How the Holy Spirit Initiates & Employs Missions

Have you ever thought about "Cause & Effect" in relation to the Holy Spirit's work in missions?

Though Bultmann “rightly sets in contrast bondage to the law as entailing bondage to the cause-effect processes of the past with the liberty of the Spirit,”[1] there are yet elements of a spiritual cause-effect system at play in the Book of Acts. Even though some of the Holy Spirit’s activities are not identified with active verbs, there are results with direct links to the Holy Spirit’s actions. These indirect by-products are nonetheless attributed to the Holy Spirit as initiator.     

The early church understood that the Holy Spirit caused some things to happen albeit in an indirect way. Breaking from tradition and Scripture, some later argued that this indirect influence was the only method the Spirit employed. Pelagius, for example, fallaciously “denied any direct operation of the Holy Spirit on human wills.”[2] Instead, he maintained that the Holy Spirit only indirectly influences the human conscience. This argument was later defeated, but even the debate stirred a deeper understanding of the Spirit’s causal relationship in the church’s mission.

Luke began his narrative as a documentary of the charismata, those supernatural gifts that the Spirit caused to happen to bond and expand the church. Acts 1:8 describes the dynamic power to witness as a direct result of the Holy Spirit’s coming. In Acts 2:4 the Holy Spirit enabled believers to speak in other languages for evangelism. Acts 2:17–18 describes the Holy Spirit’s filling that led to prophecies, visions and dreams, and the church received these as fulfillment of things foretold in the Old Testament. In Acts 4:31 the church understood the Holy Spirit’s filling of Peter as the direct cause of his boldness in speech. Throughout the Book of Acts, Luke describes these unifying acts as results of the Holy Spirit’s direct influence. In Lukan pneumatology “the unity of the church is not based on organization but on the power of the Holy Spirit and the life that the Spirit inspires.”[3]

            At some point after Paul’s first missions trip, he penned a list of attributes that became identified with the Christian life filled with and directed by the Holy Spirit. Known as fruits, these attributes were footprints that let a believer recognize the Spirit’s presence. Interestingly enough, it was about that same time period in the Acts narrative that Luke employed an attributive method for the Holy Spirit’s actions.[4]  

However, even more than slight references to the Holy Spirit’s actions by attribution, Luke utilized the instrumental case to identify actions by the Spirit. In Acts 4:25 Luke designated the words of David as having been spoken by the Holy Spirit. Acts 6:10 also names the Spirit by whom Stephen spoke the truth. Moreover, in Acts 9:31 Luke marks the Holy Spirit’s encouragement as being the instrumental element that preceded numerical church growth and an attitude of worship. Luke knew “that it is only the power of God, the ‘proof’ of God’s Spirit working in people, that convinces unbelievers of the truth of the news of Jesus and that leads them to faith in Jesus the Messiah and Savior.”[5] These actions are attributed to the Holy Spirit’s work in an indirect way; nevertheless, Luke identifies them as playing a role in the early church’s understanding of the mission of God.

It really makes me wonder how much missions activity we do today with the thought of "look what we're doing for God" rather than "see what the Holy Spirit is doing through us". What do you think?

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[1] Anthony C. Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 425.

[2] Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demerest, Integrative Theology: Historical, Biblical, Systematic, Apologetic, Practical: 3 volumes in 1, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 55.

[3] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods, (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2008), 12.

[4] See Acts 13:52. Before the end of Paul’s first missionary journey, Luke describes how the disciple’s filling with the Holy Spirit also brought about a filling with joy, one of the fruits listed in Galatians 5:22–23.

[5] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary, 400.