We'll ask three people to explain what it means to be spiritual, and you'll get four different answers. That's a humorous way to state the problem. Definitions of spirituality are very squishy things. The term means something different to everyone. So what is biblical spirituality? And can we settle on an objective definition of spirituality from the Bible?

That's the question today from a young woman, and for her it's not a theoretical question at all. "Pastor John, my mother and I have differing views on biblical spirituality, so much so that she has said that my husband and I are not spiritual. I believe this is because she embraces spirituality as spiritual gifts, such as speaking in tongues, interpreting dreams, and claiming healing.

My husband and I have worked in the mission field, are heavily involved in church, love the Lord, and seek after Him in all things. I don't know what to say to this. Is it possible that we, my husband and I, are not spiritual? I feel that this is not the case, as I see the fruit of the Spirit in our lives." How would you respond to such a statement toward yourself, and more broadly, what does authentic Christian spirituality look like?

Let's start with a few comments about the use of language and the importance of definitions. And then we'll move over to the biblical use of the term "spiritual," which is especially interesting because in the ESV, the word "spiritual" or "spiritually" occurs 29 times, and 27 of them are in the writings of the apostle Paul, and the other two are in Peter's first letter.

So it isn't a very widespread term, and we're mainly dealing with Paul, we're dealing with his understanding of it, when we talk about the meaning of spirituality or being spiritual in the New Testament. So first, a few thoughts about the use of language. I wonder what our friend would feel or think if a New Age spiritualist who practices divination and fortune-telling and necromancy and palm-reading and earth worship were to say to her, to our mature Christian friend, "You're not spiritual because you don't pursue these spiritual practices like I do." Now, my guess is that our friend would not feel very threatened at all or seriously criticized because she knows that those practices are not at all what the Bible means by "spiritual." In fact, just the opposite.

The Bible opposes those practices. But the point is that the New Age spiritualist is spiritual by his own definition. So there would be no point in arguing which of those is spiritual. If you don't define your terms, it would go nowhere. The argument would go nowhere if you said, "Which one of us is spiritual?" Because they don't agree on what they mean by "spiritual." They are using the word in drastically different ways.

So when our friend says, "My mother and I have differing views on biblical spirituality," she could mean, "My mother and I agree on the meaning of the word, but we disagree on whether my husband and I are living up to it." Or she could mean that they seriously disagree on the biblical definition of spirituality, and so they can't assess the other with the same criteria, and we just talk past each other.

Now, I'm pretty sure from what she says that our friend takes the latter view, because she says she embraces spirituality as spiritual gifts, such as speaking in tongues, interpreting dreams, claiming healing. So the mother thinks that being spiritual in a biblical sense is exercising spiritual gifts, while our friend thinks being spiritual means something else.

So let's go to Paul, Paul's writings, and see what the term actually means. So Paul uses the word "spiritual" to refer to spiritual wisdom, spiritual blessings, spiritual songs, spiritual bodies, spiritual gifts, spiritual rock, spiritual food. Now, we're going to leave all that aside. We're only going to talk about spiritual people.

I think he uses the term in three ways, but they are all rooted in the same basic idea, and I think that basic idea is that a person is spiritual if by the power of the Holy Spirit, he has experienced a new birth and is no longer defined by the flesh, which opposes God, but is defined by the Holy Spirit, who causes him to trust God and love God.

So a spiritual person is most fundamentally a supernaturally transformed person who has been transferred by the Spirit from the natural condition of unbelief to the Spirit-created condition of new creature in Christ. They are spiritual in the sense that they were created by the Holy Spirit and are indwelt and formed by the Holy Spirit.

So you can see that if I'm right, Paul's use of the term "spiritual" gets its meaning mainly from God's Spirit, not my spirit. Paul doesn't call somebody spiritual because their spirit is especially active or because they have an unusual preoccupation with mystical things, spiritual things. Now, the most important text for seeing these things is 1 Corinthians 2, verses 12 and following.

So let me read a couple of verses. "Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand things freely given to us by God; and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual." Now, who are they?

Those who are spiritual. So we've received the Spirit. We're imparting things from the Spirit by words taught by the Spirit, but we can only do that to those who are spiritual. Who are they? That's what Paul turns to. They're the only ones to whom Paul can successfully transmit spiritual truths.

So Paul explains why that is and who they are in verse 13, the next verse. "The natural person," now that's the unregenerate, unsaved person without the Holy Spirit, "contrasted with the spiritual person." The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually assessed.

Spiritually assessed. That is, in the sense that the indwelling Holy Spirit enables a person to assess them rightly. They're not foolishness, but they're true and beautiful. Then he goes on, verse 15. "The spiritual person," now he's contrasting that with the natural person, the unregenerate person. "The spiritual person assesses all things, but is himself assessed by no one, for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

That is, we have the Holy Spirit shaping the way our mind assesses things so that we don't call wisdom stupid or foolishness. Instead, we assess things in the true light of Christ. But natural people can't make that act. They can't do that because it's not real to them. It's just foolishness to them.

So my conclusion from this passage is that Paul's most basic use of the term "spiritual" is to refer to true Christians who have the Holy Spirit and therefore are no longer merely natural people, but supernatural people who have been born again by the Spirit and whose minds are therefore able to see in the gospel the beauty of Christ and the wisdom of God.

So all true Christians are spiritual in that fundamental sense, and that's his most basic sense. Now, I think there are two other uses of the term in Paul, and both of them are adaptations of this meaning, not contradictions of it. So the first is that Paul can use the term "spiritual" for Christians who are more mature in their experience of this newness of their spirituality.

1 Corinthians 3, verse 1. "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people," which is different than saying that they're not spiritual people. "I couldn't address you as spiritual people, but as infants in Christ." Now, I don't think that means--I used to think this, but I don't think that means that they're not spiritual in the first sense, but they weren't acting like it.

Strife and jealousy was all over the church, and so Paul treats them as babies. Here's another example of this use of the more mature Christian as spiritual in Galatians 6, verse 1. "Brothers, if anyone is caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him." Now, he's a Christian, and yet he's calling these folks spiritual to go restore him in the spirit of gentleness.

Those who are walking in the more mature influence of the Spirit, the Spirit's fruit, like meekness he refers to, you go restore that one back. That's my second use of the word, a more mature experience of that spirituality. The other use of the term "spiritual" is ironic in 1 Corinthians 14, 37.

It goes like this. "If anyone thinks that he's a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord." So ironically, there are those who have spiritual gifts, and they really do. Like, I think, our friend's mother is thinking.

They have spiritual gifts, and they claim, therefore, to be spiritual. But Paul says, "Now, here's the real test, you people who are speaking in tongues and experiencing healings and exorcisms. Here's the real test of being spiritual. It's not gifts, but submission to the apostolic word. Do you acknowledge that our word is from the Lord?" So my counsel to our friend who sent this question is that she will, with all humility, in the pursuit of all the fruit of the Holy Spirit, not be shamed by her mother's misunderstanding.

Don't let her words shame you. She should realize that having spiritual gifts does not make a person spiritual. That was the problem at Corinth. It's having the Holy Spirit that makes one spiritual, and being formed into the image of Christ by His fruit, that's mature spirituality. Thank you, Pastor John, for that definition.

And that mention of 1 Corinthians 14, 37 here in this episode reminds me of one of my all-time favorite APJ episodes. We titled it, "Should We Listen for the Audible Voice of God?" Should We Listen for the Audible Voice of God? That's APJ 167, an oldie, but a classic, to me at least, when I found helpful.

1 Corinthians 14, 37 pops up there too in that episode. Find APJ 167 at AskPastorJohn.com. In fact, all of our episodes are housed and searchable there. All the audio and the transcripts are all there, fully available for you free of charge. Check it out, AskPastorJohn.com. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we will see you back here on Monday.

See you then.