Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World

Loosing the Spirits

V. Kärkkäinen, K. Kim, A. Yong, V. Kärkkäinen, K. Kim, A. Yong

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137268983
• eBook ISBN: 9781137268990
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Mind & Body in Philosophy

This volume presents interdisciplinary, intercultural, and interreligious approaches directed toward the articulation of a pneumatological theology in its broadest sense, especially in terms of attempting to conceive of a spirit-filled world.

PART I

Spirits in Theology and Religion

CHAPTER 1

A Stubborn Missionary, a Slave Girl, and a Scholar: The Ambiguity of Inspiration in the Book of Acts

John R. (Jack) Levison

Paul’s mandate to discern the spirits (1 Thessalonians 5:20–21) provides a glimpse of a complex and ambiguous dimension of Israelite and early Christian literature. Toward the end of the story of Israel’s first king, for example, “the spirit of God came upon” Saul,¹ and he prophesied, then spent the night naked and catatonic (1 Samuel 19:23–24). This story is the mirror image of Saul’s first experience of the spirit, which transformed him into another man (10:6–7).² But there is a twist. By the second story, Saul has, on several occasions, succumbed to an evil spirit of God. It is not clear whether the spirit, which prompts him to prophesy this last time around, is a good or evil spirit. This ambiguity prompts one commentator, Ralph Klein, to suggest that “the spirit may have been the evil spirit from God previously referred to (cf. 16:14).”³

Ambiguity emerges again in the story of Micaiah ben Imlah. Micaiah (1 Kings 22), wrested from jail, stakes his minority opinion on a vision in which God puts a lying spirit in the mouth of the other prophets in order to deceive the king into a false sense of security and success. In addition to this unsettling revelation, the story of Micaiah communicates that it is possible to discern the difference between truthful and lying spirits only after prophetic predictions come true. In the meantime, prophets and their audiences are left to guess whether a truthful spirit or a lying spirit is speaking (see also Deuteronomy 18:15–22). Certainty supplants ambiguity only after the fact.

We might wish to argue that clear patterns for experiencing the holy spirit in the New Testament supplanted the ambiguity of Israelite literature. This is not true. In this chapter—a short but apt prolegomenon to this provocative volume, I hope⁴—I will explore three texts (or series of texts) from the book of Acts that set the holy spirit in the context of a variety of spirits in the New Testament:

• The human spirit as a holy spirit. The first series of texts surrounds Paul’s conviction “in the spirit” to visit Jerusalem, notwithstanding the advice of the holy spirit through prophets and churches, who urged him not to go (Acts 19–21).
• A foreign spirit as the source of truth. The second text is about a slave girl in Philippi, who, in a steady stream of witness, claimed, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation,” although she was inspired not by the holy spirit but by a pythonic spirit (16:16–19).
• The spirit in a person of unfinished faith. The third text is about Apollos, who burned with the spirit and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, “though he knew only the baptism of John” (18:24–28).

These references express the ambiguity of the holy spirit by rooting pneumatology in the diverse nature of spirits in the world of the New Testament.

Paul and a Questionable Conviction

The Ambiguity of Paul’s Conviction (19:21)

Throughout the first half of Acts, the holy spirit has an impressive impact upon ever-widening groups: Jews (Acts 2), Samaritans (Acts 8), and Gentiles (Acts 10–11). In the second half, the holy spirit appears principally to direct Paul, often in relatively private settings. The ambiguity of inspiration becomes increasingly apparent as we track Paul’s conviction that he has to visit Jerusalem.

After recounting a particularly robust explosion of success in Ephesus, in which “the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed” (Acts 19:11–20), Luke writes, “Now after these things had been accomplished, Paul resolved in the spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, ‘After I have gone there, I must also see Rome’ ” (19:21). This inside view raises the question of whether Paul resolves “in his own spirit” or “in the Spirit.” Joseph Fitzmyer observes that Luke “uses the middle voice of tithenai to indicate that it is a question of Paul’s own pneuma.”⁵ Earlier, however, Fitzmyer had written: “What is important to note is the guidance of the Spirit (19:21).”⁶ Inadvertently or purposefully, Fitzmyer draws our attention to the ambiguity of inspiration in Acts 19:21.

The Constraint of Paul’s Conviction (20:22–24)

Slightly later, Paul addresses the Ephesian elders one last time. Paul contends,

And now, having been bound by the spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the holy spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me. But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.

(Acts 20:22–24, emphasis added)

The words “having been bound by the spirit” express an ambiguity similar to that which characterized the words “Paul resolved in the spirit” (19:21). Is Paul bound by his own internal conviction? His spirit. Or is he bound by the holy spirit? God’s spirit.

The simple words “except that” are an indication that Paul is aware of the disjuncture between his internal compass and the compass of prophets throughout the church. He is committed to arriving in Jerusalem except that prophets keep reminding him of impending perils. Luke adopts a word play to express the conundrum. Paul is bound by what he knows he must do; prophets—we must assume the presence of prophets such as Agabus (Acts 21:7–14)—in city after city testify that bonds await him. Paul is hell-bent on going to Jerusalem, yet everywhere he goes, the holy spirit tells him that his future is one of prison and problems.

There is a tension here between internal and external guidance. Awareness of this tension, of course, does not finally answer the question of whether Paul is bound in his spirit or the spirit. It does make absolutely clear that Paul prefers direct guidance to guidance through prophets, even a string of prophets in a variety of cities.

What basis does Paul proffer for his need to face Jerusalem other than being “bound in the spirit?” Very little, apart from one small basis for his conviction. Luke presents Paul’s vocation along the lines of the servant of Isaiah, and this may account for Paul’s headlong rush toward persecution, even death (see Acts 9:15–16; 26:12–18). These allusions, however, cannot stack up against what Paul recognizes—that “the holy spirit testifies to me in city after city, that bonds and troubles remain for me.” Nor can allusions to Isaiah 40–66 explain why the city Paul visits must be Jerusalem. We are left to wonder how personal conviction will not bend to the will of the prophets who pester him with predictions of persecution.

In a sleight of hand, Paul resolves this tension with a bit of questionable wiggling. Confronted with two conflicting convictions, an internal and an external one, he says that he is willing to face whatever the prophets are foretelling him. In other words, he accepts both: he will go to Jerusalem (a journey to which he is bound in the spirit—whatever “spirit” means) and suffer the consequences (what the holy spirit testifies, perhaps through prophets, to him in every city). This is not, of course, the thrust of what the prophets are saying. They appear to predict his demise in order to persuade him not to go to Jerusalem altogether. Nonetheless, Paul mitigates the worth of their persistent messages by saying that he does not count his life of any value.

The Challenge to Paul’s Conviction (21:4)

If there were wiggle room for Paul in the prophets’ prediction of imprisonment and persecution, there is none in what the community urges Paul. Luke explains: “We looked up the disciples and stayed there [Tyre in Syria] for seven days. Through the spirit they told Paul not to go on to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:4). This description intensifies the warnings Paul had already received. (1) This is not a warning about suffering but a clear command: do not go to Jerusalem—not just “you will suffer if you go.” (2) This command does not come from individual prophets but the church as a whole in Tyre. (3) This is not a one-time command; the Greek imperfect tense communicates: “They kept telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem.” (4) They kept insisting (imperfect tense again) through the spirit. Their doggedness was not just a product of affection or a desire to protect their dear friend from suffering. This is a church-wide direct word of the spirit to Paul, telling him repeatedly not to head to Jerusalem. Paul could ignore the predictions of prophets by saying that he was willing to face the suffering and imprisonment they predicted. He cannot avoid this direct word of the spirit, which tells him not to go to Jerusalem.

Yet he does. He apparently rejects the recurring and decisive inspired words of prophets in several cities and the entire community of disciples in Tyre. He pits against them an internal conviction that Luke refers to only ambiguously: Paul resolved “in the spirit” (Acts 19:21); “having been bound in the spirit, I am going to Jerusalem” (20:22). Paul, it would seem, is willing to pit his own internal experience against repeated prophetic warnings and the unequivocal word of a community of believers.

The Near Collapse of Paul’s Conviction (21:8–14)

In Caesarea, Agabus from Judea, perhaps the same Agabus who predicted a widespread famine (Acts 11:28), enacts what other prophets predicted verbally would happen to Paul: “He came to us and took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, ‘Thus says the holy spirit, “This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles” ’ ” (21:11).

For the first time, those who are with Paul on his journeys join those in local churches in response to a prophecy. “When we heard this, we and the people there kept urging⁷ him not to go up to Jerusalem” (Acts 21:12). Joining the chorus of prophets in every city and the church at Tyre, now believers in Caesarea and Paul’s travel companions urge him to avoid Jerusalem. Paul’s response to them, for the first time, hints that his resolve is in danger of cracking. “What are you doing, weeping out loud and breaking my heart in pieces?” he asks (21:13). This is the weeping at funerals; the verb occurs elsewhere in the book of Acts when the widows weep for Dorcas, who died (9:39). Paul is shattered by the intensity of this wailing; his heart is broken.

His resolve, however, is not. He says, somewhat predictably, “For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). The believers in Caesarea grow silent when they realize Paul cannot be persuaded, except to echo the words of Jesus, “The Lord’s will be done.” Paul and his companions leave Caesarea quietly, without an entourage, such as he had in Tyre, and without kneeling in prayer, as he had in Ephesus (20:36) and Tyre (21:5). Paul, unpersuaded by prophets, unswayed by the inspired words of his churches, unconvinced even by the urging of his travel-companions, slips away silently, accompanied by a few of the disciples from Caesarea (21:15).

The spirit, too, grows silent. Not a single word or activity in the book of Acts from here on is attributed to the holy spirit.⁸ Luke does not censure Paul, nor does he criticize Paul for his resistance to the inspired word to avoid Jerusalem. The presence of the holy spirit simply fades in the last quarter of the book. If the source of Paul’s conviction is ambiguous in the book of Acts, it is no more so than in the holy spirit’s slipping away.

The Strange Case of a Pythonic Spirit

An Unfamiliar Spirit

Two dramatic stories of conversion in the book of Acts crown Paul’s achievements. Of a respectable Lydia, Luke writes, “The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” She and her household were baptized, and Paul stayed in Lydia’s home (Acts 16:11–15). An honorable jailer posed the perfect question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved.” He and his entire family were baptized, and Paul ate in the jailer’s home (16:34).

These two dramati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Notes on Contributors
• On Binding, and Loosing, the Spirits: Navigating and Engaging a Spirit-Filled World
• Part I: Spirits in Theology and Religion
• Part II: The Spirits of History and Culture
• Part III: The Spirits of the Polis
• Part IV: The Spirits of Nature and the Cosmos
• Conclusion: The Holy Spirit in a Spirit-filled World: Broadening the Dialogue Partners of Christian Theology
• Index