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I want to speak plainly and carefully about something the church often treats as an ornament—a beautiful, abstract phrase we say at conferences and print on banners—but too rarely practise in the trenches of ordinary life: walking in the Spirit. This is testimony and instruction from someone who has wrestled with these things and wants the reader to experience the living power of God, not just a well-constructed theology or superficial Christian jargon.

WHY THIS MATTERS: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Spirituality has become, in many circles, an erudite and pleasant-sounding vocabulary—a coffee-table category: “spiritual but not religious,” “inner work,” “mindfulness.” If by spirituality we mean mere ideas, experiences or tasteful language, then it is indeed an abstraction. But the New Testament takes “spirit” to mean something decisively practical.

If God is a Spirit and we are called to worship him in spirit and truth, then spirituality is not an optional aesthetic: it is the grammar of the life of union with God.

John 4:23–24

We must move from theory to practice because only practice reveals power. The difference is like knowing the theory of swimming and actually immersing oneself in the water. You can memorise strokes; you cannot survive the current unless you learn to move with it.

THREE TEXTS, ONE QUESTION

We will walk with three passages together as companions:

• John 4—Jesus with the Samaritan woman; the decisive line: “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)
• Galatians 5—Paul’s classic teaching on flesh, Spirit, fruit and freedom: “Walk in the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:16; see also vv. 17–25)
• John 15—The vine and branches; life by abiding: “Abide in me, and I in you.” Fruitfulness through union (John 15:1–8).

These texts are not separate islands. John frames worship and the inner posture (worship in spirit and truth); Galatians gives the moral and experiential shape of what walking in the spirit looks like; John 15 describes the abiding life—the organic union—by which that walking becomes real.

Spiritual practice activates spiritual life, spiritual transformation and spiritual power.

A NOTE ON LANGUAGE: PNEUMA, RUACH, CAPITALS, AND CONTEXT

Translators sometimes domesticate the text by projecting theological categories onto words that are simpler in Greek. They offer their own limited understanding as a lens through which the original texts are interpreted, corrupted and then presented as inerrant Scripture.

The Greek word most often rendered “spirit” is πνεῦμα (pneuma). It can mean: wind, breath, the human spirit, or the Spirit of God. Context decides. In Hebrew the cognate word is רוּחַ (ruach), with similar semantic range: wind, breath, human inner spirit, or divine Spirit.

“To read the Bible in any language other than Hebrew is like kissing the bride through the veil.”

Chaim Nachman Bialik

This proverb is widely attributed in Jewish educational discourse to Chaim Nachman Bialik (or as a popular Jewish saying citing Bialik’s sentiment about translation). It is used to stress the intimacy of the Hebrew text, and for our uses, the Greek text in which the New Testament was originally penned in.

English adds a layer that the original languages did not have: capitalisation. The first Greek manuscripts had no capitals in the modern sense and the idea of marking a textual noun as divine by a capital is a late and modern editorial move. The effect is profound: we can be tempted to read “Spirit” as always meaning the Person of God, when sometimes Paul is contrasting the inner human spirit or speaking of a human faculty.

Translating the word “spirit” with a capital S (majuscule) instead of a lowercase s (minuscule) is the translator’s choice—not divine revelation. In my view, this is not only a mistake but a corruption of the original intended meaning in this passage. Consequently, it has become a profound source of confusion for believers who genuinely seek the truth. This becomes unmistakably clear the moment we examine the context Paul is unfolding.

In Galatians 5 Paul sets up a contrast:

→ φάρσα (sarx)—meaning “flesh”

→ πνεῦμα (pneuma)—meaning “spirit.”

Many English versions use a capital “S,” which obscures the rhetorical force: Paul is not writing an abstract metaphysics but diagnosing the inner conflict endemic to human existence: the human inclination (flesh) opposed to that inner principle which, when configured rightly, enables us to “Walk in the spirit,”—the human spirit in this case. Read in context, Galatians, as does Paul’s other writing, often discusses the inner life, habits and moral fruit that arise when one is under the sway of either tendency i.e. being carnally or spiritually minded. Minded is shorthand for “conscious.”

Both death and life arise from a particular mode of operation.

When we walk according to our physical senses—driven by bodily impulses such as appetite, survival, and procreation—we inevitably disconnect ourselves from the flow of spiritual life, because flesh cannot access or inherit the life-force of the Spirit of God. But when we shift into a spiritual mode of being—when the renewed human spirit is aligned and connected to the divine source—then it is nourished, sustained, and empowered to live the God-life with all the heavenly consequences that accompany it.

Two consequences flow from this linguistic point:

1. The textual grammar matters. Translators must be careful to allow context to determine sense, not modern dogmatic categories defined by human ignorance.
2. Walking in the spirit is therefore not an ethereal idea reserved for mystics: it describes the orientation of the human person—a spirit living in a body. Which inner principle we feed, which inclination we nurture—determines the ethical, communal and consequences we experience.

ACADEMIC NOTE: IS PAUL TALKING ABOUT THE HUMAN SPIRIT OR THE HOLY SPIRIT?

Scholars debate whether Paul’s “Spirit” in Galatians 5 always points to the Holy Spirit (God’s presence), the transformed human spirit, or both in interplay. My contextual, text-sensitive reading of this passage is this:

• Paul’s grammar and rhetorical strategy intend both divine agency and human response. The Spirit (πνεῦμα) is God’s gift and presence that empowers and reorients the believer’s inner life; simultaneously Paul highlights the lived dimension: our human consciousness can be configured by habit and choice to be either determined by the human spirit or yield to the flesh.
• The modern habit of capitalising “Spirit” as always meaning the person of God obscures Paul’s intended emphasis on ethical transformation. The Spirit is operative, but Paul’s immediate interest is the experiential result dependent on which mode Christians choose to operate in.

In short: the Spirit is divine agency; walking in the (human) spirit is our response shaped by that agency. Both realities are operative. Ignore either and the text becomes either abstract or moralistic—neither is helpful.

KEY WORDS: A BRIEF LEXICAL TABLE

Original	Transliteration	Literal semantic range	How it functions in our texts
πνεῦμα	pneuma	breath, wind, spirit (human or divine)	John 4: divine Spirit vs. human spirit; Gal. 5: human spirit as principle opposing human flesh
σάρξ	sarx	flesh, body, fallen human tendency	Gal. 5: represents the system of desires opposed to the renewed human spirit
καρπός	karpos	fruit	Gal. 5:22–23—moral and spiritual fruits resulting from walking by the renewed, connected and empowered human spirit, or not.
μένω	menō	to remain, abide	John 15: central verb for union and fruitfulness
αλήθεια	alētheia	truth, reality, faithfulness	John 4: worship by the human spirit and reality—not mere sentiment and abstract theory.

Translational nuance matters: words and verses must be read in their broader context.

EXEGESIS & THEOLOGICAL THREADS

John 4: WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH

In the conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus reorients worship away from physical geography and ritual to the posture of the heart—the inner landscape. “God is Spirit” means God is physically intangible and present everywhere all the time. It means God’s presence is mediated through the living, inward posture: worship must be implemented through the human spirit—not human flesh action and flesh noise.

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for In Him we live and move and have our being” —Acts 17:24-28

In truth, refers to tangible reality vs theoretical abstraction that has no practically meaning or relevance. The Samaritan story shows connection through encounter: the woman’s thirst becomes real; Jesus offers living water. Thus the example is set.

Galatians 5: WALKING, CONFLICT, FRUIT

Paul’s letter to the Galatians insists that the gospel ushers freedom, but freedom is not license for indulgence. Galatians 5 frames Christian ethics around two modes of life:

• The way of the flesh: listed in vv. 19–21 (sexual immorality, impurity, strife, envy…).
• The way of the spirit (small “s” not large “S”: the fruit in vs. 22–23 (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness…).

The imperative is practical: “Walk by the Spirit” (περιπατεῖτε ἐν πνεύματι).

The verb “walk” (περιπατέω, peripateio) evokes daily practice and resulting mobility—routine, habit, and resulting trajectory. This is not a one-off experience; it is habitual life, deliberately oriented. To “walk in the spirit” is to live under the governance of that inner spiritual principle which produces fruit and resists the runaway animalistic desires of the flesh.

Paul is relocating the entire geography of the spiritual life from without to within. He is dismantling the old assumption that Eden—paradise, salvation, divine life, spiritual power—is something external, something positioned in another time (“one day,” “when we get to heaven”) or in another place (“somewhere out there,” “at a service”).

In fact, we are now free to walk spiritually once again.

Paul insists with prophetic boldness that the true Eden is internal, accessible now, and planted in the regenerated human spirit.

This is the same shift Jesus made when He declared, “The kingdom of God is within you.” It is the same movement Jeremiah foresaw when he spoke of a covenant written on the heart, and the same paradigm John unpacks when he speaks of “abiding in the vine.”

Even Paradise withers when it is cut off from the living waters.

The entire drama of redemption does not transport us to a distant realm; it transforms the realm inside us. Salvation is not a change of location—it is a change of condition. That is God’s job. Our job is to maintain the garden established according to the divine pattern in heaven (Gen. 2:15).

Paul’s revelation is radical: the garden you were expelled from through Adam is the garden Christ restores in you. Paradise is not postponed. Eternal life is not deferred. The Spirit is not accessed by travel but by turning inward. The geography of God’s dwelling is no longer a temple made with hands—it is the spirit of man made alive by the breath of God.

In this way Paul moves the spiritual map: Eden is not “back then”; heaven is not “out there”; life is not “after death.” The sacred space—the meeting place of man and God—has been relocated to the interior chamber of the human spirit.

Paul makes it clear the Spirit’s governance is not mere inner sentiment but visible fruit. Theological precision: whether Paul means the Spirit as the person of God or the inner spiritual orientation of the believer, the ethical effect is the same—transformed life.

John 15: ABIDING AND ORGANIC UNION

John 15 pictures union: the vine (Spirit) produces fruit through the branch (spirit) because the branch remains in the vine. “Abide” (μένω) is the operative verb. The abiding is intimate, continual, life-giving dependence. Abiding and walking are two facets of the same reality: union (John) and orientation (Paul). The branch does not “try” to produce fruit; it lives and the life produces fruit automatically through the rejuvenated “branch”—the renewed human spirit.

When Jesus speaks of the Father pruning vinedresser-style, the pruning is painful but purposeful: union exposes what must be removed so the root life bears more fruit.

SCRIPTURAL ALCHEMICAL INITIATION

For those who read Scripture with the eye of the mystic or the hand of the craftsman, the picture is arresting: in the sacred garden there is a rock at the centre, and from that rock life flows. To the alchemist this is no mere ornament; it is the prima materia, the hidden stone from which the living water springs—the source that transmutes base things into gold. For the Christian, that rock is not an idea or a technique but a Person: Christ. He is the rock struck for living water, the Source from which the spring of divine life issues into our dry and divided hearts. He is the tree of life.

Think of the alchemical metaphor for a moment. Medieval alchemists described a process by which matter is purified and transformed through a sequence—often dramatised as nigredo (darkening), albedo (whitening), and rubedo (reddening)—until the prima materia is revealed and the philosopher’s stone is attained. This threefold drama is not a scientific manual but an image of inner travail: the dark night, the cleansing, the blossoming. Christianity has its echoes of that process. We pass through convulsions and emptiness; we are pruned and tested; then, by God’s design, the buried seed breaks forth and the tree bears fruit. In Scripture the centre-rock functions as both the starting-point and the end: it is the place where death is met and where life begins (Ephesians 2:19-22).

Scripture gives us images that map cleanly onto the alchemical imagination. Moses strikes the rock and water gushes out to sustain a wandering people transforming wasteland into oasis; the Psalmist calls God the Rock; Paul calls Christ the spiritual rock who accompanied Israel and supplied living water to them (1 Corinthians 10:4). Jesus himself promises rivers of living water flowing from the interior of those who believe (John 7:38). These are not disconnected pictures; they are facets of the same revelation: God’s life is not external aid but an internal spring that transforms the human frame.

What, then, is the practical significance of saying that the rock is Christ? First, it relocates the centre of gravity. If Eden’s lost fountain is restored in the rock that is Christ, then the quest is not outward pilgrimage to some far-off Eden but inward turning to the living Christ within. The alchemist’s search for the stone is, at root, a search for the presence that makes corruption into glory. Likewise, the Christian’s pilgrimage moves from territories and temples to the secret chamber of the renewed heart. The rock is both foundation and furnace: it supports, it withstands, and it gives forth life.

Abiding then, becomes the alchemical process that transmutes lead (carnal modes) into gold (spiritual modus).

Second, the image insists on participation. Living water is not a static commodity we possess; it is a dynamic flow we enter and let pass through us. We are not spectators watching a stream; we are channels through which God’s river runs. Abiding in Christ (John 15) is the discipline that places the branch on the vine so the sap—that life from the rock—can course through our fibres and produce fruit. Both John 15 and Galatians confirm that the spiritual “fruit” is produces by the recreted human spirit empowered by, and in the living presence of Christ. The alchemical stone does not stand apart from the material; it works within it. So Christ’s life transforms ours from the inside out.

“…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.” —Philipians 2:12-13

Third, the metaphor carries a moral and spiritual program. An alchemist does not simply wish for gold; she subjects the ore to heat, to separation, to recombination. Christian formation likewise involves heat and separation—trials that reveal what is chaff and what is seed. The rock at the centre prunes and tests, and the living water that issues both cleanses and empowers. This is why Paul’s language about walking in the spirit and John’s language about abiding are complementary: the Spirit is the life-giver who flows from the rock and the human response is a daily participation in that stream—spiritually not physically.

How does one practically enter this symbolism so it becomes a way of life rather than an elegant metaphor? A few simple pointers:

1. Learn to recognise the rock. In prayer and scriptural meditation ask: where is Christ present here? Where is the life that is not mine but given? Cultivate the habit of naming the Source in the moment you feel thirsty.
2. Allow the rock to be struck in you. The strike of the rock is often painful—exposure, loss, honest confession—but it produces water. When trials come, practice receiving them as opportunities for the spring to break forth rather than mere punishment.
3. Become a channel. Practice waiting in Gods’ presence as an act of spiritual abiding—soaking in His presence.
4. Remember the alchemical patience. Transformation is slow. Expect stages. Celebrate small reversals of corruption and subtle changes of desire. The more you abide, the more your modus is transmuted from lead to gold.

Finally, this image humbles us: the rock is not conjured by human effort. The alchemist sought the stone but could not create it; the Christian knows the Rock is Christ and that all transformation is by gift. Our part is to turn, to receive, to abide—to be shaped into vessels fit to carry the living water.

So to any alchemists in the audience—or anyone who carries the alchemist’s longing for inner transformation—hear the gospel as the true alchemy. The stone is present, already struck. The water flows. Come to the centre, drink, and be remade.

PRACTICAL THEOLOGY: WHAT WALKING IN THE SPIRIT LOOKS LIKE

What does the practical application look like? Here are pathways from the page to the pavement of daily life.

1. HABITUAL ATTENTION—“WALK” AS DAILY RHYTHM

Walking is habitual. The Spirit is cultivated by routine practices that form the inner orientation:

• Daily prayer that is conversational, not merely ritual.
• Scripture reading with the ear for God’s voice—not just information but formation.
• Regular confession and repentance—a quick turning, not a decade-long list of guilt.

These practices are not magical; they are means by which the affections are reoriented.

2. ABIDING IN RELATION (JOHN 15)

Abiding is relational. Practice simple abiding:

• Short times of silence to feel and name God’s presence.
• Rehearse trust: when anxiety rises, name 1–2 concrete promises of God.
• Practice Jesus-centred speech: “I abide in Christ” as an identity statement, not merely a pious phrase.

Abiding is cultivation of dependence, not performance.

3. FRUIT CHECKS

Paul gives us measurable fruit. Regularly evaluate your life by the fruit list (Gal. 5:22–23). Ask:

• Is love increasing?
• Is my patience growing in difficulty?
• Do I show joy even when circumstances resist?

Make small, achievable goals that align with the fruit you lack.

4. COMMUNITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

The Spirit shapes community. Walking in the Spirit will look different when it is shared:

• Community exhorts, prunes, and celebrates growth.
• Spiritual formation works best in embodied relationships where others can name blind spots.

Find companions who will practise the disciplines with you.

5. ENGAGE THE WILL

Walking in the Spirit is not passive. The Spirit empowers our will to choose rightly. Train the will to abide, and abiding with transmute the will:

• Small, repeated acts of obedience (fasting, prayer, scripture memorisation and meditation etc.)
• Choose counter-cultural acts that resist the logic of the flesh (forgiveness when offended).

WARNINGS (STRAIGHT TALK)

• Don’t spiritualise sin away. “Walking in the Spirit” is not a bypass for moral responsibility. The Spirit increases our capacity for repentance and obedience; it does not excuse sin.
• Don’t reduce it to technique. The Spirit is personal; practices are means, not ends. Avoid the neatness of spiritual technique that substitutes ritual for relationship.
• Beware of capital-letter idolatry. Avoid reading “Spirit” as a slogan. Seek the textured reality of God’s presence and the transformation it effects.
• Choose a method that emphasises the grammatical and discursive cues in Scripture. Applied to our topic, this approach would insist on careful attention to which “spirit” the text refers to in each clause. We must press the lexical range of ruach/pneuma and how usage in context signals whether the inward human spirit or God’s Spirit is intended. Translation is interpretive and that textual detail shapes theological outcome. Most English translations seem to me to merely be fresh takes on the King James Authorised Version. There is little independent thought for fear of offending ecclesiastical ears.
• Matthew Henry: Henry reads Galatians and John with faithfulness to pastoral formation: the Spirit is the means of sanctification; the Christian life is progressive; practical steps and affectional conversion matter. He would urge believers to not merely mentally assent doctrinally but to be changed morally and relationally—you will know a tree, and where its roots are planted by the fruit it produces.

CULTURAL DIAGNOSIS: WHY WE AREN’T TAUGHT THIS

You asked why we rarely hear robust teaching on spirituality. A few reasons:

• Ignorance: Many congregations simply lack formation in spiritual practice; leaders and laity alike are untrained in how to cultivate inner life, so the topic is neglected by default. You will rarely rise higher than your mentors.
• Fear of mysticism: Some teachers fear sounding mystical and thus retreat into ethics or doctrine without describing the experiential union with God.
• Academic specialisation: Seminaries sometimes separate “spiritual formation” from biblical theology, treating it as soft formation rather than primary.
• Commodified spirituality: Popular spirituality sells techniques; the church often resists anything that looks like technique, so the middle ground is neglected.

The result: congregations lack robust formation in the daily disciplines and inner orientation that produce life.

CONCLUSION: THEOLOGY THAT WALKS

Walking in the Spirit/spirit is neither mystical pietism nor moralism. It is the lived grammar of union with God. The Spirit is God’s presence and the spirit, the inner principle that reorients our desires, produces ethical fruit, and binds us into communities shaped by love when staying connected the the Spirit of God,

If we are honest: the way we speak about “Spirit” has sometimes made the Bible harder to understand, not clearer. We must recover textual humility—let the Greek and Hebrew speak, resist the temptation to hide behind capital letters, and cultivate the concrete disciplines that turn doctrine into life.

To walk in the Spirit is to live as people who have been breathed into by God, who abide in Christ as branches, and who by simple, daily obedience allow that life to show itself in sacrificial love.

DEVOTIONAL PRAYER

Lord Jesus, you are the vine and I am the branch; you breathed life into my dry places and called me to abide. Come and make my heart your home. Teach me to walk by the life you give, to practise small acts of obedience, and to bear fruit that lasts. Where I have been complacent or merely academic about the Spirit, forgive me and restore my delight. Shape my desires; strengthen my will; make my life a clear reflection of your love, joy and peace. Amen.

FIVE QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. Where in my life do I habitually “walk” by the desires of the flesh rather than by the spirit (small “s”)? Name one small habit that reveals this.
2. Which fruit of Galatians 5 is most noticeably absent in my relationships right now? What single act of abiding could I take this week to begin cultivating it?
3. When anxiety or anger arises, what short (10–30 second) practice will I use to “abide” in Christ in that moment?
4. Who are two people who can lovingly hold me accountable to spiritual practices and the fruit they produce? How will I invite them into that role?
5. What is one hidden way my language or teaching about “Spirit/spirit” has become abstract or vague? How can I make it more concrete and practical this month?