Christoph KruckAufruf zur Freude – Zum Motiv der Freude in ausgewählten Schriften des Alten und Neuen Testaments

About this book deutschenglish

The motif of joy runs like a red thread through the entire Bible, from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation.

Thus, for example, God's statement on the evening of the sixth day of creation that every-thing was very good (Gen 1:31) can only be interpreted as joy over the successful work of creation, and the new world of God descending from heaven in the last book of the Holy Scriptures (Re-velation 21:1-4) is also inconceivable without joy.

The motif of joy appears particularly prominently in some books of the Bible, including the Book of Deuteronomy, the Psalter and the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, joy is predominantly found in the Gospels of Luke and John, as well as in the Apostle Paul's Letter to the Philippians.

Among these New Testament writings, especially the Letter to the Philippians deals with joy in adversity and distress, pointing to Jesus Christ as ist unbreakable foundation. At the same time, this letter, together with the Gospels, thus guarantees the imperishability of this joy and ist inherent power.

The six books mentioned above – three from the Old Testament (Deut, Ps, Eccl) and three from the New Testament (Luke, John and Phil) – are examined and analysed in this book from the aspect of joy, in order to derive impulses for (re)activating or awakening one's own joy.

With the help of these biblically based suggestions as well as the cultivation of one's own joy, the empirical findings of the often weak or restrained joy in church services or congrega-tional life can also be countered on a personal level.