Question Q04017 Resisting the Holy Spirit is not the same as quenching the Spirit, though the two are sometimes confused. Quenching is something believers can do by suppressing the Spirit's ...
Question Q04018 Whether a believer can lose the Holy Spirit is not simply a question about experience or emotion. It touches the nature of salvation itself and the faithfulness of ...
Question Q04011 Prayer is often treated as though it were entirely a human activity, a matter of finding the right words or generating sufficient sincerity. Scripture presents a far more ...
Question Q04012 The question may seem almost impertinent. Can a divine person be suppressed? Can a member of the Godhead be hindered? Yet Scripture addresses this directly, and the answer ...
Question Q04013 The phrase "praying in the Spirit" appears in two places in the New Testament: Ephesians 6:18 and Jude 20. It has generated considerable discussion, particularly in Pentecostal and ...
Question 04120 Jesus's words in John 16:8-11 describe the Holy Spirit's work in relation to the world: "when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and ...
Question 04121 The sight of someone placing their hands on a sick person and praying for healing can provoke a range of reactions in evangelical circles, from warm affirmation to ...
Question 04016 When Christians think about prayer, the question of who exactly we are addressing is more significant than it might first appear. Most believers instinctively pray to "God" or ...
Question 04005 There is a moment in corporate worship that raises a question worth pausing over. A song rises, the congregation lifts its voice, and the lyrics address the Holy ...
Question 04015 The phrase 'the procession of the Holy Spirit' sounds abstract enough that most Christians assume it belongs to the world of academic theology and has little to do ...
Question 7006 Few passages in Scripture have caused more anxiety among believers than Jesus' solemn warning about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. People have come to me over the years, ...
Question 4105 When Philip the evangelist preached Christ in Samaria, the response was extraordinary. People believed, were baptised, and the city was filled with great joy (Acts 8:8). Yet something ...
Question 4099 Acts 19:1-7 is one of those passages that regularly surfaces in discussions about the Holy Spirit, and it is often read through the lens of Pentecostal or charismatic ...
Question 4059 Is the Holy Spirit actually God — or is He something less? A divine power, perhaps, or a spiritual force that emanates from God without being God Himself? ...
Question 4060 Few distinctions in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit carry more practical consequence than the one between His baptism and His filling. Confuse the two, and you end ...
Question 4061 Of all the biblical arguments marshalled in support of cessationism — the view that certain spiritual gifts have ceased with the apostolic age — the most frequently cited ...
Question 4062 The cessationist and continuationist debate turns, at its heart, on a single exegetical decision: are prophecy and Scripture the same category of thing? If they are, then genuine ...
Question 4063 Paul identifies three conditions for Spirit-filled living in Ephesians 4 and 5, and 1 Thessalonians 5: do not grieve the Spirit, do not quench the Spirit, walk by ...
Question 4068 The gift of healings is listed plainly in 1 Corinthians 12:9 and 28, and the New Testament account of its exercise in the early church is vivid and ...
Question 9109 The church has always struggled to hold two things together: genuine openness to the Spirit's ongoing work in equipping believers with gifts, and the biblical insistence on order, ...
Question 4066 Someone approaches you after a church meeting, or perhaps contacts you privately, with a message they believe is from God for your life. They may have used the ...
Question 10109 How does a believer grow in holiness? The question sounds simple and turns out to be one of the most contested in Christian thought. On one side stands ...
Question 04117 If you have spent any time in charismatic circles you will almost certainly have encountered the idea that God has been moving in successive waves of the Spirit ...
Question 4065 Every believer in Christ has received at least one spiritual gift. This is not an aspiration or a target to aim for — it is a statement of ...
Question 04118 The word "impartation" has become so standard in charismatic vocabulary that many Christians use it without pausing to ask whether it describes something the Bible actually teaches. The ...
Question 04119 When Paul writes to the Ephesian believers that they were "sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" (Ephesians 1:13), he reaches for language drawn from the commercial and legal ...
Question 1008 The question of dreams, visions, and prophecy today generates considerable confusion and division in the church. Does God still speak through these means? Should Christians expect or seek ...
Question 1017 Whether an unbeliever can understand the Bible has direct implications for evangelism, for how we engage with non-Christian friends around Scripture, and for how we understand the Holy ...
Question 10028 Most Bible readers have had the experience of a passage opening up with a clarity and personal directness it had never carried before — something has changed, though ...
Question 01148 One of the most practically significant questions in contemporary Christianity concerns the difference between the Holy Spirit opening a person's mind to understand what Scripture already says, and ...
Question 01149 There is a beautiful coherence to the doctrine of Scripture that is sometimes missed in debates about inspiration and interpretation. The same Holy Spirit who oversaw the production ...
Question 0039 This question reflects a misunderstanding that some sincere Christians hold; the idea that because we have the indwelling Spirit, we can bypass careful study and simply rely on ...
Question 4010 Having looked at the nine qualities that make up the fruit of the Spirit, a practical question arises: Should every Christian display all nine? What if someone seems ...
Question 4008 The question of how the Spirit guides believers is one of the most practically significant in all of pneumatology. It touches directly on decision-making, on the discernment of ...
Question 4007 Few phrases have been borrowed more freely from their original context than "the still small voice." It has become a standard way of describing the Holy Spirit's gentle ...
Question 4006 Christians sometimes describe hearing from the Spirit in ways that raise an obvious question: does the Holy Spirit actually speak in an audible voice? This is not a ...
Question 4004 Ephesians 4:30 contains a command that is both sobering and, on reflection, remarkable: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the ...
Question 4003 Christians sometimes speak of being filled with the Spirit as though it were an elusive spiritual state achieved only by the most devoted believers, or conversely, as though ...
Question 4002 Few questions in pneumatology have generated more disagreement than this one. Some traditions teach that the Spirit is received at water baptism. Others insist on a distinct post-conversion ...
Question 4009 In Galatians 5:22-23, Paul lists what he calls "the fruit of the Spirit": love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It is one of the ...
Question 4001 When Christians speak of the Holy Spirit, it is worth pausing to ask what they actually mean. For many, the Spirit remains a vague and largely undefined presence, ...
Question 4000 If you have spent any time in theological study, you have almost certainly encountered words ending in -logy: theology, Christology, eschatology. Pneumatology is one of these, and it ...