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Overview
Any list of emotions characterizing true Christian spirituality must include joy. In his two volumes, Luke summons his audience to joy-filled living in personal and community life. This study supplements a dearth of biblical and theological attention to the topic of joy.Luke's paired volumes show people encountering the numinous (supernatural) world through a plethora of charismatic experiences with the divine. These experiences include angelic visitations, visions, healings, and baptism in the Spirit. Within the broad canon of Scripture, Luke draws his readers into the affective experiences of others. In examining biblical texts, interpreters must not ignore important features like the emotional atmosphere, the charismatic experiences of individuals and groups, and their expressions of joy. Embracing these features supports the reality that God wills joy for his people. This study will show that Luke links charismatic encounters with the Christian experience of joy, confirmed by the repeated references to joy in the text. Numerous texts reflect an atmosphere, experience, and expression of joy, all intended to attract readers, then and now, to joyful living, as persons and communities of faith. Thus, Luke argues for a "lived theology" of joy when people encounter the supernatural world
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780824599317 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | PublishDrive |
| Publication date: | 09/25/2018 |
| Sold by: | PUBLISHDRIVE KFT |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 352 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
JOYFUL ENCOUNTERS
"Joy is the meaning of human life, joy in thanksgiving and thanksgiving as joy. In a way, this answer abolishes the intention of such questions as: For what purpose has man been created? For what purpose am I here? For the answer does not indicate ethical goals and ideal purposes but justifies created existence as such."
–Jürgen Moltman
Any list of emotions characterizing true Christian spirituality must include joy. In his two volumes, Luke summons his audience to joy-filled living in personal and community life. This study aims to supplement a dearth of biblical and theological attention devoted to the topic of joy, specifically in relationship to the global Pentecostal and charismatic experience. Luke's paired volumes emphasize the importance of joy in narrative form, showing people encountering the numinous (supernatural) world through a plethora of charismatic experiences with the divine. These experiences include angelic visitations, visions, healings, and baptism in the Spirit. Within the broad canon of Scripture, Luke draws his readers into the affective experiences of others.
In examining biblical texts, interpreters must not ignore important features like the emotional atmosphere, the charismatic experiences of individuals and groups, and their expressions of joy. Embracing these features supports the reality that God wills joy for his people.
Affective language is inextricably woven into the very fabric of Scripture and cannot be separated from the cloth of Scripture in favor of more propositional or theological threads to be highlighted. For this monograph, the word, "affection" refers to emotion, not "fondness." Writers of the biblical texts draw readers into the stories, and invite the audience to experience the events, including the emotional responses. Thus, readers can sympathize with their expressions, whatever the genre might be. For example, Luke describes an incident when Jesus was critiqued for his disciples' non-fasting practice. Through parabolic language, Luke points to joy as the only appropriate response to Jesus' presence. Jesus uses images of a wedding and groom, a patch and garment, and wine and wineskin to underscore the truth that the only natural and correct response to the groom is joy. Fasting and related mourning do not belong to a wedding celebration — like "wet-blankets," they are out of order at a wedding (Luke 5:33-39). Jesus' shared life with his disciples and God's people should inspire joy. Furthermore, joyous emotion is an important part of Christian spirituality, identified by Paul as a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22).
This study will show that Luke links charismatic encounters with the Christian affection of joy, confirmed by the repeated references to joy in Luke-Acts in his narratives. Numerous texts reflect an atmosphere, experience, and expression of joy, all intended to attract readers, then and now, to joyful living, as persons and communities of faith. Thus, Luke argues for a "lived theology" of joy when people encounter the supernatural world.
From a statistical standpoint, Luke emphasizes the "joy" word-family much more than the other gospels. He continues this emphasis in Acts. For the purpose of this monograph, I pay attention to explicit passages in Luke-Acts where joy is associated with some event of divine intervention, invasion or charismatic experience from the supernatural world. I will discuss these passages seen through this lens.
The Motif of Joy in LukeActs
I propose that joy is a key motif in Luke-Acts. According to William Freedman, "A motif, then, is a recurrent theme, character, or verbal pattern, but it may also be a family or associational cluster of literal or figurative references to a given class of concepts or objects ... It is generally symbolic — that is, it can be seen to carry a meaning beyond the literal one immediately apparent...."
Thus, when Luke uses the emotional language of joy, he propels his readers beyond the actual recorded events. Certainly, he informs his readers. He invites them to reflect upon the atmospheres, experiences and expressions of joy in the narrative. But he also elicits joy from his readers, as they are drawn into the emotions of the text, and he invites them to sympathize with certain events and key figures. He communicates, "This is the way life can be lived," and he intends for his readers to embrace this thrust in personal and community relationships, as people encounter the divine. Luke indicates that joy should characterize the new people of God.
For example, in Acts 15 Luke compares what Cornelius and others experienced with the same joyous encounter that Peter and others enjoyed on the initial Day of Pentecost. Luke's narrative includes Peter's statement: "And God who knows the heart bore witness to them (Cornelius and others), giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us" (Acts 15:8). Acts 15 shows that feelings shaped deliberations by members of the Jerusalem Council. Such Lucan texts of joy express Christian affection and lead to a communal solidarity.
I intend to demonstrate that Luke emphasizes joy in the context of various encounters with the numinous. To this end, I will probe the joy-vocabulary and repetition of the joy word-family in Luke-Acts in comparison/contrast with the other gospels, themes and Luke's special material (Sondergut). The text includes other occurrences of the joy-vocabulary in connection with other teachings of Jesus, e.g., "rejoicing and leaping for joy" in suffering and persecution (Luke 6:22-23); these passages will not be covered, since they are not immediately linked with charismatic experience. Further, Luke does describe other healings or exorcisms, which do not contain words from the joy-vocabulary. While I am unable to argue or exegete from silence, I also assume that such miraculous actions did produce joy from various individuals and witnesses to a powerful event. The fact that Luke does not draw from the joy-vocabulary in these events does not mean that joy was not present. I suggest that Luke assumes such acts of liberation would produce joy, and he did not feel compelled to express it in specific language. Certainly, Luke would assume a natural "spill-over" between paragraphs. My selected texts bear upon Luke's theological and pastoral agenda of joy as a vital aspect of Christian experience and Christian affections in the human encounter with the other-worldly.
The Nature of Joy
I propose that joy is a term that serves as the broader umbrella covering the numerous vocabulary words that express nuances of the joy-vocabulary, e.g., delight, happiness, ecstasy, pleasure, gladness, blessedness, peace, celebration, excess, even laughter. The various Greek cognates all contain emotional content. As Marianne Meye Thompson argues, other texts express the ways joy replaces conditions of sorrow, grieving, affliction, which directly relate to the distressed conditions of ill or possessed persons in Luke-Acts.
In contrast to many scholars who devalue emotion in biblical texts, I suggest that joy is an emotion of elation over something good that has happened, is occurring, or will take place. In this study, joy is a vital part of various charismatic experiences. As an emotion, joy has an object, and it is felt for a positive reason, deemed so by a person. For example, Luke refers to a healed leper, who is overjoyed at his healing. He is no longer an outcast, is set free, and returns to Jesus to give thanks to God and to Jesus for his healing (Luke 17:11-19). Something would be strangely amiss if he was joy-less. Here, joy is felt and expressed for the right reasons. Conversely, joy can be felt and expressed for the wrong motivation. Luke also notes the delight of religious leaders at Judas' offer to betray Jesus (Luke 22:4-6), or Herod Antipas' misguided joy, "rejoiced exceedingly" (e0xa/rh li/an 23:8), followed by the explanation for his excessive joy: "for a long time he wanted to see him" "hoping to see some sign performed by him" (23:8). Clearly, Herod's "joy" is a sham, a far cry from the genuine joy believers experience when they encounter the miraculous.
Joy is a similar emotion, felt and experienced both by the leper, the religious leaders, and Antipas. However, the reasons for the emotion are poles apart. Thus, the same emotion is right in one instance and wrong in the other. This is what Matthew Elliott labels as "the cognitive content" associated with the emotions. Thus, we find the rich fool, whose reason for joy is altogether immoral, because he lives only for himself without regard for God or others in his community (Luke 12:19). On the other hand, Jesus directs his disciples to the real grounds for their joy, "your names have been written in heaven" — not successful exorcisms alone (Luke 10:20). Occasions for a felt-joy can be grounded or motivated by both right and wrong reasons.
Matthew Elliott makes a solid case that "many New Testament scholars have taken their theology and defined emotion words by drawing on these beliefs. In other words, emotional vocabulary has often been redefined to mean a theological concept devoid of its emotional meaning. This method is the wrong way around; the cart is before the horse!" This is why he counters the notion that "theological 'joy' is held to be important while the significance of how a Christian should feel is rarely mentioned ... The word 'inner' provides a way to assert that it is not an emotion while maintaining the claim that joy is present."
Many scholars draw a misleading distinction between "joy" and "happiness," "inner joy" and "outward happiness," "religious joy" and "secular joy." These divisions can minimize, trivialize or even delete the emotional content of joy. Examples of this approach are numerous. For example, Bultmann dismisses the affective content of Luke's statement that Jesus "rejoiced with exuberance in the Holy Spirit" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] Luke 10:21); he regards this merely as "inspiration." Jesus' emotional response is occasioned by the seventy [two] returning from their successful short-term mission-trip. The verbs, "I exult, I am overjoyed, I am filled with exuberant joy" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) suggest a joyous and ecstatic condition, since it is "in the Holy Spirit."
Similarly, in his article on "Joy," Creath Davis argues that "Joy is a gift of God ... a quality of life and not simply a fleeting emotion." Thus, for Davis, if joy is God's gift and a quality of life, then the emotional or personal component is absent. The only time Davis uses the word "emotion" in his article, he frames it in a negative expression. Dorothy Harvey's article on "Joy" begins with the statement, "The experience of joy, as related to praise and thanksgiving in public worship, or to the quiet confidence of the individual in God, or to the proclamation of God's saving power. ..." She draws attention to corporate worship, quiet confidence, and public proclamation, all without addressing emotion in her article.
Eric Beyreuther and Günter Finkenrath provide extensive and solid reasons for joy in the NT, but the word emotion is found only once in their nine-page article, and then, it is used in a pejorative expression, "the joy of the festive company, not the subjective emotion of an individual." How can joyous festivity not touch emotions? Similarly, Gerald Hawthorne consistently argues that joy is something "inner" and not "outer," and he distinguishes between "joy" and "happiness." Hawthorne continues his demeaning premise, "Further, these writers do not appear to equate joy with happiness, as happiness is commonly understood today (this in spite of the fact that makarios is translated as "happy" in numerous versions), nor can any of them be termed advocates of what might be called "holy laughter" or other such ecstatic, visible expressions of joy." He minimizes expressions of joy and happy feelings and points to something "more profound ... akin to faith ... a settled state of mind, marked by peace ... an attitude toward life." In his work, Joy in the New Testament, William Morrice also points to "this inward state of joy to the Christians." In John Painter's article, "Joy," the words emotion or feeling do not appear. However, the NT writers do not distinguish joy from happiness. Thus, Wolfgang Bilner begins his article on "Joy" with the statement, "Joy, as a basic emotion, corresponds to the state of happiness."
Experienced joy — an anticipatory (proleptic) celebration of the untold joy of the future
The delight that Luke's characters experience in the present anticipates the untold joy they will experience in the future. People who are freed from illness or troubling demonic spirits experience joy, but their emotional response foreshadows the sheer delight awaiting them in the eschaton, "a reality that transcends the world's horizons ... that anticipates the fullness of God's remaking the world." Emotions of joy are orientations to the present world, and also the future world. For example, the joy of the shepherd finding a lost sheep, or a woman finding a lost coin is contagious — it must be shared with others. Jesus clearly indicates that such joy is matched by the joy of heaven or the angels of God (Luke 15:8, 10). Human joy is concurrent with divine joy. When people discover God's miraculous power, they experience wonder, gratitude, and joy. They serve as contagious witnesses to God's unexpected grace. Their response is not anchored in duty or obligation. Their lives have been touched by God's charismatic power. From Luke's perspective, their joy is eschatological, a foretaste of the final consummation. As Karl Barth says, a Christian finds election in Jesus Christ who is the "incarnate gratitude of the creature ... the original of this representation and illustration of the gracious God which is free of all self-will and therefore joyful, the true imitator of his work."
With reference to Miriam's song of "wild delight" (Ex. 15), N.T. Wright is certainly on target when he states, "Something has happened as a result of a new world opened up. The thing that has happened is simultaneously an act of 'judgment' and an act of 'rescue.' God has put things right, to put a stop to evil, and to deliver his people from their enslaving enemy."
He also points to a contrast between an emphasis upon "hope" in Second Temple Judaism, juxtaposed with the dominant note of joy by early Christians, that is both theological and eschatological in nature. Joy and communal celebration are "brought into a startling new focus because of Jesus. I have suggested that in the key passages we see the early Christian belief that in Jesus there has come about a new union between heaven and earth, with the celebrations of one spilling over necessarily into the celebrations of the other."
N.T. Wright then grounds joy, "The fact of the resurrection and exaltation of the crucified Jesus opens up a new world, launches the new creation, over which Jesus himself is sovereign; that is the root cause of joy." At the same time, Wright stops short, not taking into account the affirmation by Peter that subsequent to Jesus' exaltation at God's right hand, "he received the promised Holy Spirit from the Father, and has poured forth what you see and hear" (Acts 2:33). This is why the last days have already begun (Acts 2:17; Joel 2:28-32) in both a present and anticipatory celebration. The joyful experience in the initial Day of Pentecost is both participatory and proleptic.
The various charismatic incursions through powerful verbal proclamation of God's kingdom, along with healings, exorcisms, and other deliverances, all highlight God's will for life in the fullest sense. Thus Jesus fights against sickness which impairs life. By its very nature, the experienced joy of a new life seeks continuance, not only in this life, but in the age to come. This joy is not a means to an end, but it is an end in itself. Jesus clearly conveys this to the dying criminal, "Today, you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 24:43).
Gratitude is the flip-side of joy — they are so often paired in Luke. An outcast Samaritan leper receives healing on his journey to a Jewish priest and what is his response? He expresses gratitude to the giver Jesus, and he does so with great joy (Luke 17:15-16). Gratitude completes the circuit of joy. And what is Jesus' response? "Your faith has saved you" (Luke 17:19). He pairs gratitude with trust.
Joy is passive, in that it is a response to some grand occurrence in the life of a person in deep need and distress, such as this outcast leper. At the same time, joy is active, also expressed by the leper in spontaneous gratitude. This is why Charles Matthews argues for the "middle voice — that is, a reality that is not purely passive, happening to us, nor simply active, something we do; but partaking of both receptivity and dynamism." People can be summoned to joy, and they have a choice of feeling and expressing joy, "Rejoice that your names written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). Similarly, the experienced joy of the shepherd, the woman, and the father upon finding lost things or a lost son pointedly leads to the active summons, "Rejoice with me" (Luke 15). The joy of Jesus and the joy of God in the unconditional acceptance of the toll-collectors and sinners (Luke 15:1-2) should also characterize God's people. In experiencing joy, they share in both the joy of Jesus and the joy of God. This joyful response is neither shared by the religious critics or the older brother — they are joy-less and stand aloof from the celebration.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Joyous Encounters"
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Copyright © 2018 J. Lyle Story.
Excerpted by permission of The Crossroad Publishing Company.
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Table of Contents
Foreword xi
Preface xiii
1 Joyful Encounters 1
2 Luke's Joy-Vocabulary 25
3 Charismatic Activity and Joy in The Annunciation/Birth Narratives 37
4 The Spirit, Jesus' Agenda, and Joy (Luke 4:16-30) 55
5 Joyous Healings, Exorcisms and Mighty Works 65
6 Joy in Post-Resurrection Stories (Luke 24:1-53) 115
7 Joyful Encounters in Acts 135
8 Joyous Life-Together 281
9 Joyous Deliverance from Threats 303
10 The God of Emotion 325
Acknowledgments 333
Selected Bibliography 335