My current good read is Roger Kahn’s The Head Game, which is a history of/meditation upon Baseball from the standpoint of the pitcher. Kahn is the kind of writer I would dream of being. Efficient, yet rich. Highly observant, humorous and all business. He’s fun to read, no matter what the topic.

How about a question? Really more of an observation. I’ll keep it as a statement.

Agree or Disagree: Those who claim to be specially “anointed” are promoting an Old Covenant view of the work of the Holy Spirit.

In my Pentecost Sunday message, I did the second part of two sermons. I had preached on the Ascension as the most overlooked major event in scripture and now on Pentecost as the most misunderstood event in scripture.

There are two reasons for that misunderstanding: 1) We simply don’t understand the Trinity at all. 2) We usually think of the Holy Spirit as either a “thing” or as an “experience.” Because of these problems, we are susceptible to the notion that the Holy Spirit does weird, strange or miraculous things, rather than doing “ordinary” things, “ordinary” meaning not accompanied by unusual manifestiations.

So from there I undertook a defense of the “ordinary” work of the HS as being primary, constant and ongoing. The unusual has a place, but it’s not what the Christian life is all about. When we think that the work of the HS is the production of an Unusual spiritual experience, then we quickly begin manufacturing ways to have experiences, and there grows up a garden of religious experiences that allow elites to claim to have the HS while others do not. (In our age of psychology and technology, it’s pretty easy to produce “God.”)

What we might pray for is 1) the ordinary work of the HS 2) poured out in an extraordinary manner.