Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series – serie

Grieving, Brooding, and Transforming: The Spirit, The Bible, and Gender is a collection of scholarly essays by Pentecostal women. It explores troubling biblical texts, as well as those of contemporary church life, in regards to the portrayal of women. The authors seek to identify the presence and work of the Spirit that is often hidden within the contours of these texts. A Pentecostal feminist hermeneutic desires to move beyond suspicion into the deeper terrain of the Spirit’s mission of grieving, brooding, and transforming a broken world. The essays point to the purposes of God toward justice and the healing of creation.

What does Luke mean when he describes the Spirit as gift (Acts 2:38)? This study explores the social implications of gift-giving in the Greco-Roman world, arguing that gifts initiate and sustain relationships. Therefore, the description of the Spirit as gift is inherently social, which is shown in the Spirit’s empowerment of the teaching, unity, meals, sharing of possessions and worship of the early Jesus community. The Spirit as gift then leads us to see that the early Jesus community is “the community of the Holy Spirit.”

Pentecostal forms of Christianity have now taken a dynamic role in contemporary Christianity, often at the vanguard of new movements and spiritual vitality among Christians in the late modern world. The many movements which constitute global Pentecostalism share in common an intense commitment to the Bible and life in the Spirit. Over the past several decades, Pentecostal biblical scholarship has played an important role in resourcing Pentecostal theologies. These elements come together in this volume in which leading Pentecostal biblical scholars from around the world account for the appearance of the divine Spirit, putting forth a defining work from a seminal generation of scholars.Contributors are: J. Ayodeji Adewuya, Kenneth J. Archer, Melissa Archer, Emma M. Austin, Holly Beers, Michael L. Brown, Blaine Charette, Jacob Cherian, Roger D. Cotton, Daniel K. Darko, Finny Philip, Roji Thomas George, Jacqueline Grey, Alicia R. Jackson, Wonsuk Ma, Lee Roy Martin, Robert P. Menzies, Brian Neil Peterson, Rebecca Skaggs, Joe Thomas, John Christopher Thomas, Robby Waddell, Rick Wadholm, Nimi Wariboko, Cynthia Long Westfall.

This monograph explores the topic of eschatological violence in Pentecostal biblical interpretation of Ezek. 36.16–39:29, Rev. 19.11-21, and Rev. 20.7-10. By reviewing Pentecostal reception history of these texts, considering the influence of classical dispensationalism on Pentecostal biblical interpretation and eschatology, this study offers a peace reading that aligns with both early Pentecostal writers and contemporary Pentecostal scholars whose eschatology departs from classical dispensationalism. This monograph builds a case for envisioning a hopeful and proleptic premillennial eschatology that emphasizes the peace and reconciliation of the gospel more than ‘end times’ war and violence.