I Am Not a Temple of the Holy Spirit

       I am not a temple of the Holy Spirit?

       I am a part of that one temple.  But, not one of millions of little temples.
       That needs a little more explanation.  Or, of course, you could just proclaim me a heretic and start looking for firewood.  Okay, so, while somebody gathers some branches and kindling, bear with me and read the rest of this post. 

Do We Worship One God?

Second post in the series: Binitarian Worship

In the first post (posted on May 28) on this multi-post topic, Binitarian Worship, I related the fact that neither the Bible nor the early church provides an example of believers addressing (praying to, speaking to, singing to) the Holy Spirit.  In this second post, I want to explore and emphasize the implications of Trinitarian monotheism.  As we will see, the question of praying to the Spirit is intertwined with how we are thinking about the nature of God.         

        It is one God and only one God we gather to worship.

        “Here, O Israel, the Lord our God: the Lord is One God.” (Dt 6:4)

        “I am the Lord and there is no other.  Besides me there is no God. (Is 45:5)

        “For there is one God.” (1 Tm 2:5)

        However we ultimately define what we mean by Father, Son, and Spirit we must begin with this essential and unchangeable affirmation:  It is one God we worship.  The one God who is God.  It is to this God and no other that we direct our praise and prayer.  Get this wrong, or even get is just partly wrong, and we have utterly lost our way.

A Church Where no one Worshipped the Spirit

In the early church, no Christian offered praise to the Holy Spirit.  No prayers to Him are recorded.  No praises to Him can be found.  No one thanks Him or asks Him for anything.  Not a single phrase of a single song.  Not once.  It is just not there. 

This blog post will be the first of several posts (not in a row) that will address this thorny issue. 

Larry Hurtado, in his insightful book, Early Christian Worship, makes note of this.  He refers to this as the Binitarian nature of early Christian worship.