02 How does the Holy Spirit Work? Universal vs Individual

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. Ahead on today's podcast, we'll be looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 12. This is the second talk in my series called Who is the Holy Spirit? Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast, and you can also find them on my website, just go to wednesdayintheword.com slash Holy Spirit 2. Glad to have you along. Well, my goal in this series is to understand what the scripture says about the Holy Spirit. I'm trying to build an understanding from the bottom up. Rather than trying to answer specific questions about the Holy Spirit, I'm approaching the passages with the goal of understanding what do they say? What does Scripture want to tell us about the Holy Spirit? In the last podcast, I introduced you to two themes that we're going to see over and over in this series. First, the Holy Spirit is God's invisible agent of change. As we go through these passages, we're going to see the Holy Spirit intervening in creation to accomplish God's purposes. He is God's agent of change. He's the one who makes things different. He intervenes in creation for God to accomplish God's purposes. And then second, perhaps the most crucial change that the Holy Spirit brings about is the inner transformation of believers. Without this inner transformation, this inner work of the Spirit, we cannot be saved. This is what the scripture refers to as being born again or born from above. The Holy Spirit is God's agent of change and one of his most crucial works is to work inside the hearts of rebellious sinners to change them from rebels into people who want to follow God and worship him. Well today I want to look at first Corinthians chapter twelve, and here we're going to see two more themes. Even though there is very little specific instruction about the Holy Spirit in this chapter, this passage is important to a study of the Holy Spirit because one of Paul's goals in this section is to give the Corinthians the right perspective on spirituality. And perspective is important. Think of it this way. If I give you turn by turn instructions on how to get from point A to point B, if you get lost, you have little hope of reaching your destination. But if I give you the lay of the land, kind of roadmaps and landmarks and kind of what's east, what's west, then if you get lost or there's a detour, you have a much better chance of finding your way. That's what I mean by perspective. Giving you the lay of the land gives you the perspective to find your way. And that's what Paul is doing in this chapter. Now I'm not going to cover this passage in detail. I have a series on 1 Corinthians, which does go over this chapter in detail if you're interested. But today I want to look at the big picture and pull out the themes that are important to our study of the Holy Spirit. First let me give you some background to what's going on in this chapter. The practice of speaking in tongues had become a divisive issue in Corinth. You'll remember on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, and they spoke in languages that they did not know, so that people who had gathered from all over the Mediterranean heard the gospel in their native language. Now we're not going to get into the debate over what exactly was going on in Corinth, what kind of tongue speaking was going on. Whatever their practice was, when you study 1 Corinthians twelve, it becomes clear that the practice was dividing the church. There was a misunderstanding about what a person under the influence of the Holy Spirit looks like. Some of the Corinthians thought that if the Spirit was at work in you, you would demonstrate it through these flashy supernatural practices such as speaking in tongues. And if you aren't speaking in tongues, then it's really questionable whether or not you have the spirit at all. You can see how that would be divisive. Some people are looking down on others who don't speak in tongues and judging them as not spiritual. It seems this problem developed from their pagan background. Being involved in idol worship before coming to the faith gave them a certain perspective about what it looks like when the spirit of a god comes upon you. At the Temple of Aphrodite, for example, it looked a certain flashy kind of way, and that's what they expect now as Christians. Well, Paul has a lot to say about this issue. He spends three chapters on it, chapters twelve through fourteen, and we're not going to look at his whole argument, just the piece of it that's in chapter twelve. What I want to highlight is the way that Paul claims the Holy Spirit works in believers. And we're going to see the Holy Spirit does two kinds of works. First, there are what I'm going to call the universal works of the Spirit. These are the things, or this is the thing, that the Holy Spirit does in every person who is elect. If you're a person of faith who believes in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is at work in you doing this universal thing. So I'm calling that the universal work of the Spirit. But then there are individual works of the Spirit, things that the Spirit does in some people, but not in others. And these are going to vary. These are what we commonly think of as spiritual gifts, but I would describe them more as roles or opportunities to serve the body of Christ. And I'm going to call these the individual works of the Spirit. The universal work of the Spirit is what the Holy Spirit does in everyone who believes, and the individual works of the Spirit are those things that the Holy Spirit does in some, but not others according to the will of God. And Paul's going to explain that difference in this chapter. Paul starts out by reminding them that the universal work of the Spirit is belief that Jesus is Lord. So let's look at chapter twelve of 1 Corinthians verses one through three. Now concerning, and I would translate that manifestations of the Spirit, your translation probably has spiritual gifts, but I would read it. Now concerning manifestations of the Spirit, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. So Paul starts out his argument and he says, When you were pagans, before you came to faith in Jesus, you were accustomed to going before idols and having some kind of ecstatic experience. You were accustomed to being carried away. And this past experience tells you that the mark of a God coming upon you is being overcome into this ecstatic emotional experience. But this is not the way the Holy Spirit works. As opposed to the mark of the Spirit being carried off in an exuberant speech, the mark of the Spirit is the ability to say and mean in a profound way that Jesus is Lord. Likewise, the mark of the person who does not have the Spirit of God is that they will say Jesus is accursed. What Paul wants them to see is that the primary work of the Spirit is bringing a person to the place where they say and believe that Jesus is Lord. Now right away you can see the contrast between the Corinthians' perspective on spirituality and what Paul claims is true spirituality. They think spirituality is marked by an emotional, supernatural, ecstatic, exuberant worship kind of experience. And Paul says quite the contrary, true spirituality is faith. It's coming to a place where you look at Jesus, his life, his ministry, his teaching, and you believe he is Lord. So yes, true spirituality is marked by your mouth being taken over by God, but not by speaking in tongues, rather now you will say and mean Jesus is Lord. If your mouth says Jesus is Lord, that is the mark that the Holy Spirit is at work in you, and that is a real miracle, but it's not very flashy. This is the universal work of the Spirit. Paul's going to go on to talk about individual gifts and ways the Spirit works in some believers but not others, but this work, this ability to say and profoundly mean that Jesus is Lord, that's universal among believers. It is a work the Spirit does in every believer. Paul's first point then is this is what the Spirit does in people in whom he's working. The one who curses and rejects Jesus does not have the Spirit of God at work in them. The ones who see Jesus and embrace him and follow him as Lord, these are the ones in whom the Spirit of God is at work. It's not whether you speak in tongues or heal people, it's whether this miracle of saving faith has taken place in you or not. He's contrasting this perspective with the perspective that their pagan background has given them. As he says, when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols. Very likely they were doing something like channeling the spirit of the idol as they danced before the idol, spouting vague proverbs and prophecies while under the influence of herbs and incense and whatever else they were smoking. And that background has distorted how they think about the manifestation of the Spirit of God now that they're believers. And Paul's trying to change their perspective to tell them, look, true spirituality, the true manifestation of the Holy Spirit is nothing like what you're thinking. It's the ability to say and believe that Jesus is Lord. That's what separates a believer from an unbeliever. When you were idol worshippers, you wanted nothing to do with Jesus. If the name of Jesus came up, you would probably curse him because he's not your God and you're not interested in him. But now that you have faith, you are profoundly interested in the name of Jesus. In fact, you cherish the fact that he's Lord. Well, what brought about this change? The Holy Spirit at work inside you. That's the result of the work of the Spirit. Paul starts his argument then with his most important point. Do you want to know what a person possessed, quote unquote, by the Spirit of God looks like? It's not speaking in tongues, it's that the person will say and mean that Jesus is Lord. That's what a person possessed by the Spirit looks like. This is what I'm calling the universal work of the Spirit. If you believe in Jesus, the Spirit of God is at work in you. If you are a believer such that you can say and mean that Jesus is Lord, then the Spirit of God is at work in you and has produced this faith. There's no such thing as a believer in whom the Spirit of God is not at work. The fact that you believe is evidence that the Holy Spirit is already at work in your life. The very fact that you embrace the idea that Jesus is Lord is evidence that the Spirit is at work in you. Then in twelve four he moves on to the second part of his argument. He says there are many ways the Spirit manifests himself that are not meant for everyone, so he's going to go on to talk about the individual works of the Spirit. Let's read twelve four through seven. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. So the Corinthians have this expectation that if you have the Spirit, you will look like everyone else who has the Spirit, and what does that look like? You will speak in tongues. They are thinking that the Spirit shows himself to be present by the ability to speak in tongues in everyone. And Paul says, you've got that wrong. The Spirit shows himself to be in everyone who believes by giving them the ability to say Jesus is Lord. The same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God work differently in different people. There are a variety of gifts. There are many ways to serve and minister. Different believers are going to look different, and that is all part of the purposes and the plans of God, and it's for the common good. One God is at work in all believers, and he has decided to work in them in a variety of ways for the common good. Each individual believer has a particular role to play and an opportunity to serve the body of Christ for the good of the whole body. Here then is the perspective we're looking for. Paul says the universal work of the Spirit is the miracle of saving faith. That's a gift the Holy Spirit gives to everyone who believes. But then there are individual gifts that he gives to some and not to others according to the plans and the purposes of God. And that contrast is the perspective we want to learn. The rest of the chapter talks about this diversity of effects and diversity of gifts. Diversity is not a sign that the spirit is absent. The fact that one person has the gift of tongues and another does not is not a sign that the one without tongues is missing the spirit. The Spirit himself is responsible for this diversity because God wants this kind of diversity in his children. Just because we follow the same God does not mean that the Spirit produces in all of us the exact same things. Yes, the Spirit of God produces faith in all of us, that's the universal, but the rest is diversity. When it comes to these other matters, what he calls gifts of the Spirit, the Spirit does what he wants to do. It's the same Spirit at work in everyone, but there are a variety of gifts. It's the same Lord we all have faith in, but we serve him in different ways. It is the same God who saves us, but we will follow Him through different life circumstances and different opportunities to serve. There are a variety of effects that God causes. So Paul is arguing you Corinthians have picked a certain spiritual gift, tongues, and you've said that is the thing that everyone needs to have. That is the mark of true spirituality. But you Corinthians have lost sight of the fact that this is not the way God works. The reality is there are many manifestations of the Spirit. There are many ways we minister and serve and express our new faith in Christ. Faith is the universal, faith is the mark all believers have, but God gives different manifestations of his spirit to different people according to his purposes. Let's look at what he goes on to say. He makes this very point. This is first Corinthians twelve, eight through eleven. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same spirit, and to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. That's the key point. Look at twelve eleven again. All these, all these different ways that we might serve the body of Christ are empowered by the one and same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as He wills. Now I don't want to look in detail at this section except to say that I understand him to be listing the kinds of diversity of gifts that the Spirit produces in the children of God. So the things in this list are individual gifts. They are not necessarily given to everyone. Some will prophesy, some won't, some will do miracles, some won't, some will speak in tongues, some won't, and some will do healings, and some won't. Now the question that always comes up is why is faith in this list? Especially since in the first three verses of the chapter, Paul made the point that faith is a universal gift that the Spirit gives to all believers. So why would he include it in this section? Without going into too much detail, my best guess is that he's not talking about saving faith here, but a unique kind of faith that some believers have. Later on in chapter 13, too, he talks about the faith that moves mountains. And I think what he's referring to is that some believers are called to face into a specific situation that requires the faith to do miracles. I think the apostles and the prophets would fall into this category. Not only did they have saving faith to enter the kingdom of heaven, the specific role that God tasked them with in history required a great deal of confidence in God's promises. To walk the path that God wanted them to walk, they needed the kind of faith that moves mountains and God gave it to them. So the Spirit gave them the understanding that they could ask for this miracle or this healing and it would happen. Peter and Paul, for example, had the faith to know that God would heal a certain person at a certain time because they understood the role in the task they had been given, and not all of us need or require that kind of faith. I think everyone has saving faith, but only some of us have this kind of faith like an apostle or a prophet in asking for a miracle and knowing that this miracle is part of the will of God and God's going to do it. I think overall his point in this section is that there are a diversity of gifts because this is the will of God. 1211 is his main point. All these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each individually as he wills. That's the main point. You see diversity in the body of Christ among believers because the Spirit of God distributes these gifts according to his will. Diversity is not a sign of lack of the spirit, diversity is part of his plan. And that's the point he goes on to make using this metaphor of the human body. Let's look at twelve and thirteen. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ, for in one spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews are Greeks, slaves are free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. And verse fourteen, for the one body does not consist of one member, but of many. Paul's saying we're united because of the Spirit of God, and he's using two metaphors from two rituals that they were familiar with, both of which imply unity. We were baptized into one body and we were made to drink one spirit. In baptism, you're immersed into something and you become part of it. The teachings of a teacher, the way of life that you've joined. Likewise, when you drink the Lord's Supper, the idea is that we are sharing the same drink. We are all taking part in one whole. That's how he's picturing the spirit. The fact that the same spirit works in all of us gives us something in common that we do not have in common with the rest of the world. We may be very different in every other way. We may be different in race, in gender, in background, in personality, in social status, in education, whatever, but we share the same spirit. We are drawn together and made part of one whole because the same spirit is working in us. We share the most important thing in common. So we believers together are seeking the kingdom of God because the Spirit of God is at work in us. So we've seen the universal work of The Spirit, we've seen the individual gifts of the Spirit, and now we see this third thing the Spirit does for us, which is a bond that the Spirit creates among believers. The very fact that the Spirit is at work in each of us brings us together and unifies us in the same way that various parts of the body are members of the same body. So here then is he goes on with this analogy. I'm going to read verse fifteen through twenty five. If the foot should say because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say because I am not an eye, I did not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? Because as it is, God arranged the members of in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, with which our presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. Paul's metaphor works really well because we very easily and naturally think of our bodies as a whole. We don't divide ourselves up into pieces and systems, it's all me. So on the one hand, we recognize and rejoice in the fact that we have all these diverse parts that work together, and on the other hand, we view it as one unified whole. The point Paul's trying to make here is that instead of judging each other because of the specific manifestations of the spirit or lack thereof, we should rejoice that we're all part of the same body. The Corinthians are looking at those who don't speak in tongues and saying, Well, you're not as spiritual as me because I speak in tongues, and Paul's saying that attitude has got to go. What we should be doing is recognizing we are on this journey together. We are part of the same whole. This whole depends on the fact that we are different, just like the body depends on all the different organs and parts and systems. The body would be useless if it was missing half its parts. But it is a beautiful and wonderful thing when all the parts work together. And that's how you as a community of believers ought to see each other. No ranking, no judging, no coveting, you are all necessary parts of the whole. Just like the physical body, the body of Christ does not work well if everyone has the same job. So you Corinthians, your attitude that, oh, that person is just not spiritual because he doesn't speak in tongues, you're wrong. That's not the way it works. That is like the eye saying to the hand, because you can't see, I don't need you. That's ridiculous when you look at it in your body. The eye needs the hand, the hand needs the eye. And that same ridiculousness applies to looking at someone else in the body of Christ and saying, Because you're not like me, I don't need you. Having made his point, he now applies the metaphor. Let's look at 27 through 31. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it, and God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, do all work miracles, do all possess gifts of healing, do all speak in tongues, do all interpret, but earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way. Bodies have eyes and ears and hands and all different kinds of parts, and that diversity is healthy for the body. Likewise, the body of Christ, the community of believers, has apostles and prophets and teachers and helpers and administrators and various kinds of tongues. Not everybody does the same thing. Not everyone has the same gift, and that is just as healthy for the body of Christ. That's appropriate for the body of Christ. And most of chapter twelve is making this point. The Spirit has set out on purpose to nourish and enhance and create diversity in the church. That's part of the plan and the goal, and we are better off because of it. It is foolish of the Corinthians to judge each other based on whether a person has a particular gift, in their case tongues. God designed us to be different. He set out to make it that way. We are diverse because that's the way God wants us to be. To use God's design to judge each other and reject each other and find each other lacking is foolish. It's missing the point. Now, for our purposes in studying the Holy Spirit, I want to contrast two things from Paul's list because of what it teaches us about the way the Spirit works, and that is being an apostle and speaking in tongues. Paul sees the Holy Spirit at work in the apostles. To be an apostle is a gift and a calling from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes an apostle ready and worthy to fulfill that job. The Holy Spirit transforms their understanding, reveals truth to them in a complete and unique way, and this is an individual work of the Spirit. It happened to Paul, it happened to Peter and a small group of others. In fact, the vast majority of believers are not apostles. This is something the Spirit did in a select few. Likewise, speaking in tongues was an individual work of the Spirit. Now scholars debate exactly what was going on in Corinth, but whatever it is, not everyone was doing it, and that's by God's design. Who speaks in tongues and who doesn't is a work of the Holy Spirit that is given and distributed to suit God's purposes. The Corinthians think speaking in tongues is an essential and necessary mark of spirituality and that every true believer must have it. But in fact, God has chosen to gift some with it and not others, just like he's chosen to make some apostles and not others. It is the will of God who gets to be an apostle. It is the will of God who gets to speak in tongues. Not everyone gets these gifts. Now Paul does hint that there's another problem in the way the Corinthians are viewing tongues with his final verse in the chapter. He urges them to earnestly desire the greater gifts, which implies, as he's going to go on to argue in the next chapter, that tongues is just not that important. It comes at the end of his list after apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, and healings, and he's going to explain why tongues is of lesser importance. In the next chapter, he's going to argue that the value of a gift is how much it edifies other people. And the standard, if you're going to measure them, the standard by which you ought to measure these gifts is how much they help and edify others. So being an apostle, a prophet, or a teacher has a great deal of value because many others learn, are encouraged and edified by their words. He's going to say speaking in tongues typically only benefits the person speaking. If there's no one to interpret and no one else who understands the tongue, then no one is benefiting but the speaker. Now there's more to his argument, but his first point is not everyone speaks in tongues. And second, in terms of the greater good of the body, tongues is among the least important gifts. Now I have more detailed talks on that in my series on 1 Corinthians if you're interested. But for now, realize what we've seen here. The Corinthians are claiming if you don't speak in tongues, then there's no evidence that you have the Spirit at all. And Paul's response is first, the evidence of true spirituality is the ability to say and mean and believe that Jesus is Lord, not to speak in tongues. Then he says, not everyone speaks in tongues, and that is the will of God. God creates diversity in his children on purpose. And then his third point, which we didn't really look at in detail, which is really in the next chapter, if you're going to value different gifts of the Spirit, you ought to at least value the most important ones that bring the greatest edification to the greatest number of people. So Paul began by saying the universal work of the Spirit is this ability to say and believe that Jesus is Lord. And now that we've gone through the chapter, we can fill out that understanding a bit. The real mark of the Holy Spirit at work in someone is that person will say and mean Jesus is Lord. The gospel has changed their life. They have believed it, they hope in the promises, and they now strive to live differently than they used to live. They now strive to love the Lord with all their heart and love their neighbor as themselves. That's the universal work of the Spirit. That is the work of the Spirit that we all need and every believer has happening in them. And that is a pretty grand and glorious miracle that we sometimes take for granted. On the other hand, then there are the individual works of the Spirit, the things that the Spirit does in different believers' lives. He gives them different roles to play in the body of Christ, different ways to serve others, and different opportunities to minister to the body. That distinction between the universal and the individual is crucial to understand. And we're going to see it come up as we go through these passages in this series. The particular gifts are meant for the common good. They are meant to accomplish God's purposes here in this life. And we should have no expectation that we will all have the same role. Rather, we should have the expectation that we will have very different roles. The Spirit made Paul an apostle. He did not make me an apostle. But that spirit gave Paul faith, hope, and love, and that same spirit, I pray, is giving me faith, hope, and love. Though we are very different, Paul was an apostle and I'm not. He lived and worked in a vastly different time and culture than I live and work in. He has had a huge impact on the body of Christ, and I will have a little tiny one. Yet there is something we have in common. We have the universal work of the Spirit giving us faith, and that is what we desperately need. The ability to say Jesus is Lord and live a life characterized by faith, hope, and love. Our diversity is meant to unify us. We should celebrate it. Our diversity is meant for the common good, and it's better for all of us that we are different. This distinction between the universal and the individual is crucial. And one of the questions we're going to ask as we approach each of the passages we study in this series is are we discussing the universal work of the Spirit or an individual work of the Spirit? And I think my good for nothing worthless opinion is that as a church, we tend to mix up certain passages. And we assume a passage is talking about the universal when in fact it's talking about the individual. And we need to know when the entire body of Christ is in view or when, say, just the apostles are in view, for example. Now we could say a lot more about Corinthians, but for now I want to highlight that the Holy Spirit does these two distinctly different kinds of works, universal and particular. He does the individual work in all believers to give us faith to say Jesus is Lord, and He gives individual works to individuals different ways to serve the kingdom of God according to the purposes of God. Now we today can have the same kind of wrong attitude towards the work of the Spirit that the Corinthians had. The Corinthians were overly impressed by speaking in tongues. They liked the flashy, exuberant, emotional nature of it, but their importance was misplaced. First, they were ignoring and missing the importance of the universal work of the spirit. They were dismissing those who didn't speak in tongues, even though they would say with true belief that Jesus is Lord, and they misunderstood the individual works of the Spirit as well. They thought tongues was the most important gift when in fact Paul argues it's among the least important. Their attitudes showed their values were mixed up and misplaced. They were hungry for flashy, emotional, exuberant spiritual power, and they lost sight of the grand importance and the primary work of what the Spirit is all about, giving us faith. These themes then are a broad overview of how the Holy Spirit works. And they're going to come up over and over again in this series as we look at various passages. So remember the two we saw last week. The Holy Spirit is God's agent of change. He intervenes in God's creation to accomplish God's purposes. The purpose of the Holy Spirit is not to do what I want done, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to do the will of God. Second, the Holy Spirit has a universal work that he does among all believers. He brings about this inner transformation of the heart so that we now have the ability to say and mean in a profound way that Jesus is Lord. And then third, the Holy Spirit has many and various individual works. He works in individuals differently, giving them different roles to play in God's kingdom, giving them different opportunities to serve the body of Christ to accomplish God's purposes. Very few of us are prophets and very few of us are apostles, but those who are prophets and apostles are equipped and transformed by the Spirit to do those jobs. The Spirit gave Paul the understanding he needed to write Romans. The Spirit gave Isaiah the understanding to speak of the coming Messiah. The Spirit gave the prophets the apostles the ability to perform miracles, to testify to the fact that they were speaking for God, and those become of great importance to the body as a whole. Many, many people have benefited by studying Romans or Isaiah, for example. So as we go through this series, we want to look at the various passages and ask, does this passage have the universal work of the spirit in view or the individual work of the spirit in view? You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You'll also find hundreds of past episodes on my website so you can browse for any topic you're interested in. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates of Heartfeltmusic.org. I invite you to check out his other music. You'll be glad you did. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope you'll join me again at Wednesday in the Word.