THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A GENTLEMAN

One sure mark of a gentleman is that he does not impose himself upon others. Because of the innate selfishness that they have to overcome, it is a difficult lesson to teach children. The infant cries at all hours of the day or night, wholly unconcerned as to who loses how much sleep. The childhood years are not much better, for it is a rather long story of imposition. It takes a lot of training to cultivate a gentleman. Something like growing an oak to maturity.

There is a young mother in our neighborhood that the children all love. She is among the first to see a new bike, the first pair of long pants, and the report cards on report card day. She gets in on all the juvenile adventures, from a girl scout outing to a family fishing expedition. We could say that being an airline pilot’s wife she has time for such things, but it is more accurate to say that she has learned to love children. But still kids should be taught not to impose, even on people who seem not to mind.

Our little Phoebe is trying out for the school choir. Yes, you guessed it. She was soon auditioning before the dear young mother who has learned to bear all things. And to bear with Phoebe in her solos is to go far beyond the duty of being a good neighbor. I would gently suggest to Phoebe: “That is fine, but you must learn not to impose yourself on people.” It is such a hard lesson to teach. It is equally hard to learn. I find myself imposing on others, such as invading their privacy, which a man still has even when he sits next to me on an airplane. Or on the highway when I carelessly fail to dim my car lights or follow the car ahead too closely. A man often imposes on his wife by causing her to pick up after him or by making unreasonable demands.

I constantly urge our Benjy and Philip that their first lesson in life is to learn to take care of themselves. Don’t do it if you have to be a burden on somebody. Pay your own way. Carry your own load. Make it a rule in life not to get into a situation where somebody else has to take care of you. It is far better to take care of somebody else than for somebody else to take care of you. We are often reading the Proverbs, which constantly warn of the hazards of imposing on others. That includes the girls, I tell them. No gentleman ever imposes himself upon a woman for her attentions. It includes talking to people. It includes asking for things.

In all such efforts in teaching this aspect of the good life we have a noble illustration of the gentleman. The Holy Spirit is the perfect gentleman. Despite all that he has to offer, regardless of all the gifts he has to bestow, he never imposes himself on anyone. It is a delightful lesson to be learned. It may well be that in learning of the Spirit’s complete unwillingness to impose his goodness upon the reluctant we will correct some of the abuses now prevalent.

The Spirit is an activist, an extreme activist. All through the scriptures we find him doing, doing, doing. He is short on theory, long on practice. Nearly all activists impose both their person and their ideas on others, but not the Holy Spirit. He is the one activist who always knocks, and he has no interest in getting a foot in the door. When the door is opened wide and there is an obvious welcome, he will enter. Even then he works quietly. He has no gift of gab and he is no super salesman.

The Alcoholics Anonymous have learned this lesson better than any humanitarian organization I know of. They never impose what they have to offer on anyone. They don’t bother with lectures. They are too busy practicing what others preach. One lady called the A. A. in behalf of her alcoholic husband, only to be told: “Madam, he’ll have to call and ask us to help him.” The Holy Spirit works that way. We should dispense with the idea that the Holy Spirit is pounding away on the outside of us trying to get in, like a spoiled dog running from door to window trying to get back into the house.

A look at some of the things the Holy Spirit does for folk, and the way he does them, will confirm the point. A magnificent instance of what he does for us is in Rom. 8:26: “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. We do not know how we ought to pray, but through our inarticulate groans the Spirit himself is pleading for us, and God who searches our inmost being knows what the Spirit means, because he pleads for God’s people in God’s own way.”

Here we see the Spirit as an activist, and doesn’t the New English Bible make it clearer what the Spirit does for us in the context of prayer? It is when we are weak, when we realize that we must have help beyond ourselves, that the Spirit comes to our aid. In our faltering, stumbling efforts to pray to God in our agony the Spirit pleads for us “through our inarticulate groans” in God’s own way. God understands what the Spirit is saying when he takes our fumbling utterances and pleads for us in our weakness. What a beautiful truth this is!

But the Spirit is reluctant to come to one’s aid in such a manner if he is self-reliant and is unaware of any such need. There are people who are “so full of the Book” that they experience no such weakness as is talked about here. The Holy Spirit helps weak people. The strong move along on their own resources. A gentleman never imposes himself upon the strong; he rather yields himself to the cry of the weak.

In Eph. 1:17 Paul speaks of God giving us “the spiritual powers of wisdom and vision, by which there comes the knowledge of him.” He goes on to say: “I pray that your inward eyes may be illumined, so that you may know what is the hope to which he calls you, what the wealth and glory of the share he offers you among his people in their heritage, and how vast the resources of his power open to us who trust in him.”

What a thing this is that the Holy Spirit does for us—if we want him to. It sounds like the hidden manna that Jesus promised to the congregation at Pergamum, or to the bread that our Lord had to eat that the disciples knew not of. There is within all of us the potential for subjective insight as well as objective sight. The “inward eyes” refers to the human spirit that is capable of communing with the Holy Spirit, as Rom. 8:16 indicates: “In that cry the Spirit of God joins with our spirit in testifying that we are God’s children.”

It is when we really hunger and thirst for the resources of his power, when we really want to know God, that the Spirit enlightens our inner eyes so that we might see in a new dimension. The Spirit does his work on men who have “humble and contrite hearts,” to use Isaiah’s description, who assures us that God looks with favor on this kind of man (Isa. 66:2). Or as Paul puts it in Gal. 5:5: “For to us, our hope of attaining that righteousness which we eagerly await is the work of the Spirit through faith.” The Spirit serves those who eagerly await his blessings. There is an important relationship between man’s “want to” and the Spirit’s function.

Then there is “the harvest of the Spirit,” which according to Paul’s list in Gal. 5:22 is ninefold: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control. Here we have a description of the new humanity, the new man in Christ. He is born of the Spirit and thus bears his likeness. These are not virtues that we are to try to cultivate in our lives, but are rather the Spirit’s harvest in us once we yield to his leading. Notice that gentleness is one of them, and what a precious gift that is in our ruthless world. And what better way is there to become gentle than by associating with a gentleman?

So it is with all that the Spirit does for us. He fills us, seals us, leads us, dwells within us, gives us new life, prays for us, reveals things to us, enlightens us, manifests God’s love through us. No wonder Paul could write: “the Holy Spirit was poured out for all of us to drink” (1 Cor. 12:13); and then he urges us to get drunk at that fountain (Eph. 5:18).

But in all this there is no imposition on the Spirit’s part. He remains the perfect gentleman all the way through. But someone may insist that the Spirit does indeed take the initiative and forces his way into our lives even when we do not want him. “After all does not 1 Thess. 5:19 tell us not to quench the Spirit,” someone may say, “and does not this mean that he is trying to work in us and we won’t let him?”

Hardly. In urging the Thessalonians to “Quench not the Spirit, despise not prophesying,” he is telling them not to interfere with the Spirit’s work in others in the congregation. As the NEB puts it: “Do not stifle inspiration.” Or as Paul puts it in 1 Cor. 14:39: “Do not forbid speaking in tongues.” The Spirit does not force light upon anyone, nor will he make folk speak in tongues. But when such gifts are possible in a congregation we are not to adopt such an attitude about it as to dampen a brother’s zeal and thus quench the Spirit’s work in his life.

In our area Delta Airlines advertises on the radio with a ditty that goes Delta is ready when you are! It is catchy, and it gets the idea across that a plane is waiting to fly you to New Orleans or Miami, whenever you are ready. But it does not suggest that the Delta officials are going to kidnap passengers and force them into their planes. Delta is ready whenever we are. We have no right to ask more. So it is with the Holy Spirit. He is ready when we are. He may have opened Lydia’s heart, leading to her conversion, as we are told in Acts 16, but it was because Lydia was ready for such an experience. She had turned the knob on her side of the door.

The implications of the thesis of this article are far-reaching, for if the Spirit does not impose himself to what extent are we to do so? Religion is a very personal thing, and for the most part my attitude should be “to each his own,” and I should practice the fine art of minding my own religion. It is noteworthy that Jesus never appears to have any desire for people to accept what he says because he says it. He wants them to think for themselves and to relate what he says to their own needs, each in his own way. He certainly was no dogmatist who insists that everyone see a thing his way. It was so with Socrates and with Ghandi, and all the great teachers who influenced multitudes. They never imposed their ideas on others. They testified to what God meant to them, and to the truth as they saw it, but never in a dogmatic or arbitrary way. The great teachers have all sought to unite men, but never to conform them to their own views. It was a unity in diversity, not conformity, that they sought.

Ours has hardly been a gentleman’s religion. We argue it, defend it, and debate it far more than we live it. We may never admit to forcing it on others, but our attitude often amounts to that. A Quaker working in a foreign country in some humble task for peace was asked a rather novel question by one of the officials of that country: “Why don’t you people preach what you practice?” No one will ever ask us anything like that, for we have lots of theory, lots of talk, lots of preach, lots of judging of others. It is the practice of the golden rule that we are short on.

It is my sacred duty to reverence your own unique relationship to Jesus. It is true that some things are better felt than told. And besides, you are not obligated to tell me about it anyway. True, if you have learned something that you think would be of help to me, then you should share it with me, and let it go at that. Leave it to me to make what use of it I may. It may or may not effect me in the same way as it did you. But still I can love you for sharing it with me, and I can esteem it as something genuine in your own life.

Jesus tells us: “Do not give dogs what is holy; do not throw your pearls to the pigs” (Mt. 7:6). Your own precious experiences in Jesus may be such that they could hardly be appreciated by most people. They are your pearls. Treasure them as such. Religion can be so personal and intimate that in most circumstances it would be as inappropriate to talk about it as it would be for a man to discuss the delicate and intimate experiences with his wife. I am not calling nice folk dogs and pigs, but even nice folk may be unable to appreciate one’s personal communion with God. The holy ground of every man’s heart should be held sacred by all the rest of us. We should not venture into such sacred confines anymore than we would barge into a couple’s bedroom. If the marriage bed is holy so is a man’s personal conscience.

This line of thought leaves me uneasy with any kind of imposition of our religion. Certainly we are to preach the gospel and win souls for Jesus, but this must be done in such a way that we do not insist that the end-product is a carbon copy of ourselves. Are we willing, for instance, for them to go to somebody else’s church once we have converted them?

I am left uneasy by the tax-free status of billions of dollars of property held by the churches. Why should we impose our tax bill on the man down the block who happens not to care for our religion? Still he has to pay extra taxes and help support our way of believing. It is an imposition.

Life in the Spirit will make us increasingly sensitive to the rights and feelings of others, for the Spirit is the perfect gentleman.—the Editor