I have been thinking about the relationship between Spirit and Worship in the New Testament. So I thought I would check out Gordon Fee's massive work on God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994). To my surprise, I only found less than 3 pages focusing on this subject matter (pp. 883-886).
Then I decided to check out the work of Gerald Brochert, Worship in the New Testament: Divine Mystery & Human Response (Danvers: Chalice Press, 2008). In this work, Brochert surveys the theme of worship in the Gospels, Pauline letters, Deutero-Pauline Letters and the Catholic Epistles. Then he examines each of the passages and shows how the notion of worship constantly enters the biblical author's writings. But when I checked against the index, unfortunately, I did not find any entry under "Spirit"!My question is this: Why aren't NT studies that focus on the Spirit also discuss worship? Why aren't studies on worship in the NT talk about the Spirit?
So I thought I would google and see what I would find. Interestingly, I found my answer in the lecture given by Bishop N. T. Wright in the Worship Conference 2008 at Yale University. Titled "Spirit and Worship in the New Testament" and delivered on February 21, 2008, Wright also highlighted the missing dimension in the relationship between Spirit and Worship in New Testament studies (wow....I can even think like Wright!)
Click here to listen to Wright's lecture. It's pretty engaging, and I trust you will not be disappointed!
Check out also the lectures by Maxwell Johnson, Professor of Liturgical Studies at the University of Notre Dame, on The Holy Spirit and Lutheran Worship and James Steven, Tutor in Worship and Doctrine at Trinity College Bristol, on The Spirit in Charismatic Worship, both given during the same Worship Conference 2008.
13 comments:
wow,,,KY has found an NT reseach area ,,,,where you could focus at since this is a virgin land...
I am sure , both evangelicals and charismatic, are eager to see what you would discover...
or you could instruct your ThM or Mdiv students to do the research...hehe
Perhaps I can do my MTh under KY again in this area...
Hi Sceptics,
I suspect there would be some who would have written on this subject - it is just that I have not been very thorough in my research yet.
But I would be keen to see what I can discover.
Hi Perng Shyang,
I am surprised that you are not tired of me!
By the way, if you wish to do MTheol, it would have to be in English! :-)
The addresses by Max Johnson, NT Wright, and more will soon by published by the Liturgical Press in a book set for release in December: "The Spirit in Worship--Worship in the Spirit."
Details here:
http://www.litpress.org/Detail.aspx?ISBN=9780814662281
Hi Kar Yong, thanks for this interesting post. When I have more time, I would like to respond to what you wrote.
As for PS, if you like to do a DTh on this topic in English, please consider TTC. I hope Kar Yong doesn't mind, haha.
Thanks, Mark, for the info.
Hi Tony,
Look forward to your response.
As for PS - well, if you can persuade him to write in English, I would think TTC would be good for him!!
Great great, I hope I can do a bit research on this topic too.
I'm not as "geng" as PS coz I'm not academic-inclined person (M. Div sudah setengah mati ohhh...hahaha). A research for further knowledge will be okay for me....haha...
Thanks Sir for this post....
Desmond,
It's not only an academic research that can be considered "research" ma. How's things on your side?
Thanks Kar Yong, for a very interesting discovery. For those of us who want to read NT Wright's papers, the full text are available as follows:
Worship and the Spirit in the NT
with an earlier paper, published 2002, Rediscovering Biblical Worship
Dear Peng You,
Thanks for the links.
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