The story of how I was hired for my first job in ministry is, well, interesting. I was a seminary student in need of work experience, and I had met with a local pastor to discuss a staff position at his church. The church had never had a staff member responsible for Christian education, and the pastor was excited for me to take that role. I even offered to work for free because I needed the experience as much or more than the church needed me.
So before the membership at the monthly church conference we went, with the Finance Committee chairman scheduled to make a motion that they call me as part-time Minister of Education, free of charge. Only, that isn’t what he did. He made the motion that the church call me as Minister of Education and Senior Adults. My wife and I looked at each other in confusion. Senior adults? That had never been mentioned to me at all. What would I do in that role?
One man then stood up and objected to the “free of charge” part. He moved that they pay me the whopping total of $1500 per year. Yes, I said “year.” But, hey, I had agreed to work for free, so that was $1500 more than I was expecting.
Then people began to ask the question on everyone’s mind – “What will he do?” They weren’t so much interested in who I was but what I’d be doing. After all, if they were going to spend $1500 on me over the next 365 days, they wanted a return on that investment. I was wondering the same thing, because I had no idea what being a minister to senior adults involved. I didn’t know fully what being a minister of education meant either, to be honest. The pastor filled in some of those blanks, and once the people had a small understanding of what I’d be doing, they voted to call me as their first ever part-time Minister of Education and Senior Adults. As soon as that decision was made, I started the process of figuring out what I would be doing. And still, over the course of that first year, people asked, “What is it exactly that you do?”
Any study of the Holy Spirit always involves the question, “What does the Holy Spirit do?” Most of us are less interested in who he is than we are in what he does. More specifically, we want to know what he does for us individually. Somehow we always tend to think of ourselves first, but those are legitimate questions that we’ll dive deep into. First, though, let’s look at what we can see the Holy Spirit doing in the Bible.
While most of what we know about the Holy Spirit is found in the New Testament, he’s active throughout the Old Testament, just in a different way.
We’re introduced to the Holy Spirit right at the beginning:
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)
There he is, the “Spirit of God,” involved with God the Father to bring Creation out of chaos. Since we already know that God the Son was also involved in Creation (see this post), that means that all three Persons of the Trinity created all that exists. The Old Testament wastes no time in introducing the Holy Spirit.
In the second book of the Bible, the Holy Spirit is seen equipping and gifting people for certain jobs. Exodus 28:3 and 31:3-5 are two examples. The New Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit gifts each believer, but in the Old Testament that equipping was limited to select individuals.
Today the Holy Spirit indwells believers, but that was not the case before the events in Acts 2. Some scholars refer to his Old Testament activity as a “selective indwelling.” We see that the Holy Spirit is “in” or is said to “come upon” certain people, but he doesn’t stay there. You can see his work in such places as 1 Samuel 10:9-10 and Judges (Judges 3:10 and 6:34, for example), but these weren’t permanent indwellings (see Judges 16:20) and they didn’t happen to all of God’s followers.
And, of course, we know that the Holy Spirit was involved in inspiring the writers of the Old Testament and the work of those who prophesied. We see this with King Saul (1 Samuel 10:6-10). Ezekiel said this about his prophecy (Ezekiel 2:2). New Testament writers pointed to the Holy Spirit as the one who led the Old Testament authors (Acts 4:25). Then we have 2 Timothy 3:16, which teaches us that the Holy Spirit produced the Bible, which is “God-breathed.” So the Holy Spirit inspired the writing of the Old Testament.
All this is to say that the Holy Spirit was active throughout the Old Testament, though in a different way than he is now. The Old Testament also lacks exhaustive teaching on who he is or what he does.
So what did the Holy Spirit do in the New Testament or, more particularly, in the life of Jesus?
We know, first, that the Holy Spirit was responsible for Christ’s incarnation when God the Son became not only fully God but also fully man (Luke 1:35). He was also involved in the baptism of Jesus (Luke 3:22), where Jesus is empowered by the Spirit. Jesus was filled with the Spirit (Luke 4:1) and led by the Spirit into the wilderness to face temptation.
All that Jesus did, including his teaching and his miracles, was done in the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:14). Jesus even told his hometown that his ministry was done in partnership with the Holy Spirit:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
Let’s pause here. We’ll continue our look at the work of the Holy Spirit later, but, for now, ponder the fact that Jesus spent his entire earthly ministry in partnership with the Spirit. That same Holy Spirit that worked in and through Jesus is present in your life as well. If you’ve given your life to Christ, you have the Holy Spirit within you. No matter what your life looks like right now, whether things are going great for you or you’re facing difficulty, the Holy Spirit is there. He’s with you and inside you to empower you, comfort you, guide you, teach you, and so much more. Those are just some of the things the Holy Spirit does.
Thank you, Father, for the incredible gift of your Holy Spirit.