Luke/Acts and the Holy Spirit, By Kasey McCollum

It is no surprise that many of us get nervous when conversations about the Holy Spirit come up.  We come from a movement that focuses on the rational and our silence regarding the Holy Spirit is deafening. After reading through so many of the passages about the HS, it makes me pause and think how heretical our tradition may have been to be so silent about it.  This is a huge omission on our part.

Often we think of experiences with the HS as out-of-body-like.  Some one speaks in a language that is unrecognizable to anyone around them.  Or maybe you have experienced someone abuse (in my opinion) the HS by naming what it told them to do and ironically it is in their own personal interest and not in the interest of others.

Luke and Acts have a very different picture of the HS.  The HS is its own character in the story. Luke and Acts paint a picture of the HS as the power that fuels the breaking in of the kingdom of God and the spreading of the gospel.  I don’t get the impression that the HS shows up and people start going into trances.  But what seems to happen in a variety of ways that people have the ability to see and act on behalf of the gospel in the face of great challenge.  Because of the HS people speak in different tongues (languages) and now numerous people are able to hear the gospel that wouldn’t have been able otherwise.  The HS comes upon unlikely people like Mary (teenage peasant girl), Elizabeth (barren woman), Zechariah (Levite with no heir), Samaritans (traitors who married the oppressors), Philip (eunuch which is a person with crushed testicles or was castrated at a young age, resulting in hormonal consequences), and the list could go on.  The HS comes upon unlikely people from unlikely backgrounds and this tells me that the kingdom of God is breaking in, welcomed, and accessible to all people, places, and circumstances.  The HS seeks to break down the barriers and empower all people to experience the gospel.  Nothing should hinder the gospel from reaching to the ends of the earth.  Not language, gender, social standing, economics, nationality, religious tradition, social function, NOTHING should stand in the way. 

So in a way, yes, by the power of the HS people will do things they wouldn’t do before.  They will speak in ways and with people they didn’t before.  They will go to the abandoned people and places in society (like the desert and Samaria).  They will be moved to sell property for the sake of the community.  They may give up positions of power from before and face danger, imprisonment, and persecution.  But all of this is for the sake of the gospel so that the kingdom of God may reach to the ends of the earth. 

So what about us.  The HS does not tend to mobilize people upward in positional power by society’s standards.  “My things” are now “God’s” and are offered to be used for the sake of the kingdom.  I have to be willing to cross social barriers and endure the social consequences for the sake of the gospel.  Do I even recognize social barriers at work?  Will I go to the abandoned places and people in our society?  Do I know where the abandoned places of society are?   These questions come to mind as I consider the implications of living our lives empowered by the HS.