When Paul comes across 12 disciples in Ephesus during his third missionary journey, he asks them an unusual question: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2) And considering this was 20 to 25 years after Pentecost, their answer was shocking: “We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit!” They go on to explain to Paul that they were baptized into John’s baptism – which would have been 25 to 30 years back!  And then Paul explains that John was baptizing “with the baptism of repentance” and that he had pointed people toward believing…

I once heard someone say that we talk most about the things that matter the least and we talk the least about the things that matter the most.  And that is all too true. And so very sad. As a high school English teacher, I often had to cover topics that, if I were totally honest, simply didn’t matter – the sort of stuff that prompts some student to ask, “When are we ever going to use this in real life?” The majority of the time, there wasn’t a good answer to that question.  I have been a teacher for…

A long time ago – and we’re talking about 35 years back – I visited a church that was very much into the Holy Spirit.  At least, that was the impression I had.  But what they were really into was speaking in tongues. AND they understood speaking in tongues to be THE litmus test proving a believer was filled with the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know my Bible all that well at the time. But now I know that such an idea finds no support in Scripture.  I wanted desperately to have the experience of speaking in tongues. I didn’t…

Recently I listened to a podcast hosted by two former Christians.  The question that prompted their “deconstruction” was kind of surprising to me.  First, they pointed to Jesus’s promise in John 16:13 – that, once sent by Jesus, the Spirit would lead them into “all truth”. And then the two podcasters asked this question:  “If the Spirit leads disciples into all truth, why are there 44,000 different Christian denominations in the world? Shouldn’t all believers be unified if we each have access to ALL truth through the Spirit?” Even if 44,000 isn’t an accurate number (and who knows how one…

The first time I gave any thought whatsoever to the Holy Spirit wasn’t until a college Bible study. Only then did I realize that my home church never even mentioned the Spirit outside of the last line of the Doxology we sang every Sunday morning following the passing of the offering plates: “praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”.  If I had given any thought to the matter as a child, it was only how “ghost” was a strange word to associate with God’s Spirit! If Google can be trusted, the Tyndale Bible was the first to translate the Greek pneuma hagion…

In the last few years before he died, one of the ideas that Scott Adams sought to popularize was the existence and value of certain “Internet Dads”.  These were (mostly) men who use their online presence to disseminate fatherly wisdom rather than outrage. They are influencers, true, but only in the most positive directions. They aren’t looking to get rich; they want to spread sanity and propagate critical thinking.  Adams numbered himself among the Internet Dads. He certainly functioned as such for me.  Not in a spiritual sense, though, since Adams was an atheist. (Although I would say he was…

Shout out to my cousin Jennifer who recently reminded me that I had not written on my blog since my birthday in April.  I didn’t intentionally stop writing here – I just got busy and tired and fell out of the habit.  Plus, I didn’t have a particular focus for my writing ever since I threw in the towel on my dissertation work at Christmas. The question which lingered in the aftermath was this: What was the point of my doctoral work if I never get to the degree? I had started my studies under the conviction that it was…

Shout out to my cousin Jennifer who recently reminded me that I had not written on my blog since my birthday in April.  I didn’t intentionally stop writing here – I just got busy and tired and fell out of the habit.  Plus, I didn’t have a particular focus for my writing ever since I threw in the towel on my dissertation work at Christmas. The question which lingered in the aftermath was this: What was the point of my doctoral work if I never get to the degree? I had started my studies under the conviction that it was…