Interpretation 66, 1 (2012)

Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, is now being published by SAGE. The first SAGE issue is now out and contains essays devoted to the theme of ‘Liturgy and Pentecost/Trinity Sunday’. For a while, at least, it is freely available online here.

The main essays and their abstracts are as follows:

Beverly Roberts Gaventa

Pentecost and Trinity

Luke’s story of Pentecost gathers into itself many biblical motifs having to do with the work of the Spirit, which creates and re-creates communities of faith, even if it remains out of their control. Trinity Sunday returns us to the richness of Scripture’s reflections on God, where we find the constant feature to be the claim that, in all God’s doing, God acts for us and for our salvation.

Andreas Schuele

The Spirit of YHWH and the Aura of Divine Presence

One of the characteristics of Spirit language in the Old Testament is that it occurs in places that have particular significance for the literary formation as well as the theological profile of the Hebrew Scriptures. This essay examines texts from 1 Samuel, Ezekiel, Isaiah 40–66, and Psalm 104 and reconstructs an awareness across the biblical traditions that the experience of divine presence unfolds in and through the “Spirit” as part of God’s “aura.”

Jennifer L. Lord

Pentecost and Trinity Sunday: Preaching and Teaching New Creation

Any renewal of preaching and teaching on Pentecost and Trinity Sundays will be helped by revisiting the nature of these feasts as inseparable from the larger paschal cycle. From the perspective of the larger feast cycle, the preacher and teacher can see these feast days as eschatological proclamation: the ongoing gift of the Holy Spirit is the work of new creation; all creation’s existence, redemption, and sanctification are the results of the ongoing work of the holy Trinity for the life of the world.

Jeremy S. Begbie

The Holy Spirit at Work in the Arts: Learning from George Herbert

If we want some clarity about the relation of the arts to the Holy Spirit of the Christian faith, it is wise to let the arts have proper space to operate theologically. The remarkable poem by George Herbert, “Ephes. 4. 30,” along with material from some of his other poems, gives a fair sense of what Herbert would have assumed about the relation of the arts to the third person of the Trinity, and is especially enlightening for the theology–arts discussion today.

Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons

The Feast of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday: Liturgical Art in Context

This article explores several visual depictions of the event of Pentecost and the doctrine of the Trinity from the history of Christian art. These images can aid contemporary faith communities seeking to reflect in liturgy and worship on the theological significance of these mysteries of the Christian faith.

Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (39/50) – The Day of Pentecost: A New World Order?

‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the thirty-ninth of the fifty emails.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem Godfearing Jews from every nation under heaven… Utterly amazed, they asked: ‘Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?… We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!’
Acts 2:1-4, 5, 7-8, 11

Pentecost was a harvest festival, an opportunity for thankful worshippers to offer to God the firstfruits of their crops. Celebrated fifty days after Passover, coinciding with the giving of the law, it also became associated with the covenant made between the Lord and his people at Sinai. The nation that was constituted at Sinai, gathering together in Jerusalem to renew their relationship with God, is now reborn – the firstfruits of a new harvest – as God pours out his Spirit to ratify the new covenant.

Certainly, Peter is aware that something momentous has happened, as his subsequent explanation makes clear when he ties together the ministry, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus with several passages from Scripture, notably God’s promise through Joel that ‘in the last days… I will pour out my Spirit on all people’. Previously given only to special people, like kings and prophets, or only for specific tasks, now all of God’s people receive the Spirit – men and women, old and young – as part of God’s end-time renewal of all things. Pentecost marks the beginning of that era not in Moses giving the law, but in Jesus giving the Spirit – to all who ‘call on the name of the Lord’ (2:21).

In fact, this is nothing less than the inauguration of a new world. It may remind us of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), but it is not so much a reversal of Babel – where the scattering reaffirms God’s original purpose for men and women to fill the whole earth. The basis of the unity of humankind is not found in the recovery of a single language, but in a people indwelt by the Spirit of God. If there is a reversal, it is that at Babel people want to make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:4) whereas at Pentecost they proclaim ‘the wonders of God’. Many languages are spoken and all are appropriate for giving praise to God.

This fits with the international perspective of Acts. Jerusalem is full of Jews from all parts of the world, each with their own language and dialect. And they hear the great things of God spoken of in the vernacular tongues of their pagan neighbours – showing that what starts in Jerusalem will become a worldwide mission enabled by the Holy Spirit which will result in the worship of God to ‘the ends of the earth’.

For further reflection and action:

1. Read the whole of Acts 2, reflecting on Peter’s explanation of the event (2:14-41) and its immediate impact on the early followers of Christ (2:42-47).

2. Many Christians belong to a ‘Pentecostal’ denomination, but in what sense – and with what significance – are all God’s people ‘Pentecostals’?

3. We might be used to the notion of the ‘priesthood of all believers’, but Acts 2 suggests there is also a ‘prophethood of all believers’ (2:17-21). Previously the Holy Spirit had enabled mainly prophets to speak God’s words (cf. Numbers 11:29); now speaking the word of God – prophesying – is a task given to all of God’s people (4:31; 5:32; 6:10; 13:4-5). How should this encourage us? And how should it challenge us?