The previous blog post [Blog | FCCM - First Christian Church of Mableton] covered the fact that the Bible warns us not to:

  • Blaspheme the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:29)
  • Resist the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51)
  • Quench the Holy Spirit (1st Thessalonians 5:19)
  • Or Grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30)

It is natural, therefore, to want to understand what each of those terms means. And, as is so often the case with scriptures, we build our understanding from the context in which those verses were written and/or from the verses that immediately follow them. Using this approach, we see that:

To blaspheme the Holy Spirit (which Jesus said is the unforgivable sin) means to believe and say that Jesus performed His miracles by the power of Satan rather than by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Stephen (the first Christian to be killed for his faith) states in Acts chapter 7 that to resist the Spirit is essentially to resist the message of the prophets through whom the Spirit speaks. We resist the Holy Spirit when we read something in the Bible that we would rather not be there and choose to ignore that part of its teachings.

Looking at 1st Thessalonians chapter 5, we get a very similar definition of what it means to quench the Spirit. Here, though, the Apostle Paul seems to be saying that to quenching the Spirit is just ignoring the Bible all together or giving equal weight to the Bible and other religious or moral philosophy literature. The Bible is inspired of the Holy Spirit and to claim to be a Christian without focusing on the Bible as being of primary importance is quenching the flame of truth the Holy Spirit is trying to ignite and keep alight in you.

When Paul writes “do not grieve the Spirit…” in Ephesians 4:30, he answers the implied question “how do we not grieve the Spirit” in the following couple of verses. We grieve the Spirit when we are bitter and angry, slandering people and wishing them harm (verse 31). On the contrary Paul says in verse 32 we should be kind to one another and forgive one another, so as not to grieve the Spirit.