Excited, enthusiastic, fired up about something ahead. "I'm so stoked for the trip." Pre-event enthusiasm — looking forward to something with intensity. Survived the decades better than most Boomer slang because its metaphor (fire needs feeding) is universally recognizable.
"Stoked" literally means the fire has been fed. That imagery is all over Scripture for spiritual zeal. Paul to Timothy: "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame [anazōpyreō, literally "stoke the fire"] the gift of God, which is in you" (2 Tim 1:6). The metaphor is identical: spiritual gifts and zeal are fires that must be actively fed, or they dim. "Do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thess 5:19) — quenching is the opposite of stoking. The casual surfer use of "stoked" for mundane excitement rides on a biblical metaphor. Christians should be stoked about the things of God: fanning the flame of prayer, stoking the fire of evangelism, feeding the zeal for Scripture. The fire does not burn on its own; it must be stoked.
Surfer slang with a surprisingly biblical metaphor at its core. Scripture repeatedly uses fire-feeding language for spiritual zeal.
The New Testament uses fire as a regular metaphor for spiritual life: tongues of fire at Pentecost (Acts 2:3), the refining fire that tests each believer's work (1 Cor 3:13), the fire that kindled the hearts of the disciples on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:32), the quenchable Spirit (1 Thess 5:19), the fannable flame of the gift (2 Tim 1:6). Every fire requires active tending. The same is true of a Christian's zeal: prayer, Bible reading, fellowship, obedience are the logs. A life without these will cool to ashes. Be stoked — in the spiritual sense: keep the fire fed. And teach young Christians to stoke their own souls, not wait for someone else to kindle them.
2 Timothy 1:6 — "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands."
1 Thessalonians 5:19 — "Do not quench the Spirit."
Romans 12:11 — "Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord."
Luke 24:32 — "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?"
"Stoked" means the fire has been fed. Fan the flame of the gift in you (2 Tim 1:6). Christian zeal is a fire; no fire burns on its own; stoke deliberately or watch it go out.
“Bro, totally stoked for the mission trip next week.”
“Fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you.”