Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 4000. The doctrine of the Spirit is the part of Christian teaching that asks who the Holy Spirit is, what He does, and what His nearness means for an ordinary believer trying to follow Jesus on an ordinary day. We give it a technical name, pneumatology, and the name can make the whole thing…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 0039. Some Christians treat the Spirit and study as competitors, as though leaning on the Holy Spirit means I can set aside the effort of learning sound doctrine. The reasoning sounds spiritual. If the Spirit teaches me, why bury my nose in books and arguments? Why not simply trust him to guide me into…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 04036. The phrase second blessing describes the belief that there is a definite work of grace beyond conversion, a later crisis experience in which the believer is lifted onto a higher plane of the Christian life, often identified with a baptism in the Spirit understood as separate from and after salvation. The idea has…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04035. Few areas cause more confusion than the Spirit’s ministries to the believer, because the New Testament uses four different pictures that are easy to run together. We are born of the Spirit, baptised in the Spirit, sealed by the Spirit, and filled with the Spirit, and a great deal of unnecessary anxiety comes…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04034. Follow the Gospels closely and you cannot miss how often the Spirit and Jesus appear side by side. From the announcement of his conception to the power of his rising, the Holy Spirit is present at every hinge of the Lord’s earthly life. This is not a minor thread running quietly in the…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04033. Ask where the Bible comes from and you cannot answer well without speaking of the Spirit and inspiration in the same breath. The Scriptures did not fall from the sky finished, nor were they invented by clever men who wanted to control others. They were breathed out by God through human writers whom…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 04032. When I open the Bible at its first page I find that the Spirit in creation is already there, before light, before land, before a single living thing. We are used to speaking of the Father who decrees and the Son through whom all things were made, and that is right and good….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4185. I want to write about the Spirit in depression with great care, because this is a subject where careless words from a pulpit have wounded many sincere believers. Depression is not the same as ordinary sadness that lifts after a good night’s sleep. It is a heavy, often prolonged darkness of mind and…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4021. How does the Spirit sanctifies us? I love the question because the answer takes us straight to the heart of how God changes a person. To say that the Spirit sanctifies us is to say that holiness is not something I wring out of myself by gritted teeth and willpower, but something God…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 11000 Prayer is one of the most fundamental aspects of the Christian life, yet many believers struggle with it. We know we should pray, but how exactly should we go about it? Is there a right way and a wrong way? What did Jesus teach His disciples when they asked Him this very question?…