40 years ago — July 14, 1975
The Holy Spirit is God in us, Christ in us — in us individually, more fully in us corporately, as a fellowship, as the church. How then does the Holy Spirit help us to grow? In part, Jesus suggests, because he leads us as individuals as a company of believers into a fuller knowledge of the truth. Inspired words … from the past … are not sufficient. It is not that we outgrow these words. Rather that the spirit will build on them, bring out their full meaning for our own day. “He will glorify me,” said Jesus, “for he will take what is mine, and declare it to you.” The danger of looking to the past alone, to the words of Scripture … is that we too easily elude God’s pressing demands for the present hour. … So it has been with the movement for racial justice. … Individual Christians, both lay and clerical, were in the vanguard. …Young people brought pressure on their elders. … Church members as a whole responded more slowly, but they did respond and continue to do so.
From the Sunday school helps “The Holy Spirit in Christian growth” by Ernest T. Thompson.
