Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God , livre ebook

Title Page
Copyright Page
© 1996, 2023 by Gordon D. Fee
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakeracademic.com
Repackaged edition published 2023
ISBN 978-1-5409-6602-5
Previously published in 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers
Baker Academic edition first published 2011
ISBN 978-0-8010-4624-7
Ebook edition created 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-4002-3 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-4934-4003-0 (pdf)
ISBN 978-1-5409-6643-8 (casebound)
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture translations are the author’s own.
Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Portions of this book are adapted from God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul , © 1994 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts.
Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.
Dedication
for Maudine— God’s gift of presence in my life
Contents
Cover
Title Page i
Copyright Page ii
Dedication iii
Foreword by Dean Pinter vii
Preface xi
Overture—An Invitation to Read Paul Anew xvii
1. A “Theology” of the Spirit? The Spirit in Pauline Theology 1
2. God Revisits His People—The Spirit as the Renewed Presence of God 9
3. The Holy Who? The Spirit as Person 24
4. God in Three Persons—The Spirit and the Trinity 35
5. The Beginning of the End—The Spirit as Evidence of the “Presence of the Future” 46
6. A People for His Name—The Spirit and the People of God 60
7. Conversion: Getting In (Part 1)—The Spirit and the Hearing of the Gospel 70
8. Conversion: Getting In (Part 2)—The Spirit at the Entry Point 79
9. Conversion: Staying In (Part 1)—The Spirit and Pauline Ethics 91
10. Conversion: Staying In (Part 2)—The Fruit of the Spirit 104
11. The Ongoing Warfare—The Spirit against the Flesh 117
12. Power in Weakness—The Spirit, Present Weakness, and Prayer 130
13. To the Praise of His Glory—The Spirit and Worship 141
14. Those Controversial Gifts? The Spirit and the Charismata 152
15. Where to from Here? The Spirit for Today and Tomorrow 167
Appendix: Spirit Baptism and Water Baptism in Paul 181
Notes 191
Scripture Index 201
Back Cover 205
Foreword
I grow weary of Christian voices telling me I have got to read “the five latest books on Paul’s theology of X” or “this year’s top six commentaries on Y” or “the recent top ten Christian books for a successful Z.” I am a working minister serving a small, vibrant congregation and I’m not able to keep up with every recommended book cast my way—nor do I want to! When my parishioners and friends ask me to make book recommendations, I usually suggest those that are nourishing and digestible, ones that have had a long shelf life—preferably for decades or centuries instead of months or years. Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God meets these criteria. It is not a got -to-read book; rather, it is a get -to-read book.
Why Read This Book
Gordon makes an obvious but bold assertion in his book: “If we are going to count for much in the postmodern world in which we now live, the Spirit must remain the key to the church’s existence.” These words are still as relevant as they were when he first wrote them in the mid-1990s, if not more so today. The ubiquity of the internet, the influence of social media, and the geopolitical shifts that have occurred since 9/11 were not envisioned in the world in which Gordon wrote this book, but Gordon’s insight was keen and far-reaching at that time, and it continues as such today. He recognizes that the church always needs a reformed and reforming faith rooted in the experienced reality of the Holy Trinity, especially when faced with the contemporary seductions posed by the “modern trinity” of relativism, secularism, and individualism.
I suspect that one of the ongoing threats that the modern trinity’s influence poses to the church is dualism. Often, unhelpful dualistic and polarized perspectives creep in when questions of priority are asked. What is more important? . . .
The body or the spirit?
The intellect or the emotions?
The individual or the community?
The present or the future?
The gifts of the Spirit or the fruit of the Spirit?
Belief or behavior?
Private prayer or social action?
What you will discover in this book is Gordon’s insistence—based on his close readings of Paul’s letters—that the answers to these questions can be found by replacing every “or” with “and.” In the power of the Spirit, the apostle Paul held these realities in tension; Gordon follows his example. Gordon coins a striking phrase to express the tension of this space—namely, “the radical middle.” It is in this radical middle where we find balance, strength, and hope in the face of the “winds of doctrine” that blow within our contemporary culture.
This radical-middle, Spirit-filled life is what Gordon has taught and preached to pastors, congregations, fellow professors, and students in countless churches and academic gatherings throughout his career. He has done so, usually accompanied by his intrepid wife Maudine, for decades. Often with a booming voice and always with a gentle heart, he has sung this song from places as varied as war-torn Croatia to the windswept Canadian prairies, from the Church of England’s Holy Trinity Brompton to the Pentecostal churches of Bangalore, from cosmopolitan colleges in Boston to pastoral congre gations in the Gulf Islands. The theology and themes of this book have traveled well and continue to bear fruit.
How to Read This Book
If I have indicated why I think today’s generation of disciples and those who disciple them would benefit from reading this book, then here is how you might read this book. Of course, like any book, you could read it on your own. However, it would be even better to find an opportunity to read it in fellowship with other people. Maybe you can gather a couple friends to join you in reading it over a weekly Saturday-morning breakfast. Most of the chapters comprise a manageable eight to twelve pages and take about thirty minutes (or less) to read. This would be a great book for pastors to use in a sixteen-week teaching series. If you follow the Christian calendar, the book will fit perfectly into the season of Pentecost, which kicks off, of course, on Pentecost Sunday. In my own congregation, we have a monthly series called Little Books, Big Ideas. We read good, short books and then gather in homes for small group discussions. Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God works well in a setting like that.
The most important advice that I attempt to give readers is that, if possible, good books like this be read corporately and then lived corporately. This may not be easy, but it will be worthwhile. As with all good theological literature that stands the test of time from generation to generation, the goal isn’t simply to check it off a reading list. Rather, the purpose of engaging good theology is to be conformed into the likeness of God’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This happens when we walk in the Spirit, and usually it takes a lifetime, or longer, for transformation to occur. Or, to use one of Gordon’s memorable metaphors, “When we receive the Spirit at conversion, divine perfection does not set in, but divine ‘infection’ does!”
For over thirty years—almost a biblical “generation”—Gordon has been one of my spiritual fathers in the faith. His life and teaching have shaped who I am, the way I approach theology, and how I serve in pastoral ministry. Gordon has treated me as one of his children—and it is an honor and a joy to share in this fellowship along with a host of others in the family of Christ who have learned with and from Gordon. Now, it is an honor and a joy to commend this book to a new generation of his “children.” May his tribe increase!
Dean Pinter Epiphany 2022
Preface
This book has had a checkered history. It is the book I had hoped to write some years ago at the invitation of Hendrickson Publishers, when they approached me to “expand slightly” the article on the Holy Spirit in the Pauline letters that appeared in the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988). To my great surprise I discovered while writing this article that there was no book available on this subject. So I set out to write a book that would fill this gap.
But I was also anxious to support the conclusions set forth in the dictionary article. So I decided that I needed to give full and careful exegesis to every Pauline text that mentioned the Spirit or the Spirit’s activity. The result, God’s Empowering Presence (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994; henceforth GEP ), was a massive tome, full of (necessary) detail and careful argumentation.
Thus the first go-around resulted in a book targeted primarily for scholars and pastors, and attempted to bring some balance in our presentations of Pauline theology. Even though broad lip service has been paid to the Spirit’s rather significant role in Pauline life and thought, New Testament scholarship in general and Pauline scholars in particular have greatly marg