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{"id":1101,"date":"2011-06-22T01:34:12","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T06:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:39:01","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T20:39:01","slug":"divine-guidance-through-the-holy-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markdroberts\/2011\/06\/22\/divine-guidance-through-the-holy-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Divine Guidance Through the Holy Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Part 3 of series:
\nHow Does God Guide Us?<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Bible reveals that the God guides his people. Scripture abounds with examples. Some are dramatic, as in the Book of Exodus. There, not only does God direct Moses by speaking through a burning bush that is not consumed, but also God guides Pharaoh to release his Israelite slaves by sending catastrophic plagues upon the whole nation of Egypt. Sometimes God\u2019s guidance is ironic, as when God guides Balaam through his donkey or Jonah through a giant fish (Numbers 22; Jonah 1-2). At the theological center of the Old Testament, we find the Law, the Torah (which means \u201cinstruction\u201d in Hebrew), by which God seeks to direct the life of his people. Often the Lord guides his people through the messages of the prophets.<\/p>\n

In the New Testament, divine guidance comes in a variety of ways, principally through the agency of the Holy Spirit. In Luke 4:1 we read that \u201cJesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit to go out into the wilderness.\u201d Throughout the Book of Acts the Holy Spirit guides Jesus\u2019 followers by filling them, speaking to them, moving them around, giving them visions, and endowing them with spiritual powers (Acts 4:31; 8:29, 39; 10:9-16, 44-45).<\/p>\n

The examples of spiritual guidance among the earliest Christians illustrate Paul\u2019s counsel in Galatians 5:25: \u201cIf we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.\u201d When we put our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. Moreover, we live in the Spirit, as the same Spirit who gave us new life in Christ continues to transform us. When we become children of God through faith in Christ, we are then in a position to be led by the Spirit and not by our sinful nature (Rom 8:12-14). True spiritual guidance is Spirit-inspired. It comes, neither from an angelic guide, nor from a departed relative, nor even from the spirit of Barbie, but from the very Spirit of God.<\/p>\n

People in my branch of Christianity, the Protestant\/Reformed\/Evangelical branch, sometimes get \u201cweirded out\u201d by too much talk of the Holy Spirit. In a church near where I live, the preacher recently gave a sermon on the nature and work of the Spirit. It was relatively simple and clearly biblical. After that sermon, a mature Christian woman who has been faithful in church attendance for more than seventy years said, \u201cThat was a great sermon. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever heard a sermon about the Holy Spirit before.\u201d Seventy years of church, more than 3,000 sermons, none about the Holy Spirit! (Note: I was not the preacher that day.)<\/p>\n $\"\"$ <\/a>\n

Why do many of us get squeamish when people talk about being led by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it\u2019s because we have known Christians who claimed to experience all sorts of unusual\u00a0 things under the inspiration of the Spirit. Some of these oddities appear in Scripture, such as speaking in tongues<\/a>, and cannot therefore be easily dismissed. Others have been more troubling. A few years ago, for example, some Christians claimed that the Spirit inspired them to do things in worship services like laugh hysterically or bark like dogs. These bizarre behaviors got quite a bit of press in some Christian circles, thus leading to the \u201cweirding out\u201d I mentioned earlier. Yet, even in mainline Protestant circles, it\u2019s not uncommon for people to claim to be led by the Spirit into behavior that is contrary to biblical teaching.<\/p>\n

It has been tempting, therefore, for some Christians to greatly limit the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding us today. I\u2019ve heard fellow Christians for whom I have great respect argue that the only<\/em> way the Spirit guides us in this age is through the biblical interpretation. Everything besides Bible study, Bible teaching, and preaching is suspect, and likely to be some sort of spiritual counterfeit.<\/p>\n

This reaction to the excesses of some Christians seems to me an overreaction, even though I can surely understand it. If we take Scripture seriously, however, then we have to acknowledge that the Spirit does more than interpret Scripture for us, even though I believe this particular work of the Spirit is both wonderful and essential, and it\u2019s the way I tend most frequently to receive God\u2019s guidance. Yet I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s wise to limit the way in which the Spirit guides us so as to rule out of bounds that which we find taught or exemplified in Scripture.<\/p>\n

In my next post I\u2019ll examine one kind of spiritual guidance that is common both in Scripture and, I believe, in our experience.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"