I suspect many a Christian, including many evangelicals, can identify with frustrations J.D. Greear expressed in his recent Christianity Today interview about the Christian life and the Holy Spirit: it “seemed like people in the Bible had a fundamentally different relationship with God than my own. There was a hollowness in my spiritual life. God was more a doctrine than a person.” The solution to this malaise, according to Greear, was developing an active, empowering relationship with the Holy Spirit, the Christian’s guide and comforter.
Non-charismatic evangelicals often have no practical theology of how the believer is to walk in step with the Spirit. Part of the problem is doctrine itself – Ed Stetzer reports that a stunning MAJORITY of evangelicals (51%) describe the Holy Spirit as a “force” rather than a person. This speaks to impoverished teaching in the churches, but I wonder if part of the problem is also language – would people understand the personal nature of the Spirit more readily if we (like our Pentecostal brethren) still called Him the “Holy Ghost”?
Read Full Article »