Ordinarily theology has to do with a studied, reflective understanding of things divine, dealing with how the various matters we believe about God and God's ways can be put into a coherent whole. But we do not find Paul reflecting on the Holy Spirit, any more than we find him reflecting on the significance of the Lord's Table or on the relationships within the Godhead, which he presupposes and which tantalizingly pop out here and there. As often happens with such foundational matters, we rarely look at them reflectively. They are simply part of the stuff of ongoing life; and what we say about them is often offhanded, matter-of-fact, and without argument or explanation.
Gordon D. Fee - Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God
Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 1996 - 208 р.
Gordon D. Fee - Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God - Contents
- Preface
- Overture — An Invitation to Read Paul Anew
- 1.A "Theology" of the Spirit? The Spirit in Pauline Theology
- 2.God Revisits His People — The Spirit as the Renewed Presence of God
- 3.The Holy Who? The Spirit as Person
- 4.God in Three Persons — The Spirit and the Trinity
- 5.The Beginning of the End — The Spirit as Evidence of the "Presence of the Future"
- 6.A People for His Name — The Spirit and the People of God
- 7.Conversion: Getting In (Part 1) — The Spirit and the Hearing of the Gospel
- 8.Conversion: Getting In (Part 2) — The Spirit at the Entry Point
- 9.Conversion: Staying In (Part 1) — The Spirit and Pauline Ethics
- 10.Conversion: Staying In (Part 2) — The Fruit of the Spirit
- 11.The Ongoing Warfare — The Spirit Against the Flesh
- 12.Power in Weakness — The Spirit, Present Weakness, and Prayer
- 13.To the Praise of His Glory — The Spirit and Worship
- 14.Those Controversial Gifts? The Spirit and the Charismata
- 15.Where to from Here? The Spirit for Today and Tomorrow
- Appendix — Spirit Baptism and Water Baptism in Paul
Scripture Index
Gordon D. Fee - Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God - Overture — An Invitation to Read Paul Anew
Contemporary Christians have a right to be concerned. In an increasingly secular, individualistic, and relativistic world—dubbed "post-Christian" in the 1960s and now called "postmodern"—the church is regularly viewed as irrelevant at best and Neanderthal at worst. Frankly, much of the fault lies with the church, especially those of us in the church who pride ourselves in being orthodox with regard to the historic faith. For all too often our orthodoxy has been either diluted by an unholy alliance with a given political agenda, or diminished by legalistic or relativistic ethics quite unrelated to the character of God, or rendered ineffective by a pervasive rationalism in an increasingly nonrationalistic world.
But there is reason for hope as well since contemporary postmodernism looks much like the culture of the Greco-Roman world into which the gospel first appeared some two thousand years ago. The secret to the success of the early believers in their culture lay first with their "good news" centered in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Immanuel had come, bringing both revelation of the character of God ("Have you been with me for so long and don't know who I am? The one who has seen me has seen the Father," John 14:9) and redemption from our tragic fallenness ("You shall call his name Yeshua, for he will save his people from their sins," Matt 1:21). But their success also lay with their experienced life of the Spirit who made the work of Christ an effective reality in their lives, thus making them a radical alternative within their culture.
It often seems otherwise with us. If we have (rightly) kept our central focus on Christ Jesus, we are less sure about the Holy Spirit. Despite the affirmations in our creeds and hymns and the lip service paid to the Spirit in our occasional conversations, the Spirit has been largely marginalized both in the halls of learning and in the life of the church as a community of faith.
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