In The Parable of the Messiah
Scrolls I show the first
generation of Christians arguing
passionately about the question, “How
can we come to know God?” - one of the questions at the center of
Christian dialogue today.
Without spoiling the ending of the
novel: the first Christians find that
the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit
leads them to the knowledge they seek.
My story is based on the Scriptural truth of the New
Testament, and it shows the faith process of being Holy Spirit led
in coming to know God - a faith process that is used by
believers today.
While my novel is first century historical fiction, from here onward, everything I am about to share is emphatically non fiction.
Many of today's arguments about whether we Christians should be missional or discipling can be leapfrogged by recognizing that when faith-on-fire, Holy Spirit-led believers organize mission projects, training conferences or church plants, those works become transformed missional/discipling/planting oriented ventures for Christ per se. The faith-activating Presence of the Holy Spirit within each believer will bring about his or her spiritual formation, e.g., as part of active missional and/or active discipling and/or planting sub-cultures demonstrating our collective faith in Christ. (I've also written about this in "Christ Culture".)
How does the Holy Spirit work within each believer?
First, faith in Christ activates the Presence of the Holy Spirit
within each Jesus Follower, which in turn guides the Follower to profoundly personal knowledge of the God of the Old and New Testaments. Protestant Evangelical churches, both small and mega-, who correctly teach this method of apprehending God comprise the driving force of Christianity in our time.
Furthermore, the faith of Protestant Evangelicals today underscores the importance of the Old Testament and the restoration of Israel. The Presence of the Holy Spirit opens to Followers the full meaning of the
relationship between the God of the
Old Testament and his Followers, and how this is applicable to their own lives. In the Old Testament, when given Followers failed
to live according to His wishes,
Father God sanctioned these Followers,
yet always preserving a remnant so
that the next generation could try
again to walk in His will. Some like Abraham, were directly "accredited
righteous" (the Old Testament equivalent of New Testament faith).
The faith-activated Presence of the Holy Spirit within
Jesus Followers today provides
this same power to know God and know
His story, giving resources to us
moderns as He did to Adam & Eve,
Abraham & Sarah, Moses & Zippo’rah,
Joseph & As’serah, David & Bathsheba,
Hosea & Gomer, Esther & Mor’decai, and
Joseph & Mary, the earthly parents of
Jesus.
In other words, Protestant Evangelicalism's clear exegesis of the faith-activating Presence of the Holy Spirit makes Jesus Followers fit for interpretation of the entire body of the Old and New Testaments. (Here I am explicitly rejecting the term "Biblicist", a pejorative name given to Protestant Evangelical scriptural interpretation by some social scientists; or at least, I am rejecting its pejorative sense. The absentee grafting of Catholic and Mormon scholarship onto (and by) Social Science in forming its Biblicist claim, is an attempt to isolate and discredit the Holy Spirit-inspired interpretation of Scripture by Protestant Evangelicals, who prayerfully also seek the Holy Spirit's guidance in countering such claims.)
Secondly, first century disciples knew
God personally and entered into faith directly, as Jesus
personally confirmed Father God’s
original desire for a covenant with
His earthly created humans. Jesus,
both earthly human and divine Son of
God, told His disciples that He was
the witness and reconciler to that
Covenant relationship, which included,
to the joy of the disciples then and
us modern Followers today, life after
physical death: Eternal Life for His
Followers.
As Apostle John wrote so elegantly:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, full of Grace and Truth; we
have beheld His glory, glory as of the
only Son from the Father..."
"All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him (or her) who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from Heaven not to do my own will but the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me ... If you love me you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you allos paraklatos, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither knows Him nor sees him; you know Him, for he dwells in you, and will be with you ... Father the hour has come; glorify the Son that the son may glorify Thee, since Thou has given Him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom Thou has given..."
"...from Jesus Christ the faithful
witness, the first born of the dead,
and the ruler of kings on earth ...
Come up hither and I will show you
what must take place after this ...
Then God’s temple in heaven was
opened, and the ark of His Covenant
was seen within the temple ... behold
a white horse! He who sat upon it is
called Faithful and True ... He is
clad in a robe dipped in blood ... He
is called the Word of God ... Then I
saw a new heaven and new earth ... And
I saw no temple in the city, for the
temple is the Lord God the Almighty
... and his (Follower) servants shall
worship Him; they shall see His face,
and His name shall be on their
foreheads ... and they shall reign for
ever and ever.”
This is how Jesus Followers, then and
now, possess knowledge of God: not by
the musing of philosophers and not by the
grasping of reason, but through the
faith -activated Presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling
within them, now and forever.
The Role of the Faith-Activating Presence of the Holy Spirit in Knowing God
John 14:16 (as noted above) describes the origin of the Holy Spirit. In the upper room, Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper...” [In Greek "another helper" is allos paraklatos, a combined supernatural power (God the Father and God the Son) which comes alongside and indwells the human believer, who has been given (John 6:37-39) by God the Father and drawn to faith in Jesus Christ (John 6:44). The indwelling of the Counselor within each believer is what I call the "faith-activating Presence of the Holy Spirit," guiding Protestant Evangelicals, in gaining their knowledge of God, and in guiding their interpretation of the Old and New Testaments.
In John 14:26 the term "helper" is equated specifically with the term "Holy Spirit". In addition to helper, the Greek could also mean "comforter" or "advocate": one who pleads another’s unique case against the world-wise. Note that the Greek adjective modifying "helper" is not heteros [meaning different] but allos [meaning exactly the same].
As Protestant Evangelicals we welcome "the Counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my Name, he will teach you all things, and bring to remembrance all that I have said to you." According to Protestant Evangelicals, all believers are given the same remembrance, along with certain gifts (see 1st Corinthians 12:27-31) that allow them to express this "same remembrance" from the context of their gift and role in the church. Within this context, it is possible to have singular interpretations (differences in degree) but not plural interpretations (differences in kind) as claimed by critics outside this tradition.
Looking at a church father, paraphrasing Tertullian*: the Holy Spirit, being the same substance of Jesus and the Father, destined to take equal place with Jesus and the Father, within each unique believer (after Jesus’ ascension to the Father), is given for the purpose of providing divine guidance and power to each unique believer. “...that [completing 14:16] He may be with you forever.” The Holy Spirit indwells forever giving each believer the interpretative resources needed to undergo the world’s trials and evils until joined with Father, Son and Holy Spirit in heavenly Eternal Life (John 17:1-3).
*(160 – 220 AD, a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa)
To repeat my tweet on 1/5/2012 and 1/11/2012: "Our #zeal in #Holy #Spirit powered #prayer gives us glimpses into the #mind of #God. There is a #gift there. We must claim it." Sadly, a Jesus Follower lacking zeal (Romans 12:11-12), not being supernaturally guided by their indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, is like the Follower possessing an unredeemed gift card.
In this web-novel I invite you to witness and join the faithful first disciples, Apostle John, Tertius Falcon X, Lydia of Thyatira, Luke of Macedonia, Shiraz of Dilmun, John Mark, Geber'im Prime, and Apollos of Alexandria as, empowered by zeal in Holy-Spirit-powered lives, they missionally establish the original Christian Community Zero. (Chapter titles are listed here; to read six chapters of the book, register for a free preview.)
Prayerfully, my Holy Spirit powered goal is for the Parable of the Messiah Scrolls to embed the Truth of Scripture within an historical, fictional epic; to show how biblical fact and imaginative prose can infuse meaning into intuitional remembrances and resemblances in the minds and souls of on-line readers, both of faith and non-faith. I attempt to show the first Jesus Followers recording and canonizing Scriptures and at the same time faithfully applying them in their daily lives to transform their world. My hope is that witnessing, discussing and annotating this story may help Christian readers to stake or re-stake praxis in the gifted use of Holy Scripture in their own lives - if they are led to claim the gift.
Blessings in Christ,
Don Chatelain
Messiah Scrolls Web-Books
January 2012
Tertius29@comcast.net