9 May 2021 - 7pm Service
Holy Spirit Series: Oil - Gifts Life of the spirit
This Sunday we continue our preaching series Holy Spirit with a message from Helen Paynter on ‘Oil - Gifts of the Spirit’.
In our journey towards Pentecost this May, we will look at key symbols used in the Bible to help us understand how to encounter and live life with the Spirit of God.
We tend to think of the Spirit as a ‘force’ or an ‘energy’ - rather than a person to have fellowship with. However, it’s important to remember that the Holy Spirit is in the Godhead, which means ‘he’ is personal as well as powerful.
In this series, we’ll be unpacking scripture’s use of symbols describing the Holy Spirit as we try to better understand what it means to be a new creation and anointed with spiritual gifts. What is it that makes us well up from a deep place or speak in tongues? How do we deal with the mystical and transrational? How does God guide through the Spirit?
Remember, later today at the 11am and 7pm service we’ll hear Tim Dobson and Clare Thompson share about the same topic. Go check it out!
DISCUSSION NOTES
INTRODUCTION | Luke 4:18 & 1 Cor 12.
Jesus is the anointed one (Christ means anointed). In O.T. Israel Priests and Kings were anointed and the oil was a mark of them being given authority in their ministry and leadership. When Jesus quoted from the book of Isaiah he was identifying himself with a messianic calling (Messiah means anointed). This anointing, not with Oil but with the Holy Spirit is demonstrated in words and deeds of power and authority (Luke 4:17-26) and in Luke 9 he sends his followers out with power and authority to minister.
STUDY QUESTIONS
Jesus had a ‘permanent’ anointing to minister it seems (John 1: 33 ‘remain’). Do his followers have a permanent anointing too, and if not, how do you stay in a place of anointing to minister?
Reading about the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12, are they permanent endowments (‘our’ spiritual gifts) or do they ‘manifest’ as the Holy Spirit chooses (v 11)?
What contexts and conditions make receiving supernatural spiritual gifts more likely?
What primarily are spiritual gifts for? What is the difference (if any) between the supernatural gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 and other lists of gifts e.g. in Romans 12?
Could you describe your own experience of receiving spiritual gifts? Are there gifts that you have not experienced but have an appetite for? What are they and why do you want them?
In the light of 2 Timothy 1:6 how much a part does prayer and laying on of hands have in receiving gifts of the Spirit? How does this tie in with anointing?