Many of you are afraid of the Holy Spirit

For those who haven't seen Driscoll's 18 theses, number 8 appears to have stireed up some controversy over on The Sola Panel. Considering the absolute frustration I normally get from reading Christian blogs, this was just infuriating.

The interesting thing is that I completely agree with Driscoll. In so many cases it seems the we make the mistake of compartmentalizing the Holy Spirit to 'the guy who gives some gifts but mostly helps us interpret the Bible.' We forget that in Acts 1:8, Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit when he says "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

The trouble is that the charismatics have come along and spoiled it, imagining that the Holy Spirit gives us 'powers' more akin to Gandalf than the power to preach the gospel with boldness. But the fact remains that many people are afraid to give their lives fully over to the working of the Spirit. Tonight when the topic came up Brian put it best: we have our fleshly selves and God's Spirit working within us. We choose to either give our decisions over to our earthly natures, or the Spirit.

How different would it be if we stopped treating the Christian life as merely an intellectual exercise, but also a spiritual one where the Holy Spirit works in power to transform and change us into a people belonging to Christ who proclaim his gospel to the world!