Focus on Reproduction, Mentor's Guide, MG12

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F O C U S O N R E P R O D U C T I O N

a. Acts 1.8

b. Mic. 3.8

c. Zech. 4.6

d. Luke 10.19

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4. Implication for evangelism and church planting: God calls a woman or man to no task without granting them the power, authority, and ability to accomplish it .

The Holy Spirit Guides the Apostles’ Witness

The same commission introduces a factor of profound importance for the apostolate : the coming of the Spirit. Curiously enough, this is most fully treated in John 14–17, which does not use the word ‘apostle’ at all. This is the great commissioning discourse of the Twelve ( apostello and pempo are used without discrimination): their commission from Jesus is as real as his from God (cf. John 20.21); they are to bear witness from their long acquaintance with Jesus, yet the Spirit bears witness of him (John 15.26–27). He will remind them of the words of Jesus (John 14.26), and guide them into all the truth (a promise often perverted by extending its primary reference beyond the apostles) and show them the age to come (of the church) and Christ’s glory (John 16.13–15). Instances are given in the Fourth Gospel of this process, where the significance of words or actions was recalled only after Christ’s ‘glorification’ (John 2.22; 12.16; cf. 7.39). That is, the witness of the apostles to Christ is not left to their impressions and recollections, but to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whose witness it is also—a fact of consequence in assessing the recorded apostolic witness in the Gospels [emphasis mine].

~ D. R. W. Wood. New Bible Dictionary . 3rd ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996. p. 58.