Paul: A Biography

by N.T. Wright

That odd sense of a new kind of life, as in all the very early Jesus communities, was heavily dependent (they would have said) on the powerful presence and guidance of the holy spirit. Whatever account we want to give of this phenomenon today, we cannot begin to understand Saul, Barnabas, and their colleagues without recognizing that as they prayed, sang, studied scripture, organized their community life, and (not least) went about talking to both Jews and non-Jews about Jesus, they were conscious of an energy and a sense of direction unlike anything they had known before. They had no hesitation in ascribing that energy and leading to the divine spirit, which had been promised in the scriptures and then again, only a few years before, by Jesus’s own forerunner, John the Baptist. These early Jesus-followers were not naive “enthusiasts.” Already within the first decades it became necessary to challenge some claims about the work of the spirit and to warn against the likelihood of deceit, and indeed of self-deceit. But we cannot understand the things that now happened unless we allow that Saul and the others really did believe they were being led and energized by the personal presence of the One God.

The work of the Spirit.