The Holy Spirit is not an optional add on to an otherwise natural Christian life; rather, the Spirit is the very habitat in which we live the Christian life....

The book of Acts begins with Jesus making a power promise: You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you (Acts 1.8). Previous to this, however, Jesus made a beautiful promise about the Holy Spirit being with us and dwelling in us forever. Our text -  John 14.15-26 - is an incredibly dense and rich bit of scripture; what follows are a few brief reflections. Christians discover a pe...

At the college where I did theological studies we took a fifteen-minute coffe breek daily between the first and second sections of class. We would often mingle and speak to people we knew or meet new people. I remember getting into a conversation with unassuming man; pleasant, easy to speak with, cordial and gracious. I had seen him around but didn’t know his role, and so I asked him, ‘So what do ...