Thy Kingdom Come: A Blumhardt Reader - Plough

T H E H o ly s p i r i T a n d H i s G i f T sThe Holy spirit is the spirit of Truth. Consequently,he preaches to us in our hearts—especially in reminding usof what Jesus said, renewing this in our minds and makingit ever clearer to us. And so the believing disciple carries, orought to carry, this master teacher within himself.Thus, it is not particularly necessary for him time andagain to bear some human preacher who tells him every detailand splits hairs in explaining things. It ought not tobe the case that a person is without further instruction justbecause no bodily teacher is present. No, the instructioncontinues—and just that much more powerfully becauseit comes not simply to the outward ears but from within,awakening the mind and spirit. Everything becomes muchclearer than when one is instructed primarily through externalwords and still has to consider at length, “What do thesewords mean?”But the Spirit, as master teacher, grants us inward revelation;we “see” what otherwise is only heard and thought. Weunder-stand profoundly, even when, now and then, wordsfail. Thus should the Holy Spirit be our teacher.(Johann Christoph Blumhardt)our basic prayer always should be for the coming ofthe Holy Spirit. Of course, this is a tremendous request in7