Editorial: Discerning the work of the Holy Spirit

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

3093 Edition

June 6-12, 2011

Editorial

Editorial: Discerning the work of the Holy Spirit

Translated by Lydia Ma

According to John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, the Holy 
Spirit is omnipresent, uncontainable, and gives life to all of creation, and is 
truly the Spirit of God. In other words, the Holy Spirit’s presence is not 
limited to special church services, but can be sensed in all of creation since 
the beginning of creation.

However, many Christians mistakenly think of the work of the Holy Spirit only 
as an intimate experience during a worship session, and fail to see the Holy 
Spirit also at work in the ecumenical world in the renewing of faith and 
justice movements. They also fail to sense the Holy Spirit’s call to them to 
take part in these movements.

The work of the Holy Spirit is intricately related to the will of God, as the 
Prophet Micah once said, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what 
does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk 
humbly with your God. “(Micah 6:8). From this passage, we see clearly that 
justice, mercy, and humility are all works of the Holy Spirit.

As Christians living in Taiwan, we must seriously ask ourselves whether we are 
narrowing the work of the Holy Spirit and whether we are becoming disinterested 
in justice and public issues. For example, we cannot avoid addressing climate 
justice when governments seek to become economic powerhouses at any cost to the 
environment. We’ve seen this happen many times in Taiwan – from plans to build 
Kuokuang Petrochemical Plant to the razing of rice paddies in Dapu, Miaoli, we 
simply cannot remain idle any longer and allow God’s creation – our beautiful 
Taiwan – be trampled and abused by human greed and ignorance.

Likewise, we cannot ignore issues such as “fair taxation”, “economic justice” 
and growing income disparity and unequal resource allocation in our country 
today. According to 2008 government records, the richest 5% in Taiwan had 66 
times more wealth than the poorest 5%, and this figure rose to 75 times by 2009.

With these trends in mind, we must reflect on these issues during Pentecost to 
avoid compartmentalizing the work of the Holy Spirit and to discover the Holy 
Spirit’s work in advancing justice in this world. We pray that the Holy Spirit 
will renew us and open our eyes so that we may become more aware of justice 
issues. After all, having a growing awareness and sensitivity to justice issues 
around us is what Jesus meant when he taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, 
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  

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