Holy Spirit and Mission in Canonical Perspective, by Amos Yong
In the Spring of 2015, Fuller Theological Seminary published this series of articles by Amos Yong on its Patheos blog.
Holy Spirit and Mission in Canonical Perspective
Genesis 1:3 & 6:3 – Creation and Fall: The Life-Giving Spirit
If the wind or breath of God is understood also as the spirit of God, then in this ancient words, we have a trinitarian image of the primordial creation: that God fashioned the world through his word and spirit.
Genesis 41:38 – Joseph and the Spirit: The Mission of God in the Torah
The divine spirit appears thrice in the book of Genesis: once in Genesis 1:2, a second time in Genesis 6:3, and a third time in a question that the Pharaoh of Egypt poses to his servants: “Can we find anyone else like this—one in whom is the spirit of God?” (Gen. 41:38).
Exodus 15:8, 10 – The Wind and Breath of Yahweh: Liberation and Mission
There are at least three trajectories of missiological readings of the book of Exodus. In the next chapter we will look at that which links the Sinaitic covenant with Israel’s witness to the nations. The other two are intertwined, involving Israel’s liberation from Egypt and Israel’s mission in or to Egypt.
The Crafts of the Spirit: A Missional Vocation in the Book of Exodus
… Yahweh speaks to Moses as leader and representative of the people, and in effect commissions Israel as a holy priesthood to the nations: “if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5-6).
Intercessory Mission: The Spirit’s Dangerous Answer to Prayer in Numbers 11:16-34
Much has been made by modern Pentecostal interpreters of the Spirit’s filling of the Seventy in Numbers 11 as an Old Testament prototype of the Day of Pentecost event in Acts 2. There are certainly many observable parallels – i.e., of Moses as Spirit-filled leader of the people of God being a type of Jesus the Spirit-anointed messiah; of the Seventy and the Twelve as representative leadership under the two (Mosaic and Pentecostal) covenants; of the prophesying of the Seventy and the glossolalia of the Twelve, among other aspects. Without denying the correspondences, our focus here will be on understanding the connections between the sendings of the Spirit of Yahweh not only on the Seventy but also “from the sea” (Num. 11:31). Any pneumatological reading of Numbers 11 will need to be expansive enough to account for both manifestations of the divine ruach.
Category: Biblical Studies, Winter 2017
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