What I Learned as a Pentecostal
The road to understanding the Holy Spirit
I will always appreciate the things that I observed as a child, as they have served to cultivate the love for God that I have today. There were things that touched me from the time that I was barely old enough to remember, up until I left for college that still stick with me today, and will never be soured. I grew up Pentecostal, though some might find that surprising today, and it was in the little Indian Trail Church of God where my father pastored that I discovered Jesus. There, was where I learned hundreds of Bible stories and Scriptures that have grounded me in my wildest struggles. Most importantly, it was within a Pentecostal background that I first began to learn about the Holy Spirit.
I was never really good at being over emotionally expressive in church. Among all of the expressions that were definitive of Pentecostal worship, I often felt inadequate. As I became older I was rarely comfortable with outward expression in worship, and still am today, though I have always found the Spirit inexplicably powerful and intimate in my stillness or in my pursuit of knowing Him through Scripture. This lack of expression would open doors of criticism from people of my religious upbringing that fostered anger and resentment later on in my life. Ignorantly, people have told me that I did not possess the Spirit or that I was not as strong in my faith as perhaps my peers were. I remember the pain and confusion that I felt with careless remarks like one pastor had reeled at me one day in his office when he said, “Are you even filled with the Spirit? I've never heard you speak in tongues or show any emotion whatsoever!” Though Satan himself could hide behind the cloak of expression, that seemed to dictate one’s spiritual maturity.
It would seem to me, through the Scriptures, that a relationship with the Spirit, spiritual fruit, and being grounded in the truth of the Gospel took precedence over exotic displays of spiritual ecstasy. Then again, there has been charismatic evidence of the Spirit and even scriptural substance that articulates powerful and expressive moves that were inspired by the Spirit in the New Testament Church. So, how does one balance the subtle and radical displays of the Spirit?
Like most good theology, there is rarely an absolute side within Christian teachings. Arminianist, Calvinist, Protestants, Catholic, and even Charismatics and Liturgists all bring good things to the table of theological learning and practice. The most accurate understanding of God is often less one sided and somewhere in the middle of the road in many cases. Especially when it comes to the understanding of the Holy Spirit.
For hundreds of years the church has attempted to build a paradigm for what best articulates the Holy Spirit. Most of which brings us into conclusive understanding that the Holy Spirit is the great evangelist within the Trinity. It is the Spirit that draws us into the revelation of Christ (John 15:26, John 14:26). It is the Spirit who nurtures our walk with the fruits of God’s Character (Gal 5:22–23). It is the Spirit who eternally secures our adoption into the Kingdom of God (John 10:28, Rom. 11:28, Eph. 4:3, 1Cor. 5:5). And it is the Spirit who draws all of creation to it’s ultimate end in Christ (Rom. 8, Col. 1:18–21). THAT IS HIS SACRED MISSION. Yet, the question of where the Spirit is found within His mission has confounded theologians for thousands of years.
The key and most important truth about the Spirit of God is that He is the most creative agent in the universe. It is the Spirit of God (Ruach) that we find in Genesis 1:2 moving over that which had no form and no life, and maneuvered it into the spectacular mirror of God’s glory which is the universe wherein we reside. It was the Spirit of God that entered into the nostrils of the first man and the first woman ever created, giving life and union with God. The Spirit is active in creating beauty, constantly drawing us into astonishment of God’s spectacular Glory.
“When you send forth your Spirit, they are created…” (Psalm 104:30 ESV)
Yet the most peculiar evidence of the Spirit’s creative nature is His spontaneity. This characteristic alone has contributed to great frustration among the ranks of believers who try to build structure around the works of the Spirit. The Spirit of God often defies the structures that we have tried to build around understanding Him. In the first century of Church History the Spirit was wildly outspoken. The Day of Pentecost, recorded in Acts 2:4, marked the Church of the 1st century by miracles, massive amounts of followers, and a radical global mission to draw the the world (Jew and Gentile) into recognition of Christ. Yet, it would seem that the Spirit would never reduplicate His works more than once in exactly the same way, as that would be against His creative nature.
After the 1st Century and over the next 400 years the church laid hold of it’s doctrinal roots as the Holy Spirit guided the hands and minds of our Church fathers. It was through these times that our Church Fathers battled to establish the doctrines of our sacred Body and Canonize our sacred texts. What seemed to be less consistent through these times were the wild and extraordinary miracles and wonders that were consistent with the 1st Century Church.
Throughout time the Spirit has moved back and forth in subtle and then in extravagant ways, and each display of His creative power was extraordinarily unique. Perhaps we could conclude this to be consistent with the Spirit of God throughout the course of history. The Spirit cannot be defined by a specific expression, a specific practice or a specific period of time. His actions are not dictated by anything other than His Will. He has never lacked control, nor has he been absent from humanity when periods of His roaring evangelism has become faint whispers. The Spirit of God is defined by His mission, and how he carries out that mission is powerfully different and unique to generations, cultures and nations.
The Holy Spirit is not predictable. He is wild and radically spontaneous. The Spirit will meet you in charismatic or in liturgical gatherings. He will happen into your day unannounced and fill you with unspeakable joy. He will find you in songs, in Scriptures, in nature, in culture, governments, poverty, pain, celebration and triumph. There’s no method to His movement. However, you will NEVER find the Spirit absent of His mission. He is drawing all creation towards it’s end in Christ with all of His creative superiority.
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”
(John 15:26)
The Spirit of God is not a time, a fruit of God’s character, an action, a message, a baptism, a tongue, or a miracle. He is within all of these things, creatively propelling us towards our end in Christ. Hence, we must be cautious not to overemphasize His methods over His mission, as His methods are an unpredictable means to carry out His mission. He is time and He transcends time. He is loud and He is quiet. He is in the midst of chaos and stillness. He leads and He follows. Boundaries have rarely been associated with His nature, and restricting Him to such would ignorantly diminish the definition of His greatness. One must simply accept His mission to draw creation into the revelation of Christ, and take joy in the power that he uses in order to leverage that Gospel in the midst of the time, space, and creation.
What Pentecostalism helped me to understand is that God is unpredictably spectacular. Yet, thankfully within my journey I have learned not to limit His work to simply emotionalism, but to allow my eyes to be opened to His vast mission. For, His essence is not consistently defined in a specific action or reaction. God’s power is known in stillness and extraordinary movements, in resting and in working, in loudness and in silence. Some people may know Him in ecstasy while others know Him in solidarity. In the end, His mission is how we understand Him best, and within his mysterious movement is where we will find Him always working to enamor us with the wonder and awe of God’s glory!
My hopes for the future is that we work to understand His mission and learn to rest in the creative nature that He leverages in order to display the Gospel to humanity. His power is bigger than movements, churches, denominations, and people. Therefore we must find solace in the creativity and assurance of His mission. We must never limit Him to an experience, a gifting or an expression. Nor should we limit Him to dispensationalized boundaries. We must be willing to find Him emotionally, intelligently, radically and within the confines of meditation and prayer. The Spirit of God is powerfully creative, and if we free ourselves to find Him in the midst of His spontaneous nature then I believe that we would find Him most wonder-filled.
