*** SHOW NOTES (not fully edited or a transcript) ***

Lead:

When you’re talking with someone, what do you do when they say, “I have a peace about it?” and mean that they think the Holy Spirit guided them?

Intro:

I have no idea who Paul E. Little is, but he once shared a story in a sermon that struck me. He said,

Several years ago I knew a girl who had signed a contract to teach. In August she received another offer from a school closer to where she wanted to live. So she broke the original contract.(1)

Her reason?

The department chairman … said her justification was “I have a peace about it,”(1)

So how does that square with the Christian life? And since here we’re about helping us grow in our ability to dialogue with culture, that’s what we’ll get to in today’s All Our Minds segment.

In our Bible segment yesterday we read Paul’s argument that God’s grace triumphs over the power of the law and sin, and what that looks like as the Holy Spirit gives us confidence in a hope that is both now and not yet.

Today will be his argument that God’s saving promise was first to Israel, but hang with me tomorrow…he finishes up by saying it’s always been intended for everyone.

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Bible:

Passage: Romans 9-10
Translation: NLT (New Living Translation)
Verses: 54
Words: ~1181

All Our Minds:

I have a confession: I thought about starting a series called “really dumb things Christians say,” but I try to keep this to 23 minutes or less a day. But recently I was in a public setting and heard someone say basically the same thing, the clear implication of which was “the Holy Spirit said it was okay.” And since a frequent message of culture is to just go with your intuition, I thought I’d answer one aspect of that by way of a question: Would the Holy Spirit ever contradict Scripture?

Here’s the rest of Paul Little’s sermon excerpt:

Several years ago I knew a girl who had signed a contract to teach. In August she received another offer from a school closer to where she wanted to live. So she broke the original contract. Had she acted on the biblical principle in Psalm 15:4, where God says that He is pleased with a person who swears to his own hurt and does not change, she would not have done that.
The department chairman … said her justification was “I have a peace about it,” and he commented rather sardonically, “Isn’t that lovely? She’s got the peace and I’ve got the pieces.” I believe that girl missed the will of God. She violated a principle which, if she had been alert and had applied it to her situation, would have given her clear guidance in this specific detail of her life. ~ Paul E. Little in a sermon, “Affirming the Will of God” (in Great Sermons of the 20th Century)(1)

So, the short answer is no.

Here's what the Bible -- God -- says about us:

We are fallen. Ro 3:23 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Our feelings are unreliable as a test of truth. Jeremiah 17:9, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Proverbs 28:26 Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. 1 John 3:20 For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
The Holy Spirit will never contradict Scripture — He couldn’t. Here we move from a simple Bible verse to systematic theology -- what the whole of the Bible says. and already pointed out that the short answer is no. God -- Father, Son, and Spirit -- is one essence in three persons, and they will never contradict each other, because they can’t — they’re the same essence. Argued philosophically, a perfect, timeless, first cause wouldn't be perfect if incoherence (contradiction) existed in Him.

So here’s where we end up if we’re in dialogue with someone.

To argue that God, including the Holy Spirit, says something to you that’s different than the Bible would be to arguing that either God is wrong or the Bible is wrong.

I’d recommend being ready with a question and a quote.

The question: How is that consistent with the Bible?

To be sure, not everything is going to be in the Bible — to refer to the story of the teacher quitting, saying “God me to take this other job” isn’t in there. But the principle of how to relate to others most definitely is. This means you may or not be quoting a verse — you may be relying on a principle that is consistent with Scripture.

The quote:

I choose to believe the Bible because it's a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other witnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim that their writings are divine, rather than human, inorigin.(2) ~ Voddie Baucham

The bottom line

If it's not the Holy Spirit, what is it? It could be the burrito you had for lunch or a bunch of other things, including demonic influence. After all, their leader's title, Satan, means accuser or liar, and as Paul writes in 2 Cor, he masquerades as an angel of light.

Is the Holy Spirit going to give you peace about something that contradicts Scripture? Gossiping about someone instead of going to them and seeking reconciliation? Treating someone with contempt instead of loving with God's love even the people you don't like?

Here’s what He will give you peace about — that the Bible is trustworthy — even when we don’t understand it all or it rubs our cultural sensibilities the wrong way.

Just ask Him. He likes that.

Wisdom:

Passage: Psalm 108
Translation: NLT (New Living Translation)
Verses: 13
Words: ~213

Love you!

-R

ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.

Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.

Sources and resources:

Thank you for supporting this ministry should you choose to use the Amazon affiliate links below.

(1) “Reflections: Classic and Contemporary Excerpts,” Christianity Today (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, 1989), 34.

(2) Voddie Baucham, “Why You Can Believe the Bible,” September 10, 2014, lecture video, https://youtu.be/5RFK5u51khA.

Not cited today, but one of my faves! —> Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008).

#922: Romans 9-10 | "I have a peace about it" | Psalm 108