Ever wonder what it means to be filled with the Spirit? In Ephesians 5, Paul explains the symptoms of a Spirit-filled Christian and even commands it. So what does that look like? I am indebted to John MacArthur for pointing the following out.

Let’s read the text first, starting in verse 18:

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives [...]. Husbands [...]. Children [...]. Fathers [...]. (NASB)

Alright, here’s the command and the symptom of what it means to be Spirit filled. Now compare the parallel passage in Colossians 3, starting in verse 16:

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Wives [...]. Husbands [...]. Children [...]. Fathers [...]. (NASB)

Now compare the two. Look pretty similar, don’t they. Notice the first part of the first verse. In Ephesians, Paul says “be filled with the Spirit”, but in Colossians, he commands us to “[l]et the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” Both commands yield the same result, so being filled with the Spirit means to let the word of Christ richly dwell within us.

What’s the word of Christ? Follow your cross references to get an example of what that means. At the very least it means the Gospel message, but we can understand it to mean the whole revelation of God to us, i.e. the Bible. So if you never thought that reading the Bible was necessary, consider these passages. I’d also make sure to read 1 John and supplement it with my Good Person Test to test whether you are even truly saved because there is no Christian who does not desire to read God’s complete, inerrant, infallible, sufficient revelation to man. What do you think?

Just watched the [debate](http://216.75.61.152/xstream/neproductions/tkc/debate.wmv “”) (direct link) from a couple of months ago. This is the first I have heard from both D’Souza and Hitchens and I am pretty impressed with the former; he’s a pretty sharp guy. I will let them speak for themselves, but being in the Roundtable I noticed a few things:

Maybe it’s me, but it seems like Hitchens doesn’t quite answer all the questions precisely and goes off on tangents. D’Souza did that a few times as well, but generally answered the questions very much to the point and only drifted off to answer Hitchens’ comments.

D’Souza didn’t use the bible at all in his debate, as he stated beforehand he wouldn’t. That’s a perfectly fine thing to do, as a matter of fact I love the arguments for God derived [simply from logic](http://blog.zerodeviation.net/2007/11/10/logic-is-on-gods-side/ “zerodeviation.net :: blog » Blog Archive » Logic is on God’s side”). Some questions, however, are much easier to answer using the bible. One is the occurance of miracles. People like to question them, which is quite silly and shows the different presuppositions we function under.

1. God doesn’t exist
2. Miracles happen in the bible that are physically impossible
3. Therefore the bible/Christianity is wrong

It doesn’t take a philosophy degree to see the problem here. Independent from one’s own presuppositions, the situation taken in the context of the bible is this:

1. God exists
2. Miracles happen in the bible that are, at best, improbable
3. The bible is internally consistent

One cannot simply take the bible and its content, remove God, and question said content. It doesn’t make any sense, yet I still see it used.
Back to the debate and D’Souza not using the bible. The downside to using the bible is that it needs to be established as authoritative first, because most people don’t accept it as such, again mostly because they suppose it to be wrong/full of fairy tales from the start. In a recent discussion I had, this was still so after I gave a good amount of evidence for its authority or at least accuracy, without ever hearing a counter argument other than “it’s a fairy tale,” with an appeal to common knowledge: “Everyone knows that.”

Overall interesting debate to watch and I am looking forward to reading Dinesh D’Souza’s [newest book](http://amazon.com/dp/1596985178 “Amazon.com: What’s So Great About Christianity: Books: Dinesh D’Souza”).