The Holy Spirit

             The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. (I Corinthians 2:14)

When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor.  When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. (Exodus 16:14-15)

Let’s start with a little sanity. Just because someone claims to be a Christian and therefore “with the Spirit” does not guarantee that their ideas are not foolishness. We can have our own foolish thoughts just as well as the atheist down the street. This is also not magic. If you know a chef, an artist, or an engineer,  you may accept things that others consider foolish, but your exposure to that person has taught you is not.

            That being said, we’re still talking about the Holy Spirit, so we’re talking about “more so.” We’re also talking about “manna” - that something that we may not quite know what to call it, but others will be even less. Not long ago, I mentioned the mystery of manna. The Israelites named it the equivalent of “What’sit.” I have to wonder about the reaction of those outside of Israel. Some have conjectured that the manna was the something natural, but their descriptions generally place it on plants. Did any of the people of the land get close enough to find out otherwise? Did they eat any? I don’t know. But the way the Bible describes it, I can only imagine that those looking on thought the Israelites were eating dirt.

          In the same way, someone looking on at our lives may see us as eating dirt, or doing things that are counter-cultural and make no sense to them. But the Holy Spirit is giving us bread from Heaven.