JOY — and it shares a root with charis, GRACE (and with charisma, a free gift), so that in Greek joy and gift are audibly the same family: joy is what grace feels like. ⚠ It is the signature word of PHILIPPIANS, where chara and its verb chairō sound some sixteen times in four short chapters — more densely than anywhere else in Paul — and the man writing is in prison awaiting a verdict that could be capital. That is the whole tension of the letter: not joy as the absence of trouble, but joy that does not consult the circumstances. It is also, in Galatians 5:22, the second of the fruit of the Spirit, listed straight after love. → first discussed at Philippians 1:4