Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland invites you into a personal and theological journey to better understand one of the most mysterious persons of the Trinity: God the Holy Spirit.
Derek shares how his view of the Holy Spirit has evolved—from childhood questions in a Southern Baptist church to transformative encounters as a teenager, through charismatic experiences, and into a mature, ecumenical appreciation for the Spirit’s work today. Drawing from Scripture, church history, and his own story, Derek unpacks why the Holy Spirit is not just an idea or force—but God’s living presence, shaping us to love and live like Jesus.
Along the way, Derek reflects on the Spirit’s role as the agent of God’s work on earth, the giver of spiritual gifts, and the power behind personal and communal transformation. He also highlights the wisdom of Father Raniero Cantalamessa and the invitation for all believers to seek fresh encounters with the Spirit—not once, but over and over.
Whether you’re curious about spiritual gifts, wondering about baptism in the Holy Spirit, or simply longing for renewal, this episode will help you open your heart to God’s ongoing work.
Key Takeaways
✔️ The Holy Spirit is God’s personal presence, not an impersonal force.
✔️ The Spirit empowers believers with love, gifts, and Christlike character.
✔️ Spiritual experiences and scriptural grounding can (and should) go hand in hand.
✔️ Seeking the Holy Spirit is not a one-time event but an ongoing invitation.
✔️ Renewal by the Spirit is essential for both personal faith and church life.
🎧 Listen now and renew your openness to the peace, power, and kindness of God the Holy Spirit.
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Acts 1:8
Romans 5:5
John 20:22
1 Corinthians 13
Jeremiah 31:31–33
Galatians 5:22–23
Books mentioned in this podcast: Come, Creator Spirit by Raniero Cantalamessa
Preorder Derek’s new book, Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us here: https://amzn.to/42jSZAs
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Get to know the host: https://derekvreeland.com
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Transcript
Welcome back to another
Another episode of Peaceable and Kind, where we talk about Christian faith and the Bible in a way that promotes a peaceable and kind life.
And I’m your host, Derek Vreeland.
I’m so glad you have joined me.
Me for this episode.
And if you haven’t already, let me encourage you to subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re listening to this episode.
And if you like what we’re doing and would feel so compelled to leave a rating or a review, I’d appreciate that.
That certainly helps us grow this podcast.
And on today’s episode, I want to invite you to get to know the Holy Spirit.
Recently, I walked through the Nicene Creed on some previous episodes, and I did an entire episode on what the Creed says about the Holy Spirit.
that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and the giver of life.
But I want to go a little bit deeper.
Because I think the Holy Spirit remains a pretty mysterious member of the Trinity.
So we believe that God is a holy
Community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
One God, three persons.
And when we speak of God the Father, we have an image in our minds of what a dad looks like
When we speak of Jesus as the Son, we have an image of a son.
So we understand that relationship, father-son relationship
But then here comes the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit is a little bit more difficult to imagine.
And so I think sometimes because the Holy Spirit appears to be mysterious, we’re a little bit uh shy to get to know the Holy Spirit.
In our church we sing the doxology nearly every Sunday.
And if you don’t know it, the the final line of the doxology is
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
We use that King James language.
We don’t sing Holy Spirit, but Holy Ghost
And years ago, I heard of a child who was going to church with mom and dad and singing that song with mom and dad.
And then one of the car rides home after church
This child asks his mom and dad, uh, who’s this ghost hanging out with the father and the son?
And I think that that typifies a lot of how we relate to and understand the Holy Spirit.
We kind of scratch our heads a bit.
And we think, what is this ghost, what is this spirit doing hanging out with the Father and the Son?
And so I want to explore with a little bit more depth today who the Holy Spirit is, what the Holy Spirit is doing.
And I want to encourage you to explore this very mysterious Holy Spirit.
And it’s okay for the Holy Spirit to be mysterious
Because in some sense, the Holy Spirit takes a back seat in the Trinity, right?
So we talk a lot about Jesus.
And that is because Jesus, well, Jesus came.
Jesus the Son was sent by God the Father, so we would know what God is like.
And then Jesus tells us about the Holy Spirit that when the Holy Spirit comes, the Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t come to draw attention to the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit comes to point our attention to Jesus.
And so it’s sort of like, have you ever been to a theater and you see a production and at the end the cast comes out and they’ll they’ll take a bow.
And then sometimes the main character of that cast
This norm is standing in the middle, and we’ll take a step forward, and the main character will take a bow and receive ovation for his or her work in the in the production.
And so if you if you can kind of envision that, I like to imagine that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are standing on that stage in front of the closed curtain
And it’s like the Father and the Spirit are pushing Jesus to the front to get a lot of the attention.
So because of that, the Holy Spirit takes a little bit of a back seat, and so it’s
It’s a challenge, I think, sometimes to really get to know God the Holy Spirit.
So, in helping you, what I’d like to do is share some of my story
To let you know how I have gotten to know the Holy Spirit.
My spiritual journey begins in a Southern Baptist church when I was baptized.
at eleven years old.
I was baptized on January 26th, 1986, way back in the 1900s.
And this little Baptist church, by the way, has just experienced and celebrated their 125th anniversary for over a century.
They have been making disciples and preaching the gospel, baptizing people like me.
They baptized me in 1986.
And so that’s where my journey begins, but I was in elementary school, and as I went into middle school, I really drifted from the church.
Our whole family, we were sort of in and out of the church at that time.
And I wasn’t much interested in church, church life, God.
I was just trying to survive middle school
But then when I was fifteen years old, our family re-engaged in church and not just church, but like Sunday school, and I started hanging out with youth group kids.
And in the spring of 1990, I had a pretty dramatic encounter with Jesus
I had accepted Jesus as my Savior, but I hadn’t really committed my life to Jesus as Lord.
And when I did that, when I sort of crossed this line where I said, Jesus, I commit my entire life to you.
Everything began to change in my life.
I was so insecure as a 15-year-old.
I had no self-esteem, no self-confidence.
And I was just flooded with the love of God, and it just changed me overnight.
And then in the summer of 1990, so this would have been at the end of my sophomore year of high school before my junior year.
I had not only an encounter with Jesus, but I had a pretty dramatic encounter with the Holy Spirit
So it was a Monday night, and our youth group did visitation on Monday nights.
So we were a part of a very fast-growing youth group.
And so when new students would come to visit our youth group on a Wednesday night, that next Monday we would drive the church van, a bunch of us, and we would go visit that new student.
And then we would invite ‘em to a Monday night Bible study.
We would do this Bible study at Beatty’s Barbecue in St.
Joseph, Missouri.
And I never got the barbecue, I always got the curly fries.
So we’d get our food and we go to the side room where we do a Bible study.
And on one particular Monday night in August of 1990, our youth pastor was teaching on the restoration of
Peter.
Peter denied the Lord three times, and in John’s gospel, towards the end, there’s this restoration where Jesus asks Peter three times, Do you love me?
And he denied Christ three times, and now Jesus is inviting him to completely have a renunciation of that denial when he asks him three times, Do you love me?
So our youth pastor was describing to us the nature of love and how there are two different Greek words used in that passage of John’s Gospel
uh to communicate love.
There is the Greek word agape, which means God kind of love, unconditional
Loyal kind of love, faithful kind of love.
And then there is Phileo, which is more brotherly love
Think of the city, Philadelphia, right?
That’s the the city of brotherly love.
So Phileo is more of like a like a brotherly affection
So he was describing, you know, these two kinds of love.
And that idea of agape love really resonated with me.
So I remember driving home and
You know, I’m I’m brushing my teeth, I’m getting ready for bed.
And I’m just thinking about agape love, how much God loves us with that kind of loyal love.
And so I am going to bed and I put on a uh an album.
Well, an album.
I had a boom box.
It was a cassette tape.
of the Christian rock band Petra.
And they have this song Love.
And so I had put the the cassette in.
I was just going to listen to it as I was falling asleep.
And then that song Love from Petra came on and they’re talking about love.
And so I got up and I turned off the music and I sat on the edge of my bed and I was I was praying.
And I wanted to tell God how much I felt that’s this transformation and change and how how grateful I I was for God’s work in my life.
And then I said, God, I’ve never told you that I love you with agape kind of love.
I’ve never communicated that.
And so God, I I love you more than anything.
So I was sitting on the edge of my bed with my feet on the carpet right there between my bed and the wall.
There was a you know a couple feet there, and I felt like
I was losing all strength in my body and I kind of just slumped down onto the carpet on my knees with my with my face in the carpet.
And even now I can remember the smell of that carpet.
And as I was laying there, the lights were off, it was dark, it was late.
As I knelt there, I felt like someone had a five gallon bucket filled with water, and they were just dousing me with water.
I almost felt like I was spinning a little bit.
And in that moment, I heard God speak the word ministry.
Now,
It wasn’t like I heard God speak it like it like if you were in my bedroom there, you would have heard it too.
It was more of a of a whisper in my heart.
And I responded, well, Lord, if you’re calling me into full-time ministry, I say yes.
I mean, I was only 16 years old at this time.
I’ve always been a bit impulsive and a quick decision maker, but it was about that fast.
I I heard, I felt God whispering the word ministry.
And I knew it was a call, and I said yes.
And as soon as I said, Lord, if you’re calling me into ministry, I say yes.
I felt like I had all this energy in my body and I stood up.
And I sat back on my bed and I felt like all that water that had been dumped on my head just sort of washed away.
And because I was a good Baptist
I had my Bible on my nightstand and I picked up my Bible and I said, Lord, if this experience is from you, would you confirm it in your word?
And so I flipped on the light that was there on my nightstand, and I’m just flipping through the Bible, and I end up in the book of Acts, and I read Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
Which says, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be my witnesses
And I closed my Bible and I thought, well, I think what I experienced was the power of the Holy Spirit, and God called me into ministry like to be a full-time witness.
And then I was like, yeah, God, this is it.
God was confirming in the scriptures what I had experienced with my face in the carpet.
And that was a watershed moment for me.
That was indeed my call to pastoral ministry, a call that happened, what, 35 years ago?
And the the fire of that call, the the motivation of that call still burns in my heart today
But it was for me also a watershed moment because I was following Jesus, getting to know Jesus.
But something was sparked in my heart in that experience to really want to get to know.
and understand who God the Holy Spirit was.
And so I spent the next two years as I was finishing up high school
really trying to study the scriptures and I would read books on who God the Holy Spirit was.
I had three other friends
In the youth group, we were all the same age, and we were having these conversations, and sometimes we would have late-night Bible studies
The four of us.
We’d have our Bibles out, and we’re just trying to wrestle with the scriptures that describe who God the Holy Spirit was.
Because again, we were good Baptists.
We wanted to ground our knowledge of God the Holy Spirit in the scriptures.
So as I was reading the book of Acts in particular, I had a lot of questions because I was reading about the Holy Spirit doing some pretty
miraculous things.
I mean literal miracles and healings.
And then there were these references of spiritual gifts, prophecy.
Speaking in tongues, which as I began to learn as a junior, senior in high school, this was quite controversial in Baptist churches, this idea of speaking in languages you didn’t know.
So I remember at one time I went to my Sunday school teacher and I asked him.
I said, hey, I’m reading in the book of Acts.
about miracles and healing and prophecy and speaking in tongues and the power of the Holy Spirit and and and and what do we make of all these things, particularly like these spiritual gifts and miracles
And I remember him telling me, well, we believe those things passed away with the apostles.
To which I was like, it did what?
It it never made sense to me then, and by the way, it still doesn’t make sense to me to argue that that the powerful, miraculous work of the Holy Spirit has somehow ended.
And I just said, well, where does the scripture say that?
And he tried to show me a vague reference in 1 Corinthians 13 about knowledge and prophecy ceasing.
But I was like, wait, but that’s that’s talking about when Jesus comes back, not now that we have Holy Scripture.
Hey friends, I wanted to pause for just a second to let you know that my next book, Incarnation.
8 Lessons on How God Meets Us is available for pre-order.
This Bible study is for individual devotional use or for small group discussion.
Link to pre-order is in the show notes.
And so I wasn’t satisfied with any of those answers because
These same Baptist mentors taught me to read the Scripture, to be devoted to the Scriptures, to study the Scriptures, to do and live out what the Scriptures teach.
And now they were telling me that apart, a chunk of what the scripture was teaching about the Holy Spirit, that doesn’t apply today, it I was just was not satisfied
So then I graduate from high school, 1992, and the summer after high school graduation, I went on the proverbial mission trip to Mexico.
If you were a youth group kid in the 80s, in the 90s, even early 2000s, you probably went on a mission trip to Mexico.
And I didn’t know, but when I got linked up with this missions group, I was assigned to a church and it was a charismatic church.
And I didn’t know that.
until I’m in Mexico and they start talking about the Holy Spirit.
Like we’re gonna pray for people.
who are who are sick in their body and ask God to do miracles.
We’re going to invite people to be filled with the Holy Spirit
And on that mission trip, I began to see miracles and hear people speak in tongues.
This is all fairly new to me.
And so one night we didn’t have any work to do and we were having dinner and I was talking to the youth pastor who was our mission leader.
And I said, I have so many questions about what the scripture teaches about the Holy Spirit.
And he said, well, why don’t you come to my room after we eat?
Let’s talk.
We talked with our Bibles open for four hours.
And every time I had a question about the Holy Spirit, he just showed me a different place in Scripture.
And honestly, he was showing me scriptures that I did not have underlined in my Bible, scriptures that I had not emphasized
And so I left that mission trip.
I returned home as a convinced, charismatic Christian.
I would have identified myself
In the early 90s, uh all the way into the early 2000s as a charismatic.
I was very open to the surprising work of the Holy Spirit
And yes, I would pray in the spirit.
That is, pray in tongues.
That became a part of my experience
Now, I wouldn’t remain committed to the subculture created by charismatic Christianity
uh for all of my spiritual journey.
There was a time I had to get off the charismatic bus, but that’s a story for another day
These days, I don’t really identify as a charismatic, even though I value the Pentecostal Charismatic tradition.
I’m much more of an ecumenical Christian by that.
I mean, I love the whole church, including the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions that are a part of God’s church.
I guess you could say, I am I’m sort of a charismatic with a seatbelt on.
But the distinctives of the charismatic Pentecostal tradition, it doesn’t really define me.
What I did learn, and what I still believe, is that the Holy Spirit is the presence of God.
The Holy Spirit is our experience of God.
Gordon Fee in his book Paul, the Spirit and the People of God, writes that in Paul’s letters in the New Testament, the Spirit is most frequently spoken of in terms of agency.
That is, the Spirit is the agent of God’s activity.
So I like to imagine the Holy Spirit as God’s agent on the earth.
So the Father and the Son, they’re enthroned in heaven, but the Father through the Son has poured out the Holy Spirit.
And so the Holy Spirit is God’s agent, God’s agency at work on the earth.
The Spirit is pouring out the love of God in our hearts.
That’s Romans 5:5.
It’s one of the primary things that the Holy Spirit is doing is filling our hearts with the love of God so that we can love God and love one another.
It’s the Holy Spirit who is forming and transforming us into the image of Jesus.
The Spirit, yes, does give gifts
I do believe in all of the biblical gifts of the Holy Spirit.
They’re given to build us up so that we can serve one another.
And the Spirit is also at work producing fruit.
That is the character of Jesus in our hearts.
And so many Christians will ask, so when do we receive the Holy Spirit
Do we receive the Holy Spirit when we believe and we put our faith in Jesus?
Do we receive the Holy Spirit when we are baptized in water?
Do we receive the Spirit when we are baptized in the Holy Spirit?
And Christians are divided.
Typically, Pentecostal charismatic Christians have a different view than other Christians.
But my answer to that question is yes.
Yes to all of it.
Yes, we receive the spirit when we believe.
I believe we receive the spirit when we’re
baptized and I do believe we receive the Spirit when we’re filled or baptized in the Holy Spirit.
I I’m just here for all of it.
I I have zero desire
To argue over the theology of the Holy Spirit, I’m much more interested in people experiencing the Holy Spirit.
Let me introduce you to Father Rennerio Cantalomessa.
Cantalomessa is an Italian Franciscan priest
He’s Roman Catholic.
He’s a theologian, an author, a preacher.
He is 90 years young
And for most of his ministry, he was the preacher to the papal household
This was a position in the Roman Catholic Church that he held from 1980 just up until 2022.
And as the preacher of the papal household, Cantalomessa was the Pope’s private chaplain
And so the preacher of the papal household would speak to the Pope and also high-ranking officials during special times during the year, like during Holy Week.
Kit Lamessa would preach sermons during Holy Week so that cardinals and of course the Pope would have someone preaching the gospel to them.
And Cantalomessa is known for his infectious joy.
You can find uh YouTubes of him um speaking.
English is not his first language, but you when he’s even speaking in broken English, you
You sense that joy.
He’s very focused on the mission of the church, and he is deeply ecumenical.
He has been a part of the Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal and been a part of many, many dialogues between Catholics and Protestants.
Our church does uh the Youth Alpha film series.
We use a lot of discipleship materials uh from Alpha.
And in the Youth Alpha film series, uh Father Cantula Mesa appears.
And uh I love that our our kids, our teenagers at our church have gotten to know him.
And he wrote what I think is the best book on the Holy Spirit.
The book is Come Creator Spirit, and it was translated into English in 2003.
So this is a book that’s been around 22 years
And still, for me, it’s the best book I have ever read on the Holy Spirit.
And it is a reflection on the hymn
Come creator spirit, originally a Latin hymn, in Latin it’s vine creator spiritus
But this hymn is sung in both Roman Catholic and some Protestant churches.
It’s kind of an ecumenical hymn, and it is a hymn in praise to God the Holy Spirit.
And in his book, Come Creator Spirit, Kantila Mesa is answering questions about the baptism in the Holy Spirit
This has been a point of contention between Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal Christians.
Pentecostals emphasize that the Spirit
Yes, we receive the Spirit when we believe, but there is this second experience, the second necessary experience or second blessing
called the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
So Cantalemessa is answering questions about that.
And I want to read just, I want to read two passages from Cantalemessa, but here here’s the first one when he’s
Answering questions about the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
He writes: Not only through the sacrament of baptism that he instituted, but throughout the whole of his work,
Jesus baptizes in the Holy Spirit.
His entire messianic mission consists in pouring out the Holy Spirit upon the world
The baptism in the Holy Spirit, that once again we have started to recognize and discuss in the church, is one of the ways in which the risen Jesus continues his essential work.
which is to baptize all of humanity in the Spirit.
And I agree wholeheartedly with Father Cantalomessa here.
I think it is the entirety of the work of Jesus to baptize us in the Spirit.
And so again, you can define that
Theologically, or you can form your doctrine in any way you’d like.
I have nothing to say about that.
What I do want to say is that Jesus is pouring out the Holy Spirit.
And let’s be open to receive it.
Not just once, but on an ongoing basis.
I think we need
Fresh encounters with the Holy Spirit.
I often pray that we would receive a fresh baptism in the Holy Spirit so that the love of God continues to form our hearts.
The other great passage in this book, and again, it’s gotta be one of my favorite books on the Holy Spirit
is towards the end of the book where Cantalomessa is just encouraging us to pursue the Holy Spirit, describing how we need the Holy Spirit
And I resonate with this last passage I’m going to read to you because I do believe we need God, the Holy Spirit, to fill our hearts.
our minds to empower us to live like Jesus, to give us the strength to live day by day, to do our work and
I believe we need the fresh winds of the Holy Spirit to blow through our church.
Sometimes, as a pastor, I ask myself: if the Holy Spirit would withdraw,
the spirit self from our church, would our church still function?
I mean, are we basically just doing programs that are just all by human strength and human reason?
I want to pastor the kind of church that is infused with the power of the Holy Spirit
So as I wrap up this episode, let me read just one more passage from Father Cantilomessa from Come Creator Spirit.
Here’s what he says.
Our great need today is a new openness, a new readiness to approach the Holy Spirit, a reawakened longing for the Spirit
Now that we have knowledge enough to explore the immense horizons of cosmic space in one direction, and subatomic particles in the other direction, only the Holy Spirit
can give humankind that sustenance of soul, that love which will prevent our humanity from shriveling up altogether as a result of our own knowledge
Only the Holy Spirit’s help will make us able to use our technical knowledge, not to destroy
but to humanize our planet and improve the lot in life of every person.
And to that I say amen.
Well, that’s all I have for you today on this episode.
I hope it was an encouragement to you to continue to remain open to God the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit that is creating peace and kindness within us so that we can live as people of peaceableness and kindness in our world.
Thank you for joining me for this episode.
Go in peace.
And be kind
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.