I heard a sermon today that went a little something like this:
- When we first believed by hearing the Gospel we all received the same Spirit.
- Since we have all received the same Spirit, there is no difference among believers.
- There are no spiritual elites.
- Since there is no difference among believers, we are led to love one another as our selves.
- In the world there are many entitled positions. But in the Church there are none.
- Everyone who becomes a believer needs nourishment. Nourishment comes from the Word of God.
I am having trouble with accepting this line of teaching. I do not think that it is true. Can you back it up scripturally? Sure. Can you back up nearly every point of view scripturally? Sure. Are they all true? Not a chance. All of scripture must be taken into account when developing a theology. It is often referred to as the whole counsel of God.
I would like to address each of the above points one by one.
1. When we first believed by hearing the Gospel we all received the same Spirit.
This may be true, but the emphasis must be placed on believed. What does it mean to believe in something? This is a much disputed and complex matter. And to add to the confusion; it(the believing) refers to the Gospel. What is the Gospel? Another much disputed topic; even within the Church. Especially when in the Protestant division it is left up to every individual’s interpretation of the Scriptures. So what you have here is basically a great big abstraction. If the believing and the Gospel are not clarified in some intelligible terms, the people are left with the abstraction to take home to themselves. This abstraction becomes a religion of memorizing terms and slogans, void of understanding. If there is no tangible, whether objective or subjective, meaning to these statements they indeed do more harm than good.
What might be done to correct such an issue? This question and the subsequent answers will both touch on and open up the discussion concerning the other opening points. I will leave it at this right now, and look forward to some discussion concerning it.
David,
Nice post! Clearly written, logical and organized … this is the kind of writing we can really interact with.
I agree that, out of context, it is hard to say exactly what is really meant by “believe” and “gospel” in the statement above. But based on the flow of the teaching, and based on what I can recall of the New Testament passages that use similar phrases, my thought is that the emphasis is on “same Spirit”, not the other two terms.
David,
I concur with Ryan. Your clarity and organization in this post will give us an excellent starting point of interaction. As I have time, I look forward to commenting.
Ryan,
Thank you for the compliments.
I am however a little confused when you say:
I don’t believe that I ever said anything concerning my issue with the teaching that pertained to the problem of something being “out of context”. So I am unsure of what or who you are agreeing with. It is my assertion that if there was indeed a Christian(Biblical) understanding of the terms “believe” and “gospel” the context in which that statement is taken from is irrelevant to the whole message(teaching). The two terms are also indeed irrelevant to the teaching when the emphasis is placed on the fact that “we all received the same Spirit”. My point is that in the phrase:
…itself, this “same Spirit” is received on the condition that one indeed believed; and that being on account of having heard the Gospel. Without an understanding of these terms(believe and Gospel) there can be no agreement or consistency regarding what “Spirit” it is that believers have received. All that is told is that it most certainly is the same one.
Just so that we are all on the same page, the teaching’s foundation is that believers all have the same Spirit. At this point there is no clarification concerning what this Spirit is or how one can know that they have received it.
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