In my last post I described the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost as forging the Church as a New Humanity, reversing Babel’s curse of social and national disintegration. Today I would like to look at the coming of the Holy Spirit as establishing a New Covenant marked by the dynamic corporate experience of [...]
The advent of the Spirit is actually reversing the curse of Babel. The Spirit of God brings diverse peoples together as one family and one “kin-group.” The Spirit forges the Church as a new humanity which is reunited as a downpayment and sign of God’s eschatological purposes to bring all peoples to unity before God.
The coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, as described in Acts chapter 2, was an epochal and unrepeatable event in salvation history. This was not simply the first time the disciples received the Holy Spirit (remember, Jesus breathes on them in John 20 shortly after his resurrection). Neither was Pentecost simply [...]
Spirituality means “Life in God’s Spirit” rather than a vague and ethereal sense of “religiousness” or “inner attunement.” From briefly looking at the role of the Holy Spirit in the Bible (see part 1 – Christian Spirituality is Not Spiritual), we see that the Holy Spirit, rather than being in contrast to the physical and material [...]
What is “spirituality?” Or, what does it mean to be “spiritual”? Spirituality is often understood as that which relates to the immaterial spirit or soul in contrast to that which is physical or material. In another sense, spirituality is that which relates to a certain form of religion or religious belief. Then “spirituality” means a [...]
Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptised; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.
John is baptising when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptiser; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan [...]
I am personally not a fan of new-years resolutions, because most never get accomplished. However, I’ve decided to take some time to reflect on what it might mean to “sanctify” the coming year to God. My thoughts here are following Jurgen Moltmann’s book Spirit of Life.
Moltmann takes issue with popularized conceptions of “spirituality.” Sometimes spirituality [...]
In general, Jewish people reject Jesus as being the Messiah for one central reason. It is because Jesus did not do what the Messiah was expected to do. Christians speak of Jesus “dying for their sin,” “saving their soul,” or “getting into heaven,” but none of these concepts were anywhere close to Jewish expectation for [...]
In recent days, a fresh wave of the Spirit’s presence has broken out at the International House of Prayer Missions Base in Kansas City (IHOP-KC) resulting in many supernatural healings, deep heart-felt experiences of the love of God, and a number of unusual manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s presence. It has been wonderful to partake [...]
The central Biblical text I look to for understanding the “spirit of prayer” is Romans 8. In verses 19 and following, the entire creation is depicted as convulsing under the pains of travail, longing for freedom from the bondage of decay and death. All that lives remains under the domination of eventual decay, death and [...]
