Resources on the Holy Spirit for Busy People

May 9

Want to learn more about the person and work of Holy Spirit? It’s a beautiful powerful and pervasive thread through the Scriptures. And understanding the Spirit has the potential to transform your life in Christ. Yet I know life is busy so here are short, punchy, important resources on this topic:

Read One Article

I’d recommend my friend Jared Mellinger’s article on what it means to believe in the ongoing work of the Spirit. He lays out why this is true in Scripture and why it is beautiful and powerful in practice.

Read One More Thing

I’m writing a short introductory book on the Holy Spirit and I’m sharing a section from it on the gifts of the Spirit.

Here are the three chapters there:

7. The Body – How does the Spirit unify and build the church?

8. The Gifts, pt 1 – Why does the Spirit give Christians gifts?

9. The Gifts, pt 2 – What gifts does the Spirit give?

Buy One Book

If you only buy one book to study this make it Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. You’ll get a great resource for many topics but it is especially clear, Scripturally saturated, and helpful on matters of the Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts.

Listen to One Thing

Last year Sovereign Grace Executive Director Mark Prater was with us and shared a clear and winsome introduction to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Read One Paragraph

Okay I lied, it’s two paragraphs. But they’re our view committed to our confession in our Statement of Faith and I think they’re beautiful. Read the paragraphs and trace the footnotes for yourself.

When Christ ascended, he poured out the Holy Spirit on the church, ushering in a greater experience of God’s presence and power among his people.[1] The Spirit transforms hearts by the miracle of regeneration[2] and indwells all believers in abundant, new covenant measure.[3] The Spirit also desires to fill God’s people continually with increased power for Christian life and witness.[4] To be filled with the Spirit is to be more fully under his influence,[5] more aware of his presence,[6] and more effective in his service.[7] All Christians, therefore, must continually seek to be filled with the Spirit[8] by living and praying in such a way that invites the Spirit’s work among us, actively longing for God to accomplish his gracious purposes in us and through us. The filling of the Spirit brings to God’s people a deeper knowledge of Christ,[9] an increased desire for holiness,[10] a stronger commitment to unity and love, a greater fruitfulness in ministry, and a deeper gratitude for our salvation.[11]

Christ loves the church, his body, and provides for its health and growth through the Holy Spirit.[12] In addition to giving new life, the Spirit sovereignly bestows gifts on every believer.[13] Spiritual gifts are those abilities and expressions of God’s power given by his grace for the glory of Christ and the building up of the church.[14] The variety of these gifts—some permanent and some occasional, some more natural and some more remarkable—reflects[15] the diversity of the members of Christ’s body[16] and demonstrates our need for one another.[17] The gifts are not to be exercised with apprehension, pride, or disorder, but with faith, love, and order,[18] and always in submission to the authority of Scripture as the final revelation of God.[19] With the exception of those among the apostles who were commissioned as eyewitnesses of Christ and made recipients of normative revelation,[20] the full range of spiritual gifts remain at work in the church and are given for the good of the church and its witness to the world. We are therefore to earnestly desire and practice them until Christ returns.[21]

[1] Acts 2:17-18; 2:33; 10:45.

[2] Titus 3:5; John 3:3; 1 Pet 1:3.

[3] Ezek 36:26-27; Acts 2:38-39; 1 Cor 12:12-13.

[4] Acts 1:8; 4:8; 4:31; 13:9; Eph 5:18.

[5] Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-33.

[6] Acts 3:19; 7:55; 19:6; Rom 8:15, 23.

[7] Acts 4:8; 6:3.

[8] Eph 5:18.

[9] John 15:26; 16:13-15; Eph 3:16-19; Rom 5:5.

[10] Rom 8:13; Gal 5:22-23.

[11] Rom 8:15-16; Eph 5:19-20; Col 1:11-14.

[12] John 16:4-15; Eph 4:7-8, 13-16; 5:25-27.