Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 0037. It is a fair question, and the answer turns on the apostolic teaching that filled the gap before the New Testament was gathered into one book. The earliest Christians did not walk around with a leather-bound Bible containing all sixty-six books. The church was born at Pentecost, and the Gospels and letters were…
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: 6 minutesQuestion 11110 The discipline of solitude is the deliberate practice of withdrawing from the company of others and the noise of daily life in order to be alone with God. It is one of the quieter spiritual habits, easily crowded out, yet it runs right through the life of Jesus and the saints of Scripture,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesThe discipline of silence is the deliberate practice of quieting both our surroundings and our own restless talking so that we can attend to God and to His Word without the constant noise that fills ordinary life. It is an old practice with deep roots in Scripture, and in a world of endless notifications it…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 11108 The spiritual disciplines are the ordinary, repeated practices through which believers place themselves in the way of God’s grace so that they may grow to know and love Him more. They are not a ladder we climb to earn God’s favour, and they are not religious performances that impress Him. They are the…