This past Sunday I completed our class on “True Spirituality,” with a lesson arguing that one key work of the Spirit is empowering believers to speak the gospel boldly (and often to suffer as a result).  This can be seen in 2 Timothy 1 and as a theme in Acts where, I argue, speaking the word with boldness is the most common effect of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Luther once made a similar point:

“But the comfort and courage of Christendom, created by the Holy Spirit, are steadfast, properly motivated, and pleasing to God and His angels.  Thus we read that the holy martyrs were defiantly courageous against tyrants, torments, and suffering.  When the young virgins Agnes and Agatha went to prison and to death, they went very confident and joyful.  They felt as they also said aloud, as if they were going to a wedding.  Truly my dear daughter, if to you going to prison and being beheaded is like going to a dance, you must in truth have a heart, mind and courage different from those of the world…. Such courage assuredly is the work of the Holy Spirit alone” (What Luther Says, p. 349, #1033, emphasis added)