Paradise Cafe Discussions - A Place For Bible Research And Christian Encouragement

An idea that seems to fit all the facts and the language used is that the spirit is a word to describe all the attributes of any entity that cannot be seen. Hence we have a spirit and God along with spirit creatures is a spirit because he is invisible. So when God does something it is his spirit doing it because he doesnt have hands of flesh one can point to. When a human does something relating to personality or purpose that relates to the unseen mind and heart of a person hence their spirit. For this reason the word spirit can and is also applied in a general sense, as in the fleshly spirit or the spirit of this world. In this case its a category of personality traits in the general sense. The word spirit of course means literally the wind. This is because the anchients didn't understand this invisible force that mysteriously went wherever it wanted. They felt its effects alright but could not see where it came from or what it was. So it became the standard metaphor for all the invisible personality aspects who`s roots no one quite knows. The confusion seems to come in because spirits and God are invisible to start with, so talking about the spirit of a spirit confuses things. The word angel is also used in this way. It literally means messenger. It is not always used that way though.

Heb 1:7 Also, with reference to the angels he says: "And he makes his angels spirits, and his public servants a flame of fire."

The angels and made spirits in the sense that their power is made evident in the service of Jesus in this scripture. Hence the angels manifesting when Jesus was born and in connection with that. Angels therefor are often also, because they are invisible, seen as representing individual humans or organizations. The letters to the seven congregations in Revelation are sent to each congregations angel. Its not used in the sense of each congregations messenger and that would be an oxymoron in this case. The angel is seen as the collective personality of each congregation, hence angels do not always have to seen as either totally good or totally bad as seen in the instance of the deceptive spirit sent by God in the old testament and other instances.

The holy spirit then could be the holy personality of God we have to inculcate in ourselves, hence Christ is supposed to be in us as it many scriptures talk about. God is in Christ and Christ is in God in the same sense of personality or a collection of personality traits. The holy spirit then gets describes as an `it` sometimes when it is doing an act. Other times it is describes as a `he`. Because the word spirit in a word for invisible traits of an entity both the terms `he` and `it` can be used without a problem. When Christ went to heaven it would be logical to assume that certain knowledge Christ would need in order to be given all power and authority was given to him. Power and authority are spirit in that they describe personality traits again. So the holy spirit after Jesus went to heaven is a mixture of the traits of both father and son. The holy spirit acts in exactly the same way as a person would because in a very real sense it is a person, because it is a metaphor that describes everything about a person that cannot be seen, and that it probably the majority of what makes people up.

As Yoda said: "luminous being as we; not this crude matter. "

Just a few thoughts that might be alright or rubbishy.

Well Brian; as usual, even if you should be wrong, you sound very convincing and logical. :thinking:

Good morning Everybody:

Just a thought or two:

What ever you want to call Jah's Holy Spirit, to quite a few of us here it's a living entity and one i'm very thankful for. When is it necessary to even think what sex it is? Does that make it "better"? Can any of you deny not "feeling" it when someone is praying for you or when made aware of dangerous situation, and "listen" to that warning? To tell you the truth, i'd rather not hear any voice, male or female :shocked:

Without him/her/it i would be dead by now, a couple of times. To me its obvious when it descends on me, even if it is just a wee bit of a "nudging", i know "what" it is,but around the board there are so many who have so much of it, they're more than willing to share the light revealed to them through it.

Some of yous are gettin' real good at sharing my thoughts, but you either type faster than me , or are in an earlier time zone. Whomever(that right?) the Holy Spirit is, we keep him/her/it VERY BUSY :D

Enjoying all the research you brothers and sisters are bringing out all across the board, with lots of help from Jah, Jesus, a few angels and that Holy Spirit guy;)

Much Christian Love and Holy Spirit to ALL :grouphug::heartbeat:
sis
p.s. i do believe the Holy Spirit caused that man to tell obama "you lie" in front of the whole world!!! imo

Hi JWHVACR,
Thank you for your research on this subject.

If I may add a lighter comment.
Here in Australia, football is revered. It's part and parcel of the 'new religion' in the 'holy' name of Sport. On the weekend a team named The Saints, won their game under the power of the Holy Spirit. I kid you not. It's on the front page of the weekly sport edition.

How words and their meaning alter over the centuries in regard to the above.

I recall with a smile, Greek friends who came here in the 1970's to begin a new life and made us laugh when we visited them. They pulled out chairs for us to be seated at the table saying, "Please, sit on him." As you would know, in the Greek, objects - tables and chairs - are always 'him'.

Not associating with the org for some years has caused me to think differently about the Holy Spirit. It's still a work in progress in my mind.


Tessa

Hi Tessa,

I’m glad you raised this, and thank you Jim for posting the subject because defining it has made us humans appear silly. Why are we so determined to define things never meant to be defined? Is it because we cannot be bothered any longer to acknowledge the sin that lies within each one of us that we get hung up on defining God? Is He a She? Is God three? Is holy spirit a He?

While Greeks might laugh while we ignore their gender linguistics of he’s and she’s to inert objects, they must laugh harder when we insist that holy spirit must be a person because its gender says so.

I wonder if the demons laugh when they see how easily we’ve been distracted by their lies. And all they have to do is suggest a possibility that they know doesn’t exist. The whole world “lies in the power of the devil.” We even try to define just how much with our puny brain. So how is it that we, who cannot define half of what we see in the visible creation around us, are so determined to define the invisible? In Greek legend there is a saying, “Can you hear the gods laughing?”

Well I would venture to say that the gods of this earth are laughing continually when they trick us humans into believing their inane speculations they themselves know to be lies.

So when we humans need to explain history and pre-history without a creator, the theory of evolution is artfully contrived to explain away God. When we humans need to define God, we invent a triune one. And when we read that holy spirit was given a gender we take even the tiniest Biblical inflections to add it as third party to the triune invention. I say, how dare we confine God to such simplicity. Can you hear the gods laughing?

To me, holy spirit is extremely broad and expansive. It is so far beyond definition, I think we do it a disservice by trying to fit it into anything conceived by the human brain. After all, it was simultaneously available to vast numbers of people as demonstrated during Pentecost and later to thousands and who knows how many millions throughout history until today—to as many as God chose to give.

I recall while in earlier years of computer courses when the centralized management server acted as the mothership to a network of hundreds of computers. While all computers could communicate peer to peer, the mothership communicated also, giving instant answers to questions asked by each computer as though having the full and undivided attention of the mothership. Today this sort of communication has expanded to include many thousands if not millions on one network.

It occurred to me that if man could invent such a system in its crude beginnings, how much more could God have produced a method by which millions of angels and humans could simultaneously have the attention of the Father by means of holy spirit. After all, how does the Father actually “hear” all of those prayers. How does he see and protect faithful and others who search for Him and call out to him and the mothership and its vast network of endless connections.

In my puny mind it seems absurd that we should confine holy spirit to a single person. That’s kind of like saying that holy spirit is an entity of greater power and versatility than the Father (who it seems gets very little attention since He was formed by theologians into His present godhead).

Love,

sw

This scripture helps define (holy) spirit,imo...

Galatians 5:22...

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
meekness, self-control; against such there is no law."


:coffeeread: