Paul is sharing his heart. He is sharing his feelings. This is the point where we would explore what I call the theology of the emotion.
God is described in distinctively emotional terms in the Bible. And when we come to the New Testament, we are told not to grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). And that makes sense, seeing that we were made in the image of God.
We do not have any example in the Bible of disregarding human emotions as something to be ashamed of, as something to suppress.
Paul says he rejoiced. That is emotion. And how he feels sips through his words. One of the most famous words in the Bible is Jesus wept (John 11:35). We want to look at that and just move away. And just gloss over it. That is a grown man, Jesus, weeping. Think about that.
A display of emotion moves God because he knows that the heart is reflected in emotion, and to be committed to being unmoved may mean you have a heart of stone (Ezekiel 11:19) and are not converted. I am stretching things a bit there, because weeping can be contrived; I am not ignorant of that. However, to have a theory of the case where people's tears draw your disdain reflects a cold heart.
So that you don't think that Jesus weeping occurred only once in the Bible, see Luke 19:41.
Luke 19:41: Now when Jesus approached and saw the city, he wept over it,
Imagine this, Jesus, who is God, dripping tears in front of his disciples, some of whom were laborers, fishermen?
But Jesus also rejoiced in the Spirit.
Luke 10:21: On that same occasion Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your gracious will.
The writer said Jesus rejoiced because he did. If he just said words in a monotone, without any emotion, do you think that the writer would have said he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit? I don't think so.
To say people should ignore the hurt they experienced is also wrong, even when we are persecuted for the sake of Christ.
It hurts, and the pain can be deep, depending on the circumstances, even if it is only words.
The Bible says Jesus was persecuted, but nobody actually touched him (before the time of his crucifixion); they only spoke words to and about him.
John 5:16: Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began persecuting him.
The Bible states that Jesus was persecuted, and he promised people they would face persecution (John 15:20) and that in the world, they would experience tribulation (John 16:33).
But some people want to downgrade persecution to only things that lead to people's deaths. That downgrades the whole idea about the fact that persecution is opposition to the truth, which can include verbal attack and physical attack, deprivation, and even being excluded.
Matthew 5:11: Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me.
Luke 6:22: Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and insult you and reject you as evil on account of the Son of Man!
Hate is persecution, and hate does not end at that; it is manifested as attempts to exclude you, etc.
There is no need for Christ to encourage you in your persecution if it has no emotional impact on you. And people react to things emotionally differently.
So God has emotions, Jesus displayed emotions, and Jesus said in the world, people will have tribulation. If there is no emotional impact, how would it qualify as tribulation?
And we have an insight into who Paul is because he wrote a lot, and look at this passage and list the emotions mentioned there:
2 Corinthians 2:1-9: So I made up my own mind not to pay you another *painful* visit. For if I make you *sad*, who would be left to make me *glad* but the one I caused to be *sad*? And I wrote this very thing to you, so that when I came I would not have *sadness* from those who ought to make me *rejoice*, since I am confident in you all that my joy would be yours. For out of great *distress* and *anguish* of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not to make you sad, but to let you know the *love* that I have especially for you. But if anyone has caused *sadness*, he has not *saddened* me alone, but to some extent (not to exaggerate) he has *saddened* all of you as well. This punishment on such an individual by the majority is enough for him, so that now instead you should rather forgive and comfort him. This will keep him from being *overwhelmed* by *excessive grief* to the point of *despair*. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. For this reason also I wrote you: to test you to see if you are obedient in everything.
About 20 times, Paul mentioned a word that directly conveyed emotions.
I am not giving a message where I am applauding one emotion over the others. Instead, I want to validate all feelings as part of our shared human experience.
