Below are the notes from the summer class I'm teaching on the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts, week 1. I see that in posting them, all my fancy formatting doesn't translate over into blogger....but at least you'll get the information!
Come join us!! 10 am Sundays, 'Family Room' (first room on right from north entrance).
Class: Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts
Week 1: Intro to the Holy Spirit
Format of the class: 15-40 minutes of interactive lecture; 10-30 minutes of Q/A discussion. Led by Nathan Custer and Greg Ahrens.
Introduced ourselves in first class: Nathan, Alex, Monica, Lew, Jo, David, Mrs. S., Steve, Mia, Adam.
My bias (Nathan): Christian, Wesleyan-Arminian Christian, United Methodist; biblical theology; apostolic hermeneutics. (If none of that makes any sense to you…that’s fine!)
Why this class?
1) “Christianity” basically developed into what it is today following Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension…and those first years after Jesus’ ascension are recorded in the book of Acts.
2) After Jesus’ ascension, THE deciding on whether or not someone was fully a “Christian” was whether or not they were fully connected to God by having the Holy Spirit dwell WITHIN them.
---
On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
6 So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
7 He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
Acts 1:4-8 (NIV)
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Acts 2:1-4 (NIV)
Had a short class discussion here where we emphasized that the power of the Holy Spirit that was promised by Jesus was said by him to be for the action of witnessing, and then when the HS came at Pentecost the gifting the HS gave the disciples was that of speaking known languages for witnessing! The Pentecost arrival of the HS fit the mission of the HS’s power told by Jesus.
9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
Romans 8:9 (NIV)
Note: Spirit of God, and Spirit of Christ are synonymous!
---
3) SO: For us to be fully Christian, we must have the Spirit of God—the “Holy Spirit”—within us, and when that happens it leads to a “new life.” We learn about this explicitly throughout the book of acts, and learning about it can lead us into new LIFE!
Who is the Holy Spirit?
Class’s input on question, ‘what comes to mind when you hear the words HOLY SPIRIT’:
Helper, Moving, Force, Always with us, omnipresent, omniscient, perfect love, part of the Trinity active in the world, gives understanding and insight.
Notes:
HOLY—set apart; pertaining to God—ENTIRELY
SPIRIT—living, interactive existence not confined to our typical spatial and chronological dimensions
THE Holy Spirit—the Spirit of God who acts in conjunction with God en total, but in a distinctive way from the other two ‘persons’ of God.
SPIRIT—Ruach = “moving air” in Hebrew, language of the Old Testament (and remember that the New Testament writers always inherited the essence of their religious terms from their use in the Old Testament, since they were all Jewish). Thus translated in natural terms as breath or wind, and then as “Spirit” when pertaining to the supernatural.
Emanating from God en total (the “Godhead”), but then acting in a distinct way…as our own breath is a part of us one moment, then expelled from us into the world the next even though it was the same breath-stuff, so the Holy Spirit is identical God-stuff to the Godhead but is also distinct.
Old Testament to New Testament description:
Old Testament:
Genesis 1:1 and hundreds of other places in the Bible, the Hebrew word for God is “Elohim”—a plural word, always used as a singular word grammatically.
Genesis 1:2—the Spirit/Wind/Breath of God is moving over the waters. Common in OT to refer to the spirit/wind/breath of God, though was not thought to be anything beyond a manifestation of a singular God.
Genesis 2:7—God breathed into humans the breath of life, and gave them life. Therefore human life has some sort of divine spark from God’s spirit, but is not technically God’s Holy Spirit within us—as if his spirit gave us the energy to animate our complex molecules, but was not ‘God in us’ as is available now.
Spirit Charism—filling of individual with God’s spirit for particular task:
--Gen. 41:38-39, Ex. 28:3, Dt. 34:9 (including to give wisdom)
--Judges 14:6, 15:14-15 (to give military leadership, strength)
--1 Sam. 10:6, 19:24; Is. 61:1 (to give prophetic visions and words)
New Testament:
(Scripture verses above from Acts and Romans)
John 4:24—God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.
Mt. 28:18-20—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit equated by Jesus in baptism.
1 Timothy 3:16—Scripture is God-breathed (God-Spirited)
Galatians 5:22-25-- 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. – Didn’t get to this set of verses.
Various NT and OT passages—Spirit also gives gifts, abilities and power to do tasks God calls us to do.
VERY IMPORTANT:
The ‘trinity’ shows us that God in essence is RELATIONAL. And the creation narrative shows us that God’s essential position in association with us is as loving relationship—as God ‘himself’ is in a loving relationship in essence.
Thus, our ideal is loving relationship with God and with each other. In sinful present, that’s broken, and much works against that….and the Spirit helps restore it!!
Important functions of the Holy Spirit: RECONCILIATION and EMPOWERMENT
Local kids plead for school
5 weeks ago
2 comments:
There is life!
Sounds like a good class - I will follow by the notes from afar!
I recently encountered a gentleman who said that the historical record doesn't accord with the picture of the early church in Acts; specifically that there were many competing sects of Christianity that orthodoxy eventually won out over. Additionally, he said that a NT manuscript in Coptic that included the Gospel of Judas was recently found (citation to this article here: http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/2009/04/na28.html). What would you suggest as a resource for evidence that Acts is an accurate picture of the early church? Any other ideas for refutation of these claims?
A GREAT question that could elicit a VERY, VERY, VERY lenghty reply! :-)
In terms of resources, in my own limited knowledge (though I admit I have researched it pretty avidly), here's a few:
Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, by James D. G. Dunn. This is a pretty definitive text from other scholars' opinions I've received, and the book blew me away. Main thesis--yes, early Christianity (like modern Christianity, really!), was VERY diverse to the point that even within the NT itself there are some varying emphases that are almost contradictory at times if pushed to an extreme, and it took a long time for 'orthodoxy' to be established in official, detailed ways. BUT, in all legitimate strands of early Christianity that actually produced lasting conversions, perpetuating churches, etc., there was a kerygma--core teaching--that was identical among them all (Love God, Love Neighbor, Jesus is Lord, have faith in Christ, etc.).
The First Urban Christians, by Wayne Meeks. Gives evidence for the social world of time of Acts and Paul's writings.
N.T. Wright and Ben Witherington III have both addressed the legitimacy of multiple NT books--Wright's got a commentary on Acts I keep meaning to buy, Witherington writes on his blog probably weekly about any new NT scholarship find that comes along.
My own response to people who start to freak out about the accuracy of Acts or any other NT book is to point them to resources like these, and then say, 'it's the same Spririt of Christ that's active today as was active then, so let's look now at what you may experience as FIRSTHAND evidence right now as you encounter Christ'--something like that.
Post a Comment