DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU START READING, Part II

Part I: "In the beginning..."
Part II: “…when that which is perfect comes…”

Memory can be like a snapshot—one of those black and white photographs that your mother kept in a shoebox under the bed. One of those pictures was taken in either the fall of 1961. Several teenagers have their chairs gathered in a circle. They all have a Bible open on their laps and Coach P leads the group. You recognize a young version of me on this Sunday morning in my home church. It was one of my first visits home from college and I definitely felt more comfortable in the high school class than with the adults.

The class is coming to an end, in fact, Coach has just finished the discussion and several minutes remain before time for the dismissal bell. Coach opens the floor for anything anyone wants to discuss. Nobody moves. So I, the bold college freshman, ask my standard question for just such situations.

“Coach, what is the Holy Spirit? It says in Acts 2:38 that we will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit when we are baptized. What does that mean?”

I will admit that I was a little surprised when he began to answer my question because every other teacher would say we didn’t have time to go into that right now. The discussion would be diverted to some other topic and the bell would eventually ring. On this particular morning Coach acted as if he was willing to talk about it!

He began by asking me a question, “Barbara, what would you have if I gave you the gift of one dollar?”

Obvious answer, “One dollar.”

Coach continued. “So if you received the gift of the Holy Spirit when you were baptized, what did you receive?”

Another obvious answer, “The Holy Spirit.”

Then the bell rang and the class was dismissed. I remember being a little confused by his answer, but it was an answer. I had received the Holy Spirit when I was baptized! But what did that mean, really?

Memory is like a snapshot because that exchange is forever imprinted on my mind. I doubt that anyone else in the room, including Coach, remembers it, but that brief exchange would become a significant part of my spiritual development several years later, when I found myself a young wife and mother living in a foreign land.

Every congregation of the Church of Christ is unique with local autonomy. My experiences in no way reflect anything except my experiences. And, the Lord knows, my memory can be as fallible as the next persons but as I reflect on my experiences growing up in the church I seem to have a disconnect between Coach’s assurance that I had received the Holy Spirit when I was baptized and what I heard from the pulpit.

From the pulpit I remember hearing that the Bible was our guide, no book but the Bible. We were told that today we have the perfect revelation of God in the Bible because Scripture says “…when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” This verse proves that we don’t need the Holy Spirit today because we have the perfect revelation in the Bible. I accepted that as truth, without question.

The preacher would go on to say that the Holy Spirit’s work was important during the time of Jesus and the apostles, but when we got the Bible the Holy Spirit’s work was complete. The perfect had come. Again, I never questioned the interpretation of this text. It seemed logical and reasonable.

However, as I will repeat often in this series, the interpretation of a text depends on where you start reading, or as in this case, where you stop reading.

Fast forward about eight years. A young preacher and his wife have come to the end of their physical and emotional strength. In their desperation they cry out to the Lord. The tradition of faith they had inherited from their mothers told them instinctively to go to the Bible for answers. Circumstance suggested they do an in depth study about the Holy Spirit. And as they studied, passages that had been skimmed over or ignored in previous readings began to come alive!

They found no text that said the Spirit had retired after the first century! Instead they found many invigorating passages that affirmed the Spirit’s activity well into the present day, leading, guiding, empowering, equipping, comforting, consoling, challenging…. Re-reading the text in 1 Corinthians 13:10 they concluded that the ‘perfect’ had not yet come and the church still needed and was dependent on the empowering Holy Spirit!

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. … 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

If the perfect was to come when our vision was clear, when we see face to face, then even our hymns proclaimed that day to be in the future!

Face to face with Christ my Savior, Face to face what will it be,
When with rapture I behold Him, Jesus Christ who died for me?
Face to face I shall behold him, Far beyond the starry sky;
Face to face in all His glory, I shall see Him by and by!

With that new insight into the Scriptures, Coach’s answer began to make sense. At my baptism I had received the Holy Spirit! And the gentle Spirit waited patiently for ten years for me to open my heart to the Spirit’s work.

On January 1, 1970 Thomas and I knelt together in our living room in Munich, Germany. Friends laid hands on us and prayed for the Holy Spirit’s power to be released in our lives. Thomas describes the experience as if a breath of fresh air filled his lungs. For me a spiritual realm opened that was more real than the floor that supported our knees!