Life-Giving Spirit": Probing the Center of Paul's Pneumatology

2003

The research sets out to inquire into Paul's initial thoughts on the Holy Spirit. Paul's convictions, that he was called to be an apostle to the Gentiles and that God has given the Spirit upon the Gentiles apart from Torah obedience, are foundational for any enquiry on the subject. The key questions are: Did Paul expect a bestowal of the Spirit upon the Gentiles apart from Torah obedience when he went into Gentile mission? And, how can we account for Paul's conviction that God has poured out the Spirit upon the Gentiles? Central to our argument is Paul's conviction that God has graciously endowed the gift of the Spirit upon his Gentile converts, an understanding that is rooted primarily in his own conversion/call experience and secondarily in his experience with and as a missionary of the Hellenistic community in Antioch. By investigating the range of expectations of the Spirit that were present in Hebrew scripture and in the wider Jewish literature, the study found that such a concept is rare, and that it is usually the covenant community to which the promise of the Spirit is given. Further, Paul's own pre-Christian convictions about the Spirit, which particularly evolved from his own self-perception as a Pharisee and persecutor of the church, display a continuity between his own thought patterns and those of Second Temple Judaism. Paul's Damascus experience was an experience of the Spirit. His experience of the 'glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ' (2 Cor.3.1-4.6) provided him with the belief that there is now a new relationship with God, which is possible through the sphere of the Spirit. In addition, Paul was influenced by the Hellenists, whose theological beliefs included a perception of the church as the eschatological Temple where the Spirit of God is the manifest presence of God. It is in these notions that one may trace the origins of Paul's thoughts on the Holy Spirit.

Pneuma 45, 2023

Throughout most of Church history, one of the most neglected doctrines is the work and office of the Holy Spirit. The theology of the Spirit has been regardless as the orphan child of Christian doctrines. In this regard, the current volume aims to offer an exegetical contribution that seeks to explain the doctrine of the Spirit within early Jewish and Greco-Roman Christianity.

Wipf and Stock , 2017

key words: pneumatic hermeneutic, wisdom, cross, pneumatology, exegesis The cross of Christ crucified symbolized the central theme of Paul’s ministry. In his letter to the Corinthians, the apostle commenced his correspondence with “the message about the cross” and “power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18, NRSV). The proposal for this paper utilizes the method analogia scripturae. Set within the wisdom motif of the Greco-Roman world, this study is dedicated to the examination of the apostle’s Christology in the context of 1 Cor. 1:18-25 and the Pneumatology in 1 Cor. 2:9-16 as both pericopes are juxtaposed in his epistle. Essentially, the thesis concerns the grounding of the Pneumatology of Paul with his Christology in 1 Corinthians. The Corinthian church required clarification and pastoral wisdom with their pneumatic experiences; thus, Paul recognized that a strong theology of the cross complemented their encounters with the Spirit. The question for biblical studies involves a lively tension of the Pneumatology of the Spirit with a robust Christology. Because the power of God throughout this passage has the cross as its paradigm, the structure of the paper leds to the significance of the apostle’s pneumatological contribution of the cross and Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:18; 2:2). For this reason, a strong Christology must ground the Pneumatology of the Pauline corpus. This study in biblical literature commences a new discussion in ecumenical dialogue between pneumatic experiences in the church and christological issues in scripture.

Paper on pneumatology for the second semester of Systematic Theology in my seminary studies

Presented on Friday, February 10, 2017, during the 13th Annual Seminary Scholarship Symposium at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary on the campus of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI. Many New Testament scholars have noted significant differences between the theology of the undisputed Pauline writings and that of Colossians. One of these differences is the abundance of pneumatology in the former and its apparent absence in the latter. Most scholars agree that pneumatology is a central theme for Paul, but some of them question its presence in Colossians and, therefore, challenge its claimed Pauline authorship (Col 1:1; 4:18). Other scholars see the presence of the Spirit permeating the content of the letter in a way that corresponds with typical Pauline theology. Most, however, recognize some pneumatological references, but these are seen to be few and limited. This debate raises the question: If Colossians is a Pauline epistle, where is the Spirit? This study seeks to answer this question by conducting an in-depth exegetical and intertextual analysis of pneumatological language and concepts in the undisputed Pauline writings and Colossians for the purpose of determining (1) the degree to which the Spirit is present in Colossians and (2) whether or not there is correspondence between the pneumatological content of the undisputed Pauline writings and that of Colossians. This analysis leads the study to conclude that, while pneumatology features less prominently in Colossians than in the undisputed Pauline writings, it is not altogether absent from it. Rather the Spirit is present in four explicit (Col 1:8, 9; 2:5; 3:16) and many implicit references (of which only seven are presented) that have deep linguistic and conceptual connections to the pneumatological content in the undisputed Pauline writings.

2014

espanolLa meta de este articulo es investigar acerca del Espiritu Santo en los libros de Pablo y hablar de uno de los temas mas desafiantes de su pensamiento teologico. Algunos investigadores incluso dicen que la pneumatologia de Pablo debe ser considerada como el aspecto central de su teologia. El objetivo de este estudio preliminar solo es introducir este vasto tema acerca del uso de la palabra πνeῦμα en las epistolas de Pablo e interpretar tambien las afirmaciones teologicas mas relevantes sobre el Espiritu Santo. EnglishThis article aims to research about the Holy Spirit in the books of Paul, discussing one of the most challenging subjects of his theological thought. Some researchers even say that the pneumatology of Paul should be considered the central aspect of his theology. The objective of this preliminary study is only to introduce this vast theme about the use of the word πνeῦμα in the epistles of Paul and also to interpret the most relevant theological affirmations about...

It is the Spirit Who Gives Life: New Directions in Pneumatology , 2022

Pneuma, 2020

I talk about some of the theories about how the Holy Spirit disappeared in Lutheran theology, and offer St. Paul's pneumatology as a supplement.