The Rise of Postmodernism

The current dissatisfaction with modernity, intellectually, has appeared in a wide variety of disciplines. One of the first was architecture, where modernism had attempted to develop a homogenized style that broke with the past and its indigenized designs by attempting to universalize, to belong everywhere because it did not belong anywhere in particular. Postmodern architecture broke with this by having many styles, reflecting interests of both the past and the present. It is one expression of our multiculturalism. But because it is not driven by any hard ideology, as was modernism, in its eclecticism it really does not have any definite purpose at all.
 
In the old Enlightenment belief, there was confidence in the possibility of rational, objective scholarship. This has been rejected by postmodernism, intellectually. In the absence of any assent to a body of universal truth, even those conclusions that are presumably objectively discovered by scholars are seen to be only results of these scholars' interests and dispositions. Given the belief in relativism, there is great difficulty in insisting on the universal validity of one's findings. Even science, thought of as the paragon of objectivity and rationality by the modernists, is seen not to be exempt from this relativizing influence. Thomas Kuhn has shown that what scientists observe is very much affected by their anticipation of what they are looking for and what they consider possible. In literature, deconstruction holds that words do not have any meaning in themselves. They mean only what we want them to mean. These same phenomena can also be seen in postmodern theology.
 
Wells asserts, however, that the relationship between the modern and the postmodern is more complex than we sometimes recognize and acknowledge. The very fact that we insist on being postmodern, rather than merely antimodern, indicates a desire to transcend the recent past, which in turn reflects belief in progress. And this in itself is a clearly modern conception. Thus, even postmodernism has not fully freed itself from modernism.

- Millard J. Erickson, Postmodernizing the Faith: 

Evangelical Responses to the Challenge of Postmodernism, 1998.

Walking in/by the Spirit

The central role of the Spirit is most clearly spelled out in Galatians 5:13-6:10, where with a series of verbs modified by the phrase pneumati ("in/by the Spirit"), Paul urges the Galatians to "make a completion" (3:3) by means of the same Spirit by whom they had been converted. They are commanded to "walk in the Spirit," and promised that those who so walk "will not fulfdl the desire of the flesh" (v. 16); such people are "led by the Spirit," attested by "the fruit of the Spirit" (w. 22-23), and are not under Torah (w. 18, 23). Since they "live by the Spirit" (= have been brought to life by the life-giving Spirit), they must also "behave in accordance with the Spirit" (v. 25). Finally, only those who "sow to the Spirit" in this way "will reap the eternal life" that is also from the Spirit (6:8).
 
Two things are clear from this passage: that the Spirit is the key to ethical life, and that Paul expects Spirit people to exhibit changed behavior. The first instruction, "walk by the Spirit," is the basic command in Paul's ethics. The verb "to walk" was commonly used in Judaism to refer to a person's whole way of life. Paul adopted it as his most common verb for ethical conduct (17 occurrences in all). All other commands proceed from this one. The primary form that such walking takes is "in love" (Eph 5:2; Gal 5:6), hence love is the first-mentioned "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal 5:22; cf. 5:14; Rom 13:8-10).
 
The key for Paul lay with the Spirit as a dynamically experienced reality in the life of both believers (Gal 3:2, 4) and community (3:5). Paul's expectation level was high on this matter because for him and his churches the Spirit was not simply believed in but was experienced in tangible, visible ways. If our experience of the Spirit lies at a lower level, we must resist the temptation to remake Paul into our image and thereby find comfort in a Paul that did not exist. Paul's answer was "walk in/by the Spirit," and he assumed that such a walk was available to those who had already "experienced so many things" of the Spirit (Gal 5:4). He does not tell us how to do that because such a dynamic life in the Spirit was presumed by him.
 

- Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. p106-107.

The Mind of the Spirit

The term φρόνημα has no exact equivalent in English, and even in Greek its semantic range is wide enough that only context will define its sense. Given the semantic range of φρόνημα, the phrases often translated “mind of the Spirit” and “mind of the flesh” can refer to the divergent frames of mind, cognitive dispositions, or cognitive approaches of the Spirit and of the flesh. In today’s terms, one might think partly of how outlooks and character are shaped by the different worldviews, or approaches to reality, of these two spheres. One mind focuses on the matters of God; the other is oriented around only matters involving the self and its desires (Rom. 8:5–6).
 
Philo, who often employs the term φρόνημα, may provide a sample of Diaspora Jewish intellectual usage. He generally uses the term to mean disposition, attitude, or character. As such, it is a settled direction of the personality, not a matter of fleeting thoughts; certainly, this must be true also for Paul, who plainly depicts the corrupted mind of Romans 1:28–31 not as a matter of fleeting thoughts but as a matter of characteristic ones. This disposition may be intelligent, philosophic, untrained and undiscerning, free or slavish, proud or broken, noble, enduring, mature, or brave and courageous. (As one expects from Philo, such aspects of character often correlate with masculinity or with being effeminate.)
 
Because ancient intellectuals often associated such aspects of character with one’s way of thinking, it is not surprising that for Philo the term φρόνημα often has cognitive associations, including in ways associated with the sort of intellectual thought elsewhere addressed by Paul. Thus, for Philo φρόνημα ideally contemplates matters beyond heaven rather than lowly ones. It can be divine, viewing matters from a divine perspective and desiring nothing earthly. It can be subject to or avoid pleasure. Ideally, it should think not only of its own locale but with wise knowledge about the cosmos.
 
Paul certainly includes cognitive associations, because he clearly associates the meaning of this noun with the cognate verb φρονέω, which occurs in Romans 8:5. Yet Paul means even more than exclusively “disposition,” “character,” “attitude,” or “frame of mind,”because he uses the same language in relation to the mind of the Spirit (see 8:27). That is, for Paul, the new way of thinking is empowered by God’s own activity.
 
The mind-frame of the Spirit thus not only contemplates God and shares God’s agendas; it depends on God, recognizing the liberation accomplished in Christ (Rom. 8:2) and the consequent power to live a new way (8:3). This is the perspective that Paul has been communicating in previous chapters: believers are righted by Christ, not themselves (cf. 3:21–5:11), and this righting includes a new life in union with Christ (5:12–6:11). Just as Paul depends on Christ for being righted, he depends on God’s Spirit for being able to appropriate the cognitive moral character consonant with one who is righted. One who behaves by the new identity is thus walking by the Spirit. For Paul, the new frame for thinking is effective because it depends on the reality of Christ and thus of the new identity in him.

- Craig S. Keener, The Mind of the Spirit: Paul's Approach to Transformed Thinking, 2016

The Images of Holy Spirit

Adding to the images of "anointing," "seal," "down payment," and "firstfruits" , one can draw firm conclusions:
 
1. The wide variety of images and figures of speech in itself indicates that no single one will do. The work of Christ, applied by the Spirit in Christian conversion, simply has to many facets to be captured by a single image. In almost every case the choice of images is related to the perspective on the human condition that is addressed in the context. Thus, propitiation responds to our being under God's wrath; redemption to our being enslaved to sin; justification to our guilt before God's law; reconciliation to our being God's enemies; sanctification to our being unholy; washing to our being unclean; and so on.
 
2. The images tend to be used in keeping with the emphasis of the moment, thus the point in context is what is at issue, not the precise timing or relationships in conversion.
 
3. There is no such thing as Christian conversion that does not have the coming of the Spirit into the believer's life as the critical ingredient. However variously expressed, the presence of die Spirit is the one constant.
 

- Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. p94.

The Spirit as Holy

For Paul, "holiness," that is, walking by means of the Holy Spirit, has two aspects. On the one hand, it means abstaining from some sins—absolutely. Since in Christ believers have died to both sin (the flesh) and the law, they are to serve God "in the newness of the Spirit" (Rom 7:6). They must put to death the former way of life (Rom 6:1-18; 8:12-13; Col 3:5-11), portrayed in Galatians 5:19-21 as "the works of the flesh," which refers to life before and outside Christ. Such a life is no longer an option for the new people of God, who indeed have become a people by the indwelling of the Spirit of God. Paul, therefore, understands "putting to death" the works of the flesh as the empowering work of the Spirit (Rom 8:12-13).
 
On the other hand, "holiness" also (especially) means the Holy Spirit living in believers, reproducing the life of Christ within and among them, particularly in dieir communal relationships. To do otherwise is to "grieve the Holy Spirit o f God" (Eph 4:30), who by his presence has given them both unity and mutual growth. For this reason, Paul's most common language for the people of God is "the saints" (= God's holy people). They live differendy in their relationships with one another, and are empowered to do so, because they are Spirit people, whatever else they may be.
 

- Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. p109.

Unity in the Spirit

Unity is a dominical value, as our Lord’s prayer in the garden shows (John 17). And unity in the Spirit is an apostolic value, as both Paul’s writings and his practice show. Recall that Paul instructs the Ephesian believers to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). To live this way is to walk in a manner worthy of their calling to be Christians (Eph. 4:1). Paul practiced what he preached. His espoused theology and his operational theology were one. And so he entreats Euodia and Syntyche—both of whom were gospel workers with him—“to agree in the Lord” (Phil. 4:2–3). These women need to heed his earlier general admonition to the Philippians that if they have “any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy,” then the way to complete Paul’s joy was to be unified in mind and in love (Phil. 2:1–2). Humility needs to replace rivalry and conceit (v. 3). To give a different Pauline example, what the Jerusalem church thought of the Gentile mission mattered to him. He rejoiced that “the right hand of fellowship” with its leadership had been extended to him (Gal. 2:1–10)—even though it is clear from the argument of his Galatians letter that, if he had thought that the Galatian leaders’ approval would have risked the integrity of his message of grace, he would not have mentioned it (Gal. 1:6–10; 2:11–14).
 
However, the NT nowhere mandates that a dull uniformity of Ecclesiastical polity is to be pursued. There is every indication that the Pauline communities developed differently from that in Jerusalem. “The right hand of fellowship” does not mean organizational homogeneity, nor that one apostolic leader such as Peter rose above all others (contra the claims of the church of Rome). 

In fact even the Pauline communities themselves may have differed in organization. The first letter to Timothy, for example, speaks of elders and deacons (1 Tim. 3:1–13), but the letter to Titus refers only to elders (Titus 1:5–9). His Corinthian correspondence refers neither to elders nor to deacons. In contrast the Jerusalem church seems to have ultimately come under the presidency of James the brother of Jesus (Acts 15:1–21). Indeed there is some extrabiblical evidence that the leadership of that church may have been kept within Jesus’ own family.

- Graham A. Cole, He Who Gives Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 2007

Unity in the Spirit-filled Reality

In Ephesians, Paul writes about the corporate life of God’s people as the church. In this great company both Jews and Gentiles have their place as the new temple of the holy God indwelt by the Spirit of God (Eph. 2:11–22). The unity established by Christ’s death needs maintenance, though. Indeed the Ephesians ought to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3). When they gather, they are not to behave as the Gentiles do (5:6–11). Christian meetings are not to be debauched as though all were drunk with wine and out of control (5:18). In contrast, the Spirit is to fill them as God’s temple with group practices that are other-person-centered. In relation to one another, they are to address one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. In relation to the Lord Jesus himself, they are to sing and make melody in their collective heart to him. And as for the Father, they are to give thanks to him for everything. A congregation where such practices are found, motivated by other-person-centered regard—whether vertically in a Godward direction or horizontally in a fellow believer’s direction—is a Spirit-filled reality, a true temple of God. Understood as above, Ephesians may provide better tests for evaluating a church’s health than the acreage of the church’s parking.
 
The biblical answer to the question of how I as an individual may be filled with the Spirit is subtle. One of the stories in Acts provides the way forward, I believe. In Acts 4:23–31 we find Peter and John rejoining their friends after a brief stay in custody. They had been interrogated by the chief priests and elders about a healing incident in the temple and about their preaching Christ (Acts 4:1–22). In a unity of response to the apostles’ report the disciples call upon the sovereign Lord in prayer to “look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word [the gospel] with all boldness” (v. 29). The Lord answered their prayer: “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (v. 31). Significantly these disciples did not pray that they might be filled with the Spirit in order to respond appropriately to the hostility they had encountered. Instead they prayed for the boldness they needed, and in so praying they were filled with the Spirit. When they made the object of their prayer the godly need in that hour, then the fullness came. If I want to be filled with the fullness of the Spirit, then let me set my heart on doing the will of God and call upon him for the enablement to do so (e.g., to preach the gospel faithfully and effectively next Sunday). Unlike idols, the living God answers prayers (cf. Isa. 46:1–7 and Ps. 116:1). 

- Graham A. Cole, He Who Gives Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 2007