Study 59 "The marks of a spirit filled life"
I began by asking who in church we felt had the marks of a Spirit-filled life. All agreed on Siew Leong! :)
We agreed that spiritual fruit was more indicative of the Spirit's filling than spiritual gifting, but we noted that, had Siew Leong's gifts been less public, we might have found it harder to identify him as being filled with the Spirit. I noted that there are many other people in church who exhibit the fruit of the Spirit and who live lives of surrendered devotion to Christ but who remain relatively unknown. Although all are commanded to be filled with the Spirit (Eph 6:18), not all are obedient to this command.
We would expect that the life of one marked by the Spirit's filling would demonstrate a great extent of the purifying, unifying, revealing and empowering ("P-U-R-E") work of the Spirit. The Scripture references before us, espeically of Ephesians 5:18ff give specific pointers of the Spirit's filling. These include a life of worship 'from the heart', where truth is matched with emotion, a sense of gratitude (we all noted that Siew Leong has never been heard to complain) (c.f. Phil 2:14) as well as right relationships of submission to properly constituted authority.
We made an excursus into 1 Cor 1:7 and 3:1-4. And I asked, "Is strife always bad?". I said that two NT examples of strife are instructive. When Paul disagreed with Barnabas about Mark (Ac 15:37-39) we are not told whether Paul or Barnabas was in the right at that point of time (although we know that Mark later became a valued associate of Paul (2 Ti 4:11, Phm 1:24). This kind of conflict is about ministry philosophy and can be expected as we lead the church. It is not bad. The mark of the Spirit's unifying work here is being able to look one another in the eye after a heated discussion and a vote that goes against our wishes and to know that our opponents are still our brothers and sisters in Christ. On the other hand, the conflict between Paul and Peter (Gal 2:11-14), although it arose out of a bad situation, was good strife because there was public rebuke of public sin that compromised the truth of the gospel. I guess this can be a part of the Spirit's empowering, revealing and purifying work. We need to distinguish between these two types of conflict. The strife of 1 Co 1 and 3 is bad because it arose out of bad motives and a cult of personality that could not see the bigger picture of the church but only a picture of the church as seen through the lens of a particular personality.
We said that the fruit of the Spirit is a more reliable indication of Christian maturity than the gifts of the Spirit because the fruit develop over a period of time through life transformation, whereas gifts can be given at any stage of Christian maturity.However, when we pray we should not ask only for fruit and set fruit against gifts. God tells us to ask for gifts (1 Cor 12:31, 14:1, Mt 7:7-8).
We agreed that spiritual fruit was more indicative of the Spirit's filling than spiritual gifting, but we noted that, had Siew Leong's gifts been less public, we might have found it harder to identify him as being filled with the Spirit. I noted that there are many other people in church who exhibit the fruit of the Spirit and who live lives of surrendered devotion to Christ but who remain relatively unknown. Although all are commanded to be filled with the Spirit (Eph 6:18), not all are obedient to this command.
We would expect that the life of one marked by the Spirit's filling would demonstrate a great extent of the purifying, unifying, revealing and empowering ("P-U-R-E") work of the Spirit. The Scripture references before us, espeically of Ephesians 5:18ff give specific pointers of the Spirit's filling. These include a life of worship 'from the heart', where truth is matched with emotion, a sense of gratitude (we all noted that Siew Leong has never been heard to complain) (c.f. Phil 2:14) as well as right relationships of submission to properly constituted authority.
We made an excursus into 1 Cor 1:7 and 3:1-4. And I asked, "Is strife always bad?". I said that two NT examples of strife are instructive. When Paul disagreed with Barnabas about Mark (Ac 15:37-39) we are not told whether Paul or Barnabas was in the right at that point of time (although we know that Mark later became a valued associate of Paul (2 Ti 4:11, Phm 1:24). This kind of conflict is about ministry philosophy and can be expected as we lead the church. It is not bad. The mark of the Spirit's unifying work here is being able to look one another in the eye after a heated discussion and a vote that goes against our wishes and to know that our opponents are still our brothers and sisters in Christ. On the other hand, the conflict between Paul and Peter (Gal 2:11-14), although it arose out of a bad situation, was good strife because there was public rebuke of public sin that compromised the truth of the gospel. I guess this can be a part of the Spirit's empowering, revealing and purifying work. We need to distinguish between these two types of conflict. The strife of 1 Co 1 and 3 is bad because it arose out of bad motives and a cult of personality that could not see the bigger picture of the church but only a picture of the church as seen through the lens of a particular personality.
We said that the fruit of the Spirit is a more reliable indication of Christian maturity than the gifts of the Spirit because the fruit develop over a period of time through life transformation, whereas gifts can be given at any stage of Christian maturity.However, when we pray we should not ask only for fruit and set fruit against gifts. God tells us to ask for gifts (1 Cor 12:31, 14:1, Mt 7:7-8).
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