Spirit Stuff

 June 17, 2023

It’s not uncommon for people to throw words around of which they have at best, a rudimentary understanding. Such unseemly treatment of the English language was at one time thought to be the provenance of the unlettered and ignorant, but increasingly, it is the instrument of choice in political theater, so much so that we use the phrase “word salad” to describe meaningless drivel that is supposed to pass for learned and informed speech.

Alas! Such meaningless talk is not confined to the halls of Washington, Albany, or Sacramento. It has an honored place in our churches and seminaries. I was reading this morning from 1 Corinthians 2:9-16, where Paul is expounding upon the supernatural wisdom of God. In two verses (11-12), he speaks of “spirit” three times, each time referring to something different. 

 “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” —I Corinthians 2:11-12 

In three short sentences, Paul mentions the “spirit” of a man (human), the “Spirit” of God, and the “spirit” of the world. The use of a single word for all three statements indicates some connection or similarity among them, but the way he uses them in his sentences implies a difference between them. I have listened long and intently to many who expound upon such things, and usually come away with more heat than light. The one commonality in Paul’s usage of the term here is the sense that “spirit” has something to do with self-awareness. 

The word itself in both its Hebrew and Greek manifestations can be translated in one of three ways, depending on the context. The word can mean “breath,” “wind,” or “spirit,” all of which denote something real, but elusive. I think that notion of elusiveness is important, and stands in contrast to many who speak effusively and definitively about having the gift of the Holy Spirit. I am not one to try to debunk another’s sincerely held faith, but do tend to agree with the wag who once commented that certain Christians are “too sure of too many things,” and “Where the Bible is silent, there I stand!”

In the Scripture before me this morning, Paul connects “spirit” with words (v.13) that can speak either human or divine wisdom. This is reinforced by him speaking of the “mind of the Lord” in verse 16. We would not know God’s mind had he not chosen to reveal his inner being, his thoughts and character through the eternal Word of his Son, Jesus Christ. He ends his little dissertation by saying simply that “we have the mind of Christ.” How do we obtain the mind of Christ? Through the agency of the written Word which points us to the living Word of God, Jesus Christ. 

It is through this Man that we become both self-aware and God-aware, and learn to reject the awareness of the world. THAT is, I believe, what the gift of the Holy Spirit is all about.