Pentecost
Obviously we are going to be dealing with the Holy Spirit this week --
First, the passage from Romans. This passage is a wonderfully liberating promise. All of us led by the Spirit (i.e. all of us from every nation -- see Acts) are children of God.
So, we do not need to relate to God from a position of slavish obedience which results in fear. Slaves fear their masters, for their masters are in a position (and too often are disposed) to punish slaves at the least infraction of rules (see the rest of chapter 8 before these verses for more on this).
Instead of slaves, the Spirit calls us to relate to God just like Jesus did! We are children who do not call God "master" but "abba" (Daddy, the most intimate form of address). Our spirit is not slavery and fear, but adoption.
As an adoptive parent, I can tell you that adoptive children are loved with the same fierce passion as birth children. Adoptive children not only have the same legal rights as birth children, but also the same access to love, compassion, time and teaching.
The adoption metaphor can take us in all kinds of directions. Sometimes children who come to adoptive families have a problem attaching to the family (the child development folk call it "attachment disorder."). They often dwell in a household in a position of fear or anger, unable to receive the love offered for a variety of reasons, often because of a past experience of rejection or the experience of some orphanage children of never having been attached to anyone.
Paul says the Spirit can help us overcome this and enter fully into a complete and loving relationship with God that produces not fear, but joy, a relationship that empowers us to live fully into discipleship, as did Jesus. We are attached and grounded in God, and so having roots we also have wings.
Because those disciples in Jerusalem after the Ascension of Jesus had finally begun to understand their relationship to God in Jesus, they were ready for the Holy Spirit to lift them up and move them into empowered discipleship. They did not have to be afraid of a strong wind and flames and this compelling need to speak of God in languages they had never known or heard, even. In the Spirit they were both secure and surprised and that is exciting.
More ahead on Acts. Shelly
First, the passage from Romans. This passage is a wonderfully liberating promise. All of us led by the Spirit (i.e. all of us from every nation -- see Acts) are children of God.
So, we do not need to relate to God from a position of slavish obedience which results in fear. Slaves fear their masters, for their masters are in a position (and too often are disposed) to punish slaves at the least infraction of rules (see the rest of chapter 8 before these verses for more on this).
Instead of slaves, the Spirit calls us to relate to God just like Jesus did! We are children who do not call God "master" but "abba" (Daddy, the most intimate form of address). Our spirit is not slavery and fear, but adoption.
As an adoptive parent, I can tell you that adoptive children are loved with the same fierce passion as birth children. Adoptive children not only have the same legal rights as birth children, but also the same access to love, compassion, time and teaching.
The adoption metaphor can take us in all kinds of directions. Sometimes children who come to adoptive families have a problem attaching to the family (the child development folk call it "attachment disorder."). They often dwell in a household in a position of fear or anger, unable to receive the love offered for a variety of reasons, often because of a past experience of rejection or the experience of some orphanage children of never having been attached to anyone.
Paul says the Spirit can help us overcome this and enter fully into a complete and loving relationship with God that produces not fear, but joy, a relationship that empowers us to live fully into discipleship, as did Jesus. We are attached and grounded in God, and so having roots we also have wings.
Because those disciples in Jerusalem after the Ascension of Jesus had finally begun to understand their relationship to God in Jesus, they were ready for the Holy Spirit to lift them up and move them into empowered discipleship. They did not have to be afraid of a strong wind and flames and this compelling need to speak of God in languages they had never known or heard, even. In the Spirit they were both secure and surprised and that is exciting.
More ahead on Acts. Shelly
Labels: Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:14-17
posted by shelly @ 1:12 PM
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