Pneumanity

A common criticism of our faith is that it is old. It holds to outdated ideas and outdated values and those who hold onto this old belief system do not have a significant place in today's world. The Christian faith is old but that is not a legitimate cause for dismissal. In fact, one of its defining characteristics is its embrace of the New Humanity, or, as some have coined it, the Pneumanity.

Last night in our community group LifeShare™ group we had a great discussion. (If you want more information on how to join one, please contact Pastor Alvin). This past Sunday, Pastor Michael exhorted us to embrace several distinctly Christian values; he told us that these were characteristic of the New Humanity. One of the things we talked about was what this New Humanity was and what it looked like.

The world of the early church was split into two ethnic groups: the Jews and the Gentiles. In Ephesians, Paul addresses this distinction. Read all about it in Ephesians 2:11-22. Looking especially at verses 14 and 15:

For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himeself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace

This passage is pretty dense but I want to point out a couple of things. Paul is addressing the church; in this specific instance he is addressing Gentiles (see verse 11) but this passage has application for both Jews and Gentiles. The categories of Jew and Gentile may be unfamiliar and perhaps even insignificant to you, but, really, Paul is talking about any kind of category we might have for anyone at church: male and female, asian and non-asian, old and young, rich and poor...

These categories can be in conflict with one another; in the case of the Jews and the Gentiles this was so. The Jews had a sense of superiority because the traditions and beliefs of Christianity had grown out of a Jewish context; the Gentiles came from mainstream culture and did not carry a lot of the cultural stigma that Jews were often burdened with. These two groups were often at odds with one another. The Gentile Christians often felt that the Jewish culture was being forced upon them; the Jewish Christians often saw the Gentiles as uncommitted in their pursuit of holy living and there was the real threat of their culture being subsumed by the surrounding culture.

In all of this conflict we see that the picture of the church is something completely different. It it isn't the Gentiles being forced to be like the Jews. Nor is it the Jews losing their cultural identity to the mainstream Gentile culture. Instead the church is the New Humanity. This New Humanity is focused on bringing glory to God the Father, through the work of God the Son, empowered by God the Spirit.

The letter to the Ephesians gives us a picture of what this New Humanity is and what this New Humanity does. It should be noted that this New Humanity did not come out of human effort but it is something divine, it has all the fingerprints of God on it. So the call that Paul gives to all of us to be filled by the Holy Spirit should not come as a surprise to us. The Holy Spirit breathes on us, fills us, empowers us. It is by His strength and His enablement that we are able to be this New Humanity; the Greek root for Spirit is pneuma and thus we get the phrase Pneumanity.

Being a follower of Christ is something old; the history of the people of God began with the creation of the first man. But it requires something new. It requires new life. It requires a new spirit. This newness is embodied in this Pneumanity. In my own personal life journey, I find it a challenge to deal with the tension between living as the Pneumanity and dealing with my old self. And so, out of all the awesome, new things that we as the Pneumanity are given, the thing that I am most thankful for is that we are given a new hope.