Written by R. Poll
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More often than not when the subject of the Holy Spirit comes
up in Christian circles, controversy and confusion reign. This is
truly a sad state of affairs. Christ's great gift to the church
(Acts 2:33) has become the ground for great distress in the lives
of the saints.
There is an old children's tale that helps to illustrate this
problem: Goldilocks and the three bears. As you may recall, when
Goldilocks reached the home of the three bears, the bears were out.
Entering, she found three bowls of porridge. Being hungry, she
sampled each. The first bowl of porridge was too cold. The next one
was too hot. The last, however, was just right; so she ate it up.
For many Christians, the varied theological views regarding the
Holy Spirit and His ministry must be like those three bowls
Goldilocks faced. At one end, in the first bowl, are those who seem
to resist the Spirit and insist that the miraculous that typified
the early church was for that time only. The gifts of the Spirit
(particularly the more sensational ones) have "ceased" and there is
little expectation that what the Spirit used to do He still can and
will do. This view leaves many believers with the distinct
impression of being "too cold."
Those who take this "no miraculous gifts for today" approach
tend to relegate Luke's second work to the "helpful history" pile.
These teachers and believers insist that Acts does have value --
but primarily (and sometimes exclusively) as a record of what God
did then. Thus it has little practical to say about what He might
still want to do now.
At the other end of the table is the bowl filled with those who
wholeheartedly embrace all the miraculous and wonderful in the
Scriptures. These long for returning, somehow, to the "good old
days" of "first century Christianity." A concerted effort is made
to establish certain activities of the Spirit as mandatory for all
believers everywhere; to somehow ensure that exactly what happened
then happens now. For example, some insist that since all the
disciples in Acts 2 prayed in tongues, every believer everywhere
must also have this experience. This view leaves many with a sense
of extremism -- the view seeming a little "too hot."
The adherents of this persuasion see in Acts an exacting
blueprint that must be followed; as if Luke had given us something
of a theological dance diagram. Every place the church in Acts put
its foot, believers everywhere must also place theirs. What grows
out of this is a situation where what was an experience of life in
Acts becomes a controlled and regimented practice.
What a pity it is to live at either of these extremes. Both
tend to put the Spirit and His ministry in a box of man's creation:
some insisting that He can't do things in the life of the church
which He has done before; others insisting that He must do the
identical things in the life of the church which He has done
before.
Somewhere, in between these two extremes, there must be a view
that is "just right" -- a theologically sound, biblically sensible
view that allows for the full expression of all the Spirit seeks to
do without falling into the perceived extremes found in many
Pentecostal and charismatic circles.
I would suggest that Luke was actually illustrating this middle
ground when he penned the Book of Acts. He never intended for it to
be taken as a rigid and normative blueprint, nor as a sacred
history of things gone by. Could it not be that God directed him to
write Acts as an example, a model, for church life?
This idea is by no means foreign to Scripture. The New
Testament frequently advocates the concept of modeling and leading
by example (e.g., 1 Thess. 2:14; 2 Thess. 3:7; 1 Tim. 4:12; 1 Pet.
5:3). In fact, in 1 Corinthians, Paul calls the saints to be
imitators of himself (1 Cor. 4:16).
When Paul made this call, he clearly wasn't suggesting that
everything that happened to him needed to happen to all the
Corinthians. The saints in Corinth did not need to first become
rabbis, then persecute the church for a while, then have an
encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, and so
forth. To follow his example it wasn't necessary for them to be
"cookie cutter" copies of himself. What he was calling for was an
essential resemblance -- what characterized Paul's life was to
characterize the lives of the Corinthian believers. In other words,
there was to be a "family resemblance."
I'm convinced this is how we should approach Acts. What
characterized the church in Acts should characterize the church
of the living God throughout the ages. There is to be a basic
"family resemblance."
Here is where the "Acts as a divine blueprint" believers err.
They assume that Acts is much more than an example. Rather than
expecting qualitatively similar things to happen in the life of
the church, they insist on the exact same things in the exact
same way. Rather than looking for a "family resemblance," they
will not be content unless the church today looks like an
identically dressed, identical twin of the church pictured in Acts.
But it is here also that the "Acts as helpful history"
believers err. They assume that Acts is much less than an
example. Rather than looking for qualitatively similar things to
happen in the life of the church today, they insist that Acts is a
portrait of a way of life no longer to be lived. Rather than
looking for a "family resemblance," they believe that the portrait
in Acts is of a different family altogether. Due to some perceived
change in God's dealings with man, they see no need to bear the
family likeness of the church found in Acts.
How wonderful it would be if believers put the emphasis on
seeing Acts as a model, as an example. The accent would fall on
what characterized the church of the first century, instead of
attempting to live the identical experiences and take the same
specific actions they took. How dynamic and alive the church is (or
should be) would be highlighted, unobscured by self-justifying
excuses as to why the church today lacks the first century church's
vitality and power. Acts would be seen as a portrait of a normal
church; not a normative church nor an untypical church -- just a
normal church alive to Christ through the ministry of the Holy
Spirit to the glory of God.
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