Acting in the spirit

Christians have big goals. One big goal is to act in the spirit. Daily we should do things, speak, and pray in a way that is spiritual. This is only possible if we tap into our spirit. We need to access our own spirit if we will act spiritually.

You likely have not noticed how frequently the Bible commands us to act in the spirit, so we’re going to examine some examples. With them, we’ll get a better idea of why tapping into our spirit is so important for a Christian.

Here are the examples we'll study:

Paul purposed in the spirit to go to Jerusalem after he had passed through Macedonia… (Acts 19:21; NASB)

… when you are praising God in the spirit, how can someone else, who is now put in the position of an inquirer, say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you are saying? (1 Corinthians 14:16)

… in whom [the Lord Jesus] you also are built up together into a dwelling place of God in spirit (Ephesians 2:22; LEB).

… pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests… and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people (Ephesians 6:18).

Obscuring the Meaning

It’s not your fault if you haven’t noticed the Bible commands to act in the spirit because the majority of Bible translations have obscured its meaning. How have they done this? By capitalizing the S in spirit to make it say Spirit—that is, Bible translators are giving you the notion that the meaning of acting in the spirit is to act in the Holy Spirit.

However, when the Bible speaks of purposing in the spirit, praising in the spirit, building ourselves up in in the spirit, and praying in the spirit, the idea is that these actions are incumbent upon you and me. We should not wait for the Holy Spirit to carry out these actions. We need to act through our own spirit to fulfill these goals! These actions involve personal responsibility.

A Capital Offense

Bible translators haven’t changed the word spirit to another word, but they have added capitalization. That may sound like a minor issue, but it's not when you're dealing with the word spirit. In fact, capitalization completely changes the meaning of the word.

Meaning varies greatly with capitalization in English. Consider how upper-case and lower-case letters change the meaning of words drastically with these examples:

• will and Will

• march and March

• earth and Earth

• mark and Mark

• hamlet and Hamlet

• lent and Lent

• may and May

So, are there really errors in your Bible? Yes. When the word spirit is mistranslated as Spirit, the truth stolen from the reader is that the essential you—the life power within—needs to be activated. Your spirit needs to be actioned.

Bad translators replace the truth of your personal responsibility to tap into your spirit with this: the obscure notion that “the mysterious Holy Spirit is responsible for doing some mysterious things.” The negative effect is that Christians will relegate responsibility to the Holy Spirit when they should be assuming responsibility themselves.

God is trying to tell us in his Word that we must act and live through our spirit, not on the level of our flesh—and not even on the level of our soul! Both of those are insufficient. We must act on the level of our spirit. We must be spiritual people, acting in the spirit. There is no substitute. We have to follow that example, the one Jesus left us.

Failed Translators

Let’s consider the kinds of people who become Bible translators: Most are academics with an overdependence on their intellect. Very few of them are Pentecostals. Very few have a passion for acting in the power of the Holy Spirit and using the gifts. Almost none of them claim to have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Can you see why these men can’t comprehend what it means to be in the spirit? 

Bible translators might have PhDs from fancy seminaries and they might know ancient texts, but they reveal their misunderstanding of Christian spirituality through their mistakes in capitalization. These mistakes can be found in every English translation on the market.

If you were to perform a survey in various seminaries among professors of Greek and Hebrew, asking professional Bible translators who the Holy Spirit is, 90% of them would robotically reply “the third Person of the Holy Trinity.” That response reveals that they don’t know anything about the Spirit. And they don't.

But what effect does the error of translators (experts in ancient Hebrew and Greek) have on the everyday reader of the Bible? By capitalizing the S of spirit, and changing the meaning of many Bible texts, Bible translators are not only ridding themselves of the responsibility to be spiritual—they're transmitting that neglect, and exempting from responsibility everyone who reads their errors. It's a travesty!

Now, let's examine four passages that affirm our need to act in the spirit.

1. Purposing Things in the spirit

Here's the first:

Paul purposed in the spirit to go to Jerusalem after he had passed through Macedonia… (Acts 19:21; NASB)

When you purpose to do something in the spirit, it means that you have made a deep commitment to fulfilling what you have decided to do. Nothing can change your mind. But why not? Can’t people change their mind even after making a commitment? Yes, but not if they have purposed something in the spirit!

Your will is part of your soul. You may have also heard a person’s will called his volition. Your soul is the seat of your will. That’s where you exercise free volition--from your soul.

A human being normally purposes to do things in their soul; however, if you purpose in your spirit to do something, you have committed yourself on a deeper level than your soul. You have consecrated the deepest part of your being to fulfilling a task. A resolute cowboy or pioneer from the 19th century American West would say that they would do something “come Hell or high water” if they purposed to do it.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were waiting to set a trap for Paul in Jerusalem. They hated him with all their might. Paul knew that his life would be in danger in Jerusalem. That’s why he had to purpose in spirit to go there.

Likewise, when you need to do something that goes against your own will—something that you feel and think badly about—that’s when you have to purpose to do it in your spirit. You have to go to the deepest level of commitment.

2. Praising God in the spirit

Here's our second example of acting in the spirit:

… when you are praising God in the spirit, how can someone else, who is now put in the position of an inquirer, say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you are saying? (1 Corinthians 14:16)

Praising God in the spirit is praising God not with words that come from your rational understanding. On the contrary, it’s when you voice things about God with words that were not premeditated. They were not written on paper. You didn’t read them from a prayer book or hymnal. You let the words come out of your heart, not your mind—through your mouth.

The words might not make any sense to others or to you. That’s okay. They might be in indecipherable. There are different kinds of tongues.

3. Built Up Together in spirit

The third passage we should consider is this:

… in whom [the Lord Jesus] you also are built up together into a dwelling place of God in spirit (Ephesians 2:22; LEB).

When we are built up together in spirit, that means that through prayer, fasting, the Word, or through fellowship we become spiritually strong. We become edified spiritually. We receive strengthening through spiritual means. Other means God has established are the Lord’s Supper, confession, the exercising of gifts, practicing good deeds, singing worship and praise. If you do those things with those with others, you are building one another up in spirit.

Here's the same passage from a different (and good) translation:

… in whom [Jesus] you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God (Ephesians 2:22; NRSV-UE).

4. Pray in the spirit

To pray in the spirit is to pray, but not with your understanding. When you disconnect from your normal thought processes and allow the deep cry of your heart rise to the surface, you have prayed in the spirit. Such a heart cry may come out with groanings deeper than words or in tongues. We are commanded to pray this way, so we need to make it a habit.

… pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests… and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people (Ephesians 6:18).

Clouding Meaning

The Holy Spirit has become the primary victim of the lies of the Trinitarians—not that he loses anything. We are the losers! If the Church continues to pay attention to the vagueness and opaque theology expressed in bad translations, the Holy Spirit becomes more obscured and less known. Have you noticed that hardly anyone can talk about him intelligently in churches these days?

The Trinitarian definition of the Spirit in churches shuts down conversation by mystifying the Holy Spirit. Their definition of the Spirit has relegated him to anonymity. For them, he is simply “the third Person of the Trinity.” And what does that mean? Nothing.

If the Trinity is a mystery, then speaking of the “third Person” also means nothing.

If the first thing you teach about the Holy Spirit is that he is part of an undefinable mystery (meaning that he cannot be explained), then capitalizing Spirit in the experiences we're examining today makes the experiences themselves unknowable:

• purposing in the Spirit?

• praising in the Spirit?

• building ourselves up in in the Spirit?

• praying in the Spirit?

Demystify the Spirit

Once these expressions become mysterious and vague, they also become useless. If you’re waiting for the Holy Spirit to do them, but they are actions you must initiate with your spirit, then they will never happen. If these things are incumbent upon us, and we need to activate our spirits, the translations that interpret them with a capital S (Spirit), tempt us to inactivity.

We should not be confused by these verses. There are many many more. Among the most famous is the unity of the spirit passage:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope… (Ephesians 4:3-4)

A quick survey of 32 different translations reveals that only one (the New American Bible, a Catholic version), uses the lower-case s in Ephesians 4:3. All others cloud the meaning of the passage by forcing the text to state something absurd: “That we must keep the Holy Spirit’s unity which is that we have him as our One Spirit.” It’s a convoluted and muddled statement, but almost 100% of translators insist that it’s the meaning of the passage.

And if spiritual unity among Christians is actually not ours, but a unity that belongs to the Holy Spirit—what is that unity that he has? And how will we make every effort to keep something we cannot define nor do we control?

False teachers cannot define the Trinity and they cannot define what it means to be one of the three “Persons” of the Trinity, but they have made the Trinity the centerpiece of their theology. We, on the other hand, will continue to demystify the Spirit.

We treat God’s Word as it is, a revelation. The Word does not conceal truths, it reveals them. It does not hide God's will, it shows it.

As you continue to read your Bible and you identify the capitalization errors, assume responsibility for the meaning. Think. Sort out the correct interpretation, and free yourself from the vagueness.

Learn how to act in the spirit. Join the struggle of overcoming the vagueness of bad translations. Be in touch with your own spirit.