so while i would generally agree that indeed the Holy Spirit superintended the process of scripture (i hesitate to gloss to much over this, because it is a great, nuanced and extended conversation to be had and terms like ‘superintended’ and process of superintention needs lots of understanding), but i think – possibly like views on Christology that hyper-focus on his divinity or humanity – we can fall out of the ‘radical middle’ and into the “super spiritual” side and lose the context (context is key) and human voices that the Spirit spoke through, or on the other side, lose our way and inspiration via losing the greater perspective. as a follower of Jesus, he’s really my take on how to treat the scriptures, and he seemed to use scripture and see scripture holistically (especially with reference that it all speaks about him). the Spirit inspires via lots of ways, but the use of scripture is a primary way.

i appreciate some of walter brueggemann’s work in this direction, and his concepts of biblical inherency; if you are interested in more of my thoughts in this vein, i have a guest post at jason clark’s deep church blog on inherency, imagination and inspiration tomorrow: http://deepchurch.org.uk/

When Paul reveals through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” we are given a demonstration of how we access Jesus’ treasures–through the Spirit. I haven’t read much Gordon Fee, but I’ll bet he has a thing or two to say about this. Jesus himself told us that “All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.” I believe Jesus is telling how we obtain all that the Father has for us–through a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

That’s my comment: now one question: I am distressed when scholars separate the corpus of the scripture by author. My bias stems from the conviction that all scripture is God-breathed (Spirit), and consequently has an essential unity. I have no problem with the human “flavors” that contribute to the difference between the gospels or Pauline epistles–or even the scribal collaborations of the history of Israel–but hasn’t the Holy Spirit superintended and protected the process?

so, there is quite a bit of text and tradition that converges Wisdom and Spirit (in both OT and intertestamental literature and even later material). Certainly much of this has been used and reflected upon as scholars wrestled the last several hundred years with the concept of a Wisdom Christology, but the same applies to the Spirit. Thus a Wisdom Christology can be seen as temporily deriving from a Wisdom Pneumatology; if you look in the gospels of Matthew and John, Jesus does not begin giving out wisdom until the Spirit comes upon him like a dove, indeed he doesn’t speak at all until right after His baptism of the Spirit at his baptism by John in the Jordan. When he does speak it is wisdom thrown in the face of temptation. Yet let me be clear, when i say a Wisdom Pneumatology precedes a Wisdom Christology, this is only true temporily, not ontologically-speaking of course, as they each of the Trinity.

another trajectory embraces how an immanent modality of wisdom moves toward an underlying ‘saptienal epistemology’ for us, especially in the Vineyard as we identify ourselves as a people under the influence of the Spirit – as a friend said to me – and that this wisdom witnesses to the Kingdom seeping through the mundane elements in the cracks and crevices of life lived and comes to us through the Spirit in the realization, contemplation and explanation of it.

now the theological implications of a Wisdom Pneumatology are many; ecclesiology and charismatology are just two that i would point to as obvious right now. I was just talking to another Vineyard pastor about how our understanding of the Spirit is so crucial to our ecclesiology and “doin’ the stuff”. We wondered how this affects the charismatology of the Church and our engagement and understanding of the gifts of God. Certainly we can all refer to the Ephesians quote that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be known through the church. i think the implications of a wisdom-orientation vis-a-vis the Spirit is also related to something David Kushner brought up yesterday in terms of the break through of God’s Reign in Christ Jesus causes us to reflect and recalculate the role of the Spirit not in some gnostic way but in concrete realities that looks at our life and situation with unflinching reality and embraces both the ‘now’ and the ‘not-yet’ of our present situation.

all-to-say, there is so much to explore, but i think the theology and praxis of the Kingdom of God will be primary influence (and benefactor) as well as theologically informing a theological structure of Wisdom Pneumatology.

This is really interesting and suggestive stuff. Could you say a bit more about the construction of wisdom-pneumatology as you understand it? I think that I intuitively get what you mean about the _effects_ of wisdom-pneumatology applied, but what is its basic theological structure? How does wisdom relate to the spirit, theologically, as you see it?

This strikes me as really creative and important! Tell me more!

-c.