Having looked very briefly at the Holy Spirit in the Bible, let us now turn specifically to Jesus’ teaching on the Paraclete in John ch. 14-16. The passages in question are 14,16-17; 14,26; 15,26; 16,7-15. Some important points follow below: ANOTHER COUNSELLOR – ANOTHER HELPER “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth”. (John 14,16) Up until this time Jesus has been there to answer…
THE THIRD PERSON OF THE TRINITY Ask any Christian about Jesus Christ, and you will get a full answer. Likewise, if you ask about God the Father! However, ask about the Holy Spirit, and many will be hard pressed to explain much; let alone witness to any experience of his presence in their lives – though he is most certainly there! This should not be! A careful reading of the Acts of the Apostles and the letters, reveals what a…
NOW FOLLOWING ON! In my last blog I sought to show how Jesus’ life of humility, obedience and dependency on the Father could be seen as a paradigm, an example for how we should seek to live our own lives of faith. I want to pick up on one of the points I made there, and elaborate on it somewhat. That point is that in Jesus, like Jesus, we should make the Father our source for all things! MANY GODS…
WHAT IS A PARADIGM? Anyone who has studied a language, has been taught to conjugate verbs, set out for us in columns to be learnt by heart – paradigms, these tables are called. The word comes from two Greek words παρά/para meaning beside, and δεικνυμι/deiknymi, to show, A paradigm is the setting forth of examples side by side – a pattern if you like, to follow! WE LEARN BY EXAMPLE The idea of an example, is a powerful one. Many…
THE FATHER DESIRES OUR WORSHIP “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”” (Jesus)John 4:23-24 I was praying the other day when the Lord impressed on me the need to worship him! In John chapter 4, Jesus meets the woman from Samaria….
THE BEGINNING I became a Christian on December 2nd, 1974. I was a first year student at Durham University in the UK. The experience of coming to faith – the realisation that God was real, completely overwhelmed me. I simply had to tell everyone I met what had happened to me. This included of course my family, but also student friends and lecturers at the University. I was probably not the easiest to have a normal conversation with at that…
One of the reasons I love John´s Gospel is for its imagery. Spiritual truth is conveyed through familiar everyday images that are close to us all. Images that denote life, growth, family etc. “Unless your are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God”, says Jesus to Nicodemus (3,3). Well, we all know what it is to be born. “The wind blows where it wills, you hear the sound of it. You do not know where it comes from,…
Note 2, 2021 Last year I wrote a number of blogs concentrating on central themes in the letters of Paul. I want now to write blogs on John’s gospel, touching also on the 1.st letter of John. PAUL Paul’s letters are situational documents in the sense that they are written amid the pastoral pressures of his evangelistic work. Except for 1&2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon, they are written to specific churches, to answer questions that arose in the various missionary…
Originally posted December 2019 This is the last in a series of posts reflecting on biblical texts relating to the Christmas message! The gospels of Matthew and Luke have both in their narratives emphasised the same truths: That Christ was born a real human being, firmly planted in history, with genealogy and family; and at the same time pointing to his divine origin. In the words of Paul: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his…
I am currently writing a blogpost about the body of Christ. Before I publish that, I want to share something from John’s Gospel. It’s about the Holy Spirit. In John chapter 4,13-14, Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman by the well says: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a…