My Evaluation – The Familiar Stranger

If you are experiencing a holy discontent or longing for a deeper and richer experience of faith, then this may be the book for you. Maybe you view spiritual experience as dangerous or manipulative; then this may be the book for you. If you don’t know much about the role of the Holy Spirit, then this may be the book for you.

This book is for the thirsty, the suspicious, and the uninformed.

Staton balances sound theology and biblical wisdom with powerful personal stories. This book isn’t just about spiritual experience, but it includes experiences to help provide context and examples to complement the principles. One of the most powerful is Staton’s own battle with cancer.

Staton includes practices at the end of each chapter that provide ideas for ways to grow in the area discussed in the chapter. This is a practical way to get started and grow deeper in your faith and experience of God.

Book Summary – The Familiar Stranger

The Familiar Stranger is a book about the Holy Spirit. There is a gap between the way the Holy Spirit appears to work in the New Testament and what many of us experience in our lives. Staton claims that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can close this gap and experience the fullness of what God has for us through his Spirit.

Spiritual health is closing the gap between biblical rumor and actual life as narrowly as possible. Spiritual maturity is narrowing the gap between Kingdom promises and daily grind; between what I believe in my head and what I know in my heart, my emotions, and my bones; between the core beliefs I recite in creeds and sing in worship anthems and the core beliefs I live day in and day out. Spiritual health means that inevitable gap between the story on the page and the story of my life narrows and narrows like a door creaking shut on a dark room until there’s barely a blade of light left. The Holy Spirit is the experiential agent of the Trinitarian God, narrowing the gap between biblical promises and everyday experience and leading to greater spiritual health and maturity.

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When the Advocate Comes

The first part explores John 14-17 as a way to understand who the Holy Spirit is and how we relate to God.

We live in a modern culture where experience has more authority than expertise. Winning the heart has become more important than winning the mind. People are open to spiritual experiences. Spirituality grounded in the person of the Holy Spirit is a doorway into the church and into faith.

Staton goes through the biblical metaphors of breath, water, and a dove to show how we can understand the identity of the Holy Spirit through creation, the Old Testament, Jesus, the New Testament, and today.

Spiritual Experience as Everything or Nothing

The second part describes the extreme and opposing perspectives that many churches have moved toward and how to discern ways these have formed us. Staton does this by looking at the example of Simon the Sorcerer and Nicodemus the pharisee.

Simon the Sorcerer (Acts chapter 8) represents the extreme of prioritizing experiences above everything else. When Simon saw the manifestations of the Spirit when Phillip laid hands on people, he asked if he could pay to acquire the same power. He viewed it as a technique and a way to have control. The Holy Spirit is diminished into a source of power to exploit or an experience to seek instead of a person to know.

Nicodemus the pharisee (John chapter 3) represents the extreme of being passive towards spiritual experiences or even viewing them as dangerous or suspicious. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night seeking to understand how he could enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus responded that he needed to be born again like a child. As a respected leader, making this choice would cost Nicodemus his identity. He saw Jesus perform miracles and was moved to help give Jesus a proper burial. Despite all of this, he wasn’t willing to go from being a spectator to being a participant.

Staton challenges readers to evaluate where they fall on the spectrum and to move towards a healthy middle ground with an appropriate and nuanced view of the Holy Spirit.

Clothed With Power from On High

The third part explores the gifts and expressions of the Holy Spirit, and how they can be accessible to ordinary people today. Staton goes through these gifts looking first at the underlying theology, then the model provided in the Bible, and then what it looks like in practice today.

• Discernment – making decision amidst the noise
• Prophecy – hearing and speaking a message from God
• Healing – a sign that points to salvation and God’s Kingdom
• Witness – sharing what Jesus has done
• Redemptive Suffering – finding glory in suffering

My Top Takeaway – The Familiar Stranger

Redemptive Suffering

My top takeaway is the idea that the Holy Spirit is just as active in our suffering as in our triumphs. It can be easy to think that healing occurs when the Spirit is active and healing doesn’t occur when the Spirit does not act, but that is not the case. Suffering is a part of the human condition. We know that suffering grieves God. It is not how he created the world to be. We have the opportunity to choose what suffering does to us. It is an opportunity to be like Jesus. When we experience suffering, we are able to be compassionate towards others in a deeper way. We have the promise of new life and know that suffering won’t have the last word.

Conclusion