Bible Society: Pentecost Reflections Day 4
Hi Friend
Welcome to day four of your Pentecost reflection series, unpacking the role of the Holy Spirit in Scripture and in our lives. Let’s get practical …
Today’s Bible verses
Acts 6.1–7 (GNB) <https://biblesociety.cmail19.com/t/r-l-tyitjjud-bilwlltil-r/>
‘And so the word of God continued to spread’.
Today’s reflection
The spiritual life is often thought to exist ‘in another dimension’. And sometimes, it does: miracles, prophetic words of knowledge, angelic languages – these are not ‘worldly’ things. But sometimes, we can fall into the trap of believing that unless it’s a bit weird or quite obviously ‘supernatural’, the Spirit of God isn’t in it. We need to beware of this line of thinking.
This passage in Acts reminds us that the life of the Spirit celebrates practical gifts and is well able to affirm them as God-given and extremely valuable for the kingdom. The ‘ideal church’ of Acts quickly gets its problems just like any other church. In this case, their social care programme – dedicated to feeding those in need – is not going well: some are being fed, others aren’t. And it’s causing arguments and allegations of discrimination.
The solution is wonderfully sensible. The apostles appoint seven new leaders to look after the church’s social care, which both frees up the apostles to focus on their core gifting and blesses the practical care ministry so that everyone is fed. The result is not just of practical benefit but spiritual too, and the church grows more quickly and reaches into new areas (verse 7).
What is notable in the appointment of the new leaders is that the first qualification is that they should be ‘full of the Holy Spirit’ (verse 3). It assumes that they will have practical organisational gifts, but mainly looks for signs of spiritual maturity. The spiritual and the practical blend together for God’s glory.
If you’re a gifted organiser, or good with your hands, or creative and artistic, these are God-given talents which the Lord has given you for a reason. Rather than separating them from your ‘spiritual life’, it is far better to surrender them to God that he might use them for his glory. That might be in the workplace but it might also be in the Christian community. For example, I couldn’t have survived the challenges of the pandemic without some wonderful people offering their technical gifts to create our online services. What a blessing they have been to us!
But there is a further encouragement here. As we grow spiritually, we might also find our practical gifting growing too. As we become more Christlike, so those Christlike qualities will enhance the things we’re good at. We’ll see things with God’s eyes, better care for people that we work with or serve as clients, and better understand our own fears and motivations. These all help us to be more fruitful.
We humans are a marvellous, divinely-inspired concoction of body, soul and spirit. May God continue to grow our whole lives, that our practical gifts, surrendered to God, may be used for his glory – both this week and beyond.
These Pentecost reflections were written by Revd Matt Trendall, a minister working in Milton Keynes
Today’s prayer
Thank you for creating me in your image. I surrender all of myself to you today. Please use me and my practical gifts for your glory. Spirit guide me today.
Today’s action
Take a moment today to reflect on what your practical gifting is and how you can use it for God’s glory.