In the previous post, I talked about Christians have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. But in the passage we are studying this week, 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Paul writes that we can quench the Spirit.
Quench? Is that like Gatorade, “the thirst quencher”? Yes, to quench is to stop something. But the word that the NIV translates “quench” is not describing drinking beverages when a person is thirsty.
Instead the word Paul uses is about fire.
“Do not put out the Spirit.” Or “Do not extinguish the Spirit.” We extinguish fire.
That means the Holy Spirit is on fire!
Did you know that the Holy Spirit and fire are connected in Scripture?
John the Baptist once talked about the difference between himself and Jesus: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Mt 3:11–12.)
Then in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit arrived and filled the first Christians, we read this: “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.”
So the Holy Spirit is on fire. Obviously, the fire of the Spirit is not like earthly fire. Earthly fire burns, and thus can seriously harm. But the analogy is appropriate, because earthly fire also produces great energy in the form of heat and light.
Every fall when we have our first fire of the season in our wood stove, I am amazed at how that fire can warm our home. Fire is powerful.
Just like the Spirit. The Spirit of God is powerful. The Spirit of God is God, and thus is all-powerful. When the Spirit is filling us, empowering us, we can experience his power.
This is what Paul mentions in his wonderful prayer in Ephesians 3:16-19, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
What Paul is talking about is the reality that Christians can live as people who are filled by the Spirit and experience the Spirit’s power.
In Ephesians 5:18-19, Paul writes, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit.”
The early church prayed for this and experienced this. In Acts 4 Peter and John had been imprisoned, were freed, told to not talk about Jesus anymore, and what did they do? They prayed. In Acts 4:29, we read the end of their prayer, “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”
I love that. Right after they are told by the Jewish religious authorities not to talk about Jesus, they pray for boldness to preach God’s word. What happens? We read, “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”
We can be filled with the firepower of the Spirit, and that fire empowers us to pursue the mission of God in the ways of God.
This is why every single week at Faith church we talk about the Fruit of the Spirit. The Fruit of the Spirit is the way of God. When we walk in step with the Spirit, which is another way of talking about being filled with the Spirit, Paul says that the firepower of the Spirit produces the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
Here are some selections from the Fruit of the Spirit passage. Galatians 5:16-23, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. … But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
We have the Spirit, so we live our lives and make our choices in line with the Spirit. But back in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Paul said that we are not to quench the Spirit, we are not to extinguish the Spirit’s fire. So clearly, even though God the Spirit is all-powerful, he does not force us to walk in step with him. His filling does not overpower our free will. We can extinguish his fire in our lives.
So what is Paul talking about? How do quench the Spirit’s fire? Paul doesn’t clearly say in 1st Thessalonians 5:19, but he did clearly say in Ephesians 4. We’ll take a look at that passage in the next post.
Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 