How well do you know the Third Person of the Trinity?
Margaret Feinberg’s latest book gives the reader examples of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and expands understanding about his role beyond what many only know about from the events at Pentecost in the book of Acts in the New Testament. The subject is one that Margaret has been looking into since her parents were a part of the Jesus Movement in the 1970’s. Her goal was to discover the power and presence of the Spirit (the third part of the Trinity) in Israel’s history.
The book’s ten chapters leads the reader to look at this by defining nine areas where the Spirit functions beginning in Genesis up through Acts. Each chapter includes stories known to those who read and study scripture about how the Spirit manifested himself in that area then adds some of Margaret’s personal experiences which began in childhood when she read the Bible before going to bed to stave off nightmares that troubled her.
This early exposure for Margaret resulted in wanting to discover why she sensed a gap between the lives she read about in the Bible and her own world.
“If the power of the Spirit opened blind eyes, animated frozen limbs, and roused corpses to life, then why wasn’t the Spirit doing these things today, where I could see them?” Margaret Feinberg
Margaret’s discoveries ultimately led her to write this book despite a keen awareness her vulnerability in sharing might result in misunderstanding given the varied views on the Holy Spirit. But after time and more than a little prayer, she opens her journey to the reader. She starts the reader on the path with these words:
“Each of the following nine chapters will help crystallize for you a characteristic of the Spirit of God and spotlight how ruach engages us in everyday life. The personal stories I’ll be sharing with you are a culmination of decades of living in search of the Spirit. To be honest, I’ve been hesitant to share some of them. Like you, I fear vulnerability and the sting of rejection. My relationship with God, like yours, is tender. There’s a real possibility that you will respond to some of these stories with disbelief or dismiss them as coincidence.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the word ruach, it’s a Hebrew word which means “Spirit” and can also mean “breath” and “wind.” Those meanings may be helpful to keep in mind as she writes and uses the Hebrew word in many of her stories.
Her first chapter describes her search and then comes the following nine characteristics she discovers:
- The Spirit Who Hovers
- The Spirit While We Sleep
- The Artisan Spirit
- The Spirit Who Wears Us Well
- The Spirit Who Speaks Through Us
- The Spirit Who Works in the Waiting
- The Spirit Who Wastes Nothing
- The Spirit Who Says “Go”
- The Spirit Who Heals Divides
You may find these topics interesting and well worth consideration of what she discovered. Since the final gift Jesus left his disciples before leaving the earth was the Spirit who would be with them, guide them, and advocate for them when He no longer walked the earth with them it’s significant to understand.
Reading about the lives of the disciples gives more than a little evidence of how this gift changed each of their lives and built the church today. This is the same Spirit that hovered over the earth when it was formless and empty, darkness everywhere. The Spirit of God hovered over the depth and life came forth. Would we not want to know that Spirit better than we may?
Near the end of the book Margaret reminds us…
“One of the trademarks of the Spirit is building bridges, not barriers, and this restorative work of the Spirit is anchored in the character of God.”
I confess I have been a fan of Margaret Feinberg since I first heard her speak at a World Conference of the American Association of Christian Counselors. She was on the agenda to speak early one morning and after several days of many great speakers whose names you would recognize and workshops galore, I planned to sleep in that morning because I had never heard of this woman. But I woke up earlier than planned and felt convicted about skipping the session simply because I didn’t know the speaker and hurriedly dressed and went to hear her. She was in the midst of battling cancer and what she shared led me to buy several of her books. (I think I have all of them now.)
Her impact continued on me when she offered a Writers’ Boot Camp in Colorado in 2015 that I chose to attend and led to my own growth as a writer and author including developing this website and blog.
The God You Need to Know is a book I encourage you to consider.