Christopher Ash Hearing The Spirit

It was great to be with over 40 others this morning hearing Christopher Ash of the Proclamation Trust outlining his recent book on Word and Spirit. These are the chapter headings:

1. The Spirit, the Word and His words

2. The Spirit, the Word and the Cross

3. The Spirit, the Word and His Apostles

4. The Spirit, the Word and the Bible

5. The Spirit and understanding the Bible
6. The Spirit and other spirits

7. The Spirit at work in the world and the church

Ash himself introduces the book here:

In chapter 1, mainly from the fist half of John’s Gospel, we are going to think about Jesus the eternal Word (as John calls him in John 1:1-3) and the words He spoke. We shall see an intimate connection between the two, and see how Jesus made the Father known by words.

Chapter 2 is also mainly from the first half of John’s Gospel, and focuses on the weakness of Jesus’ words and His paradoxical failure effectively to reveal the Father until after the Cross and therefore until the Holy Spirit was poured out on God’s people. This will highlight for us how vital is the work of the Spirit.

Chapter 3 explores the vital provision Jesus made for the continuation of His words through the Spirit-led teaching of His apostles.

Then in chapter 4 we draw the line from the words of Jesus, through the words of His apostles, to the words of the Bible, both New Testament and Old Testament. We ask the question, ‘Where do we find the words of Jesus today, since Jesus is no longer physically on earth?’ It is all very well saying how wonderful were His words, but that does us no good unless we can still hear them. We shall see that every Bible word is Jesus’ word, and that we cannot and must not separate Jesus the Eternal Word from Bible words. This is a vital link to establish, for – if it is true – it means we have access to Jesus’ words today, and the Father can be made known to us too.

Chapter 5 is a harder chapter. You may prefer to omit this on first reading perhaps and come back to it later. It builds on the argument of chapters 3 and 4 to ask what principles ought to guide us in interpreting the Bible so we understand it aright.

In chapter 6 we think about why it matters to be Bible Christians. We shall see that there are plenty of spirits out there just waiting to put on the Holy Spirit’s clothes and pretend to be Him. It is an important cautionary study.

Then in chapter 7 we take a good look at the wonderful work the Holy Spirit does both in the non-Christian world and in the Christian church.

Finally, in conclusion, we ask how we today can listen to the Spirit, and how this relates to the Bible. In all our study, we must remember that knowing the Father depends upon these truths.