Not Noise, but Power by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 15, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 11.

Not Noise, but Power

By Editor

It is not a true or just principle of Bible interpretation to take a purely human use of a word for the meaning of the divine use. For instance, Christ declared to His disciples, “Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” Acts 1:8.

Now the word “power” comes from the Greek word dunamis, anglicized into our commercial and destructive “dynamite,” the name of a powerful explosive. It is utterly incongruous to use the action, the noise, the explosiveness, of dynamite, as explanatory of spiritual power.

There are mighty dynamic forces greater than giant powder. The little seed which splits a rock makes no noise, but it is as truly dynamic as the explosion of dynamite. A little tract before us calls for that power in the churches, and then “we will have no difficulty in blowing up a thousand hell gates.”

But the mightiest power of the Spirit is manifest in cleansing souls from sin, in creating obedient hearts, in making men honest, true, sincere, constant, stable. The only power which the Christian should pray for is the life-power of the Spirit which issues in righteousness. The matter of the explosions, the whirlwind, and the earthquake, we can leave with God. We need souls that can hear and are willing to obey the voice of God, howsoever quietly it speaks.