I am a very well-educated Seventh-day Adventist. My knowledge of the Bible and of Seventh-day Adventist theology is excellent, especially considering that I am not a theologian. I can run rings around most people in a biblical discussion. But why does all this knowledge help so little?

I began my teaching career in a secondary school. I was a converted Christian with a fine understanding of salvation by faith, an experience that had transformed my life. When I taught Bible classes, I taught the gospel clearly. I was a good teacher. Teaching is one of my talents, particularly in taking a complex subject and making it understandable to (almost) the meanest comprehension. So why did this have so little effect on my students?

A couple of years later, I had another experience that I did not recognize at the time, and that I could only explain in hindsight. A fellow teacher and I attended a Christian concert. Contemporary music, well played, full of energy, followed by a short but earnest talk and appeal. Dozens of young people responded. We went home chastised.

Wasn’t the Seventh-day Adventist Church supposed to be out there calling people to God? We were doing virtually nothing. We talked till the early hours of the morning. I had started a music band, so I volunteered their services for outreach work. The band spent as much time studying and praying together as we did in rehearsal of songs and skits. The results? Dramatic. Unexpected.

The students who comprised the band were transformed. Although they hadn’t volunteered for the new role, each of them was confronted spiritually, and grew. Years later, I see them taking leadership roles in their local churches, whereas many of their peers have disappeared from church.

The bigger surprise was in my teaching. Same lessons as last year, same earnest explanations of salvation, completely different result. I remember thinking, "What’s happening here? It’s the same teacher, the same content, the same delivery, but the result is that the students are really listening, really changing." I could stand outside myself and watch as students drank up the knowledge of God. Clearly, it wasn’t me that made the difference.

Hindsight, and new knowledge, helped me understand that I had experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is not a very common topic in Adventist circles, and one more usually associated with charismatic churches and their assumed abuses of the Spirit. Yet on closer examination, the New Testament has much to say about receiving the Holy Spirit in his fullness, and it often speaks of this reception as an experience separate from that of receiving salvation.

Jesus received the baptism of the Spirit at the Jordan; before that, he did not dare begin his ministry. The Gospels note that he did his work "full of the Holy Spirit," and "in the power of the Spirit." Similarly, Acts speaks of the Apostles in the same manner, implying an ongoing renewable infilling of the Spirit. Indeed, in the weeks before Pentecost, the Apostles were saved men, full of passion for the message of the risen Lord, yet Jesus instructed them not to move until they received the outpouring of the Spirit.

My point? I believe that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a distinctly separate event from receiving salvation, although both may happen together. However, when saved people labor in ministry without the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they are condemned to good, hard, honest work with minimal results. I know it from my own experience.

Years after my baptism with the Spirit, I found my connection with the Spirit just a fond memory. My state of grace had not changed. I still sensed God’s favor on me. But my labors were those of education, intelligence, and enthusiasm. These have brought their own reward, but they are much diminished in impact compared to what the Spirit brings.

Recently, a friend came to challenge me and pray with me. I opened my heart to the fullness of the Holy Spirit. With it came no dramatic signs, simply a sense of rest and of peace. No longer do I need to strive to raise my spiritual game. Now I relax in the power of the Spirit. I do not decry the value of knowledge. I believe ignorance is too often disguised as simple faith. Yet information, even from a willing heart is limited in power. Jesus knew more than I will ever comprehend, yet he, too, needed the fullness of the Spirit to make his ministry transformational.

Because we so rarely talk about the baptism of the Spirit, we often send out our young (and not-so-young) people to work for God. Frequently, it is a discouraging process, and not for lack of a relationship with God, or good training. It is only through the unlimited power of the Holy Spirit that our ordinary labors become dynamite in the hands of God. Before we begin ministry of any kind, let us stop to ask for the most important ingredient of all: the unfettered power of the Holy Spirit using us as his instruments for salvation.

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