As a kid I was fascinated by the concept of “spontaneous combustion” – the belief that it was possible for a person to suddenly and unexplainably burst into flames.<\/p>\n\n\n
Can you imagine? Just walking down the street one day and – poof – you are engulfed in flames.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I wasn’t the only one whose imagination was caught by spontaneous combustion. Stories of such go back to the 1600s. Charles Dickens even eliminates a character in Bleak House<\/i> via the mysterious process.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
But there has never been a case of spontaneous human combustion confirmed by science. It seems pretty obvious that it just can’t happen. In every other case, fire is the result of some outside force: lightning, lighter, spark, or electrical current. Spontaneous combustion is not possible in the physical world.<\/p>\n\n\n
Neither is it in the spiritual world.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
In his second letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul associates faith and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with fire imagery.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
“I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am convinced is in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. (1 Tim 2:5-6)<\/p>\n\n\n
Timothy is responsible for fanning the flame within his own heart, but Paul reminds him that the sparks of that faith came from outside him: from his mom, his grandma, and Paul himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cFaith comes by hearing” – it always originates outside of us.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
We need to acknowledge and praise God for those who sparked faith in us.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
And we should live in such a way as to spark faith in others.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a kid I was fascinated by the concept of “spontaneous combustion” – the belief that it was possible for a person to suddenly and unexplainably burst into flames. Can you imagine? Just walking down the street one day and – poof – you are engulfed in flames.\u00a0 I wasn’t the only one whose imagination […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2728,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2727\/revisions\/2728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}