Paul knows that Jesus may come back at any moment and so he comes up with this way for us to remember how to be blameless, how to be holy in preparation for this event. He gives us the 7 P's (Greek 'Pi') of holiness. Today we will have our fourth piece of pi.
Pi 4 = Do not quench the Spirit
Now, apparently when Paul was writing this letter, there were some ‘wakkos’ predicting the time and the day of the end of the world (cf. Mark 13:32-33) and there were ‘weirdos’ who would perform fake healings, false prophecies, etc. There were these snake-oil salesmen of sorts.[7] And some of these folks were leading people astray and some of these people with their false predictions just looked plain silly and they did so for no easily discernible heavenly purpose. Some things never change! There is a difference between being a fool for the gospel and just plain being a fool.[8] Now Paul knew this and Paul knew that in reaction to these people, some people could go too far in the other direction.
I went to a church service of some denomination or other once and I remember someone who was visiting asking if it had charismatic style worship at all; the response was, “The Holy Spirit showed up just the other night in an evening service but - don’t worry – the pastor asked Him to leave.” I have certainly been in more than one service like this (in churches of different denominations) that indeed when the Spirit does show up, people don’t know what to do – and this is what Paul is telling us about with the fourth P. He is saying don’t quench the Spirit.
Pi 4 = Do not quench the Spirit
Pi 4 = Do not quench the Spirit
Now, apparently when Paul was writing this letter, there were some ‘wakkos’ predicting the time and the day of the end of the world (cf. Mark 13:32-33) and there were ‘weirdos’ who would perform fake healings, false prophecies, etc. There were these snake-oil salesmen of sorts.[7] And some of these folks were leading people astray and some of these people with their false predictions just looked plain silly and they did so for no easily discernible heavenly purpose. Some things never change! There is a difference between being a fool for the gospel and just plain being a fool.[8] Now Paul knew this and Paul knew that in reaction to these people, some people could go too far in the other direction.
I went to a church service of some denomination or other once and I remember someone who was visiting asking if it had charismatic style worship at all; the response was, “The Holy Spirit showed up just the other night in an evening service but - don’t worry – the pastor asked Him to leave.” I have certainly been in more than one service like this (in churches of different denominations) that indeed when the Spirit does show up, people don’t know what to do – and this is what Paul is telling us about with the fourth P. He is saying don’t quench the Spirit.
Pi 4 = Do not quench the Spirit
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