Andrew Murray on the Names of the Holy Spirit

But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.
 – John 14:26 NLT

“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.
 – John 16:7 NASB

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
 – John 16:13 ESV

 

Ten years ago at this time I was slowly working my way through a classic; Andrew Murray’s book With Christ in the School of Prayer. For the two chapters, he was been looking at the passage that begins, “If his son asks for bread will he give him a stone?” This is paralleled in Matthew and Luke; and says that if corrupted and sinful parents like ourselves still give good things to their children, how much more will God give…to those who ask.

The Matthew section ends, “How much more will your Father give good things…”   But in Luke the ending is different; “How much more will you Father give the Holy Spirit.” Murray feels that the highest of the “good things” is “the Holy Spirit.”

He then has a paragraph where he lists the various gifts of the Holy Spirit.   He was writing in an era before bullet points — lapsing into point form or numbered lists wasn’t done in prose back then — but I want to spell these out for us today.   There aren’t cross-references, but you’ll recognize many of these:

• The Spirit of grace — to reveal and impart all of grace there is in Jesus
• The Spirit of faith — teaching us to begin and go on and increase in continuously believing
• The Spirit of adoption and assurance — who witnesses that we are God’s children and inspires us to confidently say, ‘Abba, Father.’
• The Spirit of truth — to lead into all truth, to make each word of God ours in both principle and action
• The Spirit of prayer — through whom we speak with the Father; prayer that must be heard
• The Spirit of judgment and refining — to search the heart and convict of sin
• The Spirit of holiness — manifesting and communicating the Father’s holy presence within us
• The Spirit of power — through whom we are strong enough to speak boldly and work effectively in the Father’s service
• The Spirit of glory — the promise of our inheritance, the preparation and foretaste of the glory to come.

Murray states, “In the variety of gifts which the Spirit has to give out, He meets every need of the believer.  …The child of God needs only one thing to really live as a child:  To be filled with this Spirit.”

With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray (various publishers); taken from lessons 6 and 7; some sentences mildly paraphrased to reflect modern grammar and vocabulary.

Preaching: Eloquent or Effective?

From Jim Cymbala’s new book Spirit Rising (Zondervan):

Every believer is probably familiar with the important role that preaching and good teaching play in extending Christ’s kingdom and helping us mature.  But over the last few years, I’ve begun to wonder if our understanding of preaching is defined more by our life experience than by the Bible.  In most churches, a minister stands before the congregation and shares a passage of Scripture, usually in a sequential, logical manner that breaks down the meaning of the passage for everyone to understand.  Illustrations are often used, followed by an application of truth.  If the message is Scripture based and the speaker’s communication skills are of a high caliber, one would usually define that as a “fine sermon”. 

The same can be applied to us when we share the Word one-on-one with a friend or coworker.  The recommended advice is to use your head, be as persuasive as you can, and try to bring the person to a belief in Jesus.

While all of that is good, what are we going to make of the apostle Paul’s description of his method of preaching?  Reminding the Corinthian church of his eighteen-month ministry there, he said:

When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.  (1 Cor. 2:1 – 5, emphasis added)

What?  A speaker not depending on wise and persuasive words?  Isn’t that what most seminaries and books on effective preaching almost exclusively emphasize?  Isn’t that what most of us aim for when we share with others?  But here the apostle states unequivocally that his message and preaching were not “with wise and persuasive words.”  That was never part of Paul’s strategy as a preacher of the gospel.  What he did claim was that his ministry involved “a demonstration of the Spirit’s power”!

What kind of Spirit-saturated messages did Paul give the people in Corinth?  He certainly didn’t mean that every five minutes or so he interrupted his talk to heal someone’s blind eyes or have the lame walk, because there is no record of that in Scripture.  Yet this brilliant Pharisee-trained convert to Jesus dismisses “wise and persuasive words” and instead boasts in the Spirit’s power resting on him.  Why?  In order that the Christians in Corinth might have their faith “in God’s power” and not “human wisdom.”  I wonder how many of us ministers have that as our goal every time we open God’s Holy Word.

~Jim Cymbala, pastor, Brooklyn Tabernacle

Pray for the Illumination of the Spirit

This week we’re catching up with devotional bloggers featured here last summer.  Dwight Wagner blogs at Strengthened by Grace and presented this quotation today:

“We must pray daily for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, if we would make progress in the knowledge of divine things. Without Him, the mightiest intellect and the strongest reasoning powers will carry us but a little way. In reading the Bible and hearing sermons, everything depends on the spirit in which we read and hear. A humble, teachable, child-like frame of mind is the grand secret of success. Happy is he who often says with David, “Teach me Your statutes.” (Psalm 119:64.) Such an one will understand as well as hear.”–J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels.

This ties in so well with a book I’m currently reading for the second time, The Forgotten God by Francis Chan.  This follow up book to Crazy Love presents a theology of the Holy Spirit.

A lot of people want to talk about supernatural things like miracles, healing or prophecy.  But focusing inordinately on these things quickly becomes misguided.  God calls us to pursue Him, not what he might do for us or even in our midst.  Scripture emphasizes that we should desire fruit, that we should concern ourselves with becoming more like His Son.  God wants us to seek to listen to His Spirit and to obey.  The point of it all was never the miracles in and of themselves.  Those came when they were unexpected, when people were faithful and focused on serving and loving others. (p. 88)

Names of the Holy Spirit: Andrew Murray

I’m slowly working my way through a classic; Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer. For the last two chapters, he has been looking at the passage that begins, “If his son asks for bread will he give him a stone?”   This is paralleled in Matthew and Luke; and says that if corrupted and sinful parents like ourselves still give good things to their children, how much more will God give…to those who ask.

The Matthew section ends, “How much more will your Father give good things…”   But in Luke the ending is different; “How much more will you Father give the Holy Spirit.”   Murray feels that the highest of the “good things” is “the Holy Spirit.”

He then has a paragraph where he lists the various gifts of the Holy Spirit.   He was writing in an era before bullet points — lapsing into point form or numbered lists wasn’t done in prose back then — but I want to spell these out for us today.   There aren’t cross-references, but you’ll recognize many of these:

• The Spirit of grace — to reveal and impart all of grace there is in Jesus
• The Spirit of faith — teaching us to begin and go on and increase in continiously believing
• The Spirit of adoption and assurance — who witnesses that we are God’s children and inspires us to confidently say, ‘Abba, Father.’
• The Spirit of truth — to lead into all truth, to make each word of God ours in both principle and action
• The Spirit of prayer — through whom we speak with the Father; prayer that must be heard
• The Spirit of judgment and refining — to search the heart and convict of sin
• The Spirit of holiness — manifesting and communicating the Father’s holy presence within us
• The Spirit of power — through whom we are strong enough to speak boldly and work effectively in the Father’s service
• The Spirit of glory — the promise of our inheritance, the preparation and foretaste of the glory to come.

Murray states, “In the variety of gifts which the Spirit has to give out, He meets every need of the believer.  …The child of God needs only one thing to really live as a child:  To be filled with this Spirit.”

With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray (various publishers); taken from lessons 6 and 7; some sentences mildly paraphrased to reflect modern grammar and vocabulary.