The Holy Spirit is something- or someone- with whom a lot of people struggle with, both inside the church and out. God the Father- creator, lawgiver, even judge- fairly straightforward. God the Son- a bit more complicated, being both God and human, but still, a personality we can begin to understand. God the Spirit- rather more difficult. Something intangible, invisible, described in metaphor and simile: "like the blowing of a violent wind," "what seemed to be tongues of fire." Something which gets inside us, fills us, is God living in us, guiding, healing, revealing, power-giving. It's through the Holy Spirit within every Christian that we are enabled to live in God's way.
And yet the Spirit has been the subject of intense debate and division over the church's history, and even today differences of belief and practice of the gifts of the Spirit set apart churches and denominations. Some believe that the more 'supernatural*' gifts (for example speaking in foreign or heavenly tongues or miraculous healings) are no longer present in the church, while others see and use them as a regular part of modern worship.
As someone who grew up in a church where I don't remember these questions even being discussed- I don't remember much teaching on the Spirit at all- it was quite a shock to arrive, at 18, into a congregation where the practice of spiritual gifts was the norm, where services regularly included speaking or singing in tongues, messages people had felt God giving them and prayer for healing! It took a while to get used to, a while to accept too that I wasn't an inferior Christian because I hadn't done these rather odd things. A while to accept that God gives people different gifts, that some are given the power to heal, or to prophesy, while others have gifts of communicating well (teaching) or the gift of administration (yes, it's real, 1 Corinthians 12 vs 28.)
If that's how strange I found the gifts of the Spirit as someone who was already a Christian, as someone who accepts the existence of the supernatural and that it still affects the world around us, think what it must be like for someone who doesn't believe that (or isn't sure) suddenly coming into contact with the Spirit at work! No wonder the disciples were accused of being drunk on the first Pentecost!(Acts 2 vs 13. And when Peter said in verse 15 that they couldn't possibly be drunk because it was only 9am, he'd obviously never met the G&S society after a Crash!). I know that some of my friends who aren't Christians have said they find the idea of speaking in tongues weird, even cultish. And I can understand that. It's not an easy thing to explain. Either it's a bunch of deluded people making fools of themselves and doing really strange things, which is weird; or it's the 'supernatural'- God- breaking through into the 'natural,' which is scary.**
I'm someone who was rather sceptical about the whole thing and didn't particularly want to be able to speak in tongues until God decided I needed to and I was going to whether I wanted to or not! I thought it was both weird and scary, was worried about various things, (how do I know that it is a gift and not just me making up random words?) and would frankly rather have just ignored the whole thing. But I couldn't. I found the whole thing a lot more comfortable when someone said to me that God knows us and knows exactly what we're comfortable with, and although he may challenge and encourage us to move forward he won't give us any gift we're not ready for. It's still something I'm a little shy about doing in public, not least because I don't want to freak people out! It's the sort of thing that's fine to practice with other Christians, but perhaps ought to be avoided- or at least controlled- when there are non-Christians around. The church has enough of a reputation for being weird already!
But perhaps it's not as freaky as it sounds. These gifts may sound weird, but when you've actually experienced their use then actually they're generally not.
But the idea that the Holy Spirit is God breaking through into our world- that is scary. Scary but wonderful! Scary because it's a demonstration of the power of God, of his lordship over our world and ability and willingness to be involved in our lives. If you've seen that at work you can't avoid it affecting your life in some way.
So perhaps that's why those outside (and even maybe some inside) the church find it so hard to understand the Holy Spirit. As the passage quoted above says: "The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." Perhaps you can't just 'know about' the Spirit, in the same way you can know about Jesus or God the father. Perhaps the Spirit has to be experienced to be known. That doesn't necessarily involve scary or weird things like speaking in tongues, but it involves being open to the possibility of the reality of God and that he is at work in his people today, speaking to us, teaching, healing, leading, empowering, emboldening, helping us to live his way.
*For want of a better word, I mean the things that are the direct work of God without a earthly or human cause. Spectacular, obvious, if you get my drift. Outside the 'laws of nature,' the observed situation.
**I'm not sure you can separate 'natural' and 'supernatural' like that, but I think you get my point. The 'possible' and the 'impossible' maybe?
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