September 15, 2024
Passage Read: Acts 18-19
Meditation Verse: 19:6
Thought
Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, though Luke didn't record him receiving the Spirit like this, with a noteworthy response. Yet Paul was laying hands on others and the Spirit was coming on them. Paul went on to write much of the New Testament, which has become the standard of Christian truth and teaching. Yet nowadays there are two prominent groups that seem to lay aside Paul's teachings to the greatest degree: Those that are in the process abandoning all of Scripture and creating a new god after their own likeness, and those who claim and appear to have the Holy Spirit in dramatic form. And why do both groups start in the same place, with egalitarianism? And those that hold the line are most likely to deny any gifts of the Spirit? It doesn't make sense. Paul, who is believed to have been inspired by the Spirit to give such instructions about so many things, including men and women, not once as an offhand comment, but multiple times, to different groups of people, Peter also instructing the same things; Paul, who was filled with the Spirit to a degree that most can only dream of, the accepted authority on everything else, is now disregarded on this issue, considered wrong for our age, even by those who claim to be dramatically filled by the selfsame Spirit! These people should be the most loyal adherents to any and all of His teachings, if the Spirit they possess is indeed the selfsame Spirit. Are there other teachings they deem inapplicable today?
Application
One of the things Paul notes to the Corinthians is that the spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets, in context meaning that if one is prophesying and another receives a revelation, the first can stop and give way to the second. The individual doesn't lose all control of himself to the Spirit, but can "relinquish" control and regain it as he pleases, or as necessary. If we are all filled with and inspired by one Spirit, then there is no room for jealousy or competition, but only submission to the will of the Spirit. My message is not most important or so vital that if the Spirit desires to prompt another to speak, I cannot relinquish the floor! Paul also follows up that instruction with the command (repeated elsewhere by himself and other apostles) to test everything and hold on to that which is truly from God. That testing is done by believers in the congregation, no doubt testing against that which has already been revealed and established as God's Word, Will and command. I want a manifest filling of the Spirit, the true Spirit of God, not something that will lead me to discount and undercut the authority of the Scriptures, which were also inspired by that Spirit whose manifest filling I seek. But if I never receive such a powerful filling of the Spirit, I can be sure and must hold faithfully to what has already been laid down by God as Truth, the whole of Scripture. These are my standing orders, and no spirit has authority to contradict or set aside any clear teaching from it.