Giving Up the Ghost

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Giving Up The Ghost

Caleb Miller

www.theimperfectpastor.com

Wittily titled "Giving Up The Ghost", this very readable and

accessible book is a ground-level survey of the nature and purpose

of the Holy Spirit in theology and practice. It's informed to an

extent by Caleb's own journey out of charismania and the so-called

grace movement; but while you might think that would lend it an

air of sneering suspicion and superiority with regard to all things

charismatic, you would be mistaken. The author does an

outstanding job of approaching all aspects of this subject—which,

let's be honest, is the basis for more whackiness in the church than

just about anything else—with humility and openness.

As well as an analysis based on the questions of

who/what/where is the Spirit, Caleb takes an educated and in-depth

look at the biblical fruit and gifts of the Spirit, as well as the so-

called five-fold ministries.

A strong and recurring emphasis that runs through the book

is the fact that the Spirit's ministry is primarily to bring us into

closer union with the Father, and in so doing to foster a Jesus-like

lifestyle and to make us concerned for the things that concerned

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Jesus, such as caring for the poor, touching the marginalised and

excluded, etc.

This is not a theology book per se, which will be good news

for those put off by musty academic tomes. However, it does have

a solid basis in theology. I would say it's more of a primer on how

to begin to rethink our understanding of the Spirit in new and

exciting ways – which is something much of the church really

needs to do!

Rob Grayson www.faithmeetsworld.com

Table of Contents

Introduction – A Fine Wine

Chapter 1 – Hooked on a Feeling…

Chapter 2 – Who?

Chapter 3 – What?

Chapter 4 – Close Encounters

Chapter 5 – Scripturally Speaking...

Chapter 6 – Madame Jesus

Chapter 7 – Going After Gifts

Chapter 8 – In Pursuit of Fruit

Conclusion – Desire and the Dance

Introduction

A Fine Wine

WHEN IT COMES TO THE SPIRIT, anthropomorphisms

abound. Don’t get out Google yet—an anthropomorphism is (in

very simple terms) the assignment of human traits to God. An easy

example is “the hand of God”. God is Spirit, not human, so

“hands” aren’t something he has, yet that language is used to make

a point.

I think there are no more anthropomorphisms than those of

the Spirit. She’s a dove, fire, tongues of fire, light, wind, breath,

wisdom, life and so on. These things are all anthropomorphisms.

They talk about the energies of the Spirit in understandable ways.

Really, if we’re going to be strict, even person—that which I am

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advocating a recovery of—would be one to an extent. But we use

the language we use to try and make sense of the

incomprehensible. I somewhat believe that any time someone tells

me they “know” God, their knowledge is another

anthropomorphism of the one who rather prefers to remain

unknowable except through the person of Jesus.

The finest of wines without a glass is nothing but a mess.

And the most skillfully etched glass without wine is nothing but a

decoration. I’ve begun to see theology as a fine wine glass.

Masterfully created, etched in such a way that the wine breathes as

it is poured. The glass is beautiful on its own, but empty—nothing

but a decoration. The most painstakingly etched piece of crystal

doesn’t really fulfill its full purpose until it is allowed to make the

wine center stage however. The wine then is how I view

experience. Aged perfectly it will send our heads spinning and

taste buds dancing. The wine is wonderful on its own, but without

a glass to pour it in, it makes a mess. Many would say "I just drink

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from the bottle" and while it may be a quaint way of talking about

the Spirit, in this example, drinking from the bottle prohibits others

from tasting of the experience themselves. An experintialholic

does no good to anyone when the experience isn't shared with

others.

Trying to drink the wine without the glass to bring out its

beauty, aroma and flavor dishonors the wine, it cheapens it to a

quick means of getting drunk. Refusing to pour the wine into the

glass because we don't want the glass to get dirty dishonors the

glass, it degrades it to a mere dust gathering decoration. So it is

with theology and experience. Experience must be framed by

theology, and theology must contain experience if both are to be

honored rightly for what they are. Theology without experience is

dry, and a mere decoration, a waste. Experience without theology

is a mess, and once poured all over the floor, near impossible to put

back in the glass.


God isn’t the wine; he's the wine maker. Any vintner would

feel immense personal loss to watch their beloved wine be

irresponsibly poured out on the floor because someone didn't want

to use a glass. Jesus is the master etcher. His work of art is a glass

that enables the experience the Father wants to pour out on us be

its most beautiful and delicious. The Father's experiential wine

pairs with everything, and it is drunk responsibly through theology

perfected by the Son. Jesus is the summation of the Father’s self-

revelation, and Jesus’ revelation of Abba is the final answer to the

questions of theology. Drink daily, but drink responsibly and honor

what you are drinking for what it is, a masterful creation by the

universe's best vintner.

Both are disrespected when we simply chug the glass

without regard for the time and earth within the wine. The pain put

into making it, the characteristics and flavors brought out in slow

enjoyment, and the various nuances of tone and smell are all but

lost when we play “bottoms up” with wine.

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***

I’ve elected to keep the content largely experiential, and as such,

footnotes are at a minimum. Ok, there are no footnotes. It would be

impossible for me to name all the people I’ve learned from over

the years. A good friend of mine says “If you [writers] think you’re

coming up with something new, you obviously haven’t read

enough”. That fits here. There is likelihood of hearing the voices of

others on the pages of this book. That is to be expected. If you

think you’ve heard something somewhere else first, you’re

probably right. There’s nothing new under the sun anyways.

Hopefully that’s transparent enough.

My experience with the Spirit is just that. My. Experience.

In no way does our experience change the truth, rather our

experience serves to show us the God who cares about us whether

we get it all right or not. I am operating from a Christian paradigm,

but that does not mean my experiences are exclusive. Christianity

is not “the way”, Jesus is. Christianity is a set of principles for


those who wish to be his disciples. There’s a big difference and I

don’t have time in this book to discuss it at length. It will have to

suffice to say that Jesus was a Jew, and Paul remained one as well,

even after his mystical encounter with the Spirit of Jesus.

I’m hoping we can take this little journey together, that we

can leave our place of knowing what the Spirit is all about, and

come to a place where we want to know who the Spirit is, in all her

beauty and grace. So let’s do this, let’s discuss all this weird and

wonderful stuff that happens when we experience the Spirit, or

when we experience a sudden rush of brain chemical goodness, or

when it’s just ourselves being overtly mimetic-either way. Mimetic

doesn’t have to be bad. Mimetic can be exactly where we need to

be if we are imitating the right person (namely: Jesus). Even the

Apostle Paul says to imitate him as he imitates Christ. We were

created to mirror. Even with the discovery of mirror neurons (little

parts of the brain that fire whether we do the activity, or see

someone else do it) and discussions of the unified field theory we

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see the same issue picking up steam - that we are all connected.

And therein lies what I think the truth is regarding the Spirit. She

binds us, holds us all together—and not in the corporeal, flesh and

blood sense only (she does that too), but in the universal we’re all

connected sense. More on that soon.

Once I heard the Spirit whisper to me “jump on in, the

water’s wine…” it took a moment, but the subtle irony soon hit me

and after a long dry spell with her, I began to enjoy the dance

again. That’s my hope for you with this little book. That somehow,

by the end of our short time together, you’ll learn to enjoy the

Spirit’s dance again. I’m chiefest of skeptics when it comes to

things like this, but I’m also firmly secure in the love and

fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I’m secure that they

know what they’re doing and so I don’t have to. Or at least some

of the time.


With a title like Giving up the Ghost you might think I’m

advocating dropping the Spirit all together. I’m not. And I am. I’m

certainly advocating the idea that the third person of the Godhead

is a specter, a disembodied soul from beyond ought to be done

away with—and all that it entails. Things like having to be afraid

that the Spirit will make you do things you don’t want to do, things

like wiggling and shaking and moving all about, or things like

sitting perfectly still. It makes no difference. The Spirit is a person,

not a horror flick’s bad special effect. The ghost I’m advocating

giving up is the one that is consigned only to odd behavior and

chanting. The ghost I’d like to give up is that which in too many

circles, equates to parlor tricks and simple manifestations. There’s

no intimacy with a specter. There’s intimacy with a person

however, and I think we can discover that intimacy if we are

willing to take a more candid approach to a stuffy topic like

Pneumatology (theology dealing with the doctrines of the Spirit).

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I think if we give up that ghost, if we let go of that

misunderstanding, we’d likely see a little more about this other part

of our Triune Godhead.

Chapter 1

Hooked on a Feeling…

I REMEMBER THE FEELING WELL. The rush of emotion,

endorphins and that overwhelming feeling of peace. Those in

Charismatic circles might call it “the” baptism of the Spirit, but I

think of it more as “a” baptism. I think all too often we tend

towards finality in our approach to the things of faith, rather than

treating them as a journey, a new thing to be experienced each day.

In that light, things like this baptism, prayer, surrender, and even

salvation become daily events in the life of a disciple. Maybe not

in the life of a follower, or even a student, but a real disciple? What

would that look like?

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Back to the point at hand though. Something had happened

to me, and though it may not have had good backing theologically

speaking, it happened. We all have those friends who likely would

have stood at Jesus’ side while he was commanding Lazarus to

“come forth” explaining to him why, scientifically speaking,

“people don’t raise from the dead Jesus, learn some science”.

Growing up, my dad told us frequently “a man with an experience

is never at the mercy of a man with an argument”. Not his own

quote, but it always stuck with me. This was one of those things

that I held close to my heart going through a fairly tumultuous

childhood (being bullied for my size and relative anonymity in the

various communities in which we lived). Every experience was

locked away to draw from later. It’s more than 20 years later and

some still drive me today. Not in the same negative way, mind you,

but they continue to drive me to be what I am.

So what had happened? Did the “Spirit fall” as some say?

Was there some sort of “outpouring”? Or was it inherently mimetic

(monkey see, monkey do)? Though I can’t say I have it all worked


out, I’d say a resounding “yes!” to all of the above. I think there’s

always a falling that happens—an outpouring even—when we

submit ourselves daily to the guidance, comfort and truth she

brings to us. She? Yeah, she. We’ll deal with that later, but for

now, just go get the book from the corner, I’ll wait.

So there I was, drenched in the goodness of a feeling of

complete and total peace, all the while feeling like I just may never

feel like this again. So I cherished it. Just enjoyed what was

happening. While I don’t have that overwhelming sense on a daily

basis, my life is generally peaceful still. So whatever happened

seemed to have some effect on me, and in a seemingly permanent

way. It didn’t become me, but we’ll talk about that in a few

paragraphs.

Another time was a little different. After receiving

communion with a group of friends outdoors, I walked down the

deck to see the property owner’s horse, perfectly alight from a

singular ray and shimmering in the moonlight. Maybe the horse

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was wet, maybe it was my brain, either way I felt that same peace

and a thought entered my head “enjoy this, this is for you”. So I

did. I didn’t try to overanalyze it, I just enjoyed it. I could likely

start “shimmering horse ministries” and have a good time with it,

but that’s just not me.

I think those experiences help to shape how I view this

(misunderstood) part of the Godhead. We somewhat miss the point

when we don’t start with the Spirit’s identity. The Spirit is a

person. Let that one sink in for a moment, and all those

experiences become something a little different. Everything begins

to come back to the realm of intimacy. Intimacy is something I

can’t put a box around, as much as I might like to try. It happens in

the simplest of moments, a connection with the Spirit through a

few moments with one of my children, or a day out with my wife.

It also happens in the most religious of moments (religious need

not have a negative connotation), attending church, mass, liturgy,

orthros or whatever name we want to slap on it.


Here’s what I’m getting at. If I were to take any single

experience I’ve ever had and try to then create a new movement or

doctrine out of that specific experience, I’d likely still be stuck at

16, and searching for that singular experience again and again. I’d

probably manifest that single experience time and time again as

well. This is the nature of being creative beings. We can suggest

ourselves into believing every experience is, as the first one was,

legitimate and intimate. It’s almost self-mimetic. If however we are

willing to continue the journey with the Spirit, she’ll take us into

deeper things than we ever thought.

The problem is, I typically allow the experience to become

what I am defined by. And if you’re anything like me, you do too.

There’s where the problem comes in for so many. We’ve become

hooked on a feeling rather than enjoying the dance. We’ve allowed

the experience to become what defines us, what gives us our

identities, and what gives us joy. This is devastating when the

experiences stop, or worse yet, we realize it was us manifesting our

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own desire the majority of the time. It can be a tremendous burden

to come to that place. I know it well. It creates us as zombies, stuck

in false animation, moving around in search of a singular meal.

Our cry isn’t “brains, brains!” though, it’s “feelings, feelings!”.

Often the truth hurts worse than anything else. If we commit solely

to feelings, well, we miss the truth many times.

Let’s think of it a different way. In the stories of the bible

we see Jesus healing people in various ways. There’s a blind man

healed with spit and dirt (gross), another healed with just spit (what

is it with Jesus and spit? Maybe a foreshadowing of the cross?), a

woman healed by touching his garment, people healed with “just a

word”, others healed by bathing in the Jordan river, and still others

in various other ways. Imagine a new church started from each

healing experience the bible says Jesus used. They’d be hurling

accusations at each other for “not using dirt and spit” or “only

dipping one time in the Jordan river instead of seven” or even

better yet fighting over which part of the garment to touch to get


healing. There’d be ministries springing up all over the Midwest

that go pick grain on the Sabbath, churches that host “last supper”

meetings where they invite prostitutes to wash people’s feet…well,

you get the point.

Any single experience is not the sum of the whole, it is a

part. And just like the conductor, Jesus is standing in front of the

orchestra about to begin the next movement. The problem is, so

many have gotten up—content to hum the few bars they heard

from the previous movement for the rest of their lives, unaware

that the symphony plays on, with new movements coming meant

to engage every part of our being (including our minds). My mom

used to tell us “so many are content to ride the wave to shore and

never get back in the ocean”, and that helped to frame my journey

away from the ghost and into the person.

When we keep getting back in the ocean, we remind

ourselves that the experience will not define us, it will not become

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our identity, and it will just be a part of the experience that is life.

What defines us is us, everything we are—the good, the bad, the

mystical, the manic, the joy and the hurt. Just as we should never

allow a hurt to define you forever, we should never allow a single

experience of grace to become the definition to who we are. This is

part of the beauty to the story in the Old Testament of the burning

bush, where God reveals himself as I AM. Am says formerly,

currently, and to come. Am allows for the “next” thing, while

simultaneously granting the past its rightful place in the present.

Am “walks backward into the future” as one of my professors said,

embracing what was, and allowing for what is to become what will

be.

These experiences can be healing and binding at the same

time. All too often, we become addicted to the feeling we had

“back then” or “over there”. As addicts then, we will chase the

experience at all costs, even at the expense of our financial and

emotional future. We go to conferences, seminars, meetings,


meetings, meetings, all in an effort to attain something that is

promised as a fruit of abiding, resting. Lest that be misinterpreted,

rest does not mean sloth. We can be lazy and sitting on our couch

awaiting the next manifestation, or we can, as Mother Teresa said,

be “Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time,

and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be

contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the

presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and

in the distressing disguise of the poor.”

When we begin to seek the face of God in the other, we

find that our experiences change manifestation. What was once

merely contained within a set paradigm and set of rules about “12

keys to operating in the power of the spirit”, becomes a new thing

each and every day, found in the lives of our little ones, our

friends, our spouse, our pet, even things like our garden, our

church, fishing, golfing and so on. Everything becomes sacred the

moment we realize the connectivity of the Spirit in all things.

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Let’s address this using Paul as the framework. There's a

small difference in what is taught in relationship to the kenotic

nature of God as revealed in Christ and the journey of theosis.

(Kenosis is the self-emptying, self-giving nature of God found in

Christ. Theosis is the journey we take, becoming more like the

image of God). Paul best sums up the idea behind this—“though he

was rich for your sakes he became poor that you through his

poverty might become rich”. You'll note that the plainest speech

Paul ever uses to say anything about "Jesus became ____ so you

can become ____" it is a willful misuse of "rich" and "poor" to

metaphorically make his point. Paul uses metaphorical language to

speak about Jesus' atonement, rather than literal "you can be

wealthy because of his blood" type language. Rather than being a

formula for financial gain, it is a cyclical means of transforming

the self into the image of Christ.

Theosis is the union side of all this, the “equal and opposite

reaction” to kenosis’ humbling. To claim theosis with no kenosis is


to miss half the boat, so to speak. In other words, union with God

means absolutely nothing without self-emptying as the result of

that union. The journey of kenosis and theosis then is a cycle of

emptying ourselves so that we can be transformed more and more

into the image of God along the journey of faith and spirituality. Or

in still other words - union with God means nothing for us on this

journey without union with people via self-emptying love. There's

nothing more cathartic than giving all you have to another. In that

self-emptying is where we find the Spirit, ever present to shine her

light on the situation. This is all a positive form of mimesis.

I Feel Good

Much of the problem with religion today is its insistence on feeling

bad. Suffering is a touchy subject, and especially within the

church. This will not suffice for a succinct theodicy (doctrine of

evil and suffering), but I do believe in him (the Father) is no

darkness at all must be our starting point. Anything that can’t pass

that test is likely not him. Having said that, our inability to accept

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the good and bright things of life shows our commitment to feeling

bad. Simple pleasures like a walk through a park or growing your

own food have been replaced by video games and movies, items

that in and of themselves are harmless, but have been allowed to

become our sole means of escaping a reality we no longer want

any part of.

Much of the reason we no longer want a part of our own

reality is that we’ve become so complacent feeling bad. Religion

has taught us to abhor anything that makes us feel good, largely

due to medieval asceticism, the people we’ve read about who

starved themselves to the point of digestive problems, whipped

their backs until they bled—you know, the fun side of faith. We’ve

even transferred the word metanoia (repentance) from it’s Greek

roots “to change your mind” into the Latin word for penance—a

word that means outward self-punishment. If we apply the

understanding about who works from inside—mind change—and

who works from outside—self-punishment—we see where this


false notion comes from (more on this in chapter 2). To repent is to

let go of the human way of doing things and to take hold of the

divine way. The human way excludes and uses force to conquer;

the divine way includes and reveals power in powerlessness.

There is nothing more joyful than inclusion. There are a

number of heartwarming videos crawling the Internet showing

stories of radical inclusion. From the football team rallying around

their team manager to stop bullying to the Down syndrome young

lady getting her promised prom date with the football captain,

stories of inclusion and acceptance touch the deepest parts of us.

Why? Because this is the Spirit that binds us, and when we’ve

touched the divine—or to put it another way—when something has

become a sacrament for us, our hearts open to the beauty that is the

connectivity of the human race. In those moments, our hormonal

release combines with the sense of the divine and we “feel the

presence” of the Spirit.

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The temptation then is to turn that feeling back into the

Spirit, thereby missing the point. Celtic Christianity references

“thin places”, places where it seems as though the temporal/divine

realms overlap in such a way that they can be accessed. That seems

a little too Stargate-y to me, but I like the idea. Instead of places,

I’d say what we have are “thin moments”, where something

physical becomes, in that moment, a sacrament for us—mediating

the presence of the divine within us. That moment is not only

transcendent, but simultaneously immanent. Any escape from

reality is only so when it is firmly grounded within the reality it is

trying to escape. In other words, transformation is far more

important than escape, and the two often work in opposition to

each other. In that respect, we aren’t really trying to escape

anything, we’re looking for transformation. To be transformed, we

have to be grounded in the reality that we’re trying to transform. A

life lived denying their current situation is insanity, but one that

embraces what happens and looks for the great physician to begin

his work is peace.


In light of that, feeling good ought to be something we

learn to do a little differently.

Philippians 4:11-13 - Not that I speak in regard to need, for

I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to

be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all

things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to

abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who

strengthens me.

We’ve all used Phil 4:13 in virtually every circumstance

that hits us, I can do all things—usually defeat an enemy human,

either in battle or in sport—through Christ who strengthens me.

But wait, Paul used this as a follow up to the two previous verses.

Paul says two things that I think need their own focus. In whatever

state I am...and...I have learned to be content.

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In whatever state I am means in this state or in that state.

He literally meant at any point of life. In sickness or in health, in

riches or in poor, for better or for worse! He even says in the next

verse I know how to be abased (devoid or in pain) and I know how

to abound (to be over or to excel). I have learned to be content.

Learned here means to learn by use and practice. It’s not a simple

thing. It’s a process, and one that requires us to be patient. We

have to learn contentment, and it will take time. However, this is a

learning that has a promise of a reward, because godliness (which

we all possess due to Christ) combined with contentment is great

gain. There’s a mistaken idea that because Christ imputed

righteousness to us, everything is effortless. It’s not. Anyone with

a breath in their lungs will tell you that life is not effortless.

However, we can learn to be content.

In contentment we’ll find what we’ve been looking for.

Rest is only found here, because it’s only when we are content with

our life that we’ll be at rest, in a position where we’re not


constantly pursuing “upgrades” and at peace with those around us.

Competition with one another is born of discontentment with our

own lives. This is hard for some, I know it. It was for me as well.

We’ve been so engrained with the idea that we need to be

discontent with anything but the “best”, but what if God’s idea of

best is a little different from ours?

In Timothy we read “having food and clothing, with these

we shall be content”. Food and clothing? Not even a shelter? Not

the latest gadget, the most recent version of the nicest car, bike, or

leer jet? Not a mansion with a swimming pool? Not a 100 million

dollar building? No, simply food and clothing.

Does all this mean that God does not want us to prosper?

Not necessarily. What I’m getting at here is that we’ve been so

trained to be discontent with life. We’ve been trained through

commercial activity, keeping up with the Jones’s, false prosperity

gospels (not real biblical prosperity, but rather this ideology that

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says “get all you can, can all you get, sit on the can”), competitive

ministry techniques (you know, pastors conferences where we all

get together and brag on our church size) and various other

ministry manipulation techniques (give to me and God will bless

it). We’ve been engrained that unless we are the best, the top, the

brightest, the winner, we cannot be valuable.

It’s no wonder our children are in utter dismay over

appearance, over ability, or over application. They’ve been taught

that unless they’re in “competitive” sports they aren’t good

enough. They’ve been taught that unless they look like the girls in

the magazines, they aren’t pretty enough. They’ve been taught that

unless they get straight A’s they aren’t smart enough. We’ve got to

get this; we’ve got to understand the power of contentment. When

we can learn to be content where we are in life, we’ll see the great

gain we want.

Finally, I want to say that contentment is not complacency.


To be content is to be ok with where your life is now, knowing that

you are deeply loved by the Father, in whatever state you’re in.

However, to be complacent is to be insensitive to the suffering

around you, both your own and other’s. We are called to be

content, but never complacent. Contentment says “I am content IN

my present state, even when circumstances aren’t what they should

be” whereas complacency says, “I am content with the suffering of

others”. We are never to be content with the suffering of others,

but always be content with the state of life—regardless of

circumstance. To be content in sickness isn’t to allow it, but it’s to

not allow it to steal our peace. Whenever something steals our

peace, that thing has just become our God, for Christ has said that

He himself is our peace. Contentment follows Jesus’ model of

“looking at the plank in our own eye” by being content with our

lives. Complacency is the direct opposite of the commands for

caring for the least of these, and follows the serpentine model (as

well as sin of Sodom) of ignoring the outcast.

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This is why contentment is so paramount to our growth.

Jesus himself has promised us his peace, the peace that he gives

which is his own life. To be discontent is to be without peace. I

certainly don’t speak these things from a standpoint of having

achieved anything; rather I’m still learning to be content. In some

areas, I’m fine. In others, I’m miles away from ok. We can all learn

and grow together, and we can all encourage one another in this

realm.

What is it to be at peace? Thayer says this about the peace

that Jesus said He gave to us: The tranquil state of a soul assured of

its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and

content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is.

So how do we learn to be content? The first step would

have to be being assured of our salvation through Christ, and so

fearing nothing from God. Until we understand there’s nothing left

to fear here, we can’t be content. If we can’t even trust our


heavenly Father, how on earth are we supposed to live this life?

This is why it’s so important to understand this truth of no fear. At

the end of the day, we’re eating from one of two trees. Either the

tree of separation (the separation of good and evil, which leads us

to believing we’re evil, if He’s good), which bears all sorts of sin

and striving—or we can eat of the tree of life, the tree that says

we’ve nothing to fear, the tree that says we don’t need an upgrade

because we have Christ. The tree of life is the tree of contentment.

Chapter 2

Who?

WHO THE SPIRIT IS MIGHT BE a more important question to

try to deal with first—after all, this is what we do with the other

parts of the Godhead. We talk about who the Father is, who the

Son is, but then for some reason when we hit the Spirit, it becomes

an it, or a he or a what.

I remember being in a meeting with a youth group when

someone noticed a bit of fog building up in the room where we

were meeting. Whether that fog was condensation from the fervent

prayers of youth desperately wanting to renew their commitment to

God, or (to put it in charismatic vernacular) the “shekinah glory”


of the Lord I don’t know, and I don’t really care to know. My

logical mind says it’s the former, but my committed believer side

says it’s the latter. So I let it be both. My mind gets to think it’s

right, and my Spirit gets to feel it is. Both can be, and both

probably should be. We need not belittle our minds for not being

able to comprehend something incomprehensible. Our own Spirit

doesn’t need to be in constant conflict with our minds. It doesn’t

make us “double minded” to allow our minds the freedom to

explore logic and reason. I firmly believe faith doesn’t defy

logic—it empowers it.

But a cloud doesn’t tell me who anyone is, so whatever that

was, it wasn’t the Spirit. At least not if we’re going to be faithful to

call the Spirit a person. The working of that person? Sure, or

maybe not. Either way, I think we’re missing the point if we focus

on what is happening around us rather than on what is happening

inside us. I think that might be key.

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Focus on what’s happening inside. That’s how God works

after all, from the inside. He enters in, becomes a part of what

we’re doing, and begins to transform it from the inside. In fact,

when we see Jesus say “in this world you will have tribulation, but

be of good cheer for I have overcome the world” we should read it

this way “you will have pressure applied from the outside, but rest

assured, I’m inside exerting the necessary force to keep that which

applies pressure from the outside from hurting you”. I believe

that’s why we can say we are pressed but not crushed, persecuted

but not abandoned, pressed down but not destroyed. In that light,

Jesus didn’t overcome the world-your neighbor, He overcame the

world-that which applies external pressure.

There’s this question we still need to answer though. Who?

In the Old Testament, the various authors refer to the Spirit,

using rwh (pronounced rüach). In the second verse of the bible we

read: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the


waters”. However, rwh is a feminine noun, so the text can just as

well read “The Spirit of God, she hovered…”.

This is exactly the reason I refer to the Spirit in the

feminine (see, I told you it wasn’t offensive). I often like to ask

people when I am accused of just trying to be argumentative when

I refer to the Spirit in the feminine form - am I just trying to be

argumentative by referring to God as he? No. I believe we do no

harm, and indeed remain more faithful to the Father’s heart, and to

the text of the bible to refer to her as feminine. After all “in the

image of God he created them male and female…” so there must

be some feminine aspects to the Godhead right? And where do we

think those come from? Even one of the ancient names for God (El

Shaddai) means “many breasted one” so we’ve got to have

something feminine there, or we’re left with a pretty awkward

vision of God. If I can belabor the point, even things like he and

she carry the same anthropomorphic flavor, and so long as we

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understand there’s really no male or female (sexually) within the

two non-human persons of the Godhead, I think we’re fine.

Before we go too far and start saying, “The holy Spirit is a

woman” I am not asserting that. I’m simply saying that there is

femininity to the godhead. Just as each of us have feminine traits

and masculine traits. Over and over God says “I am not a man that

I should…” and yet Jesus tells us He is Father. If we go too far

with this, we’ll end up in full modalism (the belief that the father

son and Spirit are expressions of the same monadic deity) or at best

in some tritheistic stance (three separate gods). This is why we

must understand who the Spirit is to us, what she’s here for, why

Jesus tells us he is sending her, and what all these gifts and fruit are

all about. Yeah, fruit—singular. We’ll get there too.

When we read the common doctrines spread across most

church websites, they’ll have some form of one of two creeds.

Either the Nicene Creed, or the Evangelical Tenets of Faith. The


Nicene Creed will start with “We believe in God the Father…”

while the Evangelical creed will begin “We believe in the bible…”

(A commentary on its own about the foundation of much western

theology - i.e. sola scriptura rather than how the Nicene Creed

begins with the Fatherhood of God). The Evangelical creed

redeems itself pretty quickly though, with “We believe in one God,

existing eternally in Three persons…”. There it is. Three persons.

The Nicene creed adds “And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and

Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father

and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the

prophets.” (Ca. 381). What’s the point then? The point is that

historically the Spirit has been viewed as a person and somewhere

along the way, we’ve depersonalized the Spirit of God (while

simultaneously overpersonalizing other Spirits) and opted for a

strictly mystical form of interaction with her. We’ll talk a bit about

mysticism in later chapters (I’m all for it) for now, let’s keep on

with who this Spirit is.

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Jesus talks a bit about the Spirit in some of his teaching,

and if anyone were going to be an authority on all matters

concerning the third person of the godhead, Jesus would be it. I

know, I’m charismatic too. Everything in me says to begin with

Acts chapter 2 to talk about the holy Spirit, I mean come on, that’s

when the good stuff starts happening and people start being able to

get drunk without having to spend a dime on liquor! Dangerous

stuff if you’re a commercial camel driver. I’ve been drunk. I’ve

been drunk in the Spirit too, I’ve laughed and rolled around and

shaken and quaked. I’ve seen visions, I’ve prophesied over people

(I mean real stuff), I’ve had mystical encounters with the Spirit of

Jesus (including one while high-I was a user in my past life), and

I’ve experienced the rush of peace of the Spirit. The Spirit raised

me from an overdose-induced death, I know what happened and I

fully affirm that. I’ve also experienced every fake version of all

those things, had them forced upon me, and was subjected to a

complete attitude of control and manipulation all under the guise of

“the Spirit told me…”. Somewhere in there lay the truth. Just


because some person abuses something does nothing to negate the

truth behind that thing. In the case of the Spirit this is of utmost

importance.

Because of what I now consider to be merely the mimetic

behavior of people around me, I nearly rejected this third person of

the godhead, nearly wrote her off all together. I certainly hadn’t

come to a place to be able to understand mimesis as sacrament as I

discussed in the last chapter. It was only because of a particular

teaching of a man named Ken Blue that I maintained my personal

sanity regarding the Spirit. I can’t tell you everything he taught, but

one particular quote has stuck with me, and I use it all the time. He

said (paraphrased) “We’re so busy sticking our heads in the

refrigerator looking for our favorite leftover (gift) that we’ve

forgotten to take a step back and realize who’s kitchen we’re in.”

Powerful stuff. True of me, and true of us all if we’re honest.

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Why? We love the sensational. It excites and makes our

brains release endorphins, causing euphoria in our brains and

bodies. It’s why people get addicted to drugs. Addicts aren’t weak,

they’re strong. It takes incredible strength to endure the horrors of

coming down every time. I know, I’ve been there. Much of what

we believe and experience regarding the Spirit is nothing more

than Spiritual heroin. And that stuff isn’t good for anyone. Sure it

feels good, but in the end we come down, and that horrifying

feeling is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. The

terror of wondering if we’ll get up again…the realization that if

what we just experienced was up then our current status is down is

deadly. It’s depressing. It’s also not the Spirit of Jesus. We’ve lost

our minds regarding the holy Spirit, largely because in an effort to

experience the next Spiritual high, we’ve gone chasing something

that was promised as a fruit if we’d just abide—peace.

Who is this Spirit? Jesus in a couple places reveals her to

us. The first time though comes a little before Jesus begins his


ministry. I know, my internal charismatic meter is going red too.

Before Pentecost?! How dare she! But here we have it. Jesus goes

out to be baptized by his cousin, in the middle of the desert no less.

There’s so much we could talk about regarding the baptism of

Christ, but let’s stay on point here. After the baptism happens,

Jesus comes out of the water and immediately this light shines on

him. And then that line we all know comes booming out: “this is

my beloved son” affirming (and I believe confirming within the

Son) Jesus’ identity. Forget the dove, the words are like a dove not

in the form of a dove. It meant something about the softness with

which she embraced the Son. Light does that. It wraps all around,

softly. Remember dove is really just an anthropomorphism

anyways.

So this first happening in the text has nothing to do with

power, with gifts, with languages or fruit. It’s about one thing,

making center stage of the (re)union of Father and Son. All else

goes dim when she sheds her light on that union. It still happens

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that way today to when we reunite Father with sons and daughters.

Yeah they’re fully reconciled, inside the home, but they’ve got

blank stares on their faces. They need something more to really get

the party going. Enter the hostess. Not unlike concert lighting, she

sets the stage for what’s about to happen. In a moment the Father

embraces the Son, the Son embraces the Father, and all are

embraced by her. And then we hear it “you are mine, beloved, and

you make me happy”. And the Spirit has done her first job. Her

role in our lives is first and foremost to make Father and Son center

stage, to draw us into that light and envelope us in her glow. The

next thing that happens is actually the next time we see her appear

in Jesus’ words.

In John’s gospel Jesus tells us that the Spirit is the Spirit of

truth. He tells us that the Spirit’s job is to guide us into all truth,

and that the Spirit is the Spirit of comfort. We aren’t even into all

that weird stuff yet, and we’re already starting to see a few things

about who she is to us. Comfort. Truth. Peace. Hope.


Mimesis as a Sacrament

A sacrament is a means of mediating the presence of the divine in

our midst. We are probably all aware of the standard sacraments—

things like the Eucharist (communion), marriage, baptism, and

prayer for healing. Those things are means of mediating the divine

presence in our lives. We experience the divine through them, and

while they are means of that experience, they are not the presence

themselves, neither are they the only means to that presence. For

example, the meal shared between believers commonly called the

Lord’s supper or the Eucharist is typically bread and wine/juice to

mimic the meal shared between Jesus and his followers before the

crucifixion. The fact that some churches have opted for juice in

place of wine gives a small hint at what I mean. We’ve understood

the elements themselves can be changed when circumstances

dictate the need—when we have a conviction about minors

consuming wine for example. There’s nothing wrong with

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adjusting what is used to mediate this presence, it’s about

something else.

I remember being in a small college group earlier in my life

and after a time of music and prayer, we felt it was a good time to

“do communion”. There was no bread and wine in the house, but

we did have beer and pizza. What followed was a solemn time of

experiencing the presence and power of the cross, through the

elements we chose to use for this time. I’ve come to the point in

my journey where I no longer feel like the Father cares if we “get it

all right”.

In that fashion, mimesis can also become a sacrament, a

means of mediation of the divine among us. Paul says in 1

Corinthians 4 that his audience should “imitate him as he imitates

Christ”. Certainly Paul had no idea of mimesis or the mimetic

theory, but the elements are there. He understood imitation of one

who is imitating Christ to be the next best thing to actually


imitating Christ. In that, mimesis has just become a sacrament for

Paul and his audience. As they imitate the one imitating the Spirit,

the presence of the divine is mediated in their midst. Paul was a

Jewish mystic (even after his Damascus road experience) and as

such would have been used to mystical experiences mediated

through various sacraments. It is likely he knew that imitation—

albeit the highest form of flattery—is what helps us learn and

grow.

From the womb, we learn by imitation. We come out into a

new world of things to see, and studies have shown facial

imitations as quickly as 15 minutes after birth. We learn to walk,

talk, and do nearly everything we do by imitating others, so it

would stand to reason that mimicking another could also be a

sacrament in the right setting—that being, the imitation of Christ

(in another). Best to imitate Christ, but second best would be to

imitate someone like Paul.

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Paul may have been a Jewish mystic, but he all but seems

to avoid talking about his experiences, vast as I’m sure they were.

There are a few verses where he references things like “being

caught up into the third heaven” and having a vision of Christ, but

they are not the bulk of his message. What makes up the bulk of

Paul’s message largely depends on which audience he’s

addressing, as each letter is a pointed response to a particular issue

in one of his ministry areas save one, Romans. Romans is about as

concise a systematic theology Paul offers us, and even there, he

seems oddly silent about his mystical side.

I believe it goes back to the beginning of this chapter. Paul

knew, as any mystic knows, that any experience that becomes our

identity has just become our God in itself. Having the experience is

one thing, making it the pursuit of life is another, and Paul

succinctly addresses this with his “imitate me as I imitate Christ”

speech.


This was the same issue dealt with by Jesus when he says

“I only do as I see my father do”. He imitated the Father, thereby

revealing Him. When people tell me they’ve had an experience, I

always ask them to pass it through the Jesus test. Is it something

that looks like him? Or was it a vision that somehow has the Prince

of Peace marching up and down continent after continent drenched

in the blood of his enemies exacting revenge on the infidel? I think

if it is the latter, not only should I check what I’m eating before

bedtime, but I could probably safely say, that’s not the spirit of

Jesus with whom I came into contact.

Oxytocin as Sacramental Wine

I believe much of what we dress up as the Spirit is nothing more

than mimesis. We think the individual experience trumps the facts

of life, when the truth is, they’re both right. Experience

transcends—rather than trumps—rule. But it doesn’t change the

rule, the rule remains the rule. For example. When large groups of

people gather—for a sporting event, a religious event, a political

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event and so on—there is a release of oxytocin in the brain.

(Oxytocin is the chemical that makes us feel good during an

orgasm, what is now being called “the bonding hormone”.) It is a

hormonal release aimed at unifying us into a group. This is why

solitude is the fiercest form of psychological warfare. No

oxytocin=no feel good.

Now we could stop there and you’d think I’m totally

against everything that happens in the world of “the Spirit”. But

that wouldn’t be right. So let’s continue. God works from within

remember, and he’s certainly not going to create a new element

every time you experience the Spirit. So why can’t oxytocin be the

physical, temporal response to the metaphysical, mystical

encounter with the Spirit? It can. I believe it is. In that same

fashion, every experience we have with the Spirit will be able to be

proven “naturally”, which makes each experience empirical.

Empirical, like mimesis is not an inherently bad word. It simply

means based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or


experience rather than theory or pure logic. In fact, in the realm of

the Spirit, I’d say virtually everything is empirical. It is immensely

personal, unique to you or I, and not necessarily anything we can

fully wrap our logic around.

And that’s ok.

The ways we encounter the Spirit are meant to be purely

empirical, otherwise it can become formulized into some sort of

magical incantation meant to conjure up the very ghost we’re

trying to give up here. A physically measurable response to the

inward working of the Spirit seems both empirical—based on my

experience, as well as a theoretical—based on my logic, and

doesn’t need to detract from what happened. Neither is exclusive

of the other, rather I believe they are dependent upon one another.

That being said, what happened has no authority to trump the truth

of who we are. In other words, any experience that renders us as

anything other than “children of God” is not the Spirit Jesus speaks

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about when he says she’ll “bear witness within your own spirit that

you are the children of God”.

Just as we take the cup and drink “of the Lord’s blood”

metaphorically, we have taken the cup of the Spirit when our

brains respond and release what they release in those moments.

That feeling that comes over us isn’t the Spirit, and it is. It isn’t if

we mean that our physical response to the physical release of a

hormone is the Spirit. It is if we mean that the hormone itself was

primed for release by her presence within us and our awareness of

her presence increased. I don’t claim to know how this all works,

but I have to believe that the one the biblical authors give credit for

all life to somehow knows and set up a system that we’d one day

be able to observe. I have no qualms giving credit for the beauty of

human design to the Father of Jesus.

Chapter 3

What?

IF WHO THE SPIRIT IS TO US IS THINGS like comfort, peace,

hope, truth and guidance, then what the Spirit is must also be

something of importance. I remember sitting in a meeting hearing a

man talk about all those extra-normal happenings we hear about in

the extremities of charismatic Christianity. Things like gold dust,

diamonds and angel feathers. Something in me thinks those things

are nice, and that if and when they happen we should just

appreciate it for what it is and move on. I think we fall into

problems when we begin “formulizing” our experiences and

confining the Spirit’s actions to our personal experiences. She

moves differently than that, so let’s allow her the freedom. If the

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gift of Pentecost was hearing, then maybe all that empirical stuff is

about seeing. I’m not willing to make a concrete statement on it

these days. I’d rather believe there’s some mystery there that we

just don’t understand.

That dust and feather stuff may be something to discuss,

maybe not, but either way it’s not the substance of the Spirit. She’s

beauty and grace, sure, but gemstones and minerals that have

earthly value are hardly building materials for the third person of

the Godhead. I am unsure of some of the things I’ve seen happen,

but I know the only time the bible records anyone being “drug out”

of a church meeting, it was Ananias and Sapphira.

I mentioned in the last chapter that I was in a meeting once

where people had been singing together corporately and a manifest

thing was felt. Some called it the “glory of the Lord” or the

“shekinah”, others said it was a “glory cloud”. To me it could have

just as well been condensation from well over a thousand people


singing in a humid, warm room for well over an hour, I didn’t care,

it felt like peace. And any time I’ve felt that kind of peace, it’s

always her. It may be completely mimetic, or it may be some mix

of mimetic and supernatural, but either way, the Spirit’s involved.

In this discussion of what the Spirit is, I think it necessary

to look at a few of the biblical instances where we find the Spirit of

God getting involved with humanity. In the desert with the

Israelites, the Spirit appears as a pillar of fire by day and a cloud at

night. We see the Spirit as tongues of fire over the heads of the

disciples at Pentecost. The Spirit appears like a dove (the Spirit is

not “a” dove, this is a way of saying the Spirit rested on Jesus in a

tangible way), and lights the union of Father and Son.

So at least in a biblical way, the Spirit appears to be fire

and light, at least metaphorically speaking. I would venture a guess

that the authors were simply attempting to describe the brilliance

when she lights someone else up. God is Spirit, and so there’s that

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part we need to understand too. Wherever we stand on this issue of

the baptism of the Spirit and all (which we’ll talk about in a few

chapters) we can never simply dismiss the ethereal, immeasurable

and mysterious parts of God. Spirit is breath, wind, movement,

life, hovering, peace, wisdom, joy…are we starting to see what she

looks like?

When I was (fairly radically, and certainly miraculously)

plucked from a pretty nasty drug habit, it started like many you’ve

probably heard, only mine immediately spun a different direction. I

didn’t willingly go “up front”. I was drug. Kicking and screaming.

I fought the whole way up, but seemed to hover (though I know I

walked) to the front. Whether that was emotional subconscious

conditioning or an actual encounter with the living Spirit of God, I

can’t debate. I believe it to be the former, largely because of that

same overwhelming peace that was attached to it. I saw some

things, things I used to talk about, but don’t any more. Not because

I don’t believe them but because I believe they were mine alone.


More on visions and gifts later, but I should say that those things,

treated incorrectly, stand to actually steal the most joy from us. We

ought to understand what they’re actually for, and how they should

operate before just running around acting like we know everything

there is to know.

So I had an experience of overwhelming peace, what I

believe to be the peace of God, brought by the Spirit, against my

will, without my permission, and apart from my belief. She wooed

me, but only after knocking me down and dragging me like the

proverbial caveman back to the cave. That’s a bit like how it was

for Saul when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Knocked off

his horse, thrown to the ground, blinded by the light, converted,

and had his name changed. Pretty forceful situation.

Paul would have likely been labeled a “new ager” if he

were around today. He believed Jesus to be the “end of the age”

had a mystical encounter with him, and left his historical

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orthodoxy because of it. He started a new religion for Christ’s

sake! (Pun definitely intended). Ok, maybe it wasn’t that extreme,

Paul did remain a Jew. He just changed his name to celebrate the

fact that a Spirit man hovering in the sky knocked him from his

horse, and all the while his companions must’ve been struck blind,

dumb and deaf. At any rate, Paul’s encounter was with the risen

Christ, but the risen Christ appeared in the form of the Spirit. I

hope that nobody expects me to unpack the Trinity perfectly, there

remains mystery there that I think we don’t do anyone any good to

try to figure out. My friend Steve McVey says the Spirit told him

once that God isn’t a puzzle to be figured out, He’s a mystery to be

enjoyed. Figuring out what or who the Spirit is really fails us. We

can get a good image from looking at how Christ talks about her

but something ethereal that is also a person? How do we begin to

describe that?

Because of the images of fire and smoke we like to imagine

the Spirit as a fire, igniting us for ministry and causing us to want


to be pastors! (She’s not unkind!) Or worse yet, the Spirit might

ignite us for Africa, and we’d have to leave everything behind. We

have so much superstition regarding this third person of the

Godhead that we’ve let superstition overtake reality—that she is

our helper, our comforter, and our guiding light. If Jesus is the way

(lit. the road) then the Spirit is the vehicle. We can walk the road of

Spirituality all we like, or we can hop in the vehicle and drive it.

Sometimes we go off road and bump around a bit. Any good

navigation system will find the road for us again though if we’ll

just let it, and listen.

In this journey of faith (a journey, never a destination) we

have a choice to hop in the vehicle, walk the road, drive the road,

or go off-roading. I don’t think the Father cares too much about

which one we pick. I think that if we’ll just allow the guidance

system of the vehicle to point us in the right direction, we’ll find

our way home. It’s ok to go off road once in a while, it can be

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exhilarating to feel the loss of traction and support, the vehicle can

take it and the road certainly isn’t going anywhere.

I had a vision, or a dream, or too much scotch or not

enough coffee, I can’t remember which, but I saw something in my

head once and it went a little like this: I saw a desert. And in the

middle of the desert was dry, cracked ground. I began taking these

sticks of dynamite that the Spirit was lighting and handing to me

and throwing them out into the barren land. As they exploded and

the dust settled, I saw new life where the dynamite had blown apart

the crust. Now, how to interpret that? I could take it as all the

verification I need for ministry, but I rather decided to take it as a

colorful (albeit powerful) commentary on how the gospel brings

new life to dead areas of our souls. It goes in like that, with

explosive force, clearing away the dead dry land, and springing up

into new life. I’m sure I could’ve made it all about my ministry and

how this was the authorization I needed from God, but instead I

decided to take it as a personal revelation of the power of the risen


Christ. We’ll talk more about gifts soon, but I have learned to

simply take these events (more of which we will discuss in coming

chapters) when they come as the Spirit doing her best to help me

enjoy my life, enjoy my Jesus, and enjoy the fellowship He’s given

me to share with them.

I have learned to not overplay these encounters. All too

often, we can allow things (especially these types of supernatural

feelings) to come and rob us of our identities. One of the things I

love about reading the writings of the ancient mystics is that they

never seem content to have a mystical experience with God unless

it transformed them into more of Jesus in the process. Many

practiced Ascetism, a strict religious form of abstinence from

nearly everything, but they would continue their work with people.

I believe that the genuine Spirit of Jesus will always drive us

towards others rather than off on our own. I’ve said it this way,

that God created man, and said it wasn’t good for man to be

alone—and at the time God said that, man had: nature, God, and

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his animals. What did God want him to have? Other humans.

That’s the point of all this. Anything that drives us towards loving

the other, is most likely the Spirit of Jesus. Anything that drives us

(at least semi permanently) away from loving the other, is likely

something else. Don’t fret, I’m not talking about some “evil Spirit”

(light and dark can’t dwell in the same place you know, and the

Light of the World is in you) I’m talking about self-centeredness

and mimesis.

Sometimes we need to be self-centered. I know that may

contradict everything you’ve ever been taught, but I think there’s

something poignant here. We all need a little time to ourselves,

where we can be self-centered for a bit. Lord knows in this day and

age if we aren’t centered on self once in a while, likely nobody will

center on our “self” and we’ll dry up. The problem is when we

make a lifestyle out of it. Self-preservation can become full blown

narcissism if we’re not careful, but a desert time can likely do us

all some good.


Mimesis is a simple way of talking about how we work as

humans on our most basic of levels. I use my children as an

example of what mimesis does for us as we grow. We don’t

“teach” our children to talk or walk. We show them what to do and

they imitate us. We say “da da da” and they “say” daddy. Or we

make faces and they make faces back. That’s mimesis in its purest

form. We are beings created to mirror, and as such, we will mirror

something. When God made people, He did so in His image, and

in His likeness. I like to think of in like when I’m standing in a

mirror’s view. I can see myself. When God created (male and

female) in His image, He set them in front of His mirror.

Sometimes we need a time of reflection, self-preservation,

and (for lack of a better term) self-mimesis. We just need to

understand that when that time is over, if we’ve really encountered

the living breathing Spirit of Jesus, we’ll likely find others to love,

have a firmer grasp of our own identity (rather than the oft

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overused phrase “in Christ”—God loves individuals and doesn’t

want them becoming indistinguishable in the family).

Test the Spirits

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether

they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into

the world. - 1 John 4:1

In time past, when someone had a mystical encounter with

the Father, we see something take place. Whether it is the desert

fathers, the medieval mystics, or those post-dark ages, it has

always led to two events in the life of the one having the

experience.

First, it caused them to withdraw from public eye, to spend

time alone with the one they had encountered. We see this in the

Apostle Paul (Gal 1:16), in Julian of Norwich, the desert mystics,


as well as various church fathers and various others. They were

drawn away from the public in order to spend time learning more

about that which had so radically grabbed their heart, soul, mind

and strength. Second, after a time alone, the experience always

caused them to want to go back to the people. Whether it be a time

of feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or selling all that they

had—it always led to a life lived toward the outcast.

We could say it this way: that the mystics were in no way

comfortable experiencing God unless it transformed them to Jesus

in the process. This is the heart of theosis—a journey toward a

greater experience of the image of God in our lives. A mystical

encounter always brought the one who experienced it into a better

recognition of their union, and that recognition in turn always

moved them to bring that same union to those around them. This is

that kenosis/theosis/kenosis pattern I described earlier.

Where we find ourselves today however, is many who

claim to have such mystical experiences are using them as a means

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to "trump" learning more about the one they are experiencing.

Jesus was a Jewish mystic, he had encounters with the Spirit. He

went alone at times to encounter, but those encounters always did

what? They stirred him to minister to the poor, the broken, and the

outcast. In his own announcement of his ministry, he said “the

Spirit of the Lord is here and has anointed me to preach good news

to the poor”. His encounter with the Spirit birthed in him the

understanding that this is first and foremost about those not given a

fair shake.

The Apostle Paul, arguably the most notable of all

“Christian mystics" did just the opposite. He retired to the desert to

learn first hand from the spirit the mysteries he was charged with

revealing. We then see him teaching above all else, and often using

his previous (Jewish) education as both backing and fodder for his

message. He didn't disregard learning, he simply recognized when

to use it, and when not to use it. He also seems to all but refuse to

talk about his mystical encounter in a public forum. Less than we


care to acknowledge does Paul ever mention his experience, and

when he does so, its seems to be almost in passing because he

believes his theological/pastoral message to be of more importance

than his personal experience. Luke speaks about it in Acts for Paul,

but the voice isn’t Paul’s.

So how then do we "test the spirits" as John tells us in his

epistle? If we feel we've had some encounter with the spirit, we

should understand that if it is indeed the spirit of Jesus, it will look

exactly like him. How do we determine if it "looks like Jesus"

though?

•! Does the encounter with the spirit stir in us a desire to

preach good news to the poor?

•! Does it move us towards feeding the hungry?

•! Does it move us towards clothing the naked?

•! Does it move us towards our fellow human?

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•! Does it lay waste to walls of separation between

male/female, Jew/Greek, believer/unbeliever?

If the answer to these is yes, then there is a very good

chance that we have indeed encountered the spirit of Jesus, and we

can enjoy that encounter for what it is.

We also need to ask ourselves the following questions however.

•! Does the encounter "reveal a government conspiracy"?

•! Does the encounter cause us to retreat to our homes and

ignore the broken?

•! Does it move us deeper inward?

•! Does it move us to say things like "education and learning

are of no value"?

•! Does it cause us to begin following a particular speaker like

he’s on the final leg of the final tour your favorite rock

band ever did?


•! Does it build walls of separation between our fellow people

and us?

If the answer to these is yes, then there is a very good

chance we have not encountered the spirit of Jesus, but rather had

some bad pizza the night before, had too much wine, or are sleep

deprived (or some variation/combination of these).

We need not think every mystical encounter we have is an

encounter with the spirit of Jesus. This is the very reason we are

told to “test the spirits”, the very reason Jesus tells us that they will

know us “by our love”—rather than in how we pander to the

masses in our speech as though we need to sugar coat everything—

in how our experience moves us to a deeper love of our fellow

humans. I believe this to be the very reason so many are so

skeptical of the movement today.

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Paul's dissertation on love reveals to us that "if I speak with

the tongues of men and angels, if I prophesy…”—if I ________

(insert activity here) and have not love, it is nothing, I am nothing.

If what we are experiencing does not cause us to have a deeper

care for the hurting—of which many in the church are a part—

then:

It’s.

Not.

The.

Spirit.

Of.

Jesus.

We need our experiences. They are good for us. But they

can become not only a crutch, but also a drug—and like addicts,

we will chase it at all costs. What we should collectively

understand is that if the experience we’ve had doesn’t move us

toward those who are unlovely in our natural eyes, then there’s a


high likelihood it's not an experience with the Spirit, Person, or

Abba of Jesus.

Chapter 4

Close Encounters

ONE OF THE THINGS I’VE LEARNED about the Spirit is this:

she tends to transcend our labels anyways, so attempting to throw

one around her will likely only make her shed the label more

quickly. If we only gather and grasp that the Spirit is a person and

not a what an it or a feeling. The third person of the Godhead

(which implies there’s a first and second-in case you’ve never put

that together) has been so mistreated and misdefined. Most of this

is due to mankind’s constant need for more. You say Jesus took the

worst humanity had to offer? So what, did He raise too? He did?

So what, I need to feel it for it to be true.


Maybe not in that exact language, but something similar.

We tend towards the superstitious—ok we don’t just tend toward

it, we run into it headfirst—when we talk about “God”. God has

become the cosmic-cause-all of everything that happens to us from

floods to famine and the solution to all of life’s ills (if you’re in the

right camp and believe the right things). God is the means to a

better life, a more prosperous career, and a life more than 99% of

the world could only dream about. God is the silent answer to the

“you and what army” questions lobbed at us by our accusers, and

the justification for any hate we feel like having. Want to hate the

gays? Go ahead, “God” authorizes it. Want to hate those from

other religions? Go ahead, “God” says he does too.

There’s only one problem with that.

That “God” is dead.

Or more accurately, that god (lower case “g”) is a figment

of our imagination. He was never alive to begin with. If we take

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Jesus seriously, his teaching and his miracles, we find that he

believes his “Abba” to be altogether different from the YHWH and

ELOHIYM of the texts he’s grown up studying. We could almost

say Jesus replaced YHWH with ABBA, switched their translation

a little bit as it were. I know, Jesus didn’t actually remove God the

Father, but I believe—firmly—that he bound the sacrifice

demanding, child murdering, world flooding, threat making deity

the Jews mistook for YHWH and sacrificed him on the altar once

and for all. You can say that Jesus showed us the definition of

YHWH, and that definition is Abba.

What does this have to do with the Spirit you say? I’m the

author, I’ll take any rabbit trails I like! Only partly serious, listen if

we’re going to get at this Spirit, I mean really begin to understand

her, it’s necessary to take a good look at the other two persons of

the Godhead. The nature of the union that the Godhead shares

(called perichoresis and it means mutual indwelling) is categorized

by a couple things. It is first and foremost mutually humble. The


reason Jesus could only “do as he saw his father do” was this

mutual humility they share with each other. Jesus perceives that

sees the Father act in a certain manner, and acts in that manner.

The results speak for themselves, but let’s touch on how Jesus

“saw his father”.

We don’t have any records of Jesus falling into a trance,

spending days fasting and praying, attending a seminar to increase

his power, worshipping, going to church, ok you get the point.

Jesus really just said something we glaze over at first glance. Let’s

read it like this:

“I only do what I see my father do. You know, that

invisible guy up there that we all pray to and only a few have seen.

Oh by the way, nobody’s actually seen him. They think they have

but they got it all wrong-hence, me. I see him do something, and I

do it too.”

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Jesus was out of his mind. Maybe. Or maybe there’s

something else going on there that we didn’t really look at. When

Jesus was baptized, the Spirit lit him up for the father’s grand

pronouncement. “This is my beloved son”. The Spirit was the

catalyst for the father’s revelation. This is exactly what Jesus is

referring to when he says the Spirit will bear witness within our

Spirit that we are the children of God. The Spirit will be the

catalyst for the confirmation of our identity. It’s that confirmation

that I want to focus on for a minute. I feel there’s something

powerful to an internal confirmation of your identity as a child of

God. It might just be the most important piece of information you

or I ever hear. It also might just be why so many are so confused

about God. They’ve been handed a vision of a nameless, faceless,

“unmoved mover” who rarely says a thing unless some guy from

one of the fringe elements of the faith decides to say “thus sayeth

the Lord”. Maybe remedying that vision of God will help us

understand the Spirit a little better.


When I was struck, well, speechless and unable to walk, by

(what I believe to be) the presence of the Spirit—and that presence

resulted in peace, there was a phrase that kept playing in my head.

“I have chosen you”. Now, I don’t believe that was a random

thought, quite the opposite, a friend’s song had just been playing

with that very line in it. Nevertheless, the line played over and over

in my head and whether the unfortunate result of football and too

much drug use or the manifest presence of the Spirit—the fruit

remained: my identity had been restored, or rather reconfirmed.

This is what happens inside Jesus when the Spirit does her

job. He feels that confirmation of his identity inside, then he hears

it from above. I suppose when you’re claiming to be “the” son of

God, the messiah, the chosen one, or any other such grandiose title,

you probably had better have your confirmation come audibly. I

think we’re never told that we’re anything we haven’t already

heard from our own hearts. Our heart tends to know us better than

our brain and will often speak out. Shame we don’t listen to it

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more often. Most people I’ve come into contact with will say

something like “I’m just trying to get it from my brain to my heart,

then I’ll know it”. I’d suggest it to be exactly the opposite. Our

heart has a harmonic resonance with the truth. When someone

begins to confirm your identity as a child of God, the string begins

to vibrate within you. That vibration is the Spirit doing what she

does best, confirming you.

Sure, I believe Jesus had mystical encounters with his

father (something we’ll discuss in future chapters) I just believe

those things were private, for him alone. He certainly didn’t

advertise them when they happened, and rarely did he have the

time. He was too busy healing people to spend his days pursuing

the presence or caught up into this, that, or the other heaven. Now

hear me out, I’m not against any of those things, I think they have

their place (when they’re legitimate). I just think we can get too

caught up with the experience and forget who we’re experiencing.

Especially when it comes to things that look like power. Here’s the


issue in that. Power is not how God asserts authority.

Powerlessness however, looks a lot like Jesus. “All authority” was

given to him as he lie dying on a cross. That is the sort of power

God uses.

Let’s rephrase all that. Any genuine encounter with the

Spirit will be supernatural, rather than either supernatural or even

worse, supranatural. The supernatural encounter looks like using

the things of this world as the avenue of delivery. Here I’m

thinking of the release of oxytocin when large groups gather. To

the biblical authors, this is “when two or more are gathered, there I

am…”. Why can’t it be both? The natural response to a work of the

Spirit is in fact, measurable naturally. The supernatural response

looks like too much focus on the power and too much focus on the

gift itself rather than the one who births it (the Spirit). The

unfortunate supranatural response is that which transcends all

physicality in its application. I’m not one to say things are or are

not the Spirit necessarily, but to me anything that requires a

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creation of something previously unknown is highly suspect. Jesus

healed with dirt, spit, water, all things that are temporal in origin,

and a part of our physical makeup.

We really only see Jesus perform any miracles of note after

his time getting baptized, at least this is when his ministry really

takes off. I don’t believe, as it has been purported, that Jesus

ministry began because now “he was baptized in the holy ghost”.

That’s a modern invention, and has very little to do with the actual

baptism of the holy Spirit that the biblical authors referenced.

Nevertheless, Jesus’ ministry begins in force after this time. I

believe it to be because his confirmation was complete. He had

likely already thought to himself “that’s me” about some of the Old

Testament texts, and needed only hear the confirmation. Once that

confirmation was complete, out come the beatitudes and the

sermon on the mount. “Blessed are the meek, the peacemakers, the

hungry, the thirsty. Blessed are all of you who don’t have all your


shit together. Blessed are you when you’re in darkness. Blessed are

you when things don’t look too bright…”

“…”

“Because I’m the light of the world.”

You can only say the kind of stuff Jesus said with supreme

confidence, and not the kind that comes from sheer arrogance, the

kind that comes from knowing, really knowing inside you that

you’re right. That kind of confidence only comes from

confirmation of your “rightness”. And that confirmation comes in

the form of the Spirit, working within us, bearing witness within us

that we are the children of God (as opposed to becoming the

children of God).

When you’ve heard the Spirit’s subtle whispers, and go

ahead and allow yourself to become fully settled in what it is she’s

saying to you (hint: it’ll always confirm your divine lineage) then

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everything else becomes a little smoother. Or at least in part. We

were promised tribulation in this world. We were also promised

that someone else had overcome the world. Interesting thing about

that particular passage too, when we look at what Jesus is actually

saying, I mean really look at it, it reads a little differently. When

Jesus says world, the word he uses there can be read as that which

applies pressure from the outside. He’s talking about our

environment, physical and Spiritual, and promising us that we’ll

make it. Why? Because he’s on the inside, exerting the necessary

force to keep us from being crushed. We are pressed, but never

crushed. We are living and breathing and carrying on about our

lives today because of the indwelling presence of the breath of life,

the Spirit of the Living God. Replicated into us mystically and

mysteriously by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the

Spirit now calls from within things like “be reconciled child”,

never changing our identity, and always wooing us to the father’s

hand.


If we want a primer on the “gifts of the Spirit” (which we’ll

discuss in full later), we need look no further than Jesus’ parables

in Luke 15. At the pinnacle of the story, there’s a party going on

and the older brother sits lost in his misery outside—although still

within the father’s home. This is where we find the Spirit at work,

in the phrase uttered by the father to his son, “My son, you have

always been with me…”. That is how you know when the Spirit is

speaking. It’ll always begin with “my daughter…” or “my son…”.

The Spirit isn’t interested in robbing you of your uniqueness, your

identity, or your sense of self. She wants to confirm those things,

not remove them!

I suppose that’s enough about who, what, when, and all that

jazz. The who is probably the single most important thing to grasp

about the Spirit. She’s a person, first and foremost. Everything else

must come from there.

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Between …ing and …ed

Something occurs to me in our pursuit of various spiritual things.

Somewhere between ing and ed is a journey. Let me explain. When

we are engaged, we are marrying, but come the wedding day, we

are married. Between the engagement and the wedding feast lies a

journey. Those looking for healing want to move from healing (on

their way) to healed (docked in port). Whether searching in

religion, medicine, or some other form of treatment, the journey

between is trying to be shortened. The nature of human

development is self-preservation. What many of us have grown up

with however is a belief that ed is to be achieved, many times—at

all costs. This is specifically poisonous when applied to the term

blessing. What we’re searching for is the understanding (and

subsequent proof) that we are blessed, but we’re doing so by

looking at the ing.


And the problem is, our ing is largely contingent upon our

understanding of what the Spirit is. If our God (thereby our Spirit)

is not personal, standoffish, not concerned with those the group

rejects, then our idea of something like blessing will correlate to

social hierarchy systems and the enshrinement of individual

encounter, individual wealth, and individual freedom—often times

at the extent of those around us. All of this stems from our

misunderstanding of the journey. We’re so conditioned to be

discontent that we abhor anything that looks to be too dark, too

painful, or too much work, save one area—physical fitness. No

pain no gain is a motto for physical exercise but the very thing we

try to escape in our spiritual exercise.

Let’s apply that to the person of Jesus and move from

saving—something he was working towards, to saved—that which

was accomplished. While a teacher and prophet in flesh and blood,

Jesus was saving humanity. Leading them on a journey toward

completion. At the cross, he saved humanity, starting the journey

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of completion. That journey is a never-ending one. It is not meant

to be a one-time, event based theological stance. That is what gets

us locked in empirical spirituality, what I call narcimysticism. This

is that spirituality that says “my experience is the only correct

experience, so imitate me”. It is dangerous, and opposed to

sacramental mimesis in its fruit. Where the imitation of Christ

leads us toward peace and wholeness, the imitation of self-

mysticism is a spiral of never measuring up.

Now let’s use healing as our framework. We can say that

the space between healing and healed is affected by how we

approach that space. If we come to the space with the

understanding that Jesus is somewhere on the other side of our

problem, desperately trying to reach us and “pull us through it”,

while simultaneously not getting wet with our issues, we will hate

the space. When we hate the space, when we hate the journey, we

lose site of wholeness. Wholeness isn’t perfection. Quite the

opposite. I’ve written elsewhere that the proof of the variations in


our vision of wholeness and the writers of the gospels is that Jesus,

post-resurrection, still bears the scars of his suffering. It seems as

though the early Christian writers had an understanding of the

journey and its purpose in us. All of that brings us to a place of

bitterness about our healing, that it hasn’t happened yet, or that it

has delayed. That feeling of bitterness takes hold and seems to

never let go. In those instances, it is often a miracle that is needed

rather than a physical healing. I’m not talking about changing their

water into wine, though that may help too, but rather a metanoia, a

rethinking of the space.

We’re products of a world of instant gratification and self-

satisfaction. In a climate such as this, it is almost impossible to

explain the importance of this journey. Insinuating that something

might take 10, 20, or even more years is worse than an all cat

chorus of Handel’s Messiah for some. The very idea that I may

have to wait for something I want now (based on all my perfect

judgments about what I need) is abhorrent, and I will go to any

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length to make it appear to not be so. This is the reason we see the

explosion of the mega church in many respects. Promises that can’t

possibly be upheld—such as the famed “100 fold return” promise

on financial giving, and promises that are unfortunately made out

of ignorance and good intention—such as “God will heal you” only

serve to widen the gap between religion and reality. Nowhere have

I seen a church motto “Take a seat, this is going to take a while”,

but I have to say if I did, I just might join, if for no other reason

than their candor.

My God, My God

Learning to move beyond instant gratification and self-satisfaction

can be painful. Many of us never fully move beyond the dynamic

duo of self-soothing, at least not in every area, but the hope is that

we can be transformed. We often want to jump to the next spot in

line, forcing ourselves through verbal confession to believe “I’m

blessed and nothing less”, when in reality, we haven’t felt the


presence of God in years and long ago gave up the dance. Part of

this move involves learning to doubt your certainty and question

your own answers. Rather than responding with trite religious

phrases in the face of adversity, I wonder if we could fully wrestle

with the darkness and despair associated with the words of Jesus,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”.

Certainly there is validity to the stance many take regarding

the words of Jesus being a prophetic utterance of Psalm 22.

However, I don’t fully believe Jesus to have been merely

prophesying. I believe he finally understood what the Psalmist

meant when he penned those words. In a moment of darkness, of

humiliation, of rejection by humanity, Jesus searches for God,

looks for his Father and seems to see nothing. It is only in the fact

that he sunk into this unknowing, into this darkness that he found

the resolution on the other side. This is where saving went to saved

and Jesus once and for all rendered the powers of the age null and

void. But it had to come to that point. In that moment of “My God,

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My God…” we are at the precipice of ing and ed, at the port of our

journey’s end. Many turn and run from this moment, fearing what

lies beyond. But what lies beyond is not to be feared, Jesus has

demonstrated for us what happens after a moment of desperation,

asking the Father where he has gone.

Resurrection.

Resurrection happens after all hope is lost.

Resurrection happens after death is eminent.

Resurrection happens after feeling forsaken.

Chapter 5

Scripturally Speaking...

MANY CHRISTIANS LIKE TO SEE things “in the bible”. Now

this is neither the time nor the place to get into all the various

nuances of textual criticism and with which method we will

interpret the text. So rather, what I’ll do is go ahead and discuss

what the bible has to say regarding this third person of the

Godhead with as flat a reading as possible. Sometimes we’ll need

to look a few things up, but for the most part, I think we can stay

basic. If you’re not one for proof texts, keep reading, I don’t proof

text. If you are, please, with everything in me, I beg you to keep

reading.

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We get to see glimpses of the “Spirit of God” throughout

the Old Testament texts. I’ve already mentioned the first

appearance in Genesis, and that the Hebrew word is feminine. But

let’s go ahead and look at some of these times when the Spirit is

recorded as having appeared. Aside from the Spirit being called

the Spirit of: wisdom, counsel, might, understanding, knowledge,

and the like, we need to know how the Spirit appears to those in

the biblical accounts.

Let’s go to Job. Purported by some (erroneously) to be the

oldest book in the bible, Job is one of those books that many

people would do best to just tape the middle chapters shut. Job

reads more like a play than an actual piece of history, but I digress.

In Job 27:3 we read as long as my breath is in me, and the Spirit of

God is in my nostrils. ESV Ah yes, the Spirit dwelleth in our

nostrils. Wait…What? Without going too far into this, we should

understand that a lot (and I really do mean A LOT) of ancient

theology/religion/cultish behavior/society…ok you get it, involved


a belief that no matter what happened, “the gods” were the cause

(or more specifically in the case of the biblical text, “God”—and

even there, it is sometimes YHWH and sometimes ELOHIYM).

Whether good or bad, it was the will of God. We see this

throughout Job when his friends approach him blaming God for

Job’s peril (something by the way God makes them repent of in the

end). So when we read Job saying something like this, what he’s

getting at is the very breath he breathes is the Spirit.

Later Job gives the Spirit credit for making him, and the

breath of God for giving him life. Whether we read Job

parabolically or not, what the author is getting at is that there’s

something else tangible to this “God”. Something that looks and

feels a lot like breath. Breath is tangible, but uncontrollable. Well,

controllable to a point but at some point, the system will take over

and force it to happen. Yes, force it to happen. When the mind is

insistent on stopping something, the system will kick into salvation

mode and save itself.

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Isaiah puts it a little differently, saying: “The Spirit of the

Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to

bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the

brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening

of the prison to those who are bound” (61:1 ESV).

So Job seemed to think (or at least the author of the book

thought) that the Spirit of God is what made us, and the very breath

in our lungs, and the passage here in Isaiah says that the Spirit is

upon Isaiah. So both in and on are biblical counsel. One is

preexisting, one has conditions, at least exegetically here in Isaiah.

The Spirit is on him because. And what’s the why to the because?

Because this chap has been given good news to the poor, the

broken hearted, the captive, and the bound. That is the why. We

want to have a “power ministry” then all we need to do is proclaim

what Isaiah proclaimed. Proclaim the freedom of the bound

through the binding of Christ. Proclaim good news to the poor

because through his poverty they have become rich (please don’t


read that as an endorsement of the prosperity message—Paul

wasn’t making fiduciary claims about Christ). Proclaim healing to

the broken hearted through the breaking of His heart. Proclaim

liberty to the captive through the captivity of His liberty. This is

what it’s really all about. The Spirit is on that kind of stuff. Why?

Because she loves the outcast, the broken, the excluded. Often I

feel people aren’t buying our power message because the message

is supposed to be good news to the poor first and foremost. Most

power demonstrations don’t help too much with abject poverty and

systems of segregation that keep people from earning their fair

share.

Now for the sake of ink, and to save at least one sapling in

the rain forest, let’s just go through the other things this Spirit is

called throughout the biblical text. She’s called a free Spirit, good

Spirit, holy Spirit, eternal Spirit, and the Spirit of: wisdom,

counsel, might, understanding, knowledge, grace, prophecy,

adoption, truth, holiness, revelation and glory. Yes, I see that

hand. “Might” is a word used to describe the Spirit, but all we’ll

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need to do to show that it isn’t power in the way you’re thinking

right now is quote another verse quickly. “Not by might, nor by

power but by my Spirit declares the Lord”. It would seem as

though both might and power are diametrically opposed to the

actual working of the Spirit within us. There are a lot of titles to

choose from here, but the one that I think sums it all up best is the

comforter. Comfort always looks like peace. Comfort never looks

like power. Comfort speaks softly to our hearts and doesn’t try to

overwhelm us with oddities.

Jesus refers to the Spirit as the Spirit of comfort in the

Gospel of John. Let’s just allow that to be where we dwell with

this Spirit that seems to be taking shape as a person more and

more. Rather than just a feeling of bliss, ecstasy, transcendence (all

fine experiences in their place), the third person of the Godhead

comes to us as wisdom, counsel, comfort, truth, and adoption.

Through the person comes the bliss, and without the person there

can be no transcendence. Sounds a bit like the incarnation doesn’t


it? With the person however, bliss and joy are a part of the

package, because the fruit of the Spirit (which we will discuss

later) is love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and gentleness,

goodness and self control, you know, all that stuff that makes

people feel good about who they are, who you are and who God is.

That’s the Spirit’s job, sort of like a mother…

I wonder then why we have consigned her off to the corner

to only be called upon when we need something more from our

relationship with the Father. It strikes me as odd, and has since I

was a child, that the Spirit seems only active in the manner we see

in the average charismatic church on Sundays, Wednesdays, and

sometimes one other night, after worship, before the offering, but

not too long because the preacher still needs to preach, while half

the church “participates” and the other half sits there awkwardly

because they don’t feel anything but don’t dare act like they don’t

feel anything. Phew, that was a long sentence…good thing you can

breathe while reading silently.

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I’ve been on both sides of that three-way fence too.

(Laughter is expected). I’ve been in the ministry position,

delivering prophetic words to people, singing songs I’d never

learned, sitting in the crowd faking it until the service is over, and

mimetically participating in the events of the evening. I’ve done it

all, and it’s all served to grow me, so…it is what it is. But I won’t

be so foolish as to say anything like “it was ALL God”. Of course

not. Nothing this side of eternity is. To declare that our theology is

somehow validated because the Spirit decided hanging out with us

was more important than correcting us doesn’t really stack up in

light of Jesus’ statements about those people who had “done all

these things in his name”. Signs and wonders are great, needed

even, but they don’t really validate anything.

I remember watching my dad pray for a lady once who

would glance to wherever he was “catching” and “fall out” in his

direction. I never thought my dad was that handsome. Attractive,

sure, but fall worthy? Only for mom… If only this poor girl could


have been taught what she was doing. It’s not evil, or even

heretical, it’s simply mimetic. Monkey, or in this case, influential

young girl, see…well, you know the rest. Others fell, so did she. Is

it her fault the cosmos aligned and her fall was directed at my dad

(who by the way didn’t catch her)? Is it her fault she found an

attraction to the man up front (mimetic)? She desired what he had,

even more than what he looked like. The gospel is attractive, and

we’re often so caught up in power and demonstration we forget

that there’s a very natural thing happening in the lives of the

hearers. Namely, they’re coming under the power of suggestion

and (hopefully unintentional) hypnosis. Again, we don’t need to

divorce all that from the Spirit, but we should learn to recognize it

when it’s happening.

Well, now I’m way off track, but I suppose we’re having

fun. The top “holy ghost” moment of my life came when I was a

young, only-attending-church-because-the-blonde-cheerleader-did,

man. Hearing a preacher “prophesy” the birth of this woman’s

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child, and everything he would do for the kingdom of heaven, only

to quietly hear her reply into the microphone “I’m not pregnant”

was the highpoint of my young Christian life. I still find it funny,

then again, I’m not too far removed from that mindset. It proved to

me at an early age that often, even people who are “full of the

Spirit” seem to hear her wrong, which begs the question, are we

supposed to be giving those types of “words” (prophecies) to other

people?

What can we say then about this Spirit, scripturally

speaking? Well, virtually anything can be proof texted, so if we’re

going to cherry pick and proof text, why not look at ones like

these. This Spirit is all about comfort and calm, all about peace and

grace and love. That’s something worth proof-texting. That’s also

something vastly different from what has been presented in many

circles. If she’s first and foremost the Spirit of truth, then

everything we experience might better serve us if we start

searching for the truth she’s trying to confirm within us. It’s not


about the activity, even if that is what’s used to grab our attention.

It’s about what, or more specifically who, the activity is meant to

point us towards. If it points us to Jesus, and transforms us even

more into his likeness in the process, it’s likely the Spirit. If not,

it’s probably something a little more mimetic, which is fine—

maybe that’s what we need to get us out of the way so she can

speak those words to our hearts “you are my beloved child in

whom I am well pleased”. In whom. She’s pleased to be in you.

Bored with Jesus

Jesus has become boring to many, and it's evidenced in many

different ways—which I'll outline in a minute—but first, let me

explain what I mean.

The simplicity of Christ is found in three simple words

(with a tip of the hat to my friend Michael Hardin)—Jesus exegetes

Papa (and for the purposes of our discussion, Jesus exegetes the

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Spirit). Everything else is commentary at best, foolishness at worst.

When we become bored with Jesus, when we quit caring about

how he reveals and redefines his Father (the "God" the Jews know

as that deity who is every bit as tribal, nomadic and warring as they

are) we quit caring about the message of the gospel. That message

that speaks radical inclusion and forgiveness to the most despicable

of human beings.

It is the gospel of the success of Jesus, his success in

revealing his Father, his success in redeeming humanity, and his

success in revealing our violent tendencies that is the power of

God, not the gospel of eschatological debate. It is that gospel

which inspired the Apostle Paul, not a "hatred for the law" or some

gospel of "grace" that somehow consigned Jesus to the old

covenant. The message that inspired Paul was the complete and

utter success of Jesus. It consumed his life, to the point that he

realized that the "love of Christ compels" to the point that he was


able to "judge that if one died for all then all have died - and one

did die for all (so all died)".

It was the love of Christ, the one who exegetes his Father

that compelled Paul. Not a hatred of the law. Not a desire to get

people to stop tithing. Not a desire to convert people away from

Judaism, but a desire to reveal the Son in them. A desire to see all

as utterly and hopelessly bound up in the one who holds all things

together. Paul saw us bound up in Christ (as penned "grafted into

Israel") and the natural revelation of "and so all Israel shall be

saved" was what followed. "All Israel" being saved because Christ

in his vicarious humanity fulfilled any and all obligation necessary

to "enjoy" this life.

Paul saw us bound up in Christ, and resolved to know one

thing - Christ (his deity) and Him crucified (his flesh). Paul was no

more "against" the law than he was "against" the Gentile. He

simply saw the law for what it was—complete, and in its

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completeness unable to save. He pitted the law, not hated it. He

saw this thing he had loved as unable to save, and Jesus as the

Savior of the world. He was driven by the success of Christ.

How can we tell when we get bored with Jesus? How can

we know when we've gotten tired of his revelation of his Father?

•! When we turn God into the architect of the atonement

rather than the recipient of it.

•! When we turn humanity into categories of "regenerate" and

"unregenerate".

•! When we tell people they are "born in sin".

•! When we separate the trinity with doctrines of the "flesh"

•! When we spend our time at eschatology conferences.

•! When we obfuscate Trinitarian love with ideas of free will

that supersedes their ability to rescue.

•! When the pursuit of a particular manifestation of the Spirit

takes the place of the Spirit’s abiding presence.


Do you see what happens when Jesus stops being the focus

of all that we are? We create doctrines, force feed them to a world

that by-and-large doesn't care any more, and wonder why nothing

happens. We preach daily that the definition of insanity is doing

the same thing over and over again expecting different results, and

then participate in insanity weekly in our pulpits, bible schools,

and "missions" trips (many times otherwise known as Christian

vacations). Maybe it’s time to stop the insanity. Jesus exegetes

papa. Not Calvin. Not Zwingli. Not Luther. Not Athanasius. Not

Barth. Jesus. We should surrender everything to him—if it can’t

pass the test of how Jesus reveals his Father in thought, in deed, or

in word (thereby revealing the Spirit as well) then it is not the

Spirit we’re talking about.

It’d be best if we’d stop being bored with Jesus and let him

be the hermeneutic, the lens through which everything must pass,

and the high point of all that is human history.

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All that Glitters

Not all that glitters is gold is a phrase we’ve all likely heard. We

usually subscribe to the understanding that lies behind it too—that

snake oil promises to work wonders. That’s nice, but ultimately it

disappoints. If a man were to stand in front of us and proclaim that

he had the one pill to cure all our ills, we would shake our heads

and walk away. So why haven't we with the modern gospel?

Why haven't we let go of the snake oil, the flash, and the

pomp and returned our focus onto the one this is really supposed to

be about - Jesus? We run around, chasing down this-or-that

manifestation of the Spirit, all the while ignoring the fact that the

Spirit is a person of the Godhead, not just some mystical, twilight-

zone-esque heavenly elixir or narcotic. If we want to dive in deep,

to really understand what the Spirit is all about we should throw

away our "gifts of the spirit" or "fruit of the spirit" books and

teachings (except this one of course), and go straight to Jesus about


the whole situation. He is, after all, the expressed image of the

invisible God.

The Spirit has become the means by which many within the

movement escape the "evil clutches" of institutional learning.

Personal revelation has trumped group interpretation. That’s not

always a bad thing, but Jesus didn't tell us the Spirit would tell us

all things—he said the Spirit would tell the audience (his disciples)

all things, whatever He had told them. It had nothing to do with a

divine excuse to ignore your mind. It had everything to do with

keeping his radical message of peace and forgiveness fresh in their

minds. This is what friends do—they keep us in their minds. When

the Spirit comes to us (she’s always with us, but when she

approaches us for relationship) it is always in this light. She will

come as a friend, to remind us of peace and forgiveness.

And that's the point of all this. Peace and forgiveness. Two

things we all need more of and can never get enough of. It's even

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what Jesus kingdom is called—peace. Peace is what it's all about,

not feathers and dust, not rainbows shooting out of my eyes, not

tongues or wiggling around on the floor. If those things turn you

on, do them, fine, but please don't consign the Spirit over to the

corner. She's not a barfly, she is wisdom and peace. Jesus tells us

the Spirit is here to comfort, to guide us into all truth (Jesus-the

way, truth and life), and to bring to our remembrance the things He

said. That's all the counsel Jesus gives us on the third person of the

Godhead, and yet we have so convoluted what the trinity is all

about that we have completely lost the primary objective of the

Spirit in our lives.

To draw us in.

When we find the author of Revelation talking of the "end

of the end”, their counsel and understanding is this; that the Spirit

and the Bride stand at the (forever and ever open) gates of the city

and beckon all outside to come. They will continue the draw and


continue the beckoning until they are satisfied. After all, he is

faithful—even when we are faithless.

The kingdom has been sown—and it is peace and

forgiveness. All the other "stuff" is simply that—stuff. Not bad, not

necessarily good in and of itself. What matters is what we’ve done

with it. Is it a means of sacrament or a means of self-elevation?

Anything we do that manages to place a specific individual

repeatedly on the same pedestal is typically human in origin.

Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it helps to recognize

the genesis of our current situations.

Chapter 6

Madame Jesus

IF WE’RE GOING TO DISCUSS POWER, and specifically the

kind of power the Spirit of God would not only contain, but

unleash, then there’s going to be some of those embarrassing

moments. You know, those ones where there’s no other

explanation for what’s going on than “they must be faking it”.

Probably not what you thought I was going to say, but there it is.

Growing up, in addition to my several experiences with the Spirit, I

was able to (largely because of our nomadic existence as

preachers) take part in several experiences that were, shall we say

less than holy?


I’ve already talked about the story my dad told us of the

young woman who was “slain in the Spirit” (falling over

backwards as an apparent sign of the Spirit’s presence) who was

continually “slain” towards him when he was a catcher—which

was always a crowd pleaser. Poor girl actually fell to the wrong

place one time. Then there’s the multitude of pushing preachers,

and even the one who used to tell the youth group they needed to

“fall” when he prayed for us so people knew he had the “power” of

the Spirit on him. Me being the type of rebel I am, I’ll just push

back. Of course, maybe the Spirit will still meet us there, but that’s

just me.

Or the man who “prophesied” over me that [sic] “my

sexual attraction to my mother would influence my worship” (and

it was meant positively!) Or the multitudes that said things like

“fame and fortune”. Or the ones who said “world famous”. Or the

various “this will happen when you _____” words.

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I don’t know about every reader of this book, but I’ve been

subjected repeatedly by the charismatic church to “Madame Jesus”

moments. These are moments when well-meaning people

essentially tried with all their might to read my future as a

prophetic word. Not that I have anything against the Spirit showing

us the future, but I just don’t see things working that way. There

are too many variables that end up pigeonholing the Spirit into

some sort of formulaic response person if we do that, a means to an

end rather than a person. Clairvoyance isn’t listed as one of the

fruit or gifts, and somehow the one gift that looks like that has

been consigned to it. Prophecy, which we’ll cover in a couple

chapters, has very little to do with clairvoyance. Am I saying some

people aren’t clairvoyant? I’m not sure. I think generalized

statements about the future don’t carry much weight, and anything

specific is more of a direction maker than a direction confirmer in

most cases. Having said that, I’ve had times where I felt like I

should or shouldn’t go somewhere that day. But nothing so grand

as 20 years in the future.


Madame Jesus came out in conferences, church services,

private prayer meetings, virtually anywhere a number of

“Christians” were gathered. What the church has become is a place

where Christians serve Christians, even in the realm of these

(wildly misunderstood) Spiritual gifts. In addition to Madame

Jesus, the continual cycle of “power” gifts (usually things like

“growing out legs” or “back pain”) are things that in my short time

in the church (36 years) I’ve seen cycle as many as 6 times. We are

literally so bored with Jesus that we’re going back to things that

have been disproven just in case there’s something more exciting

there. I’ve found that most “prayer meetings” within charismatic

circles very quickly digress into psychic readings and future

divulging. That is what I’d call Madame Jesus. Anything that can’t

heal my right now issues, and instead focuses on something off in

the future. Jesus never did that. He just healed the issue of the now,

and left the future to fend for itself. I believe he understood what

would happen if he gave the Spirit her reign.

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I could literally write a book just about bad experiences,

funny ones too with the “Spirit” during these meetings, but it

would leave out the more important parts of my life. Bad

experience is something that serves to turn us from the truth. I

believe the enemy would rather we go to a bad church than not go

at all; that will certainly serve to ruin our taste for all things God

before long. But not everything was bad. Not everything was even

faked, misunderstood or misapplied. There were genuine times too.

Empirical as they may be, they happened. Empirical doesn’t

change the event, it just makes sure we don’t know how or why.

These are the moments when Madame Jesus was nowhere

to be found and the genuine Spirit of Jesus was present in the

room, bar, or wherever I happened to be.

By far, the clearest in my mind was the overdose on heroin-

laced ecstasy. I died. I saw my body sitting against the nightclub

wall, got overwhelmingly warm, and woke up. That was it. No


light, no voice, no command to go preach the gospel. Just life. And

life that was granted knowing full well that the following 30

minutes would include an ingestion of drugs large enough to kill

an elephant. And yet, survival and life happened.

This one usually throws people for a loop because the Spirit

did this for me, yet doesn’t seem to for many. In explanations, I’m

lacking. All I know—to quote one of Jesus’ healings—is I was

blind, and now I see. How, why, or what actually happened I don’t

know, but that it happened I am sure. If it pleases you to call it an

NDE, go ahead. If it makes you more comfortable to say I was just

sleeping, that’s fine too. It doesn’t change my life or what

happened. I tend to shy away from titles like NDE mainly because

of the gross identity crisis that comes from people having them.

Anything we build a full conference out of, which includes much

within the realm of “Christianity” is usually something we’ve built

an identity out of, sadly.

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I’ve seen someone (at least to my untrained eye) raised

from the dead, blind eyes from birth opened, and (by my own

hand) several life long skin conditions healed. Healing was a

normal part of our upbringing at home, I can remember maybe half

a dozen sick days in school. We were instantly healed most of the

times my parents prayed over us, and yet, my own children seem to

be sick more frequently. Did the Spirit withdraw? No, again,

there’s just no answer (no matter how good someone’s explanation

may be) to why healing happens when it does. If there were an

answer, there’d be no sick people. I’m somewhat convinced that

the biblical accounts of Jesus post-resurrection give us a little more

insight into his thoughts on physical healing. Namely, his wounds

are still open, and he doesn’t seem too interested in healing anyone

any more. This was what his ministry was all about prior to the

cross, and now, it’s suddenly gone?

I once ran a 6-week health class at our church about

juicing, eating more consciously (local, organic etc.) and cutting


out some of the excessive things we do in our diets. One gentleman

asked me why I was doing a health class instead of a healing class.

My reply was that people seem to run around looking for the magic

doctrine to cure all that ills them, when all along we’ve been given

what we need to make our bodies work correctly. Most of what

kills us in America (and the west) is completely controllable

through diet and exercise, but as Westerners conditioned towards

instant gratification, those things make little sense to us, especially

when God can just heal us and make us not fat, lazy or sick any

more. The problem is, that’s just not how it works. We keep crying

out for healing of our physical bodies while shoveling mass

amounts of poison into our bodies via the food we eat. That’s a bit

like tempting God is it not? “Throw yourself off this cliff…” in

modern speech could very well read “eat that lard fried chicken

daily….”.

We could spend a lifetime on healing and only scratch the

surface. I am convinced that healing, like every other thing we’ve

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turned into a destination of the Christian faith, is something that is

meant to be a journey that we forget we’re on. I believe we are

meant to look back at our lives and see moments when we were

healed, divinely, miraculously, or through the hands of human

beings. Those terms don’t have to be inherently independent of one

another.

There are countless horror stories out there of people

manipulated into sexual misconduct, abusive situations, and the

like though “Spirit led” leaders and services. Those are not my

concern, except to say that the moment any “leader” tries to use the

Spirit to control you, they are using a Spirit for certain, but it is not

the Spirit, and you have full assurance and permission from Jesus

to walk away. I’ve learned that in many arenas “Spirit led” giving

is often tantamount to “manufacturer’s double coupon” giving

(read: as little as possible with the full confirmation that “the

Spirit” told you to give this little). That may make some hairs raise

up on the backs of some readers’ necks. It probably should. If


we’re really serious about “Spirit led” giving, the only type of

giving she does is ALL, so unless you’re emptying yourself

completely every time you give, it likely isn’t “Spirit led”.

What we should focus on is the good. The times when there

is no other explanation than some sort of miraculous intervention.

We hear daily that things like this don’t happen, and for the authors

who write these things, they may not. But for those of us who have

experienced something unexplainable, no amount of explanation

suffices. Be skeptical of anything claiming to look like power, as

Jesus was pretty gun shy of anything power related. His miracles

were nearly forced each time (his mother had to beg him to change

water to wine, the disciples had to beg him to feed the 5,000, etc.).

Jesus wasn’t about spreading his fame on YouTube, growing out

legs and handing people cash, though I think he may have

participated if he had come today-more just to have fun than prove

anything. The boxes we create are often what we can handle, and I

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believe the father willingly climbs inside them to play with us, but

they certainly won’t bind him.

I have found that Jesus, and thereby the Spirit is far more

concerned that we live in peace and happiness than in worrying

whether or not we ever give him the credit for it. He’s so unselfish,

he allows our selfishness to be the means in which he speaks to us.

That then is power, a life submitted to making others be more than

us. I suppose if we’re going to make any headway with this, we

should begin to address another of those big words—our

Pneumatology (how we talk about the Spirit, specifically

doctrinally and scripturally).

All that Power

Nothing grabs the attention of the Western Christian like the

promise of power. The very reason we have seen so much

explosion in certain arenas of Christianity is that very promise. The


allure of power is like nothing else for many people. The issue is, if

we really take Jesus seriously, take his revelation of his Father

seriously, and take his message seriously, power looks more like

powerlessness. I touched on this briefly in the last chapter, but I’d

like to make the point a little more seriously now. His power is

revealed in powerlessness, his light revealed in darkness, and his

grace revealed in sin. This is how he works. The dying Christ, the

Lord of Glory, is the fullest revelation of the "authority and power"

of God. If you want authority, if you want power, that's fine, but

realize what it looks like. It looks like the loss of one life for the

gain of another. It looks like the final breath. It looks like

unwillingness to respond. It looks like refusal to be retributive. It

looks like something we've not seen on this earth except for in the

person of Jesus.

That’ll damage our theology regarding this whole power

thing we see crop up. It’s all cyclical, I’ve only been in ministry a

short time by most standards, and I’ve seen certain “power”

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expressions cycle through the church three and four times. It’s all

just silly really, the product of people who have good hearts and

good desires getting bored with Jesus, looking for “more” than just

him.

Am I saying the Spirit is powerless? By no means! It’s just

that the power we think we want, the power that is “in the Spirit”

isn’t really power at all, it’s more like control, and that’s not how

this works.

Maybe we should back up.

How does God work?

That’s a big question, and honestly there’s 2000 years of

church history trying to answer that one question. For me to think I

can answer it in one paragraph, chapter, or book is ridiculous. But

I’m going to try anyways. And you’re going to endure it, because


you did pay good hard earned money for this book after all. Ok,

just kidding. But I think you’ll enjoy it.

God works like this: from within.

Ok, maybe not too ridiculous.

What we see play out from the creation narratives, (yes

“s”), to the incarnation is God working from within the world’s

systems and life forms. He puts his image (male and female) into

the land that was prepared. There’s this verse in the bible where

Jesus tells his disciples “in this world you will have tribulation, but

be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”. The word “world”

here literally means “that which applies pressure from the outside”.

It’s not like Jesus is warning us that people will persecute us for

our beliefs, that doesn’t happen in human behavior. He’s certainly

warning us about evil Spirits and demonic stuff, otherwise, why

the miraculous stuff Jesus?

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What Jesus is letting them in on, is that He’s inside,

exerting the necessary force outward to keep that which applies

pressure from the outside from overtaking us. And all the while the

Spirit is here comforting us. See, Jesus is the “strength” guy. The

Spirit is more the “comfort” gal. Much like a woman (my wife

anyways), she’d rather have a good conversation any time. When I

say Jesus is the power guy, don’t read that incorrectly. I didn’t say

Jesus is the “force” guy. There’s a big difference. True power

comes from absolute submission not dominance. Subversion is

what wins the day, because its done not by might, nor by power…

you know the rest. Subversion is absolutely how Jesus worked in

the Jewish context of his ministry, undermining their authority

with their own texts and so on.

Ok, but what do we do with all the seeming power stuff in

the biblical text? Certainly there’s merit to textual criticism in

dealing with some of them, but for the average reader, that’s just

too much work. I often joke that for the Christian stream from


which I hail (charismatic) the bible begins in Acts 2, at Pentecost.

It seems as though Jesus is a footnote to the Spirit to much of the

movement, but that is neither here nor there for this book. Since

Acts 2 is where my bible began for a long time, I like to just hop

right in there.

Ok, so there sit the disciples, post ascension, laboring and

toiling for the Spirit. Think about it, these guys are the ones who

couldn’t even last an hour with Jesus in the garden, Luke certainly

paints them in a better light here. It seems none of us have escaped

the draw for power, we’ll tarry for power but fall asleep at

powerlessness. We’ll claim we don’t know that guy because he

doesn’t look like the powerful messiah we thought he was, but

we’ll stay up all night for a “gift”. At any rate, the Spirit finally

descends, and in a non-consuming, kid-friendly flame no less. Ok,

just as it was with Jesus, this is as a dove, as a fire, etc.

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Good thing these guys didn’t use hair product. The result

may have been vastly different. At any rate, the Spirit happens on

them, and all of a sudden they start praying in tongues. Only it’s

not nonsense, at least not to everyone. People start hearing the

good news of Jesus Christ, and coming to faith. Man, and all that

time the disciples just sat up there trying to slay one another in the

Spirit. No, I have to think they likely knew what they were

seeking; a way to convey the success of Jesus over the darkness of

the human experience. And they got what they were looking for. In

power. With “tongues” of fire reminiscent of the tongues of Babel

descending on people we see a gathering rather than a dispersing.

It’s about radical inclusion rather than separation.

Then we have stories like Paul, being knocked from his

horse and having this huge mystical experience with Jesus. Paul

would have likely been labeled a new ager today. He had a

mystical experience and left his orthodoxy because of it. Of course

it was with Jesus, so there’s a prerequisite here, but I digress. What

I find most interesting about Paul is his seeming unwillingness to


even talk about his mystical experience except for in passing. It

seems Luke is far more interested in telling it than Paul is, which is

a lot like us isn’t it? Tommy gets a new bike and we want to show

everyone Tommy’s bike, and all Tommy wants is to ride his damn

bike in peace.

That’s the (and I hesitate to use this word) inherent

“danger” in mystical experience. We tend to allow the experience

to become our new identity. My experiences, good and bad, are not

who I am, they are a part of the experience of life I’m having, but

who I am lies much deeper than experience. Who I am lies at the

heart of the one who holds all things together. That defines and

defies experience. Experience is like the wine, remember. Nobody

is served by just dumping it all over the floor and acting like that’s

the final word on the matter.

There are countless books about ancient mystics, new

mystics, people connecting with God on a very real level and one

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of the thing that seems to be the common thread with most of

them; none are content with any experience with God that doesn’t

transform them into a clearer image of Jesus in the process. Oh

now we could spend another whole book talking about what the

image of Jesus is, but let’s just say it looks a whole lot like radical

forgiveness and love for the other.

So a basic rule of thumb for me when I’m having some

experience is this: is it giving me a sense of my connection to

others, and causing me to love them at a deeper level? If yes, then

it’s likely the Spirit and I having some fun. If no, then it’s likely

my own mimetic manifestation. The Spirit never leaves us, so both

can be enjoyed without guilt, but there’s nothing wrong with

recognizing when it’s us, and when it’s the Spirit.

If we want to see what real power looks like, we need look

no further than the cross. Real power looks like absorbing the

worst people have to offer and offering it back in one whopping


ball of “forgive them” rather than retribution. Scholar Marcus Borg

refers the justice of God as distributive rather than retributive. That

is the heart of the cross. It is the distribution of God’s grace upon

all humanity, not as an exchange or transaction, but as a gift,

requiring nothing in return. That is real power, distributing grace in

the midst of darkness and death.

Essentially, we find power when no power is able to do

anything about our situation. The victim of rape finds power not in

making the rape not happen, but in forgiveness of her assailant.

The victim of abuse finds power not in retribution (however good

that may feel for a moment) but in the forgiveness of the other

(from a safe distance—as a side note, God never authorizes abuse,

as in, never for any reason).

So it is with the sapling. It finds power in breaking through

the old, not hating it, but moving beyond it. With every new

centimeter of growth the old is shed. This is where many of us find

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ourselves, shedding the old and embracing something, someone, a

little different than we’ve likely been taught. This is the peace

thing I keep talking about. It’s overwhelming, and it’s the most

genuine thing I think I’ve ever felt, mimetically or Spiritually.

In reading this chapter, you might think I’m saying there’s

no power at all to be found in following Jesus. And you’d be right,

if you mean the kind of power that exerts its selfish will upon

others to do something to them, however well intentioned, as

members of the same darkened race. This is the issue lying at the

heart of humanity. We are blind. All of us. Without exception. We

see little glimpses, through the Spirit’s joining us on our journey,

but by and large we remain blind. We’re also terribly immature.

We’re children really, especially in the light of the heavenly trio.

Yeah, we’re “mature sons” and all that, but the nature of the thing

demands that one more mature make the declaration of maturity.

It’s all relative. Next to Him, we look like kids. Good thing He’s a

Father.


However if you mean the kind of power that overcomes

darkness through subverting and dispelling it, then yeah, that’s the

kind of power that is to be found. It’s the kind of power that

surrenders itself over to our desire and deceit to radically and

inclusively deal with the problem of pain once and for all. Another

thought on power comes from the early, and I mean very early,

church. There are records of groups of people who were ministered

to by Jesus directly already having small communities crop up. Not

so much churches, but groups where “power” things were

happening. Now, at the death of Christ, these people would have

likely been too far away to really know what was going on, and

news took some time to travel. My question would be, was there a

moment when the switch dimmed for the groups out away from the

city?

It necessitates a rethinking of power to address power in the

realm of the Spirit. The Spirit is peace, the kingdom is peace, and

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the reign of Jesus is peace, so it’ll have to look about like that. And

lest we fall prey to over realized theologies of glory, God does not

demonstrate power in the way we think. Power for God looks like

the powerlessness of the cross. We would do well to remember that

when thinking of things like the gifts.

Chapter 7

Grabbing at Gifts

I SUPPOSE IN A BOOK ABOUT THE Spirit, we should address

the biblical topics of gifts and fruit. So this next bit will be about

those topics. We’ll likely be using a little more formal language,

though I never stray too far from my comfortable vernacular.

There’s a lot of very well thought out, very scholarly debate

around the existence of the “gifts” of the Spirit today. I am under

the assumption that the Spirit is still active in the lives of the

people she loves on a daily basis. If this is not your paradigm,

consider how you are breathing this moment…

That being said, all of the experiential stuff is nice, if that’s

your thing. I know people who could care less whether they ever

“felt” anything from the Spirit but are committed to social justice

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and radical inclusion—two things I think the Spirit is all about.

That is a sort of spoiler alert for what I believe the Spirit of God is

doing, saying, and how she’s moving in our presence today. Lest I

get too far ahead of myself however, let’s just jump in to the fun

stuff. A word of warning, this chapter is longer than the others.

In what is known as the “Charismatic Movement” of

Western Christianity, we’ve often so whittled the Spirit down to a

mere gift-giving, strange-acting, tongue-talking being, that we’ve

somewhat lost the plot. In our very definitions of the gifts of the

Spirit created a being that works from without and ignored the

ever-important aspect to the inward working of the Spirit. Let me

say that another way. We’ve already discussed that God works

from inside, from within, rather than from outside, applying

pressure. (Please don’t over analyze what I’m about to say, I don’t

believe in double-procession). If the Spirit is the revelation of

Jesus—who is a revelation of the Father—then everything she does


will look like them. Simple enough? We’ll go into that deeper in a

bit.

For now, I’m going to address these gifts of the Spirit in a

little different light. Namely, as gifts that work from within us—

rather than from outside us, to minister not only to us, but to the

world at large. The typical approach to these gifts is limited to the

shortlist penned by the Apostle Paul in one singular letter to the

Corinthians.

This is a rather long passage, but we need to read it in its

entirety to get proper context about the gifts of the Spirit as listed

in the bible.

1 Corinthians 12 (CEB) - Brothers and sisters, I don’t want you to

be ignorant about Spiritual gifts. 2 You know that when you were

Gentiles you were often misled by false gods that can’t even speak.

3 So I want to make it clear to you that no one says, “Jesus is

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cursed!” when speaking by God’s Spirit, and no one can say,

“Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. 4 There are different

Spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; 5 and there are different

ministries and the same Lord; 6 and there are different activities

but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. 7 A

demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common

good. 8 A word of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a

word of knowledge to another according to the same Spirit, 9 faith

to still another by the same Spirit, gifts of healing to another in the

one Spirit, 10 performance of miracles to another, prophecy to

another, the ability to tell Spirits apart to another, different kinds

of tongues[a] to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to

another 11 All these things are produced by the one and same

Spirit who gives what he wants to each person. 12 Christ is just

like the human body—a body is a unit and has many parts; and all

the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many.

13 We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew

or Greek, or slave or free, and we all were given one Spirit to


drink. 14 Certainly the body isn’t one part but many. 15 If the foot

says, “I’m not part of the body because I’m not a hand,” does that

mean it’s not part of the body? 16 If the ear says, “I’m not part of

the body because I’m not an eye,” does that mean it’s not part of

the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, what would happen to

the hearing? And if the whole body were an ear, what would

happen to the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God has placed each

one of the parts in the body just like he wanted. 19 If all were one

and the same body part, what would happen to the body? 20 But as

it is, there are many parts but one body. 21 So the eye can’t say to

the hand, “I don’t need you,” or in turn, the head can’t say to the

feet, “I don’t need you.” 22 Instead, the parts of the body that

people think are the weakest are the most necessary. 23 The parts

of the body that we think are less honorable are the ones we honor

the most. The private parts of our body that aren’t presentable are

the ones that are given the most dignity. 24 The parts of our body

that are presentable don’t need this. But God has put the body

together, giving greater honor to the part with less honor 25 so

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that there won’t be division in the body and so the parts might

have mutual concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, all the

parts suffer with it; if one part gets the glory, all the parts

celebrate with it. 27 You are the body of Christ and parts of each

other. 28 In the church, God has appointed first apostles, second

prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, the

ability to help others, leadership skills, different kinds of tongues.

29 All aren’t apostles, are they? All aren’t prophets, are they? All

aren’t teachers, are they? All don’t perform miracles, do they?

30 All don’t have gifts of healing, do they? All don’t speak in

different tongues, do they? All don’t interpret, do they? 31 Use

your ambition to try to get the greater gifts. And I’m going to show

you an even better way.

There’s a lot to process here, but I’ll just focus on some of

the major points Paul is making. First, Paul affirms that it is from

the “within” working of the Spirit that we can even begin to utter

the phrase “Jesus is lord”—as opposed to the “without” working of


the evangelist. Then, he goes on to list what are commonly called

the “gifts” of the Spirit.

A word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, faith, gifts of

healing, performance of miracles, prophecy, the ability to tell

Spirits apart, different kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of

the tongues. First, note that this is in no way an exhaustive list as

though Paul had sat for months asking for divine inspiration of a

complete outline of everything we can or cannot do. Second, note

what I consider to be one of the more important aspects to this

entire passage to one, to another. You see, Paul is clearly stating

that some have certain gifts and others have other gifts. Some do

one thing while others do another thing. This is meant to be for our

benefit. It is meant to give us respect for one another, to cause us to

need one another, to partake of one another’s gifts. The very nature

of how we were created says it is not good that human be alone.

Why? Because we’re all a part. None of us are the whole package,

as much as we(I) might play our(my)selves up to be. We are

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unique, we are individual (rather, as Girard “interdividual”) and we

need one another.

Paul goes on to say—In the church, God has appointed

first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then

gifts of healing, the ability to help others, leadership skills,

different kinds of tongues. All aren’t apostles, are they? All aren’t

prophets, are they? All aren’t teachers, are they? All don’t perform

miracles, do they? All don’t have gifts of healing, do they? All

don’t speak in different tongues, do they? All don’t interpret, do

they? The answer to all of these questions is understood to be—

No! Again, I’m not saying (just as Paul didn’t say) that any of

these gifts is in any way more important than another.

In addition to the aforementioned gifts—we can add

apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, helps, leadership, and so

on. This means we can add what some call the “five fold” ministry

gifts into our understanding of the gifts of the Spirit. Hopefully,


you’re beginning to see a bigger picture of these gifts. Let’s go

now to see what they are. I believe we’ll see some things begin to

take shape, largely (though hopefully not only) that we have

misused these gifts out of ignorance to their proper function among

us. The definitions I’ll be giving are taken from the BDAG Greek

lexicon, 2nd ed.

Word of wisdom—logos de sophia—the capacity to

understand and function accordingly - transcendent wisdom. This

has nothing to do with the teaching of prophecy (which I’ll

discuss) or calling out someone’s sin (which is just foolishness) as

some might think. The idea carried with it is as the wisdom of

Solomon. Divine smarts you could say. This is what we could say

a visionary is using each time he or she sees a situation arise and

has the vision and wherewithal to deal with that situation. Nothing

too spooky yet.

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Word of knowledge—logos de gnosis - comprehension or

intellectual grasp of something - mystical knowledge. Again, this

would have very little to do with prophecy and more to do with the

ability to understand at what would seem to be a supernatural level.

It refers to a divine ability to learn. This is an arena where I see a

lot of problems. We have—in so many circles—made gnosis into

gnosticism that it’s become a bad thing to study. I can’t stress

enough the importance of theology, not above anything else, but

really as a first learning. Without knowing who God is, how He

works, how He acts, and what He may or may not use, we are left

with an ideological idol rather than the Abba of Jesus.

Faith—pistis—in addition to the pistis that everyone

possesses, refers to a special gift of faith that seems to belong to a

select few. As an unquestioning belief in God’s power to aid

people with miracles; the faith that “moves mountains”. This same

faith is the faith of Christ as it were. For whatever we believe about

everyone possessing the same gift, I can’t deny that there are those


who seem to operate in some of these realms more deeply than I

might. That doesn’t discomfort me, it affirms the very nature of my

being to be in fellowship with others.

Gift of healing—charisma iama—literally “the remedy”.

What we usually see is someone offering up some mystical prayer,

but in actuality the word refers to offering whatever the remedy

might be. I believe that doctors—both medical and mental health—

are operating in charisma iama each time they treat a patient. I see

no greater vision of Jesus in union with humanity than that of a

surgeon who joins hands with the divine physician to heal the

other.

Performance of miracles—energēma dynamis—the

exercising of power. Uh oh, I know, power. Power itself is not bad.

The issue comes in the wielding of power by those who have none.

We view power one way, God views it another. Remember, his

power looks a lot like dying on a cross. Until we’re ready to wield

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that power, we have no claim to make. This is inherent power,

something granted from within. Again, the Spirit is working from

within rather than without.

Prophecy—prophetia—the gift of interpreting divine will

or purpose. This has very little to do with what has been attributed

to prophecy in the movements I’m an alumnus of. Prophecy to

those movements looks a lot like the Madame Jesus we discussed

earlier. What is being said here is more in line with interpreting the

will of God, which we’re told is, that none should perish. How we

interpret that will then is directly driven by the will that none

should perish. This has many physical and Spiritual connotations,

well beyond corporate gatherings of like-minded people.

The ability to tell Spirits apart—diakrisis—discernment -

evaluation of miraculous signs. It probably doesn’t need to be said,

but not every “miraculous” thing that happens is either God or a

gift. Often times it is neither. This doesn’t mean that if it is not

God it is evil, sometimes it is simply a human being performing


something. The very nature of our being is divine, which means we

can often perform things in our own power just as we can in His.

Marcus Borg, borrowing from Celtic Spirituality calls this location,

“thin places”, places where the lines between dimensions are

blurred and we can, for a moment, make out the glow of the divine.

Different kinds of tongues—genos glossa—varying but

united by a single trait language - ecstatic speech. I mentioned

earlier that I believe Pentecost to be more about hearing than

speaking. If there is anything to be learned about ecstatic speech, it

is that often the Spirit is more interested in hearing than speaking.

The interpretation of the tongues—herméniea glossa—

the interpretation of this ecstatic speech. Again, this seems to be

more about hearing than anything else. Hearing is how we

internalize something, so I’d have to say the Spirit is ultimately

concerned with the internalization of the truths of God.

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What we see from all of these is that they are really for one

purpose. The working from within to affect the without. If the

function of the Spirit is to bear witness that we are the children of

God, and to point us back to the person of Jesus—then it would

stand to say that the primary purpose of the gifts is the exact same

thing. These gifts are rest stops along the way, all pointing to

Jesus. We can all too often get stuck turning a rest stop into a

township. As Richard Rohr puts it “our last experience with God

often keeps us from enjoying the next experience.” That is one of

the great faults in the church. We obsess about what happened “last

time”, or what’s going on “over there” so frequently that we miss

out on what we’re headed towards ourselves!

I’ve been in numerous meetings where the gifts of the

Spirit—or our interpretation of them anyways—were in effect. I

always wondered, was this all there was to it? Was it limited to just

the people who wanted to do the stuff that I thought was odd?

What about Mother Theresa? Doesn’t her social justice work count


as a gift of the Spirit? Of course it does. Even without going into

the passages we’re about to deal with, we can say that. Anything

that moves us towards the other, and especially the marginalized is

the Spirit.

We stopped short of dealing with what is commonly called

the ministry gifts (titled by people, not Paul). I believe these to be a

continuation of his thoughts on the gifts of the Spirit. Let’s break

this passage down a bit and see what we’re dealing with.

In the church

God has appointed

first apostles

second prophets

third teachers

then miracles

then gifts of healing

the ability to help others

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leadership skills

different kinds of tongues

All aren’t apostles, are they? All aren’t prophets, are they?

All aren’t teachers, are they? All don’t perform miracles, do

they? All don’t have gifts of healing, do they? All don’t speak in

different tongues, do they? All don’t interpret, do they?

Paul, an apostle, claiming that God had appointed apostles

first? It would be sarcastically shocking if it were the 21st century,

but I don’t think Paul is being too arrogant here. I think he’s

dealing with something else. What he’s getting at here is not a new

hierarchy, or a new identity—as so many have taken on—but a

simple position or gift we are to use for the benefit of others. All

too often though, we use our gifts, or our positions simply for the

betterment of ourselves. I find it amusing that so many will throw

the title of the particular “office” they believe themselves to hold

on their business card as part of their name—e.g. pastor so and so,


Bishop proud of himself, Prophet puffed up. (I’ve noticed prophet

is the only one given a female suffix ess). Yet we rarely see words

of wisdom giver Frank, or tongue talking Tammy. It’s because in

our minds we’ve exalted the so-called “ministry gifts” above the

“Spiritual gifts” as though they were from somewhere different.

We’ve made an unfair dichotomy out of them, and created an

office out of an operation. They all flow from the same Spirit, and

all are equal in importance. The ability to help others is every bit as

important as miracles. Teaching (systematically) is every bit as

important as tongues. We would do well to remember that.

In the last chapter I briefly covered the gifts of the Spirit,

their proper place in the body, the fact that no, not everyone

operates in all of them, and yes that’s perfectly ok. This is neither a

problem nor a permanent position! Operating in a particular gift

doesn’t exalt someone above anyone else, it simply means they’re

doing something that you aren’t. To use Paul’s language—all

aren’t arms, all aren’t legs, all aren’t feet and so on. Yet for some

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reason we’ve become so uncomfortable with ourselves and who

God has created us to be that we’ve taken on this false idea that

everyone is exactly the same, carbon-copied person. We aren’t!

There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit, and sometimes

we’ll operate in one or the other. It also doesn’t mean we only have

one gift. It may be that some days I’m operating as a teacher and

other days I have a word of knowledge, hopefully those two will

go hand in hand most of the time!

We ended up with the discussion that Paul included these

so-called ministry gifts in his discourse on the gifts of the Spirit, as

though they were also a part of the plan. I firmly believe this to be

the case. I don’t think Paul was switching gears, I think he was

continuing on in further gifts.

In the church, God has appointed first apostles, second

prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, the

ability to help others, leadership skills, different kinds of tongues.


All aren’t apostles, are they? All aren’t prophets, are they? All

aren’t teachers, are they? All don’t perform miracles, do they? All

don’t have gifts of healing, do they? All don’t speak in different

tongues, do they? All don’t interpret, do they? 1 Corinthians 12:28-

30 (CEB)

We could proceed next to Ephesians where we read an

outline that appears to be about these same gifts.

He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,

and some pastors and teachers. His purpose was to equip God’s

people for the work of serving and building up the body of

Christ until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s

Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully

grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. As a

result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be

tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching

with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately

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mislead others. Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow

in every way into Christ, who is the head. The whole body grows

from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting

ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up

with love as each one does its part. Ephesians 4:11-16 (CEB)

Again we should note the use of the word some quite

frequently. This is ok! It’s ok to not be a drummer, or a janitor, or a

pastor, or a teacher, or anything else. We all have a part in this and

all our parts are different. Can you imagine a body with 48 arms,

no legs, and no waste disposal system? It would be pretty

deformed. This is part of the issue in the body of Christ today. We

say all are everything, or conversely that only the finger is

important. Neither is true, and none is more important!

And all of this is for what? The furnishing of the necessary

equipment to the church so that they can then take the ministry we

have been given (reconciliation) to the rest of the family! It’s no


wonder the church is in such disrepair. Everything has been about

the man up front, when in reality the people up front are here

solely to support and equip those not up front to take the mystery

to the world! And how long is this supposed to last? Until we all

come to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of

God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness

of Christ. I believe it is safe to say, this is never supposed to end.

Speaking the truth in love...

This is one of those passages that get misquoted all too

often, making synonyms of Christian and panderer. The author

isn’t saying that the message ought to be watered down and

palpable for all, in fact he’s just finished calling them children!

This is all carried through the previous verses about what those

who operate their Spiritual gift in the form of positional ministries

are about. We are called to speak the truth in love so that none of

us are children any more. What dictates whether or not we are

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children? Are we tossed about by every wind of doctrine? Is

something like tongues our major proof of, or reason for running

away from the Spirit? Or any other gift related ministry? Those

things are not the substance, viable as they may be. Those things

are gifts for a specific time. The ministry is the mystery, and the

mystery is reconciliation, oneness, and unity with the Godhead. If

we’re still gift focused rather than union focused, we’re

demonstrating that we’re still children! This is when speaking the

truth (the mystery) in love comes into play. It requires love to

speak the truth, period. The manner in which we speak ought to be

seasoned with grace as well, but this and speaking the truth in love

are not synonymous! In an effort to pander to people to receive

larger offerings, too many are watering down the truth of the

gospel. If I teach that all are included, people will think I’m a

universalist and stop giving to my ministry. Who cares? Are you

willing to speak the truth in love or not? If you believe you have

love, you will speak the truth, plain and simple! What is the end


goal of it all? That we can grow up in all things into Him who is

the head, Christ - from whom the whole body edifies itself in love!

Just as I did earlier, I’ll quickly define and comment on

each of these gifts. Again, using the same lexicon.

Apostles—apostolos—one sent forward with orders -

usually preceding “of Christ” so it can be said it is one sent with

revelation of Christ. Yes there are still apostles in the sense that

people are sent with a revelation of Christ. And yes this is a

different gift, and no not everyone is an apostle. That’s perfectly

fine. None are more important, but all are part of the whole. Often

times they’ll operate with a word of wisdom going into an area

with a specific message or way of applying the gospel.

Prophets—prophētēs—would be one who prophesies

(duh). However once again we must understand the reason for the

prophecy in the first place, to declare the divine will. There are

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several courses we could take here, but one that pops into my mind

is God is not willing that any should perish. Which would lead me

to believe that any prophecy that declares something to be God’s

judgment on the heathen would have to be a false prophecy by

nature. The message is, always has been, and always will be - love

and restoration.

Evangelists—euaggelistēs—a bringer of good tidings. This

is someone who proclaims the gospel. The gospel is the grace of

God manifest and incarnated in the Son. The gospel is NOT the

message of hell, death, destruction, conviction, condemnation, the

rapture, apocalypse or separation. The gospel is, pure and simple,

the message of reconciliation. Regardless of how anyone acts, and

regardless of how many hands they may have raised at their

meetings for an altar call, unless they’re declaring the message of

God’s grace manifest and pledged in the Son, and thereby

humanities total reconciliation, they aren’t functioning as an

evangelist. They may be teaching, they may be preaching, but


they’re not evangelizing. Anything other than radical inclusion is

not the gospel of Jesus.

Pastors—poimēn—a shepherd or human leader. Contrary

to popular belief, the term is not shepherd in the sense that he or

she is over anyone, but shepherd in the sense that he or she

organizes the pen, keeping it clean, and showing the flock where

the food is if they can’t see it. It falls in line greatly with a teacher,

one who points to the source of food, and defends against attack.

What attack? Sickness, disease etc. offering prayer, teaching,

counsel, etc. as needed, but never as a replacement for divine

involvement. Also contrary to popular belief, yet again an area

where some are and others are not. Again, and I can’t say it

enough, this isn’t a hierarchical structuring, but simply an

identifying of various gifts. To me there’s nothing wrong with this.

Many would be perfectly comfortable saying “I’m not an artist” or

“I’m not a musician” or “I’m not a drummer” but for some reason

we’ve become uncomfortable saying “I’m not a pastor” or in

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saying “he or she is a pastor”. We do this because in our minds we

still have the position elevated. It’s ok to not be a pastor, it’s

probably preferred! Just like it’s ok to not be a baseball player.

Some are, some aren’t and that’s just fine. I wonder if “everyone is

a teacher” would work in the real world. I probably couldn’t just

walk into the local university and declare myself a teacher and start

teaching biology.

Teachers—didaskalos—those who by their great power as

teachers draw crowds around them. Great power as a teacher

largely comes from becoming a willing student. I see a lot of

people (myself included) who have just jumped into teaching, only

to find out that what we were teaching is not only poor exegesis,

it’s just poor theology. If you’re one of these, and you’ve found

yourself stagnant or still, it may be time to further your education

and reignite the fire to teach.


The Ability to Help Others—antilēmpsis—helpful deeds.

Jesus calls the Spirit our helper. This is something I think we could

all use a healthy dose of. Everyone wants to teach, pastor, be up

front, but for some reason so many stray from simply helping one

another, and yet here it is, a gift of the Spirit to do so. A “private”

part of the body so to speak, and yet Paul says these parts have

more honor among the body… I wonder why.

Leadership Skills—kybernēsis—thayer would say

“government” but that isn’t correct, the word means administration

with delegation. It again refers to the ability to not only cast vision,

but to enable others to fulfill vision.

Often times these “ministry gifts” will flow hand in hand

with “Spiritual gifts”. e.g. apostles and words of wisdom, teacher

and words of knowledge, prophets and prophecy, evangelists and

working of miracles, pastors and helps the list could go on. The

point is that many of the gifts often operate in tandem with one

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another, giving more influence to each other for the benefit of the

“without”. One thing we should note about all the gifts of the

Spirit/ministry gifts is that they are for others. They are never

simply for us to use to exalt ourselves, or just to bless ourselves.

They are for the benefit of the whole body. I’m suspicious of any

group that becomes exclusive in its actions or behaviors towards

those who don’t experience the Spirit in the same way they do.

If we can understand the truth of humanity’s inclusion—

our union with God—we can minister reconciliation the proper

way. And those who feel called to one of the positional ministries

or called to use one or more of the gifts of the Spirit can do so by

equipping, or presenting the perfection delivered by Christ. I’m

sure we can all see the overlap in many of the “gifts” and

“ministry” callings, but they’re all gifts of the Spirit. None of this

is exhaustive. Music is certainly a Spiritual gift, as is painting, but

I’ve found they’ll usually fall under one of these headings in their

administration.

Chapter 8

In Pursuit of Fruit

IN THIS CHAPTER, I’D LIKE to discuss fruit. It’s been over-

discussed that “God is concerned with our fruit”. If we mean “our

fruit” as in the gifts we manage to manifest, then I have to say—

no, sorry. If we mean “our fruit” however as the extension of love

we become in those moments, then I agree wholeheartedly. The

former has too much focus on me, while the latter keeps the focus,

or the lighting, squarely on him. The fruit of the Spirit is often

discussed in churches, and typically so with the fruit itself being

the goal of the inhabitation of the Spirit. I don’t believe that is what

the whole point of this fruit is. I don’t think anything the Spirit

does in us, or to us, or with us, is meant to be the goal, but rather

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something meant to help us along the journey—which remember is

a never ending journey into the one who started all this.

There’s a particular passage we all likely know well from

Paul’s letter to the Galatians—commonly noted as the “fruit of the

Spirit”.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

Note first the singular (non-plural) use of fruit. Paul doesn’t

say the fruits of the Spirit are: but the fruit of the Spirit is. Why

does this matter? I think we’ve somewhat compartmentalized how

we feel. In essence, we’ve said that love can be separate from

peace, but the truth of the matter is, if it is the love that is produced

by the Spirit, it will not be separate from peace, joy, and so on. In

other words, we don’t get to be stationed here. We can’t be


peacemakers and not gentle. At least not in full anyways. And

don’t read gentle as soft spoken, it means something different.

More on that soon. I remember teaching on this very subject when

I was a pastor and making the (erroneous) claim that these are

sequential, that until we’ve mastered one, we can’t have the next.

That’s not what Paul’s getting at here. What he’s getting at tends

more towards whose fruit this is and where it is active on its own

accord.

A strawberry is a funny fruit. Especially in light of what

we’re discussing here. The basics are, a strawberry isn’t a fruit

itself—the little black seeds are actually the fruit with the red part

being called the receptacle. Much like a strawberry then, the fruit

of the Spirit is contained in one single dose. The receptacle is the

Spirit, and the fruit is an inseparable part of her character. Just as

people can only say “Jesus is Lord” by the Spirit, we can only love

because of the presence of the one who is love in us. “We love

because he first loved us” can be rendered in this light as well—

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that we have joy because of his indwelling joy, peace because of

his peace, and so on. I want to belabor this point, because it’s

worth it. If we separate out the fruit of the Spirit and turn it into the

fruits of the Spirit, we necessarily make a procession of religious

activity out of it. Let me explain. If the fruits of the Spirit are love,

joy, peace and the rest, then we can act loving while not having

peace, and act peaceful while not having joy and so on. If however

the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace patience… then we have a

singular activity of the Spirit within us. That fruit is born at once,

by her.

Let me come at that from a different angle. The Spirit acts

on behalf of the Father, or just like him, or however we want to say

it. When she bears fruit in us, it is the singular manifestation of

what it looks like to be enveloped in God. That means that we

cannot have “love” from God and it not contain “peace” as well. If

it is God’s love, then it will have peace inside it, and joy, and


patience, and so on. Hopefully that’s enough metaphors, I’m

running out of strawberry comparisons.

Next I’d like to spend a little ink dissecting the fruit within

the receptacle of the Spirit. Again, my definitions come from a

particular lexicon, and I embellish a bit for—to overplay the

metaphor even more—flavor. Keep in mind while reading this

short list that the fruit of the Spirit is more accurately defined as

love-joy-peace-longsuffering-kindness-goodness-faithfulness-

gentleness-self-control. Or in other words, all one fruit. I’ll skip

over love strictly because that topic could be housed in a book of

its own. What will suffice is to say here hopefully is, love is

something that doesn’t go away when it’s not reciprocated. She

doesn’t seek to be returned. That ought to give us a clue as to what

the Spirit is trying to tell us when we experience love in a tangible

sense.

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Joy is most accurately expressed as the experience of

gladness. This isn’t just “grin it till you win it” or forcing a smile

or pat answers of “I’m blessed and nothing less”. It’s an actual

experience, something tangible. Interestingly enough, one of the

treatments a counselor friend uses for [emotional] depression is to

begin people on a regiment of serving others. The shift of focus

causes depression to fade in many cases. I don’t believe this to be a

“cure all” for depression (neither does she), there are various types

of depression and I’m no doctor.

Peace is defined as harmony, concord; security, safety,

prosperity, felicity, (because peace and harmony make and keep

things safe and prosperous); of the Messiah's peace; the way that

leads to peace (salvation); of Christianity, the tranquil state of a

soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing

from God and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that

is. So many of us could take so much from this. We are in a time of

moral, religious, national, political, and social unrest. We are


sitting by, biding our time until what we believe is inevitable is

going to happen. The fruit of the Spirit is national tranquility,

exempt from the rage and havoc of war, peace between

individuals—whatever their affiliation. I think it safe to say there’s

not much of the Spirit’s peace in the West. Interesting to me is the

phrase—of the messiah’s peace-the way that leads to peace-

salvation. Wait....the fruit of the Spirit leads to salvation? That’ll

toy with our religious minds won’t it? In some circles, we’re told

the Spirit isn’t there until we’ve made our profession of guilt, our

admission of sin, and our confession of belief. But the father leaves

none of it to us remember? It is by this inward working that we

hear her voice. Next is fearing nothing from God? Well don’t tell

that to the Western church, especially the more legalistic ones!

And seemingly to give us a little ammunition against the false

prosperity message, peace entails that one is content with their

earthly lot. Contentment is a topic that deserves a book of its own.

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Patience is best summed up as a state of remaining tranquil

while awaiting an outcome. It doesn’t carry with it the idea of just

biding time. It has to do with the attitude in which the waiting

happens. We have likely all been taught to “just be patient”! Well

guess what, even that waiting isn’t our responsibility. Why?

Because we—through the Spirit—can be learn to be content. I

often wonder just how content Paul had learned to be that he could

say “in whatever state I find myself”. Whatever state?

Kindness is the idea of self-giving or self-emptying. It also

means benignity. This is much more than just being nice, it carries

this idea again (just as love does) of leading to self giving,

generosity. Helpful? What we will notice in all these fruit that

there are going to be hints of the gifts as well, it’s almost like the

Spirit knows what it’s doing! Benignity is tolerance toward others.

Wait, tolerance? You can’t be serious! We’re taught to not tolerate

the sin or the sinner, we’re taught to throw them out, cast them to

the devil and be done with them. But the Spirit produces in us


tolerance for those that bother us in all of their stuff. I’ve learned

that whatever I have a particular hang up with is an area that I’m

not grown up.

Goodness is a positive moral quality characterized by the

interest in the welfare of others. The issues of judgment throughout

Jesus’ teaching are his way of turning the tables on the Pharisees,

not some beefed-up “law on steroids”. Most often, Jesus is

condemning them for their social injustices, rather than their

theology or doctrines. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man

comes to mind, a social justice parable. Jesus seems concerned

with how we treat the least of these, and here we have an answer to

how that plays out. By the Spirit.

Faithfulness is more accurately rendered faith. The fruit of

the Spirit is faith. Imagine if that were how we preached. Instead

we’ve made faith something we must work out and produce, but

here we have it in fairly clear language that it’s her job, not ours. I

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hope you’re beginning to see what’s happening. Our belief cannot

save us, or lead us to salvation’s door. She does that. It is the Spirit

that guides us into truth and confirms that we are children of God

(rather than saying “we can be” she confirms the appropriated state

of our identity).

Gentleness is the quality of not being overly impressed by a

sense of one’s self-importance, courtesy, considerateness. I’ve

fallen prey to this many times. Assuming that soft speech is

gentleness, but it’s not. It would seem arrogance is more the

opposite of gentleness than boisterous speech. Many today are so

utterly impressed by their position, title, the various letters that

follow their names, how big their ministry is, how many buildings

they own, how large they’ve made the kingdom, and yet here as a

fruit of the Spirit we have what would seem to be the opposite of

this. The Spirit will—if allowed—produce in us a sense of

humility. A more localized way to say this might be—“doesn’t

need a YouTube channel to film their healings”.


Self-Control is restraint of one’s emotions, impulses or

desires. I’ll never be able to “control self”. Self isn’t yours to

master, it’s His. Just as faith is his, self-control is his. Then what

we could say is that it’s not so much self-control but more

accurately a Spirit-controlled self.

How does Paul end his discourse on the fruit of the Spirit?

“Now go believe!”? No, rather with “Against such, there is no

law”. Again, this means a little to us, but usually only insofar as we

can appropriate grace to cover our blunders and willful

disobedience. While that is certainly true, there’s more going on

here. I believe Paul is saying that because of the fruit of the Spirit

and its presence in our lives, there’s no “code” (read: law, and

additions to the law) that can ever hold us up to the light of

judgment again. The words no law refer certainly to the strict law

of the Old Testament, but also to any statutory legal system or

law—even the Christian law of belief and reception. What does

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this mean for us? Because of Jesus—and the fruit of the Spirit—the

idea of judgment is out the window, so to speak, forever.

Manic to Mystic: Making Your Way Out

I realize that heading to be a bit of a caricature, but the word manic

simply means something like frenetically busy, frantic. I believe

that to be the earmark of an experience gone wrong, or something

that was merely mimetic in nature. If the kingdom of Jesus is best

described as peace, then any encounter with the Spirit ought to be

rest producing in us. In that same respect, since we’re told that

perfect love casts out fear, we could rightly say that any encounter

with the Spirit won’t produce fear.

And yet, Christians often seem to be some of the most

fearful people on the planet.


Something might be wrong with that. So what’s the way

out? We could begin by taking a more mystical approach to life.

Mystical doesn’t have to be a spooky, weird term, it simply means

transcending human understanding. There are a number of things

in our universe that transcend our understanding. Those things are

just as much mystical as an experience in a church service.

Learning to look at things through a mystical lens then is what I

believe to be the “way out” of formulaic, repeat after me, 9 gift

churchianity.

How can we look at things through a mystical lens? For

starters, we approach things like the bible, other sacred writings,

and the various things we partake of sacramentally. I call my

children living icons. They are sacraments to my wife and I, a way

we experience God every day. Their smiles, their laughter, their

love are all traces of the divine in human form. They are mini-

incarnations. A meal shared with friends becomes a sacrament the

moment self is out of the way and transparent relationship takes

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place. In that moment, the presence of the divine is mediated at the

table through open self-giving love for another. Then to approach

life more mystically, we simply stop looking for the why of our

various situations, and begin to enjoy the now. Why something or

someone is in our life may be revealed, but that’s never the point.

The point is to live in the now, to put it as Jesus said “take no

thought for tomorrow”. In this we begin to address the needs of the

now.

What does that look like? For me, it’s looked like emptying

my wallet for the homeless man rather than walking by. For you, it

might look like giving the single mother a room to live in while she

figures out life on her own. For others it may look like spending

their lives working to end human trafficking. For another it may be

the devotion of an entire life to the study of theology. All of these

are gifts of the Spirit because all are working toward that great aim

of the kingdom—peace on earth, goodwill toward all people.


When we begin to look at things a little more mystically,

we stop trying to figure out every situation as though every

scenario in which we find ourselves is a puzzle to be solved so we

can progress to the next level. The journey we’re on is not some A-

Z beginning and end journey. It is a Möbius strip of eternal journey

into God. We’ll never pop out the other side and think “Boy, that

was fun, what’s next?”. In that light then, taking things like

experience and lessening them doesn’t cheapen them, it simply

acknowledges that each new day can, and should, be a new

experience—one that keeps us restfully anticipating what she’ll do

next in us.

Conclusion

Desire and the Dance

Life in its purest form is enjoyed in fellowship. From tribes to

youth groups to parties, we live in search of it. Our hearts need it

and everything we are looks for it. Where do we think that comes

from? In essence, we could say that our wills are made by the will-

maker. In that respect then, our desire is also made by the desire-

maker. When we desire fellowship, where does that desire come

from? In the image of God means just like him, and nothing is

more like him than desire.

The desire to be with people is what started creation, the

desire to be one of us is what drove the incarnation, and the desire


to remain with us is revealed in the Revelation. We should all learn

to recognize that the bible verse we often proclaim as a means to

the new Ferrari delight yourself in Him and He will give you the

desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4) is talking about the desire itself,

not the object, at least to me. We don’t know what our hearts

know. Our hearts desire things that we can’t even imagine, because

they know what’s best for us. That’s why Jesus is said to “live in

your heart”, though not actually, it paints the portrait of how things

work in that realm.

In that respect then, the desire to be like the other, to have

what they have, or to keep up with the Jones’s is what we label it,

though the process is called mimesis. Mimesis isn’t inherently bad,

and it is the best way to talk about how we are as human beings.

We want what each other has. Lands, oil, energy, money, spouses,

animals, those blue and black jeans with the fancy pockets. But it

goes further. We want peace, grace, love, joy and we see that in the

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other just as much as we see the negative. Where am I going with

this?

We don’t need to stop having our experiences with her. We

need to enjoy the dance. But we also need to unplug ourselves

from the grip of experience and trying to manipulate the next high

and ground ourselves back in temporal reality from time to time.

Mystical reality is half of our reality, temporal is the other half.

One day, mystical reality will be all that remains for us, but while

here, temporal is every bit as important. There’s an old Christian

saying “he’s so heavenly minded, he’s no earthly good” and I think

that fits what I’m trying to say.

We need the experiences. We need to desire the good, the

other. We need to allow experience to transcend logic and come

back face to face with it in the end. Anything genuinely Spiritual

can be (though maybe not in our own lifetime) verified naturally. I

think of the creation narratives and wonder if the trite old bumper


stickers didn’t just say it the best way possible. “I believe in the big

bang theory, God spoke and “bang” it was”. Quaint, but it

illustrates my point. Often the fight between those who insist the

scientific method be able to verify everything that has happened

and those who insist it cannot becomes so loud that the point is

missed entirely.

The one who holds all things together (Paul), the breath of

life (Genesis), the unified field (modern physics), the God particle

(physics), the mimetic theory (Girard) are all ways of saying the

same thing. We are connected. Not in some ethereal if I flap my

wings sort of way, but in a very real, Spiritual all encompassing

way. The same Spirit we’ve been talking about throughout this

book is what binds humanity together as one, gives us our life, our

breath, and draws us towards Christ. That Spirit is a person, and

though I refer to her in the feminine, she is incomprehensible,

known only through her activity among us.

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I am a sincere advocate of giving up the ghost—a Spirit of

specter and oddities, and diving headlong into the dance that the

third person of the Godhead is daily beckoning us to participate in.

If we are to “respond” in any way to her call, it is to take the dance

card and join in. Let go of the feelings, the specters, and jump back

in—the water’s wine.

Hopefully, you’ve been given a new glass of sorts with this

book; something to help you along the way with your journey, to

help both explain and experience more of the Spirit. While it is true

that no box can contain God, he also doesn’t keep his nature

hidden from us. That nature is goodness, love, peace, kindness…all

the things the Spirit reveals to us. We read in the last part of the

book of Philippians “whatever is true, whatever is honorable,

whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is

of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of

praise, dwell on these things.” NASB. It stands to reason that we

are told to think on these things because thinking on these things is


thinking on God. This is the job of the Spirit; to bring to our

remembrance which things we are supposed to be thinking on.

This is more of a call to meditation than a moral compass,

and I believe it encompasses—to overplay the metaphor—the work

of the Spirit within us. She’s here to bring to our remembrance

what is good, pure, and lovely. In thinking about the lovely, we’re

thinking about God. When we're thinking about him, everything

and everyone gets a little more lovely, which starts the process

over again. Call it mysticism, or contemplative prayer or positive

thinking for all I care, it's the heart of the father for us. Life is

meant to be enjoyed, not endured. We will all suffer, we will all

have pain, but the Spirit is here to remind us that at the end of the

pain comes death, and after death comes resurrection.

Giving Up the Ghost

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