Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition

LESSON 4 | GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT: THE PERSON OF THE HOLY SPIRIT / 253

• How has the Holy Spirit operated as the Life-giver in your own experience? What are the implications of his life-giving power for the way we view ministry? • Which of the scriptural symbols of the Holy Spirit have been particularly important in your own life? How have they helped you understand the Holy Spirit? How have they affected your understanding of Christian leadership? • As Christians who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we often think of the Spirit’s work in very personal terms: the Spirit is the one who lives in me and helps me know and obey God. Is it common for you to also think of the Holy Spirit as the one who is caring for the whole creation and who is preparing the world for the coming reign of Christ? (Explain your answer). Ready to Give an Answer You are teaching a bible study at your church on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and you remind your students that he is rightly called the Lord and Life-giver. Sue, a visitor who has come to the study only a few times, perks right up when she hears your comment. Sue says, “I usually attend the Unity Church down the street and they gave me a book that talks about that very thing.” She pulls out the book and flips through it until she finds these quotes, “God is Spirit, or the creative energy which is the cause of all visible things. . . . God is not a being or person having life, intelligence, love, power. . . . God is that invisible, intangible, but very real, something we call life. . . . Each rock, tree, animal, everything visible, is a manifestation of the one Spirit – God – differing only in degree of manifestation; and each of the numberless modes of manifestation, or individualities, however insignificant, contains the whole” ( Lessons in Truth , H. Emilie Cady, published by The Unity School of Christianity, pp. 18, 19-20). You realize immediately that she has been studying with a group that does not have a correct doctrine of God or the Trinity. What will you say to her, and to the Bible study group, as you respond to the quote she read?

CASE STUDIES

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T heology and E th i c s