Not Top Billing

Most of us remember "The Apostle's Creed" not because we set out to learn it.  We just repeated it so many times, we learned it without ever knowing we were learning it.   Like many others, it would be impossible to know how many times I have repeated this ancient creed in worship.  It is interesting the way it enables us to affirm belief in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  But, have you ever noticed that it only takes twelve words to speak about God and over five times that many to define what we believe about Jesus.  And, then we wrap it up with "I believe in the Holy Spirit."  Put a big period at the end of that creedal statement.  Six words is all it takes. 

 

It almost seems that affirming belief in the Holy Spirit was an afterthought.  With the Holy Spirit there are no defining words and no embellishing statements.  Maybe this should not surprise since the Holy Spirit does not call attention to Himself, but instead always points people toward God the Father and Jesus the Son.  When we read the Scripture very little is written about the Holy Spirit.  As the author of the Word, the Holy Spirit certainly does not call attention to Himself.  The Creed we learned as children does this as well.

 

Surely, this tells us an important truth about the Spirit.  While there has been a time when the Holy Spirit was almost completely off the radar of the church, nowadays when we listen it sometimes seems that the Holy Spirit is in the spotlight on center stage.  Unfortunately, the focus is on His power and how believers can use the Holy Spirit to get more of what seems to be needed in life.  It is as if He is some spiritual power wheel which turns to bring benefit to us in our spiritual lives.  Maybe the ancient writers had something else in mind when they simply wrote, "I believe in the Holy Spirit."