Skip to main content

Reflections on the New Testament: John and Acts


“Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me…?’” John 14:9, NKJV

Alas, this is the story of many modern-day Christians! It is remarkable how long the Holy Spirit may dwell within a person, and yet be utterly neglected—even suppressed—while the person professes a form of mere outward Christianity, a simple belief, but pursues no firm conviction or depth of knowledge. The Lord wishes His servants to know Him! By the power of the Holy Spirit within us, we may know Him in truth. If we quench that Spirit, He is yet with us, but we know Him not.

On the Book of Acts

The book of Acts provides Christians of all time periods with direct and powerful insight into the carrying out of the Christian ministry. In the sermons of Peter, Steven, and, later, Paul, we see the repeated and heavy use of Scripture as the chief premise for all arguments; we see marked humility and glorification of God and the Holy Spirit; in short, we see the reiteration of perhaps the single most important acknowledgment of the Christian ministry: that we do not speak on our own authority. Would you see revival (if only one earnest soul at a time)? Follow the model of the apostles: have no other premise than the Scripture, submit to the Holy Spirit, and glorify the God who works through you.

See Acts 2 and 7. Peter and Steven, acknowledging themselves to be but sinners saved by grace, submitted themselves to the Holy Spirit and built their arguments on the Scripture alone. The responses of their audiences were vastly different, but in both cases, the truth was preached and preached powerfully. Reflect upon it.

“What shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it,” Acts 4:16, NKJV.
God grant that the world may say this of us also! The apostles submitted themselves entirely to the power of the Holy Spirit, and undeniable miracles were done through them. Too often, we, as Christians, submit rather to our own flesh, or cling to our illusory “free will,” and quench the Holy Spirit striving for mastery within us. In such a state, we are indistinguishable from the world—our own words and deeds have no power either to convict or to awe. Submission to the Holy Spirit enables God’s power to work through us, distinguishing us remarkably and undeniably from the world, and puzzling and frustrating the authorities of this age.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Brief Review of Descartes' Method

Over the Christmas break, I was finally able to finish Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method . It’s a very short book and I have no excuse for taking half a semester to finish it, except that I usually tried to read it as I waited for my class to begin and was often interrupted or distracted. It was Descartes who first sparked my interest in philosophy as a teenager, and I was excited to finally read his most famous work in its entirety. I read an excerpt of it several years ago but was never able to find the complete work in any bookstores and never bothered to order it. Early last year, my favorite used bookstore added a philosophy section and I eagerly snatched up the only copy of Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Related Writings. True to form, it wasn’t until much later in the year that I actually sat down to read it. I remembered the fascination that Descartes had held for me in high school and I wondered if this book would live up to my expectations, or if, as I was prone ...
2 comments
Read more

Happy Valentine's Day!

Although the commercial focus is on romantic love, Valentine’s Day is a good time to think about love in general, as a force and as a philosophy of life. People describe love in a million ways and tack on countless definitions to it that vary infinitely, and yet love remains the same and is understood in the same way by all, because love eludes the intellect and impresses itself instead into the heart and soul. All of the most fundamental things do so, because the intellect is the least fundamental form of existence. The intellect deals with existence after it has taken a physical form, when it has reached its most tangible state. The intellect deals with existence at its surface, and analyzes the ripples in the water rather than the original disturbance. Nothing that deals with the form of existence rather than the spirit can truly comprehend love. But, like anything, love takes a form, and that is precisely where the confusion arises. Love makes ripples in the water, but the ripple...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Abortion

The essential question regarding the issue of abortion is this: can the unborn be properly considered human and are we therefore under an obligation to protect them? If this can be answered, we can begin to consider the social and political issues surrounding abortion. The Nature and Rights of the Unborn Human rights are contingent on being human—something that has always been implicit, but never fully defined except in the sphere of philosophy or in a strictly biological sense. In the past, a clear definition wasn’t necessary, because no one was thinking about existence before birth or what makes us different from machines and so forth. As science has progressed, however, we’ve been forced to consider our own humanity because of how deeply we understand our biology, including our development from a fertilized egg, and of how frequently in science the lines between material and abstract existence are blurred. Ethics in science aside, abortion is probably the most notable scenario...
4 comments
Read more