Receive the Spirit

Galatians 3:1-5

Here Paul turns to (on?) the people, not just certain leaders. He holds the entire community accountable. Why? Why not just say, “This is a leadership problem.” In a way it is. It is a problem for Paul as their leader, since he cares about them, so he’s addressing the problem in the hearts and lives of the people. So, to get back to the question I started with, he holds the people accountable because it is the people who received the Spirit! The Spirit, in Old Testament times, is described sometimes as coming to certain people for certain purposes, but even then God was pointing people to something different (see Joel 2:28-29). At Pentecost, the Spirit did not come just to Peter, but to all the assembled disciples. The Spirit today should not be understood as coming to the pastor, elders, staff, congregational power-brokers, or whoever, who then have the responsibility of sharing the life of the church outwardly to the rest. No, no, no. The Spirit, the personal power of the age-to-come-made-present, is a gift bestowed upon the whole people who will receive him, with various gifts to the people who are to then be the ministers of Christ. Those of us who lead? We should always be aiming to be as transparent as possible, do nothing that someone else can do, always put others forward where possible. We steer the overall direction of the ship and endeavour to stay on a Christ-centered course; and empower others, meaning not that we have any power to give, but rather let people realize the power that is bestowed on them - answering our call so that (as our church says in the preamble to ordination of elders/ministers) “the church may be renewed and nurtured for ministry” (emphasis mine).

Prayer:
Lord, I pray for a new bestowal of your Holy Spirit on your people, that we would receive him, that we would be so overwhelmed by his power awakening your new age and your new order of things, that we would put behind us all notions, categories, practices and habits that belong to the old age and the ways of the world that we ought to know better than to cling to. Through Jesus. Amen.