing the church today shows that challenges to the church posed in the modern era lack philosophical merit and the postmodern challenge is less onerous because the church’s description of the human condition rings true. The church needs to articulate its message attending to both the heart and the mind. Church growth in the Global South is most successful when its missionaries overcome the challenge of social and economic distance. The biblical model of bi-vocational evangelism needs to be taken more seriously.
The Old Testament introduces us to a God who takes words seriously. The story of Abram begins with a promise that resembles a coming-of-age narrative. In the Exodus, this narrative is repeated for the people of Israel who in adversity learn to trust and rely on God. For those who refuse to acknowledge God, we see a cycle of sin, enslavement, crying out to the Lord, and God’s provision of a savior. The Old Testament then walks us through a variety of divine revelations, actions, and covenants that prepare us for the better covenant in Christ.
The presence of the Holy Spirit is obvious in Luke’s Gospel and the Book of Acts in wandering ministry and in a wide interpretation of law that invites the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The call of the church is to minister to the world adopting the footloose characteristic of the Holy Spirit that stands in opposition to the exclusivity of the temple. Meanwhile, Luke presents at least three archetypal images of the church—the formal church, the communal church, and the house church—that serve in good times and bad. Balancing out the congregational role of the church is its mentoring role to individuals.
The Apostle Paul mentored the churches that he founded in their spiritual walk through his letters and visits, and he viewed them as an extension of the people of Israel. This conclusion is obvious from Paul’s use of Old Testament scripture and his view of the Holy Spirit as a spiritual mentor and grantor of spiritual gift for ministry. Paul also promoted an egalitarian interpretation of relations within the family that he later used as a model for the church. Paul viewed the distinctiveness of the church as arising from its pursuit of holiness in an unholy cultural context. Mentoring thus played a special role in Paul’s approach to developing church leaders, such as Timothy.
While it is hard to write about other topics in the New Testament without weaving in observations from John, John’s writing has at least three distinctive with regard to the Holy Spirit: A high view of scripture, spirit-driven accounts of pastoral care, and images of spirit-inspired worship. Only in John does Jesus say that we will be judged by scripture. John alone pictures Jesus in private pastoral-type visits with individuals. Only John shows us multiple views of authentic worship.
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By Stephen W. Hiemstra
This morning I will share a prayer and reflect on Worship. After listening, please click here to take a brief listener survey (10 questions).
To listen, click on this link.
Hear the words; Walk the steps; Experience the joy!
By Stephen W. Hiemstra
Lord God Almighty,
All praise and honor, power and dominion, truth and justice are yours because you are the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Rev 1:8).
Forgive our uppity attitudes, blindness to truth, and deafness to the misery around us. Heal us of our attitudes.
Thank you for clean water, fruit that is ever in season, and the heal benefits of modern medicine, things denied humanity in most times and places. Heal us of our attitudes.
In the power of your Holy Spirit, wake us to your majesty and worthiness of our sincere praise.
In Jesus’ precious name, Amen.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship
in spirit and truth.
(John 4:24)
by Stephen W. Hiemstra
More than any other New Testament author, the Apostle John is associated with worship. John gives us numerous pictures of Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem in his I am discourse, numerous names of God used by no one else, and numerous pictures of worship in heaven. It is significant that John relates worship primarily to our heart condition—worshiping in spirit and truth, not to music or other outside manifestations. This is an echo of the new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah (Jer 31:33).
Less well known is John’s extensive use of Old Testament allusions in the Book of Revelations. Often when John speaks about worship it is call out false worship. At least two Old Testament accounts appear to influence John’s concept of worship: The story of Cain and Abel, and sacramental worship.
When Cain murdered Abel, it was jealousy over God’s acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice and rejection of his own (Gen 4:3-10). This is an account of false worship. Our worship must please God, not us. John’s two lengthy accounts of worship—Jesus’ discussion with the woman at the well (John 4) and John’s account of the beast (Rev 13)—are narratives primarily about false worship. The account of the beast is particularly relevant today because it was about worshiping political power—the beast was a symbol of Rome.
Sacramental worship is often neglected by the modern church as passé. Listen to what Moses tells Pharaoh, the fifth time that he asks to allow the people of Israel to go into the desert to offer sacrifices (Exod 3:18. 5:3, 5:8, 5:17):
“Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, Go, sacrifice to your God within the land. But Moses said, It would not be right to do so, for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the LORD our God are an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us?” (Exod 8:25-26)
The sacrifices in question here were not just random animals, they were animals sacred to the Egyptians. These sacrifices were accordingly a loyalty test: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these [fishing]? (John 21:15) The equivalent sacrifice today would be to give up sex, power, and money—showing up on Sunday morning with your family in church is a similar sacrifice, if done with the proper attitude.
The worthiness of God, a prerequisite for worship, is a theme running throughout John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelation. The controlling idea is:
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Rev 4:11)
This theme runs throughout Revelation 5, but in John’s Gospel it shows up in Jesus’ superabundant hospitality, an echo of Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant written on our hears (Jer 31:14): The provision of wine at the wedding in Cana (John 4), the feeding of the crowds with bread and fish (John 6:4-13), and the large catch of fish at Galilee (John 21:11).
At a time when most people lived at the verge of starvation, much like the provision of manna in the desert, God’s superabundant generosity revealed his worthiness to be worshipped.
The most prominent name for God is the one that he emphatically gave to Moses from the burning bush: “I AM WHO I AM.” (Exod 3:14) In John’s Gospel, Jesus preaches a series of laconic sermons on feast days in the Jerusalem Temple. Famous among these sermons are: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), “I am the light of the world” (John 9:5), “I am the door” (John 10:9), “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11), “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), and “I am the true vine” (John 15:1). This sermon theme even appears in Revelation: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev 1:8)
While each of these “I am” sermons tie Jesus to salvation and God, this last one seems most pertinent to the work of the Holy Spirit:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
The continuous guidance of the Holy Spirit could not be clearer and it points in the direction of employing continuous prayer throughout the day, which would give form to a life of continuous worship.
The creation account starts with an important statement of God’s transcendence: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1) Because God created everything (heaven and earth being the endpoints), he stands outside of time and space as we know it. Eden appears as a garden, but it is also the Holy of Holies because that is the place where Adam and Eve commune with God.
John’s picture of the city of God is a return to Eden, although in a new form:
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (Rev 22:1-2)
For people used to desert life, a garden with plenty of fresh, clean water, fresh fruit always in season, and a healing tree of life a natural image of heaven. This picture of heaven, along with the many others in Revelation, reinforces the point that God is worthy of our worship.
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