Spirit Led Living

  There is a quiet tension running through the life of every believer. On one side sits the pull toward recognition, toward being seen as wise, influential, or spiritually superior. On the other side stands the call of the gospel, which has always moved in the opposite direction, toward servanthood, sacrifice, and the kind of love that sometimes looks like foolishness to the watching world. The apostle Paul understood this tension deeply, and in his first letter to the Corinthians, he lays out what might be the most practical and challenging leadership masterclass in all of Scripture. The Under-Oarsmen Paul opens the fourth chapter of 1 Corinthians by describing teachers and leaders as "servants and stewards of the mysteries of God." The Greek word he uses for servant is huperites, which literally refers to an under-oarsman, one of the rowers in the lower deck of a vessel who provides the muscle and effort while taking direction from above. It is a striking image. These are n...

  There is a question worth sitting with today, one that has the power to change the way you move through the world: What if the most sacred space on earth is not a building at all, but you? That is not a motivational slogan. It is a theological reality that the Apostle Paul pressed into the hearts of the early church at Corinth, and it is just as urgent and just as radical now as it was then. The Problem With Putting People on Pedestals The church at Corinth had a division problem. Members were splitting into camps based on which teacher they preferred. Some rallied around Paul. Others claimed Apollos. The loyalty was fierce and the factions were real. And Paul's response was not to defend himself or to argue for his own superiority. His response was to reframe the entire conversation. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul makes clear that teachers, pastors, and leaders are nothing more than servants assigned to specific tasks. One plants. Another waters. But neither the one who plants nor the...

  Pablo Casals was considered the greatest cellist of the first half of the 20 th Century. He married my cousin, Marta Casals Istomin, when I was a child. One summer, I got to spend a few days with them at their beach house in Puerto Rico. I would listen for hours as he practiced the piano and the cello. I would sit in their listening room to their extensive collection of classical music albums. That summer began to shape my musical ear and tastes. I would be in awe and world class musicians just stopped by to chat with him and play music. However, what became life changing was when Don Pablo would take the time to sit and talk to this snotty nosed kid about life, philosophy, and music. He would light his pipe and talk at length about Bach and Beethoven. He would talk so long that his pipe would go out, and he would have to light it again and then go off on another monologue about his philosophy of life. I still remember the smell of his pipe. It was just a few times that we...

  There is a question that cuts through centuries of religious debate, philosophical argument, and cultural noise: What does the church have that the world does not? It is a question worth sitting with, because the answer shapes everything about how we understand faith, community, and the presence of God. The answer is not better entertainment. It is not more compelling rhetoric. It is not a sharper intellectual framework or a more sophisticated moral philosophy. The answer is the living presence of the Holy Spirit, moving among people, revealing the depths of God to those who belong to him. That is the irreplaceable, unreplicatable gift at the center of the Christian life. A Message That Stands Apart When the apostle Paul arrived in Corinth, he made a deliberate choice. He was not going to compete with the eloquent orators and celebrated philosophers of his day. He was not going to out-argue the intellectuals or out-perform the rhetoricians. Instead, as he writes in 1 Corinthians ...