STUDY GUIDE
The study guide is provided to help you reflect on each chapter and to reinforce some of the ideas presented. Each lesson has two parts. Glowing Embers is for your personal reflections and understandings prior to reading each chapter. Growing Flames is designed to highlight some growing or enhanced understanding (and possible disagreement) after having read each chapter. It is good for both private study and group settings.
Glowing Embers
1. Have you witnessed division within your church or congregation? Do you remember what the issues were?
2. What do you think of first when someone mentions the Holy Spirit?
3. Could you or the members of your church use a fresh encounter with the Holy Spirit?
Growing Flames
1. John 14 records Jesus’ farewell address to His disciples. Jesus gave them a promise. What was it?
2. How have you experienced the Holy Spirit’s
A. Presence
B. Power
3. What does this phrase mean? “The disciples’ lives were transformed.”
O2: Who Is the Holy Spirit
The Ghost’s Got Him!
I was introduced to church as a young boy. After leaving the foster home and being reunited with my father, he made a special effort to take us children to church almost every Sunday. Dad’s family in Ohio belonged to the Brethren Church. Our new step mom worked every other Sunday and didn’t attend with us very often. Her family attended a Dutch Reformist congregation in upstate New York. Unfortunately, neither of these denominations was very common, if they even existed, in Central Florida when I was growing up. As a result, we landed in the Methodist Church nearest our home. My introduction to the Holy Spirit, however, didn’t come from attending the Methodist Church. It came during a tent meeting.
Our home was located a couple of miles outside the city limits. The pre-Disney Orlando was growing and expanding rapidly in our direction. Next to our small subdivision was a huge field that later would become miles of new car dealerships. But back then it was “our” ball field. The neighborhood boys, my brothers and I cleared the field and turned it into our personal athletic center. In the fall it was a football field. In spring and summer it was our baseball field. It even served as our neighborhood-gathering spot and as our bus stop. Much to our displeasure, it was perfect for traveling evangelists to set up their tent meetings. Some very impressive and notable preachers used “our” field.
It must have been spring or summer because Dad told my older brother, “Go pull up the bases. Some church group wants to use the field.” That didn’t sit well at all. The boys from the next street over had been razzing us pretty bad after beating us in the last game. The neighborhood (World Series to us) championship was serious business. Bragging rights were scheduled for the upcoming Saturday. That would now have to be postponed and another week of verbal abuse was certain.
Mom had to work on the upcoming Sunday, and in a very uncharacteristic move suggested that the family go to the tent meeting on Saturday evening. Even more uncharacteristic, Dad agreed. My brothers and sister moaned and groaned. When Saturday evening arrived, Dad and my oldest brother were still working late at the construction site, an unfortunate coincidence, I’m sure. Sis, conveniently, had a date. Mom and we two younger boys walked over to our field.
The music was already playing when we arrived. I recognized some of the songs, but the volume and tempo were a little more than we were used to at the Concord Park Methodist Church. Sitting in the wooden folding chairs was torture. The bugs were tormenting and it was hot under the canvas. Needless to say, once the preacher started talking, it was easy for me to fade away. Despite the loud voice, the chair, the heat, and the bugs, I was able to lean my head against Mom’s shoulder and drift off.
All of a sudden the folks were standing up and shouting. Mom stood up too, almost dumping me to the ground somewhere around second base. I stood up to see what all the ruckus was about, but couldn’t. I was too short. I stood up in the chair looking over the heads of folks in front of me and couldn’t believe what I saw. The preacher was lying flat on his back on the platform! My first thought was, “Mom’s a nurse. She’ll know what to do!” Instead of moving toward the platform, Mom sat back down. It then began to register in my ears what the people were saying. “The ghost’s got him! The Holy Ghost has got him!”
I cannot remember a time when I was madder at my brother than that very moment. My BIG brother, TWO years older than me, beat me to my mother’s lap! I didn’t know too much about ghosts, but I was old enough to know that I didn’t want any part of them, especially if they were laying out grown men! And to make matters worse, my older brother had already taken the only place of safety! Mom gathered us up pretty quickly and we headed home.
Once we got to the house, I discovered that Dutch Reformists weren’t at all familiar with the kind of worship service we had just experienced. Interestingly, Brethrens and Methodists knew a little about tent meetings, but I certainly hadn’t ever experienced anything quite like that. It was still a few years off before I began to understand what the Holy Ghost was. Getting comfortable talking about the Holy Ghost took even longer. Needless to say, changing the name to the Holy Spirit was very helpful for me. But no sooner did I think I had it down, than I started hearing that the Holy Spirit was part of something called the Trinity.
Three in One
The Doctrine of the Trinity is the central Christian belief that there is One God who exists in Three Persons. I must confess that this doctrine is one of the most difficult and confusing puzzles we face in theology. As a youth going through Sunday School and confirmation, the concept of the Trinity never quite made it with me. Even after completing seminary and many years of ministry I’m not sure that I have fully solved the puzzle, because it is a mystery. “It is a mystery in the strict sense, in that it can neither be known by reason apart from revelation, nor demonstrated by reason after it has been revealed, but it is not incompatible with the principles of rational thought.”TPD1DPT
The word “trinity” is not found in scripture, but is thought to be first used by Theophilus of Antioch in 180 A.D. The concept of the Trinity is foreshadowed in the Old Testament and is found more clearly in the New Testament.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit … (Matthew 28:19)
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (II Corinthians 13:14)
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)
The doctrine of the Trinity is voiced clearly in our earliest Christian creeds, our doxologies, and our sacramental formulas. It was at the Councils of Nicaea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.) that the doctrine was confirmed and defended, and has been a central part of our statements of faith ever since.