Word & Spirit

CT Interviews Keener about "Miracles"

2011-12-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

The December issue of Christianity Today magazine features an interview with New Testament scholar Craig Keener about his brand new book, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (Baker Academic).

The article was posted online yesterday and can be read here. [UPDATE 12/27/11 --- Christian Book Distributors has also posted an interview. You can access the audio of Matthew Miller's chat with Keener here.]

[UPDATE 1/5/2012 --- CBD's Miller selects Miracles as the book of the year for 2011.]

Keener is professor of New Testament at Asbury Seminary. He has authored several scholary works on the NT including commentaries (such as, The Gospel of John) and monographs (such as, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels).

Top biblical scholars are not spare in their praise of Miracles. Craig Evans, professor of NT at Acadia Divinity College, says, "Craig Keener has written arguably the best book ever on the subject of miracles."

Richard Bauckham, professor emeritus of NT Studies at St. Andrews University, adds, "Craig Keener's discussion of New Testament miracles adduces a uniquely -- indeed staggeringly -- extensive collection of comparative material .... Keener mounts a very strong challenge to the methodological skepticism about the miraculous to which so many New Testament scholars are still committed. It turns out to be an ethnocentric prejudice of modern Western intellectuals. So who's afraid of David Hume now?"

Other scholars weigh in with their endorsements here.

Keener's blog can be read here and a video of him discussing his journey to faith can be seen here.

Craig has been featured on this blog many times, including an eight-part interview series, Fridays with Craig Keener, in 2008.

Wright at Willowcreek

2011-11-21T22:17:00.000-08:00

New Testament scholar N. T. Wright has come out with a new book entitled, Simply Jesus (HarperOne), and recently gave a talk with same title at Willow Creek Community Church.

On Sunday, November 6, Wright spoke at the megachurch pastored by Bill Hybels. Willow Creek, in the Chicago, Illinois suburb of South Barrington, is one of America's largest churches.

Both the video and audio recordings of the talk can be linked to here.

A parable about a parable

2011-11-19T13:23:00.000-08:00

Written by Dr. N. T. Wright, research professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

It is based on a passage in the Gospel of John (10:22-42). It was published in a commentary for lay readership, John for Everyone (under the name, Tom Wright). The volume is part of the New Testament for Everyone series.

The video was produced by members of the staff at Calvary Church in Santa Ana, CA.

New editor for the NICNT

2011-11-17T06:01:00.000-08:00

Gordon Fee

The news was released yesterday that Eerdmans publishing house has chosen Fuller Seminary's Joel Green to replace Gordon Fee as editor of the New International Commentary on the New Testament series.

Fee, emeritus professor of New Testament at Regent College, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

In addition to editing the series for twenty years, Fee wrote three of the commentaries (1 Corinthians, Philippians, and the Thessalonian letters).

Fee's most recent publication, The Eerdmans Companion to the Bible (co-edited with Robert L. Hubbard Jr.), was released last month. New Testament scholar Nijay Gupta has written a brief, but very helpful, review of it. You can read it on his blog.

Green, author of NICNT's volume on Luke, wrote warmly of the impact of Fee's scholarship on Eerdmans' blog yesterday:

"... Gordon Fee published what would quickly set the bar for the evangelical community, his NICNT volume on 1 Corinthians: clearly written, eminently readable, a model of exegesis in the service of the biblical text, biblical interpretation for the church .... Gordon has stood tall at the helm for more than twenty years, and I for one am immensely grateful to him for his service as editor of the NICNT .... Gordon's fingerprints will remain on the series for years to come. New volumes will appear soon, written by authors he has recruited. These include commentaries on Hebrews, for example, as well as on the Gospel of Mark and Galatians."

Scot McKnight, also an author in the series (the James volume), commented on his blog yesterday about Green's appointment.

A brief tribute to Fee's career was published on this blog in July 2008. Charisma magazine featured him in its September 2010 issue.

Books, books ... and yet more books

2011-08-26T03:16:00.000-07:00

Some of the summer was spent in the college library (and on the internet, of course) --- and it was not without profit.

For one thing, there are a lot of books that have been recently published and a lot that are soon to be released that I think you should know about, so here goes.

First, a little news to break: Tremper Longman III confirmed for me a week ago that he is updating his Old Testament Commentary Survey. He expects this fifth edition to be finished by December, so look for it in 2012. (He also said Donald Carson is updating his New Testament Commentary Survey. That makes seven editions for NTCS). These surveys are vital in keeping a pastor's library up-to-date.

Craig Keener, a friend of this blog, is starting at his new post at Asbury Seminary this fall, and has an important book being released, as well. Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts should be in stores in October. New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham says of Miracles:

Craig Keener's discussion of New Testament miracles adduces a uniquely --- indeed staggeringly --- extensive collection of comparative material. That eyewitnesses frequently testify to miraculous healings and other 'extranormal' events is demonstrated beyond doubt. Keener mounts a very strong challenge to the methodological skepticism about the miraculous to which so many New Testament scholars are still committed. It turns out to be an ethnocentric prejudice of modern Western intellectuals. So who's afraid of David Hume now?

The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation by N. T. Wright is the same translational work that Wright used in his For Everyone ... series, according to NT scholar Michael Bird. It is just a matter of having Wright's translation conveniently under one cover now. Look for it in October, as well. [UPDATE 9/1/11 - Wright is interviewed about the translation by Ben Witherington III here.]

F. F. Bruce was in the vanguard of a generation of evangelical scholars that emerged in the 20th century. His story gets told in Tim Grass's F. F. Bruce, A Life: A Private Person ... A Fearless Scholar, which is said to be coming out in January 2012.

One of the new books that I have gotten my hands on is the helpful work by Nijay Gupta, Prepare, Succeed, Advance: A Guidebook for Getting a PhD in Biblical Studies and Beyond. There are a lot of questions potential scholars have and finding a mentor patient enough to walk them through all of the answers is not as easy as it may seem. Nijay, whose PhD was earned at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, is that patient mentor. He walked the PhD journey and is now returning to smooth the path for others.

[UPDATE 8/31/11 - Just learned that Ben Witherington III has a brand new book similar to Gupta's. It's called, Is There a Doctor in the House? An Insider's Story and Advice on Becoming a Biblical Scholar]

If there's something better than having at your disposal the books of five knowledgeable scholars taking different sides in a debate, it's having those five viewpoints all under one cover. The doctrine of justification has been probed quite a bit the last few years, and now we will be treated to Justification: Five Views in November. The traditional Reformed view is presented by Michael Horton, the progressive Reformed view is written by the aforementioned Michael Bird, the New Perspective is represented by James D. G. Dunn, Veli-Matti Karkkainen has the Deification view, and Gerald O'Collins and Oliver Rafferty present the Roman Catholic view.

EVANGELICALISM

Christian Smith challenges the way some evangelicals handle the Scriptures in The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. You can see Smith talking about the book in these five videos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. [UPDATE 11/17/11 - Robert H. Gundry, a favorite scholar of mine, reviews Smith's book here. He is not favorably inclined towards it.]

In 1994, historian Mark Noll took evangelicals to task in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans). Now in 2011, Noll is writing to describe what it looks like when evangelicals honor God with their minds in his book, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind. Noll summarizes the goal of his book here.

In September, another "views" book hits the shelves, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism. Kevin Bauder writes on Fundamentalism, Albert Mohler presents conservative/confessional evangelicalism, Regent College professor John Stackhouse Jr. writes on generic evangelicalism, and Roger E. Olson is the presenter for postconservative evangelicalism.

PENTECOSTALISM

The modern Pentecostal movement has been with us now for over a hundred years. It has an ever-increasing cadre of theologians (like Amos Yong and Veli-Matti Karkkainen), bible scholars (like Gordon Fee), and historians (like Vinson Synan and Edith Blumhofer). Particularly exciting to me is the new book Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods. The University of Birmingham's Allan Anderson joins Yong, Karkkainen, Cecil Robeck Jr., and 12 others to not just tell the story of Pentecostalism, but to also suggest methodology and categories for studying Pentecostalism.

Historian Grant Wacker says that R. G. Robins's Pentecostalism in America is,

... the definitive study of the history of American Pentecostalism. It is hard to say which is most impressive: the breadth of the research, the beauty of the writing, or the astuteness of the insights. And it represents the art of critical empathy at its best. We are not likely to see another book of this quality on this subject for years to come.

Finally, while not about Pentecostalism, Finding Pieces of the Puzzle: A Fresh Look at the Christian Story, is written by historian and former Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada minister, Dr. Ronald A. N. Kydd. The publisher says that this is a retelling of church history "carried from the first to the twenty-first century by a series of mini-biographies .... Watching Christians of the past face their challenges helps us understand who modern Christians really are."

Barnhouse and the Assemblies of God

2011-08-08T02:05:00.000-07:00

Barnhouse

The story is told of the late Donald Grey Barnhouse out for a walk with a protege when the famed preacher noticed some birds on his property. Taking careful aim with his shotgun, Barnhouse hit his target.

"That's one less grackle to bother my bluebirds," he celebrated.

When the pair arrived at the dead bird, Barnhouse saw that he had erred; it was not a bothersome grackle lying there, but a bluebird. He used the accident to exhort his protege --- the late apologist, Walter Martin.

You are right in defending the faith from it enemies, but you are too inclined to 'shoot from the hip,' even as I was when I fired at this bird. In the excitement of the moment, it looked like a grackle, but a closer examination would have saved its life and my feelings. It is not wrong to contend for the gospel, but it is wrong to shoot first and ask questions later. What you think might be a grackle, and apostate, or an Antichrist might well be a bluebird you looked at in a hurry. (told by Richard Mouw in Christianity Today November 2006, p. 98)

Barnhouse was not just repeating advice he read somewhere in a book. He had spent a great deal of 'ecclesiastical ammunition' in his career trying to rid the Body of Christ of 'grackles.'

Early in my ministry I conceived the idea that I must strike out against all error wherever I saw it. I used only one kind of ammunition. I hit an error wherever I saw it. If it was Christian Science, Unitarianism, or in Romanism, I swung hard. If it was in some fundamental leader with whom I was in ninety-five percent agreement, I swung hard at the five percent. (Barnhouse in Eternity January 1953, inside cover)

Early in the 20th century, the young Pentecostal movement also found itself in his 'sights,' but much later when Barnhouse dramatically adopted a more irenic approach to other Christians, the Pentecostals became beneficiaries of that change. In fact, the new relationship was highlighted by Barnhouse preaching for a week at Central Assembly of God in Springfield, Missouri in 1958 (Springfield is also home to the head office of the Assemblies of God).

A NOTEWORTHY CAREER

At the summit of his career as a preacher, Donald Grey Barnhouse was a force to be reckoned with. He crisscrossed the nation --- and the globe --- preaching and teaching. By his own estimate, he preached approximately 12,000 sermons in a three-decade span.

... Barnhouse is to be remembered as a gifted, independent, expository teacher of the Scriptures who, prior to television and the advent of Billy Graham, spoke personally to more individuals than any Protestant religious leader of his generation. (C. Allyn Russell in the Journal of Presbyterian History, Spring 1981, p. 38)

His influence was enhanced by his nationwide radio ministry, the Bible Study Hour, which at the time of his death was being "heard over 455 stations" (Russell, p. 37). He founded, wrote for, and edited a magazine called, Eternity. Additionally, he pastored the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylania from 1927-1960 (he was followed in that pastorate first by James Montgomery Boice, and later by Philip Ryken).

The 'stage' that Barnhouse walked onto was largely framed by the modernist-fundamentalist controversy in the early 1900s. According to Pentecostal scholars William and Robert Menzies,

By 1925, the era of the infamous 'monkey trial' that lampooned belief in a literal biblical creation, Fundamentalism had been driven from positions of authority in most of the great denominations. From then on, they engaged in a form of guerilla warfare. (Spirit and Power: Foundations of Pentecostal Experience, p. 29)

Church historian George Marsden further explains,

So the fundamental doctrines for which they fought included the virgin birth of Christ, his miracles, his bodily resurrection, his substitutionary atonement for sin, and his second coming. Of particular importance was the nature of the authority of Scripture. Modernists, influenced by higher criticism, emphasized the Bible's human origins; fundamentalists countered by affirming its inerrancy in history and science as well as faith and doctrine. (Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism, p. 4)

So the fight was on and Barnhouse was a willing --- and able --- combatant. At the Bible Institute of Los Angeles he had been a student of R. A. Torrey, who thought so much of him that he lent him his class notes. More intense training came from the fundamentalist 'stars' at Princeton Theological Seminary --- B. B Warfield, Robert Dick Wilson, and J. Gresham Machen. According to C. Allyn Russell,

Barnhouse's theology was a combination of dispensationalism, Calvinism, and fundamentalism. He spent a lifetime emerging from and modifying his early training in dispensationalism; he gained his Reformed theology at Princeton Theological Seminary; and, he formed his own brand of fundamentalism as the result of independent study of the Scriptures. (Russell, p. 38)

With his training and beliefs intact, he was off to proclaim the Gospel, while battling modernism and any other errors he could find --- even in his own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA). In fact, criticism of PCUSA ministers that he thought were in error earned him censure by the denomination in 1939 (e.g., on the radio he said, "within the sound of my voice there are two Presbyterian ministers who are treasonably disloyal to the gospel of Jesus Christ." Russell, p. 46).

Barnhouse was certainly not alone in his bombast. Historian Joel Carpenter points out,

Militancy was the mark of fundamentalism, and ideological militancy especially. Fundamentalists were, in other words, a contentious lot, and they held up confrontation as one of their principal duties (Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism, p. 64).

AT ODDS WITH PENTECOSTALS

Some of that militancy was directed against Pentecostals, who had arrived on the scene at the turn of the century. Pentecostals, thus called because they relate their practice of speaking in tongues to the phenomena that occurred on the Day of Pentecost in the book of Acts, came to be identified as a movement having its beginning in 1906 on Azusa Street in Los Angeles (there had been an outbreak of tongues-speaking in Topeka, Kansas in 1901, as well). While they felt they had biblical precedent for what they had experienced, there was much rejection of that claim, often vociferously, as Allen Anderson reports,

The fact that Pentecostals were isolated, rejected and ridiculed by established churches, especially by fundamentalists, eventually resulted in an anti-ecumenical attitude. These Pentecostals saw no reason to cooperate with what they perceived as the old and corrupt churches that had ridiculed them. At the forefront of this attack were leading contemporary fundamentalist preachers like Benjamin Warfield, Henry Ironside and Campbell Morgan, who reportedly called Pentecostals 'the last vomit of Satan'. (Anderson, p. 62).

Characteristically, Barnhouse got involved, writing an editorial in 1933 in Revelation (the magazine he started previous to Eternity). Gerald Wayne King recounts Barnhouse's charges (and Pentecostal pioneer Stanley Frodsham's rebuttal) in his 2009 PhD thesis. The charges went this way,

Barnhouse provided an unflattering description of Pentecostal worship, accusing them of avoiding the full title 'Lord Jesus Christ' and of devaluing the blood of Christ. (Disfellowshipped: Pentecostal Responses to Fundamentalism in the United States, 1906-1943)

The rejection of Pentecostals was not universal, however. A new organization, being spearheaded by Harold J. Ockenga and J. Elwin Wright, was open to having Pentecostal membership.

During World War II, American Evangelical leaders were charting a course for concerted action, desiring to form a collective voice to speak for their interests and not being content to be represented to the public by the World Council of Churches and its American counterpart, an entity that came to be known as the National Council of Churches. One hundred fifty leaders gathered in St. Louis in a constitutional convention for the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in 1942. (Menzies, p. 28-29).

When the NAE was officially formed in 1943, two Pentecostal denominations were charter members --- the Assemblies of God and the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee. As Gary B. McGee explains, it was a new day for Pentecostals,

Membership brought several valuable benefits. Foremost, the NAE conferred recognition as evangelicals on Trinitarian Pentecostals. No longer to be viewed as sectarians or cultists, they could now take their seats with other evangelicals. Although other members strongly disagreed with distinctive Pentecostal teachings, they no longer considered them heretical. After all, each body within the NAE had its on doctrinal distinctives. (People of the Spirit: the Assemblies of God, p. 232)

McIntire

Of course, there were those that simply could not stretch their tents far enough to make room for the Pentecostals. Carl McIntire, who in 1941 had founded the fundamentalist American Council of Christian Churches, was particularly vicious and uncharitable in his obstinance. Pentecostal historian Vinson Synan records,

In his Christian Beacon, McIntire bitterly assailed the Pentecostals and the NAE by saying: "Tongues" is one of the great signs of the apostasy. As true protestant denominations turn from the faith and it gets darker, the Devil comes more into the open, and people who are not fed in the old line denominations go out to the "tongues" movement, for they feel that they have some life. (The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States, p. 207)

While not as harsh as McIntire, Barnhouse was not comfortable with Pentecostal membership in the NAE. Historian Edith Blumhofer writes,

Although the participation of Pentecostals did not prompt debate among NAE founders ... it troubled some fundamentalists and some Pentecostals. In 1944, for example, Donald Grey Barnhouse ... called on the annual NAE convention to solicit old-line denominational participation to counterbalance Pentecostal influence. Barnhouse unequivocally declared that the NAE could not be a meaningful force unless it was controlled by well-established denominations. (Restoring the Faith: the Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture, p. 187)

While Barnhouse has been clearly proved wrong on that count (the NAE continues to this day --- with the Assemblies of God as its largest member), the year 1944 stands out in that account.

The death of his first wife in 1944 in her mid-forties, after a lengthy bout with cancer affected Barnhouse deeply. During her final illness, Barnhouse and his wife had quietly called for elders from one of the Pentecostal churches to anoint her ceremonially with oil and to pray for her healing. (Russell, p. 49)

Whatever Barnhouse thought about Pentecostals up to that point --- whether or not they had correct doctrine, or whether or not their membership would harm the NAE --- he believed at that moment that God would, or could, respond to their prayers for healing. That is, at least, what his son told C. Allyn Russell in an interview in 1979,

Barnhouse accepted the claim of the elders that his wife had been healed. When she died, however, Barnhouse was shaken doctrinally and as well as emotionally. Donald Grey Barnhouse, Jr. declared that his father "did not seem quite so totally confident about anything after that." (Russell, p. 49)

A STUNNING REVERSAL

One could easily imagine that this was the end of involvement with the Pentecostals for Barnhouse. After all, he "quietly" summoned them --- and still lost his dear wife. But, less than nine years later, Donald Grey Barnhouse stunned the religious community in the United States when he made an announcement that was tantamount to saying that he was going to be a lot more careful about what kind of birds he was shooting at. He penned a New Year's resolution for Eternity's January 1953 issue that declared that he wanted to broaden his circle of fellowship --- and he was not going to do it in a quiet, stealthy manner. There for all to read was,

In this same spirit I have had good fellowship with men who might be called extreme in their adherence to some doctrine, such as that which fosters so-called manifestations of the Holy Spirit. When we talked together I found that we had Christ in common. It was wonderful.

Barnhouse accounted for this dramatic change by explaining that his very full and productive schedule, as well as, his combative personality had not left much room for the receptivity of love. He seemed to be expressing that he was running his 'engine' with a crankcase low on oil. Then, on the 25th anniversary of his pastorate at Tenth Avenue, there was a celebration where the congregation really poured in the 'oil.'

I began to think that perhaps a whole lot of people did love me, and suddenly I saw that this was going to make a big difference in a lot of things. (Eternity, January 1953, inside cover)

In effect, Barnhouse was going to take the love his congregation had shown him and pass it on. The doctrinal battles of yesteryear seemed to fade in importance as he wrote,

I want to make my circle of Christian fellowship on the basis of the fact that a man is going to be in Heaven with me. If he is, then why not get a little closer together here and now. (Eternity, January 1953, inside cover)

It was in that same New Year's resolution that Barnhouse made the statement about "hitting hard" at five percent disagreement even when there was 95 percent agreement with another fundamentalist. Interestingly, those same percentages came up again about four years later when he advanced further his fellowship with Pentecostal christians. Barnhouse, Walter Martin, and two more ministerial associates were invited to the Assemblies of God headquarters in Springfield in 1957 for dialogue and fellowship. After a day of "marvelous unity" around those things which were mutually believed, a second day of dialogue touched on the topics of physical healing and those with gifts of healing, or healers.

There was considerable discussion on these points. I am not attempting to express the Pentecostal position, for I am not sure that they are in greater unanimity than the rest of evangelicals. Nevertheless, as one of the Pentecostal brothers said, "We are in agreement in 95 percent of our positions." (Eternity, April 1958, pp. 8-9)

So, what fell into the five percent? (A five percent that Barnhouse no longer felt compelled to "swing hard at", though he was firmly in disagreement.) There were three areas. First, whereas the Assemblies of God stresses that healing is in the atonement, the Barnhouse group expressed that God could intervene with healing, but that "it is not always His will to heal." Also, they did not believe in "divine healers." Second, the Barnhouse group could not accept the Pentecostal belief that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an experience subsequent to conversion with the evidence of speaking in tongues. Finally, the issue of women ministers was disagreed upon; the Assemblies have women who preach to the full assembly of believers, while Barnhouse did not think that was scriptural.

By having Barnhouse preach in the Central Assembly of God pulpit for one week in 1958, the Assemblies of God leaders were signalling their unwillingness to "swing hard" at the five percent, as well. Barnhouse was both gracious and candid in reporting the invitation to his Eternity readers,

It is good for the whole body of Christ to notice that a Presbyterian minister who adheres to the Westminster Confession is an acceptable guest in a Pentecostal assembly. I go with the desire to learn everything of the graces of God that He can show me. I do not believe that my views will be changed about the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. I shall confine the subjects of my messages to those doctrines on which we are in full accord. (Eternity, April 1958, pp. 8-9)

That still left Barnhouse with lots of biblical text to roam in because, despite earlier misunderstandings, there was much that was mutually believed.

Pentecostals had always been evangelical in doctrine, teaching, among other doctrines, the infallible authority of Scripture, justification by faith, the Virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and the second coming. Yet their emphasis on Holy Spirit baptism with speaking in tongues, belief in the full restoration of the gifts of the Spirit, and prayer for the sick set them apart. (McGee, p. 232)

Donald Grey Barnhouse died in 1960, two years after preaching in Springfield. The Christian Century, by no means a fundamentalist journal, had this to say in an obituary,

His theology was conservative, and he was honorable in controversy as well as other relationships. As a journalist as well as a commentator, he witnessed to the integrity that should characterize a Christian in those vocations by responsible and honest handling of the truth. (Christian Century, December 7, 1960, p. 1428)

Did Barnhouse earn such praise by softening to the point of compromise late in life? Was he being feted because he stopped shooting at any 'birds' overhead --- grackles or bluebirds? The answer is, no. After the New Year's resolution of 1953, Barnhouse challenged groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, and Unitarians, as well as, individuals like Reinhold Niebuhr, Elton Trueblood, and the late Albert Schweitzer. He was still zealous for what he believed to be the truth; but he had learned to evaluate the criteria of spirit, as well. He evidences this in his recounting of the meeting in Springfield.

Our conference began with prayer, and long before the last man had prayed I was convinced that these were Christian brethren. No matter what differences might develop in our conversations, I was sure that these men were fully committed to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they they honored, worshipped and owned Him as Lord of all. (Eternity, April 1958, pp. 8-9)

The fighting fundamentalist had found "a still more excellent way" (1 Corinthians 12:31, NRSV)

CT: "A New Kind of Pentecostal"

2011-08-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

Moltmann

A couple of quotes from an article on Christianity Today's website today:

"Jurgen Moltmann, professor emeritus at the University of Tubingen, Germany, and widely regarded as the leading living theologian of pneumatology, says, 'Theologically, the Pentecostal movement has come of age!'"

"'During the past two decades or so, Pentecostal theology has emerged and is about to establish its place among the other traditions,' adds Veli-Matti Karkkainen, professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary."

The article is entitled, "A New Kind of Pentecostal," and is written by Robert C. Crosby, professor of practical theology at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida.

[UPDATE 9/15 - I read this week of an interesting --- even miraculous --- encounter between Moltmann and Pastor David Yonggi Cho's church (Yoido Full Gospel in Seoul, Korea). Mark Shaw reports in his book, Global Awakening: How 20th-Century Revivals Triggered a Christian Revolution, that "... theologian Jurgen Moltmann stood in the pulpit of Cho's full gospel church to declare that he had been healed under the ministry of Cho ...." (p. 47). The footnote for that item refers the reader to an article, "The Blessing of Hope: The Theology of Hope and the Full Gospel of Life" in the Journal of Pentecostal Theology 13 (2005): 147-161.]

Uncle John is gone

2011-07-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

"I can't think of anyone who has been more effective in introducing so many people to a biblical world view" - Billy Graham

While many might think that assessment would be applied to Graham himself, the American evangelist was speaking of John Stott, who died this afternoon at the age of 90.

Stott, most recently Rector Emeritus of All Souls Church in England and the founder of Langham Partnership International, was a prolific Christian author, a widely recognized leader of the evangelical branch of Christianity, and affectionately known by many around the world as, Uncle John.

As would be expected, there will be a multitude stories appearing in the media this week, but in the hours shortly after his death I wanted to provide a few links that highlight the importance of Stott's ministry and also give a quick summary of it.

First, there is a four-minute video that was posted this afternoon by Langham Partnership. The short TIME magazine article that presented Stott as one the 100 most influential people in the world can be linked to here (Billy Graham wrote the piece. The opening quote of this post comes from that article). New York Times political writer David Brooks wrote a column in November 2004 that presented Stott as a model for evangelical leadership (Brooks quotes Michael Cromartie as saying, "if evangelicals could elect a pope, Stott is the person they would likely choose.") Christianity Today posted a eulogic piece this afternoon. (And while I am not always eager to link to Wikipedia articles, the one on Stott is accurate and does a good job of summarizing his life and influence.)

My personal favorite item about Stott is this Christianity Today piece by John W. Yates III. Yates, a former assistant to Stott, gave us an insider's look at the Anglican minister's life and routines.

Two of Stott's most famous books, Basic Christianity and The Cross of Christ, can be sampled online.

John Stott lived a remarkable life and has left a great legacy. Church historian Mark Noll once summed it up this way, "I consider John Stott the sanest, clearest and most solidly biblical living writer on theological topics in the English language."

Revival in India!

2011-07-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

If I had a nickel for every church service or missions event that I've been in where countries like India were prayed for I could probably indulge in a Starbucks coffee this afternoon.

So it seems very important to me that we pay attention when revival fires are sparked. First, it's important that we rejoice that people are being reconciled to the Father. And it's important that we acknowledge with thanksgiving that prayers are answered.

This Christianity Today article (in the July 2011 issue) chronicles the grassroots revival currently happening in India (so much so, that there are more believers in India now than at any other time in its history).

If you are pressed for time, this well-made 2 1/2 minute video summarizes the article. [UPDATE 9/23/11 --- Asbury Seminary president Timothy Tennent also speaks to evangelistic and discipleship efforts in India in this video.]

When you couple this news with the news of an explosion of Christianity in China, you realize that the headlines about the economic woes of the earth --- while very serious --- are being superseded by work of the Holy Spirit.
Soli deo gloria!

Some N. T. Wright thoughts about hell

2011-03-24T08:14:00.000-07:00

Luke Timothy Johnson on Ephesians

2011-03-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

L. T. Johnson

"Ephesians could be regarded --- even more so than Romans --- as a summary of Paul's gospel.

"In Ephesians we find a masterly statement on the work of God in the world and church, expressed not in the passion of polemic or in the logic of argumentation but by prayerful meditation .... it is the pervasive atmosphere of prayer that is its most distinctive feature.

"In Ephesians, theology informs prayer, and prayer itself is the vehicle for theology." --- Luke Timothy Johnson (The Writings of the New Testament, Fortress Press)

Once Vineyard, now Anglican

2011-03-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

Todd Hunter's spiritual journey has taken him from being a parishoner at Greg Laurie's church to being the leader of the Vineyard Movement to being president of Alpha USA to being ... an Anglican bishop.

That makes for some story, huh? You can actually read that story in the book below (J. I. Packer wrote the foreword). If you don't have time to browse through the book, Hunter sketches the story out in an interview with Frank Viola that can be read here.

Free materials from Craig Keener

2011-03-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

Dr. Keener

Craig Keener is a generous Christian. I know.

Back when I was starting this blog, Craig --- a widely-recognized Bible scholar --- took time to participate in an interview that was so generously extensive that I posted it in an eight-part series. (Craig's fellow scholars, Peter Davids and Larry Hart, also graciously consented to interviews and have otherwise provided information for this blog. My deepest thanks to all.)

I want to further highlight Craig's generosity today by providing links to some valuable material he is making available online for free.

First, there is an 11-part course in hermeneutics that can be accessed here. Then there is his commentary on Matthew in the IVP New Testament Commentary Series (IVP Academic). You can access that either here or here. (Craig also produced a more extensive commentary on Matthew --- over 1,000 pages --- that you can purchase here). Finally, he has summarized a portion of his book, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, and made that summary available here.

Craig, a professor at Eastern University's Palmer Theological Seminary, is also a scholar that believes that the gifts of the Spirit are for today (professors Davids and Hart also share that view). His book Gift & Giver: The Holy Spirit in the Church Today (Baker Academic) provides a deeply Biblical --- and sensible --- presentation of that view.

Enjoy those free materials --- and pass'em on.

HarperOne gives us Hell ... now, Allah

2011-03-07T00:27:00.000-08:00

Talk about a one-two punch --- HarperOne, the imprint of publisher HarperCollins has one. At least, this month it does.

Hard on the heels of the controversy about Rob Bell's new book about heaven and hell, HarperOne has another book sure to set the internet ablaze, Allah: A Christian Response by Miroslav Volf. It is set for release March 15, according to Christianbook.com.

As in the case of Bell's book, we have not read Volf's book. However, we have a much better idea of where Volf is going to go with his argument. Witness this quote from a March 3 article written by Volf on the website, Huffingtonpost.com:

"The fact of the matter is this: fearful people bent on domination have created the contest for supremacy between Yahweh, the God of the Bible, and Allah, the God of the Quran. The two are one god, albeit differently understood."

Let me state clearly --- I do not believe that.

But, let me state just as clearly, I think Volf's entire case deserves a hearing, and I will give it that in May when I have a little more time for reading.

United Methodist bishop William Willimon says in his endorsement of the book, "I've read many attempts to think like Christians about Islam. This is the best I have read. Volf wonderfully explicates Islam in a way that demonstrates the best of Christian thought about God."

We shall see.

Other than Willimon's endorsement, why would I believe Volf's provocative idea deserves a full hearing?

Well, Volf --- a Yale University professor --- is no stranger to evangelical readers. In 2000, Christianity Today named his book, Exclusion and Embrace , one of the classic books of the 20th century.

Also, it is not lost on me that Volf is a Pentecostal by experience, if not by church affliation. In Mark Oppenheimer's 2003 article about Volf in The Christian Century, Volf is quoted as saying,

"I have, as a young person, 'spoken in tongues.' It was a result of prayer in search of words that couldn't find them. There was nothing miraculous in what I experienced. I experienced it as a freeing. It came gently, then subsided."

Of course, credibility is not determined by anecdotes about experiences. The ideas in Allah: A Christian Response will rise or fall on their own. And I will read them carefully.

Rob Bell, hell --- and let's all yell!

2011-03-04T10:24:00.000-08:00

If you are unaware of the furor caused by the pre-publication buzz about pastor Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (to be released March 15, according to Amazon.com), welcome back from your rest, Rip Van Winkle.

The Christ-follower segment of the internet is largely in a state of tumult, with premature --- and often harsh --- denunciations of Bell ("he's Universalist", "he's a heretic" and so on), and pushback from those like New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III, who say, Chill folks, we haven't even read the book! (What many have seen is this promotional video for the book).

So what's my take? I don't have one. I haven't read the book.

What I have to offer is more substantial than an opinion on a book I haven't read; it's a link to my friend Paul Wilkinson's blog, Thinking Out Loud. Paul, you see, is one of a tiny number of people who have seen the book --- at least a draft copy. You can read Paul's thoughts on it all here.

After that, it's back to sleep, Rip.

[UPDATE March 7: Pastor and New Testament scholar Greg Boyd says he, too, has read Bell's book --- and says further that Bell is not a universalist. You can read Boyd's comments here.]
[UPDATE March 11: Louis McBride, the Bible and academic book buyer for Baker Book House in Grand Rapids, posted his review of the book today. McBride also has a master's degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He blogs here. In his review, he notes Boyd's review, as well as, that of Tim Challies, one of the best-known evangelical bloggers. Evidently, Challies disagrees with Boyd --- Challies thinks Bell is a universalist.]
[UPDATE March 11: Bell will be launching his book March 14 at a live event in NYC. You can read the particulars here.]
[UPDATE March 13: Theologian Roger E. Olson pleads for cooler heads to prevail. You can read it here.]
[UPDATE March 14: Christianity Today editor Mark Galli posted his review today. You can read it here.]
[UPDATE March 15: Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw weighs in. You can read it here.]

Anyone for ... pietism?

2011-03-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

Bayor University professor Roger Olson tells of when one of his professors, Wolfhart Pannenberg, used to say, "One thing I am NOT! --- a Pietist."

Hmmm ... pietism must be something very objectionable. In popular usage today, the speaker usually means "someone who is emotional --- and not rational --- about their religion" when applying the term, pietist.

But, when one looks at the 17th-century foundation of Pietism, it seems not emotionally imbalanced, but well-rounded. Even, dare we say it, biblical.

Historians are in agreement that the movement we now call Pietism had its specific roots in the efforts of Philip Jacob Spener in Germany. Spener's book, Pia Desideria (written in 1675), was the 'constitution' of the Pietist movement.

Noted historian Justo Gonzalez summarizes Pia in this manner:

"Here he [Spener] expressed six 'pious desires,' which became the program for Pietism. The first of these was that Christians should organize into small groups to study Scripture in a spirit of devotion. Since Spener called these small groups collegia pietatis, this first point of the program, jointly with the title of the book itself, gave the movement the name of 'Pietism.' Second, Spener desired that the commonly held doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers be made effective by entrusting laity with the leadership of the small groups. Third, he hoped that believers would move beyond Christianity as a set of doctrines, and come to experience it as a living faith. As a consequence of this third point, the fourth would be that controversies among Christians would always take place within a framework of a spirit of love. Then, points of five and six had to do with the pastoral leadership of the church: the fifth being that pastors be trained in the devotional tradition of Christianity and in the practice of leading a flock, not only in theology and other academic matters; and the sixth, the pulpit cease being a place for obscure and detailed theological disquistions, and recover its role in inspiring, instructing, and feeding the disciples.

"Although missions were not included among Spener's six points, very soon Pietism came to be known for its eagerness to share the faith with others, and thus was one of the fountainheads of the modern missionary movement among Protestants." --- from Essential Theological Terms (Westminster John Knox Press), pp. 132-133.

Further light reading about Pietism can be done at Roger Olson's blog:

Exegeting James

2010-12-22T03:01:00.000-08:00

Two years ago on this blog, New Testament scholar Peter Davids provided insight into the flood of commentary publishing that has been seen in the past three decades.

Davids had established himself as an outstanding exegete in 1982 with a commentary on the Greek text of the book of James.

Since that time, James' epistle has experienced some of the commentary publishing flood. Outstanding volumes on that book have been written by Ralph Martin (1988), Luke Timothy Johnson (1995), and Douglas Moo (2000).

The last couple of years have seen three more commentaries on James that deserve notice: Craig Blomberg and Mariam Kamell did one in 2008, Dan McCartney's was published in 2009, and Scot McKnight's just came out in 2010. Today, we'll take a brief look at the commentary by Blomberg and Kamell.

Their effort is part of the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series, edited by Clinton Arnold. Neither Arnold nor Blomberg, both experienced interpreters of the New Testament, were interested in adding to the flood.

"When Clint Arnold, general editor of the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary Series on the New Testament, first sent out his prospectus to potential authors in 2002, he described his experience of having vowed never to participate in another commentary series, only to have his mind changed by the unique features that the publishers were proposing in this one," Blomberg recounts in the preface.

Eventually, Blomberg was also won over to the format of the new series and enlisted his then-teaching assistant at Denver Seminary, Mariam Kamell, to help produce the volume on James (Kamell is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Regent College in Vancouver).

In Davids' Catholic Biblical Quarterly review (July 2009 issue) of the ZECNT work, he notes "... the two have managed to merge their work thoroughly enough so that one can rarely tell who wrote what. The style is uniform throughout."

Readers can get a sample of the format that won over the reluctant Arnold and Blomberg by clicking here (go to page 7 of the 15-page .pdf file).

Firstly, scanning the pages reveals that the commentary is laid out in a way that will be helpful to time-conscious pastors. Davids notes this in his CBQ review, "It would be useful for pastors who need to grasp quickly the thrust of a passage."

The section the sample covers is James 1:1-11. You get three paragraphs that provide literary context and a straightforward one-paragraph assessment of the passage's main idea. Next comes an important visual aid, the structural flow of the passage. For pastors not trained in performing this type of analysis, this section models an important element of exegesis.

An outline of the passage precedes the Greek text and the authors' own translation of it, followed by verse-by-verse commentary. Though not as in-depth in Greek as Davids' work is, Greek is handled constantly throughout the commentary. Readers who do not know Koine Greek can quite easily read around those discussions and still profit from the exegesis.

Finally, there are "Theology in Application" sections and some in-depth excursuses that assist readers in moving from exegesis to application.

Not unlike the automobile market, the current state of study on the book of James gives buyers several 'models' to choose from. Buyers are able to choose on the basis of price, the thoroughness of comment, the amount of attention given to Greek, and their purpose for the purchase (e.g., sermon preparation, exegetical papers, etc). As Peter Davids indicated, those who teach and preach in the local church are the most likely candidates to find useful the volume by Blomberg and Kamell.

Gordon Fee in the news

2010-10-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

Fee receives a doctorate of divinity from Northwest University. His wife, Maudine, is on the right.

New Testament scholar and textual critic Gordon Fee was featured in Charisma magazine in its September 2010 issue. Charisma is the charismatic movement's most-widely read magazine. The piece was a change of pace for Charisma, which seldom has articles by or about scholars.

Fee's much-anticipated commentary on the book of the Revelation is due for release next month. It is part of the New Covenant Commentary series, which is edited by Craig Keener and Michael Bird. Readers wanting to get a foretaste of Fee's interpretation of the Revelation can access audio recordings done at Calvin College (for free) or a class he taught at Regent College in Vancouver (for purchase). A video of him being interviewed about the forthcoming commentary can be seen here.

Fee is professor emeritus at Regent, but now lives in the state of New York. Friends in NYC may want to get out and see him this Friday, October 15, at St. Michael's on West 99th Street. He will be providing the introduction to a talk on the intersection of art and faith by former student, David Taylor. Details for the event can be seen here.

Back in April, Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington honored Fee with a doctorate of divinity (Fee's earned PhD is from the University of Southern Cailfornia).

Dr. Fee was featured on this blog in July 2008.

Free biblical education

2010-08-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

Are you lamenting in middle-age never having taken three or four years of your life to attend bible college? Or, are you a college-age person that simply cannot gather up the funds to attend bible college, or even, to take courses online?

Whatever the case may be, if you want sound evangelical biblical education at no cost, it's available now.

How sound? Well, you can, for instance, be taught by Bill Mounce ... Douglas Stuart ... Gordon Fee ... Ward Gasque ... or many, many others of that same caliber.

And again, the cost is zip ... zero ... nada ... gratis.

Now, I want to say up front --- so as to not waste your time --- you are not going to get a bible college degree for free from any of the sources I am going to present (a couple of the sources do offer certificates of completion, however).

What you will get is high-quality evangelical biblical education, pitched at the bible-college level (and, in some cases, higher) and you will not have to pay a cent. The audio lectures are on the internet, and a couple of providers have syllabi and/or notes that can be downloaded, as well. To show you how all of this is possible, let's go back to the professors I mentioned:

BILL MOUNCE ... Bill is probably best known for his textbook, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar (3rd edition, Zondervan), and his commentary on the pastoral epistles in the Word Biblical Commentary series (Thomas Nelson). Bill is an evangelical pioneer in the concept of open source education. He founded the website, Biblical Training, and is seen talking about the site in a video at the bottom of this blog entry. Mounce has rounded up an impressive array of his peers to provide a broad and interesting curriculum; for example, Craig Blomberg teaches a New Testament Survey class, Paul House teaches an Old Testament Theology class, John Piper teaches a Pastoral Theology class, and Bruce Ware teaches systematic theology. Currently, there are 17 other top-flite professors offering courses through Biblical Training. A certificate of completion is awarded by Western Seminary, where Mounce teaches. Getting started is as easy as 1-2-3. Simply link here to register. (You can listen to lectures without registering, though. Go to the speakers page, select a lecture series --- Christian Apologetics, for instance --- select a lecture --- perhaps, Cosmological Argument --- then click the "PLAY" button). A sample lecture is provided below (Robert Stein speaking on, An Introduction to Hermeneutics. Allow a few seconds for the lecture to load).

DOUGLAS STUART .... Stuart collaborated with Gordon Fee on the bestselling book, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (3rd edition, Zondervan) and writes scholarly commentaries, the most recent being the volume on Exodus in the New American Commentary series (B & H Publishing Group). He is one of the lecturers in the Dimensions of the Faith curriculum offered by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. His lecture on the book of Exodus and the study guide for it are available to sample here (allow about 17 seconds lead time; the lecture is slow to start. For Dimensions of the Faith you need RealPlayer installed. The other three sources presented have software that allows them to play the lectures directly from their sites). Dimensions of the Faith offers a well-rounded curriculum of 10 courses that cover both testaments, biblical interpretation, church history, systematic theology, and evangelism and missions. Stuart (who teaches two of the courses) is joined by David Wells and other current and former GCTS professors. Like Biblical Training, Dimensions of the Faith offers a certificate of completion to those that successfully pass a brief test at the end of each course. Registering will take you about 60 seconds. Simply click here to get started.

GORDON FEE ... Fee needs little introduction to those interested in serious study of the New Testament. He is a first-class textual critic and commentator. He is editor of the venerable New International Commentary on the New Testament series (Eerdmans), and wrote the commentaries on 1 Corinthians, Philippians, and the Thessalonian letters in that series. He is one of the many outstanding biblical scholars featured on Regent Radio, the internet broadcasting arm of Regent College in Vancouver. N. T. Wright, Alister McGrath, J. I. Packer, Bruce Waltke and others also have lecture series played on Regent Radio. Regent's format is at once the easiest to access and the least flexible. You can start listening just by clicking here, then clicking on the "PLAY" button in the middle of the page. However, unlike the other sources I am presenting, you do not have a choice as to what lecturer or lecture you will listen to. One lecture is played daily, all day long. No certificate is available.

WARD GASQUE ... Gasque has edited two series of commentaries on the New Testament: the scholarly New International Greek Testament Commentary (Eerdmans), and the less-technical, New International Biblical Commentary's New Testament volumes (Hendrickson Publishers). He is an instructor and dean for the Koinos Seminars, a program developed by the Pacific Association for Theological Studies. While Koinos Seminars offers a certificate when classes are taken in person in Canada, the lectures are also available online for free (without a certificate offered). Gasque is joined by Carl Armerding and others in the curriculum that currently provides 18 courses. Gasque teaches Bible 101 and New Testament 101, while Armerding teaches Old Testament 101 and Old Testament Theology 201. All the courses and the other instructors can be seen and linked to here. (Simply click on the course listed that interests you --- the Doctrine of the Trinity, for instance. The course lectures will then be displayed and you can play them immediately).

A final note --- if the certificates are of no interest to you, you have the most flexibility possible. In other words, you can pick-and-choose the courses and professors you prefer from the four sources, and in so doing, create your own all-star faculty and/or ideal curriculum.

As they say when you are about to partake of a fine meal, "Enjoy!" (and for this 'meal', there won't be a check).

Introduction to BiblicalTraining.org from Bill Mounce on Vimeo.

What? You forgot to go to the bookstore?

2010-08-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Amos Yong

You remembered the camera. The suntan lotion. The sunblock (hedging your bets, huh?) And, thank goodness, you have Kevin with you.

But, you headed off for vacation without any reading material.

Well, let's fix that. Here's some reading for August's dog days:

--- Amos Yong's paper, Possibility and Actuality: The Doctrine of Creation and Its Implications for Divine Omniscience

--- I. Howard Marshall's book, A Pocket Guide to New Testament Theology (the whole book)

--- Craig Keener's 88-page paper, Biblical Interpretation (.pdf file)

--- N. T. Wright's paper, My Pilgrimmage in Theology

--- Ralph P. Martin's review of Gordon Fee's, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study

--- J. Rodman Williams' book, A Theological Pilgrimmage (the whole book)

--- Ward Gasque's paper, The Multiplication of Bibles and the Decrease of Bible Knowledge: A Paradox to Ponder

--- Allen Ross' paper, Old Testament Exegesis: An Outline of the Procedure and a Bibliography for Old Testament Studies

--- Douglas Moo's article, Israel and the Law in Romans 5 - 11: Interaction with the New Perspective (32-page .pdf file)

--- Article on Bible Study Secrets, featuring tips from Douglas Stuart, Robert Gundry, Clark Pinnock, and others

A secret to be shared

2010-08-05T01:19:00.000-07:00

A lot of books have been recommended on this blog. Today, it's a book review that is being recommended.

I just finished reading my friend Steve Ganz' blog about the brand new book, The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission (Zondervan), and if I wasn't knee-deep in reading that must done for a course of study, I would immediately pick up a copy.

Steve is a longtime and trusted friend (he wrote a guest blog for Word & Spirit in December 2008). His passion for the Lord Jesus and the scriptures is strong. When he makes a case for a book like he does for this one, folks should listen. I am glad I did.

There's no sense in recounting Steve's recounting of John Dickson's book. I urge you to read the review for yourself here. And unless you are knee-deep in reading for a course of study, I imagine that you will soon be buying Dickson's book. I felt spiritually refreshed and encouraged --- and freed --- just reading Steve's blog!

Additionally, you can read a sample of the book and see a video of the author discussing The Best Kept Secret ... here.

Interview with Kim Crutchfield ... Part Three

2010-07-31T13:48:00.000-07:00

This is the concluding installment of a three-part interview with Dr. Kim Crutchfield, pastor of Taipei International Church.

In Part One, Kim answered questions about his pastorate in Taiwan, his doctoral studies, and his Pentecostal upbringing. Part Two dealt with his years spent at Princeton Theological Seminary, under the tutelage of professors like Bruce Metzger and James Loder.

Crutchfield

Today the subject matter is much different. Part of Kim's life journey took him through Atlanta, Georgia, where he served on the staff of Chapel Hill Harvester Church (aka, the Cathedral of Holy Spirit). Much of what Kim experienced there was not joyful like his pastorate in Taipei, nor edifying like the classrooms of Princeton or Columbia Theological Seminary, where he earned both a master's and his doctorate.

Once a prominent charismatic megachurch, Chapel Hill Harvester Church (CHHC), under the leadership of the late Archbishop Earl Paulk, became a scandal-ridden spectacle. As stories of sexual misconduct, as well as, stories of financial and psychological manipulation of the congregation oozed out of CHHC in the 1990s, it became clear that it was an unhealthy place.

That serious and sustained wrongs occured there is well-documented (see a Charisma magazine article here, a Lee Grady column here, and the video below from Fox5 in Atlanta). Today's blog is not yet one more news report about the travesty at CHHC (that news, thankfully, is rather stale). Instead, it is an attempt to learn from an insider's viewpoint on how parishoners might recognize the early warning signs of a church going spiritually, financially, and morally awry.

When I say "insider's viewpoint" I need to be clear: Dr. Crutchfield was never, ever involved in the horrific events at CHHC, nor did he have knowledge of them when he was there as a staff member. What he did see were the attitudes and teachings and actions that served as the seeds to produce such a terrible harvest. He gained a great deal more information on the scandals by staying in contact with many former members of the church, ministering to them in such venues as the Cathedral Survivors internet forum.

Today, the massive cathedral that housed CHHC has been sold, and the very shrunken congregation, now led by Paulk's son, D. E. Paulk (his son by reason of an affair with his sister-in-law!) is pursuing a theology that is a mish-mash of charismatic Christianity, universalism, and Eastern mysticism. As Lee Grady opines in another column, "A pulpit that was already defiled by diabolical perversion is now the breeding ground for unthinkable deception."

JR: What are some of the lessons to be learned from the Earl Paulk debacle?

KC: Jon, I served in that ministry staff from 1975, after graduating from bible college, until the end of 1983.

Although many bad things happened and many people were hurt in that ministry, I learned much from it. I kept in touch with many friends whose lives were affected by their participation in Chapel Hill Harvester Church and the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit long after I left CHHC and joined the United Methodist church. I witnessed spiritual manipulation and crass social control in its raw form. I learned to be critical of spiritual authorities in a healthy way.

When leaders resist questioning and set themselves above the flock there is danger. As Lord Acton warned long ago, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Red flags go up for me when a minister stresses the need for everyone to submit to his or her authority. All leaders need healthy checks and balances.

One of the watchwords of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at its height was, "The kingdom of God is built on trust." That sounded spiritual. However, it translated to mean that members of the congregation should suspend all critical evaluations of spiritual leaders and trust them blindly. This slogan led followers to believe that God would judge leaders for their mistakes and, therefore, their participation was not culpable. Their only duty was to trust and obey spiritual authorities. This is plainly false, but it formed the practical essence of Kingdom Now Theology.

The leadership used gifts of prophecy and discernment to gain control over people. They placed one woman, touted to have the gift of discerning of spirits, in the leadership structure. Whenever she sensed a staff member or someone in the congregation in disagreement with the direction of the Bishop, she would "discern" in them a "Judas Spirit" and "Spirit of Intellectualism", or that they were relying on the "mind of reason". She would call them out in public to rebuke this spirit. This was a ritual of humiliation. It was a clever way to discredit anyone who opposed or questioned the wilder and wilder direction the leaders wished to take the congregation.

The Bishop prophesied that God had told him that everyone should offer twenty percent of their income to the church. Who could question such a pronouncement? If they did, were they opposing God's Man of the Hour? Were they "Judas spirits" or relying on the mind of reason? Such devices silenced voices of dissent. This abuse of the gift of discerning of spirits was a form of crass social and spiritual manipulation.

I also learned that arrogance in leadership is ugly and destructive. I am appalled at the number of those whose faith suffered damage through their participation in CHHC and the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. Many will never darken the doors of another church. Their faith was so violated and their trust betrayed. Yet the arrogance of the leadership prevented them from uttering words of apology for their wrongdoing. Rather, they continued to vilify their victims and castigate the whistle blowers. A clear acknowledgement of wrongdoing and an apology would have brought enormous healing to so many. The leadership should own up to the scandals and come clean. However, arrogance issued in denials and flat out lies. They accused their victims of being instruments of Satan who wished to "destroy this ministry." Abuses continued until they became undeniable and public. It was a sorry spectacle and left enormous human carnage in its wake.

Nevertheless, some "true believers" still hang on to the decaying carcass. I learned that religious committments that become fanatical have great tenacity. Few people are willing to admit that they had played the fool. The insular world of the religious sect keeps the devotees loyal to authoritarian leaders. Binary thinking prevents people from healthy and critical assessment.

JR: Thank you, Kim, for your candor and insights. I pray the Lord's richest blessing on you and those you serve in Taipei.
.

Interview with Kim Crutchfield ... Part Two

2010-07-24T04:12:00.000-07:00

Bruce Metzger

This is the second installment of a 3-part interview with Dr. Kim Crutchfield, pastor of Taipei International Church. (The first installment can be read here).

Raised in a Pentecostal home in the United States, but now a United Methodist minister in Taiwan, Kim has covered a lot of terrain --- literally and figuratively.

Today, we ask him about his seminary years at Princeton, particularly studying under Bruce Metzger (pictured on the right; Dr. and Mrs. Crutchfield are pictured in the first installment).

JR: Studying under the late biblical scholar and textual critic Bruce Metzger at Princeton Seminary had to be a delight. Tell us about that experience.

KC: I entered Princeton Theological Seminary's Master of Divinity program in the winter of 1984. I had earned a Masters in Theological Studies in Ethics from Columbia Theological Seminary in 1982. My transfer credits allowed me the elbowroom to choose many elective courses during my MDiv program at Princeton. I selected the professors under whom I wished to study.

The last course Bruce Metzger taught before his retirement was the Book of Revelation. He took the approach he later shared in his 1999 book Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation. I elected to take the Book of Revelation as a Bible course, primarily because I wished to sit at the feet of one of the foremost textual critics in the world.

Dr. Metzger delivered his lectures with great joy, brimming with calm insight. Though not animated, he was never boring. He was brilliant. I soaked it all in.

The materials Dr. Metzger introduced to the class as background reading expanded my viewpoint on apocalyptic materials exponentially. My Pentecostal bible college where I did my undergraduate studies trained me only in the Dispensationalist interpretation, an approach that sought to harmonize the prophecies of Daniel with the book of Revelation. Hal Lindsey's Late Great Plant Earth was popular at the time of my undergraduate days. Dr. Metzger's approach opened a new world of interpretation to me.

Dr. Metzger was a true gentleman, sheathing his vast knowledge in humility becoming to a great scholar. He held the Bible in high esteem and brought a wealth of knowledge to the class. I am grateful for the privilege to have studied under Dr. Bruce M. Metzger.

James Loder

Another professor that affected my life at Princeton Theological Seminary was Dr. James Loder. He had written The Transforming Moment a few years before I entered Princeton.

Dr. Loder helped me claim my Pentecostal heritage during a time in which I was sorely tempted to abandon it. The abuses to which I had witnessed and had been subjected almost led me to toss out the baby with the bathwater. Dr. Loder's deep appreciation for Christian experience and the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life helped me to integrate the mind and the heart.

My Pentecostal colleagues had been distrustful of too many questions and suspicious of the intellect. They counseled against too much head knowledge as dangerous to the faith. Some of my Pentecostal friends disparaged seminaries (which they jokingly called "Cemeteries") as factories of unbelief and head knowledge. I did not experience Princeton Theological Seminary that way.

Dr. Loder modeled intellectual acumen combined with a heart of love and devotion. His lectures were electrifying. He preached and taught through every class. I hated when the lecture ended and class would dismiss.

NEXT SATURDAY: Kim and Stephanie's years in Earl Paulk's Chapel Hill Harvester Church. Read it here.

Interview with Kim Crutchfield ... Part One

2010-07-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

When Kim Crutchfield received his doctorate from Columbia Theological Seminary in May, he was aware that he had traveled a long way from his earliest memory of religion --- sitting in an A. A. Allen tent revival.

And some of the traveling has been literal: Kim is currently the pastor of Taipei International Church in Taiwan.

To mark the occasion of Kim's recognition as a Doctor of Ministry, I thought it would be interesting to interview the United Methodist minister about his spiritual journey that has taken him through Pentecostalism, the Princeton classrooms of the late biblical scholar Bruce Metzger, the megachurch of the notorious bishop Earl Paulk, and now to the pulpit at Taipei International.

The interview will be posted in three parts: today (Kim's background and thoughts on Pentecostalism), next Saturday, July 24 (his experiences at Princeton with Metzger), and finally, Saturday, July 31 (what he observed at Earl Paulk's church in Atlanta).

JR: Kim, first tell us about your church in Taipei and how you came to pastor there.

KC: My family and I were in the Philippines for several years, serving as United Methodist missionaries. I taught at Union Theological Seminary in Das Marinas, Cavite, and my wife, Stephanie, worked with an indigenous people group known as the Ayatas in the mountains of Tarlac (the Crutchfields are pictured below). On weekends, I taught in the adult education department of Union Church Manila, an international church in Manila.

When our mission term of service was up, our mission board wanted to reassign us to Cambodia. However, the pastor of the Union Church Manila told us about another international church pulpit that had recently become vacant, the Taipei International Church. We prayed about it and then dropped in our application. In a few short months, TIC decided that we were the couple for the position. We moved to Taiwan in late November 2003.

Taipei International Church is an international congregation. It is now in its 53rd year.

In 1957 a Methodist missionary began the Wesley Methodist Church in Taipei among the Mandarin-speaking Chinese who migrated to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek. That congregation opened an English-speaking service that became Taipei International Church.

The people of TIC come from many countries and from all different denominations. TIC is an exciting place to serve God. The congregation is committed to mission on the island and in Asia, with outreaches to India, Indonesia, Cambodia, and the Philippines. A large part of the TIC constituency is Filipinos who serve as Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs).

We hold a special Tagalog Fellowship every Sunday, with several satellite congregations around Taipei. Our youth have a worship service called Paradyme that meets every Sunday morning as an alternative worship service.

TIC supports many missions on Taiwan ranging from orphanages, crisis counseling services, ministries to rehabilitate alcohol and drug abusers, Gideon's International, and Christian camps for Thai workers.

TIC is a vibrant congregation serving the Tienmu section of Taipei. We hold our main services in the Taipei American School.

JR: What was the area of study you pursued in your doctoral program?

KC: I entered the program at Columbia Theological Seminary called "Gospel and Culture". This program aimed to equip the learners with tools to help us interpret the culture around us in which we do ministry. The professors taught us the skills to serve as "theological ethnographers". We interpret culture and gospel. This is of particular interest to me. Western culture is changing. To speak a meaningful word of good news to the world in which we live, we must understand the culture and how the gospel addresses it.

Since coming to Taiwan, I live for the first time in a culture that is not predominantly Christian. Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism form the dominant religious committments in Taiwan. Christianity comprises only about 2% of the population. Through my program, I learned how to observe another culture and seek for better understanding. What do the people value? How do they think? What symbols speak to them?

My studies led me to reflect on the phenomenon of ancestor homage, as they practice it in Taiwan. My final project paper was on Concern over Ancestor Homage in Taiwan: Toward a Culture Specific Catechesis for Taiwanese Christian Seekers. I offered my reflections on how the church may respond to Taiwanese who seek to enter the church but struggle with family pressure to continue to worship their ancestors. I hope to make a contribution to the ongoing dialog of Christians in Taiwan as they seek to evangelize and initiate new Christians into the faith.

JR: As you evaluate your youthful years in Pentecostalism, what were some of the major pluses and minuses you saw?

KC: Pentecostalism stresses that everyone is a minister. Even as a child, I believed that God could use me to serve. We believed that the Holy Spirit works through men and women, boys and girls. Some scholars call this "the democratization of the prophetic spirit". We were taught that the Holy Ghost (back then, we usually followed the KJV) would anoint "sons and daughters, menservants and maidservants, old men and young men" to speak the word of God. God was near, not far away. The Holy Spirit brought God close. The Holy Spirit was God-in-Action among us, granting power for effective service. Pentecostalism also led us to exercise spiritual gifts. Prophecy and tongues were the main ones people talked about in our churches. The plus was that we believed God could use us in the exercise of those gifts. One did not need a seminary degree, or, even an office, to serve as an instrument of God's work in the world.

One minus was that our church stressed that the Holy Spirit would only come on persons who spoke in tongues. They stressed the "baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues". We looked at non-Pentecostal Christians as nominal Christians, lacking the Holy Ghost power. That set up a natural one-upmanship, separating us from other brothers and sisters in Christ.

I also witnessed many cases of the abuse of prophecy. Prophecy was often misused as a tool of crass social manipulation. Some folks have trouble separating their own prejudices and biases from what God might say. It is easy to add a "Thus sayeth the Lord" to cloak one's own agenda. I have seen that happen before.

The Pentecostal movement stressed heart religion and experience. That is a plus. However, they were often suspicious of intellect. Anti-intellectualism is a minus. When I was a student in bible college, one teacher tried to dissuade me from pursuing my field of interest, ethics. I believe she thought it too mentally challenging. I have to laugh about it now --- I thought schools and colleges were centers of learning. Yet, in that case, too much learning proved threatening.

NEXT SATURDAY: Experiencing Princeton and the scholarship of Bruce Metzger. Read it here.

Kim and Stephanie Crutchfield

N. T. Wright leaving Durham

2010-04-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

According to the Anglican Church's Diocese of Durham website today, Bishop N. T. Wright be leaving his position in the see at the end of August.

The website quotes Wright as saying, " ... my continuing vocation to be a writer, teacher and broadcaster, for the benefit (I hope) of the wider world and church, has been increasingly difficult to combine with the complex demands and duties of diocesan bishop. I am very sad about this, but the choice has become increasingly clear."

It is also noted that Wright is retiring from the see of Durham to return to academia. He will be a Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

In other Wright-related news, he will be speaking --- along with John Piper --- at the Evangelical Theological Society's 62nd annual meeting this fall.

The two will continue their discussion --- initiated in a pair of recent books --- on the topic, Justification by Faith. Piper engaged Wright on the doctrine in his 2007 book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright (Crossway Books). Wright wrote his response last year in, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's Vision (IVP Academic).

If you don't have time to read the books, you can bring yourself up-to-speed by viewing this video of John Piper, this video of N. T. Wright, and reading this primer on the Christianity Today website (the primer, written by Trevin Wax, summarizes the positions held by Wright and Piper).

Beeson Divinity School's Frank Thielman will also be a plenary speaker at the ETS meeting, which is being held in Atlanta November 17 - 19.

Other news coverage of Wright's retirement from the see of Durham:

Kansas City 1977

2010-04-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Vinson Synan

Yesterday, Christianity Today magazine posted on its website an interview with Pentecostal historian Vinson Synan. The occasion was the publication of Synan's new book, An Eyewitness Remembers the Century of the Holy Spirit (Chosen/Baker).

In response to a question about what was the high moment of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, Synan said, "The movement reached a climax in America around 1977 during the Kansas City conference, because all the different streams came together. The 50,000 people in the stadium showed the vigor and force that was sweeping the world."

Synan, dean emeritus of Regent University's School of Divinity, goes on to note that national television and magazine outlets covered the conference, which was officially titled, the Conference on Charismatic Renewal in the Christian Churches.

An example of that coverage was this article published in the August 8, 1977 issue of TIME magazine.

"At one point, the Rev. Bob Mumford, a nondenominational evangelist from California, halted his speech at the Arrowhead Stadium, where the Kansas City Chiefs play football, and called time out for a 'Holy Ghost break.' He began to shout: 'Glory to God! Jesus is Lord.' The audience rose and joined in," TIME reported.

The charismatic journal New Wine gave this account of the same moment, "That session was one of the highlights of the conference, especially in the middle of Bob's message, when, after he said, 'If you take a sneak look in the back of the book ... you find out that Jesus wins!' the entire crowd spontaneously broke into a five or ten minute period of uninterrupted praise and worship."

I wasn't there, but I did hear a recording of that message, and the moment was super-charged with the Lord's presence.

New Wine's coverage of the momentous Kansas City conference --- including prophetic words that were given, and the text of Mumford's message, The Beauty of Holiness --- can be read here in the October 1977 issue of New Wine. Readers without a high-speed internet connection should be aware that that link connects to a 64-page .pdf file --- the entire October 1977 issue. (Mumford was also featured on this blog December 20, 2008, easily the most-viewed item ever on this blog. Over 20 percent of the traffic on this blog goes to that item).

Reflective Christianity

2010-03-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

Says theologian Roger Olson:

"Reflective Christianity is humble because it knows how little we really know or understand about the great mysteries of God and the universe. The fault is not God's or the universe's but ours. Because of our finitude and fallenness we cannot know or understand many things. We have to learn to live with questions and embrace mystery. But it strictly eschews contradictions and is uncomfortable with paradoxes. It regards a paradox (an apparent contradiction) in religion as a task for thought. Rather than simply playing the mystery card too early, reflective Christianity is willing to think and think again about hard problems presented by God's Word."

The quote is from Olson's book, Questions to All Your Answers: The Journey from Folk Religion to Examined Faith (Zondervan). He is a professor of theology at Baylor University.

The friendship of Fee and Wright

2010-02-22T15:24:00.000-08:00

"As iron sharpens iron,
so one man sharpens another."
Proverbs 27.17, NIV

Readers of this blog are aware of the admiration I have for New Testament scholar Gordon Fee. I don't think any writer or speaker has helped me more in my understanding of the Scriptures.

I have appreciation for his peer, Bishop N. T. Wright, as well. More than one writer has noted that Wright has become something of a theological 'rock star.' Whether it's one of his more than 40 books, one of his media interviews, or one of his lecture tours, Bishop Tom seems ubiquitous and we must deal with what he is saying.

It pleases me that these men are friends. I have stumbled across their mutual appreciation a couple of times in my reading and wanted to pass this info along.

For instance, in the festschrift written in Fee's honor, Romans and the People of God (Eerdmans), Wright says this,

"One of the joys of our friendship has been the fact that at any moment of sudden meeting, at a conference, over a meal, or in a coffee break between classes at a summer school, we have been able to pick up complex and intricate discussions of Paul where we left them a day or a year before, and to offer new suggestions to one another in the knowledge that one will receive instant understanding, sharp and well-informed critique, and further insights or modifications that one had not thought of for oneself."

Fee, in this video where he is asked about his favorite authors, says,

"My favorite author would surely be Tom Wright, a good friend; and all the stuff that he does is just wonderful. Yeah, I like Tom as a person and love the stuff that he writes."

I also ran across an interview where Fee showed the loyalty of a friend when the subjects of the New Perspective on Paul and Tom Wright came up. The comments were part of the interview blogger Nijay Gupta was conducting with Fee on his commentary on Galatians,

Nijay: You seem to show some appreciation for the New Perspective on Paul.

Gordon: I did so, because the major proponents are personal friends, with whom I have disagreed vigorously in person. But in the public arena I refuse to do so.

Nijay: Generally, what do you appreciate about the NPP and in what areas would you critique Wright, Sanders, or Dunn with regard to their articulation of Paul’s view of the law and works in Galatians?

Gordon: They are absolutely right that “works” does not mean trying to get God’s favor by “doing something”; at issue is what role the Jewish law plays in what believers “do.” And since the major issue, that got this whole thing started at all, was the one Paul most vigorously opposes (namely the circumcision of Gentile males), I still think most later Christians miss Paul by an arm’s length on this issue.

I agree with Fee's --- and Wright's --- way of conducting a friendship: honestly ... and loyally.

Bethesda celebrates its 75th anniversary

2009-09-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Seventy-five years ago, in an old tire store on Nevada Avenue in Detroit, a mother of three started a Sunday School for her children and others in the neighborhood.

Tomorrow, more than 3,900 Sundays later, what has become the Bethesda Christian Church will celebrate all that God has done.

M. D. "Mom" Beall was the mother that started the Sunday School. She wasn't looking to pastor a mega-church, but that's what grew from her efforts. Over the decades, what was then known as, the Bethesda Missionary Temple, grew and grew without any of the church growth methods advocated today. (A picture of Bethesda congregation, in LIFE magazine in June 1958, can be seen here --- you will need to scroll down the page).

According to her obituary in the Detroit News in September 1979:

"Membership in the tiny church, with Mrs. Beall as pastor, 'just exploded,' said her son, James. When the church grew out of its tiny quarters, Mrs. Beall's husband, a builder joined the project.

"'Dad was the builder; mother the pastor,' her son recalled."

Today, Bethesda is a suburban church in Sterling Heights, Michigan, seating 3,000. It is non-denominational, and can be characterized as Pentecostal or Charismatic (if by Pentecostal one means, practicing speaking in tongues, and if by Charismatic one means, operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit).

After revival broke out in Saskatchewan in 1948, Mom Beall traveled to Western Canada to see what it was all about. Specifically, she went to meetings in Vancouver where the revival had spread, as well.

She returned ablaze with revival fire, and her church in Detroit became one of the centers of what became known as, the Latter Rain Movement. Other cities with prominent Latter Rain churches were Portland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, New Orleans, Houston, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Noted Pentecostal historian Vinson Synan says, "The Pentecostal movement was at a low ebb in 1948, with a growing dryness and lack of charismatic gifts. Many who heard about the events in Canada believed that it was a new Azusa Street, with many healings, tongues and prophecies. A large center of the revival outside of Canada was the Bethesda Missionary Temple in Detroit, Michigan pastored by Myrtle Beale [sic]. From Detroit, the movement spread across the United States like a prairie wildfire." An Eyewitness Remembers the Century of the Holy Spirit (Chosen), p. 35.

Like far too many Pentecostal revivals, pernicious error crept into some of the churches. The most pronounced of these errors was a doctrine called, The Manifest Sons of God. Proponents of that doctrine taught that it did not matter what they did in their mortal bodies, because they had been spiritually glorified. Mom Beall and her children, who all followed her into the ministry, were grieved by such erroneous teaching and withstood it completely.

Two well-researched books chronicle the history of the Latter Rain Movement. Richard Riss's The Latter Rain Movement of 1948 (Honeycomb Visual Productions) is currently the only book solely devoted to the topic. Winds from the North: Canadian Contributions to the Pentecostal Movement (Brill Academic Publishers), edited by Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse, devotes two chapters (D. William Faupel's, The New Order of the Latter Rain: Restoration or Renewal?; and Mark Hutchinson's, The Latter Rain Movement and the Phenomenon of Global Return).

L. Thomas Holdcroft, a prolific Assemblies of God author, wrote an unflattering portrayal of the Latter Rain Movement in PNEUMA (Vol 2, No 2, Fall 1980), the journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. He gave his permission for the article to be published on the internet here.

Balanced Biblical teaching and spontaneous, anointed praise and worship have been hallmarks of church life at Bethesda. In fact, the late Judson Cornwall, known for his teaching on praise and worship, stood in Bethesda's pulpit once and told the congregation he was not sure why he had been asked to teach there because the first time he had ever heard the kind of praise and worship that he talked about, he was listening to a tape recording of Bethesda. The beauty and harmony of Bethesda's spontaneous worship has been compared to a "heavenly choir" by many that have visited the church.

As noted, Mom Beall passed away in 1979. Her eldest, Patricia Gruits, is in her 80s now, but remains active in teaching and missions ministries. Her book, Understanding God, is a best-seller read worldwide.

The son quoted in the obituary, James Beall, went on to become one of the most sought after speakers in the charismatic movement of the 1970s. From articles in the Logos Journal to speaking at major events like the World Conference on the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem to teachings delivered to Roman Catholic charismatic audiences, James was in the thick of things. He wrote several books, including Laying the Foundation, a methodical teaching on the Christian life using Hebrews 6 as its springboard. He assumed both the pastorate of Bethesda and the microphone of the national radio broadcast, America to Your Knees, from his mother. After decades in Bethesda's pulpit he retired from daily ministry in 2004. He is seen in the photograph above, commissioning his daughter, Analee Dunn, to the senior pastorate.

The youngest of the three, Harry Beall Jr., was for years Bethesda's minister of music, in addition to ministering the Word there and in congregations throughout the United States. Now retired from Bethesda's ministry, he lives in Mesa, Arizona.

I salute and thank Bethesda, its congregation and ministers, for 75 years of faithful service. Enjoy your celebration tomorrow!

A video commemorating the 75th anniversary can be seen here.

Bethesda's website can be accessed here. The bulletin for tomorrow's service can be seen here.
* * * *
Latter Rain links on the internet:

Video of Charles Green (New Orleans, LA)
Charles Green's website, Harvest Ministries to the World
Ernest Gentile's website
Video of Ern Baxter (deceased)
Ambassadors of Hope, Moses Vegh
Video of sermon by Moses Vegh (May 2011)
Moses and Betty Vegh interviewed on TV, Part 1
Moses and Betty Vegh interviewed on TV, Part 2
Website of Kevin J. Conner (Australia)
Trevor Chandler, chairman emeritus, CLCI
Biography of Rob Wheeler (New Zealand)
Recordings of Stanley Frodsham (deceased)
Biography of Reg Layzell (deceased)
Writings of J. Preston Eby
George Warnock publications
The Sharon Star magazine (Sakatchewan)
Website for Elim Bible Institute (Lima, NY)
Video of Violet Kiteley (Oakland, CA)
Latter Rain worship mentioned in video (by Jack Hayford)
Obituary for Garlon Pemberton (Biloxi, MS)
2010 video of Garlon Pemberton's wife (Marie)
Program (.pdf file) from the memorial service for John L. Meares
Charisma magazine obituary for David E. Schoch
Article featuring David Schoch and others in the LRM
Fred Poole is mentioned in this book (Philadelphia, PA)

Oh-so-quotable

2009-05-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

"When John stood up after his encounter with the risen Lord, I suspect he was more fully John than ever before. Why? Knowing Papa does that to you. You become yourself by knowing Him as He really is," Larry Crabb in The Papa Prayer (Integrity).

"The gospel is both gift and demand. It is a divine call to both forgiveness and discipleship. It invites us both to 'come and dine' and to 'come and die,'" Larry Hart in Truth Aflame (Zondervan).

"Preaching parables is not the only way to preach to a postmodern. However, as a story it has an appeal to a worldview that rejects the larger story of life but is open, indeed curious, about the smaller stories. The preacher looks for ways to seed the Word. The use of parables is such a way," Brian Stiller in Preaching Parables to Postmoderns (Fortress Press).

"If Christians today were to learn discernment in large numbers, most television evangelists would go out of business!" Simon Chan in Spiritual Theology (InterVarsity Press).

"Like other recent Pentecostal and charismatic scholars such as Gordon Fee and former cessationist Jack Deere, I believe the position that supernatural gifts have ceased is one that no Bible reader would hold if not previously taught to do so," Craig Keener in Gift & Giver (Baker Academic).

"Although there is honest disagreement among Christians about the vailidity of tongues today, I personally cannot find any biblical justification for saying the gift of tongues was meant exclusively for New Testament times," Billy Graham in The Holy Spirit (Thomas Nelson).

Stalled in Leviticus? There's hope

2009-03-21T21:14:00.001-07:00

About 12 weeks ago, thousands upon thousands of Christians were planning a trek they sensed would be demanding and exhilarating at the same time. They wanted to read all the words of Scripture in one year.

Like Sir Edmund Hillary planning to conquer the heights of Mt. Everest, they went out, purchased gear (Bible reading plans, a lucid translation, etc) and plotted their course.

Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke picks up the story from there:

"Most Bible readers make at least one attempt in their lives to read the Bible from cover to cover. The enterprise is surprisingly successful at the beginning as they are engaged by the irruption of God's kingdom in overcoming the primordial darkness, the Fall, the Flood, a hostile and powerful pharaoh, the Red Sea, and a terrible wilderness. In these stories the author proves himself as having a flair for the dramatic. From the creation to the destruction of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea and Israel's survival in the wilderness, the author enthralls his readers with action and conflict. The readers are carried along by the smooth-flowing narrative to the feet of Mount Sinai (Horeb) but then are unexpectedly dumped into an incomprehensible heap of case laws and curtain measurements. It is like reading Moby Dick, a thrilling narrative interrupted by a taxonomy of whale species." --- from An Old Testament Theology, by Waltke with Charles Yu (Zondervan).

My advice? Push through the howling winds of boredom in late Exodus and throughout Leviticus. Things pick up a little in Numbers and Deuteronomy. When you reach the plateau of Joshua you will see sunshine again. And remember, when you reach the summit in the Book of the Revelation, the view is breathtaking.

REVIEWED: James Beall's "Straight Talk about the Holy Spirit"

2009-02-01T08:22:00.000-08:00

I used to work with a man who, shortly after his conversion and baptism, had a very jarring church experience. In short, the pastor of his church went 'off the rails' morally.

My friend stopped attending church. But, he didn't give up on Christianity entirely --- he watched it on cable TV. He used to come in to work and ask me, "What in the world is going on with these TV preachers?" From eccentric dress to eccentric practices, my friend was no more impressed with church on television than he had been in his short stint in church.

Veteran pastor James Lee Beall has written a book for people like my friend. He's called it, Straight Talk about the Holy Spirit.

Now, to be entirely accurate, this treatise on the work and person of the third member of the Trinity will be appreciated by a much wider audience than just the disillusioned. There will be many mature believers who will enjoy Pastor Beall's survey of the scriptures that arrives at orthodox and well-thought-out doctrinal positions. New believers seeking power to live out their new life in Christ will appreciate his explanations (both scriptural and anecdotal) of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

But again, the disillusioned observers of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity are going to find a friend in Pastor Beall.

"... people who have the idea embedded in them that opening their life to the Holy Spirit could very well make them off-center, weird, and spiritually strange. For they have witnessed odd and questionable goings on by people who professed to be moved by the Holy Spirit. This has made them wary and disconcerted. This is precisely why the Incarnate Jesus must remain in our biblical picture and framework."

Beall's presentation of Jesus being the prototype of a man filled with the Holy Spirit was my favorite part of the book. Looking at any other man (or, woman) filled with the Spirit --- no matter how mature --- I will see someone still in-process, someone with a few rough edges yet. Reading scriptures that tell about praying and singing in the Spirit, being gifted by the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit are, of course, of supreme importance. But, I still have the need to see it walked out. I want to know where we are headed, and not simply out of curiosity. I need it to arouse faith for the journey. In Jesus, we see the full glory of Spirit-empowered living.

"The Scriptures clearly reveal that Jesus, the Christ, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and this infilling did not make Him a religious eccentric or divorce him from reality. Jesus was the most balanced, poised man who ever walked the earth and was always in touch with the real world."

Always of importance when discussing the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is the matter of identity; questions posed on the back cover of the book, "Who is the Holy Spirit? What is the Holy Spirit? Is it God or a Force?" are answered on the inside.

In keeping with the teaching of the scriptures and the historic creeds of the Church, Pastor Beall teaches that the Holy Spirit is as certainly God, as the Father and Son are.

"The Spirit is so prominently presented in the Bible that it is impossible to ignore the fact that He possesses divine attributes and exercises divine prerogatives and those who admit His personality have never denied His divinity."

The book's 189 pages present a comprehensive view of the Holy Spirit's person and work, while never lapsing into an arid rehearsal of facts. In fact, Beall shows awareness and sensitivity of the potential for such:

"The doctrines and teachings of Christianity are many and some of them more complex than others, but there are few doctrines more perplexing to the average man than the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. This is deeply regrettable because the Holy Spirit in early Christianity was not a puzzle but a convincing power --- the heartbeat of the Christian faith."

The bulk of the book's limited anecdotal material is kept to the end, where the author tells, interestingly, of his mother's Pentecostal experience, specifically, speaking in tongues (Beall also devotes an earlier chapter to glossolalia). His mother, Myrtle Beall, came to experience this same phenomenon that first-century Christians knew ... without prompting --- she had never heard that such things happened to people. She went on, through a series of remarkable experiences, to pioneer a church that continues to this day --- the large Bethesda Christian Church in Sterling Heights, Michigan (a 9-minute video about Bethesda can be seen here).

Straight Talk about the Holy Spirit is a serious --- and edifying --- study of the Holy Spirit; one that sets out proper understandings for the committed, while providing clear perspective for the disillusioned.

Beall's writing style is inviting. The book can be leisurely read in a couple of evenings. While the prose of the following passage is not representative of the entire book (for effect, Beall drives his points home here like a hammer steadily hitting a nail), it summarizes well the message of Straight Talk about the Holy Spirit:

"The Christian faith can rightly be called a religion of the Holy Spirit. The scriptural account informs us: the Spirit conceived Jesus in Mary; the Spirit descended on Jesus at His baptism. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the Judean wilderness to be tempted by Satan for forty days and nights and He came out of the experience in the power of the Spirit. Jesus began His ministry in the synagogue of His hometown, Nazareth, and declared His manifesto by saying, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ...' (Luke 4:18). He cast out evil spirits by the Spirit of God and was offered up as a sacrifice through the Eternal Spirit. The Spirit of Holiness raised him from the dead. He issued commandments to His disciples after His resurrection by the Spirit. John the Baptist foretold that Jesus would baptize believers in the Holy Spirit. The Church of Jesus Christ was born of the Spirit at Pentecost. Only those led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. We are changed from glory to glory by the work of the Spirit. The Church forms a habitation for God in the Spirit. His Spirit guides us into all truth. His Spirit strengthens us in the inner man. The fruits of the Christian life are the fruits of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit quickens (makes alive, energizes) our mortal body. The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the Law of sin and death. We receive new power and authority when we are baptized in the Holy Spirit. From first to last, the Christian faith is a religion of the Holy Spirit."

[James Lee Beall is pastor emeritus of Bethesda Christian Church. He has authored several books, including, Laying the Foundation: Achieving Christian Maturity (Bridge-Logos Publishing). In the NKJV New Spirit-Filled Life Bible (Nelson), edited by Jack Hayford, Pastor Beall wrote the notes on the Pastoral Epistles. Beall's article, "What about Horoscopes?" (reprinted with permission from the defunct Logos Journal) can be read here.Copies of Straight Talk about the Holy Spirit can be purchased from the Bethesda bookstore at 586-264-2300 x102.]

N. T. Wright lectures on Colossians

2009-01-16T10:01:00.000-08:00

Bishop N. T. Wright was one of the plenary speakers at InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Following Christ 2008 conference three weeks ago in Chicago.

His lectures were developed from his understanding of Paul's letter to the Colossians. The three lectures (and links to audio presentations of them) were on: Wisdom, Glory, and Virtue.

The Anglican bishop of Durham, England has twice handled Colossians in print. He wrote the commentary on that letter in the Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (IVP Academic). He also covered the letter in Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon (Westminster John Knox Press). That series, written under the name Tom Wright, is aimed more at a lay readership.

In 1998, Wright spoke for IVCF at its Following Christ/Shaping Our World conference. His four talks on that occasion (and links to audio presentations of them) were:

Those lectures were developed into the book, The Challenge of Jesus (IVP Press).
.
The IVCF Following Christ lectures came from these two websites: 2008, 1998.

High-quality, FREE commentaries

2009-01-13T20:01:00.001-08:00

Bible students long on interest, but short on cash, will be happy to know that there are 16 commentaries on New Testament books --- written by noted evangelical scholars --- that are available online for free.

The commentaries, from the IVP New Testament Commentary Series (InterVarsity Press), can be found online at the BibleGateway.com website.

New Testament scholar Donald Carson describes the series this way: "... they are brief, simple, and designed to be immediately nurturing. Quite a few have now appeared, and if several are bland, several others are outstanding (W. Larkin on Acts, I. Howard Marshall on 1 Peter, Linda Belleville on 2 Corinthians, Rodney Whitacre on John)," in New Testament Commentary Survey, 6th ed. (Baker Academic).

Grant Osborne is the series editor, with Haddon Robinson and Stuart Briscoe serving as consulting editors.

The IVPNTC commentaries that are available online are (listed with their author and a link to the work):

Matthew, Craig Keener
Luke, Darrell Bock
John, Rodney Whitacre
Acts, William Larkin
2 Corinthians, Linda Belleville
Galatians, G. Walter Hansen
Philippians, Gordon Fee
Colossians, Robert Wall
1 Timothy, Philip Towner
Titus, Philip Towner
Philemon, Robert Wall
James, George Stulac
1 John, Marianne Meye Thompson
2 John, Marianne Meye Thompson
3 John, Marianne Meye Thompson
Revelation, J. Ramsey Michaels

All of the above may, of course, be purchased in hardcover.

Bibliographic help for commentary buying

2009-01-09T15:51:00.000-08:00

There has been an explosion of biblical commentary publishing in the last three decades; so much so, that a buyer needs some help to wade through the sea of availability.

(And, BTW, Peter Davids --- himself a writer of scholarly commentaries --- was interviewed on this blog September 1 concerning the explosion. Read his comments here.)

Over the years I have discovered some bibliographic resources that help me purchase the commentaries I need. Not only do I get guidance on the quality and theological slants of the commentaries, there is the added benefit of saving a lot of money by avoiding less-than-helpful volumes.

Because of the great respect I have for Gordon Fee, I always consult his commentary recommendations listed in the back of his best-selling book, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, third edition (Zondervan). Fee recommends the New Testament commentaries, and his co-author, Douglas Stuart, does the same for the Old Testament books. One minor drawback to this resource is that the most recent edition of How to Read ... was published in 2003. The pace of commentary writing is such that recommendations given in 2003 are somewhat dated.

Like Fee and Stuart, Donald Carson and Tremper Longman III are scholars who, in addition to their own commentary writing, provide evaluation of commentaries. Carson's New Testament Commentary Survey (Baker Academic) is now in its sixth edition (2007), and Longman's Old Testament Commentary Survey (Baker Academic) is in its fourth edition (2007).

As far as being current as possible, five Denver Seminary professors help by publishing their recommendations online annually. The Annotated Old Testament Bibliography for 2010 was prepared by Richard Hess, Helene Dallaire, and M. Daniel Carroll Rodas. The New Testament Exegesis Bibliography for 2010 was prepared by Craig Blomberg and William Klein.

Other resources that may be of some help include:

The late John Glynn's Commentary & Reference Survey (Kregel Publications).
John Dyer's website, BestCommentaries.com, which collates the evaluations of Longman, Carson, Glynn, and others.
Wheaton professor John Walton offers his recommendations here
Recommendations by OT scholar Allen Ross are included at the end of this paper
Recommendations by OT scholar John Goldingay are included the end of this paper
Recommendations by OT scholar Ralph Klein can be found here

N. T. Wright: On tongues

2009-01-01T01:33:00.001-08:00

Bishop N. T. Wright has this to say about glossolalia (or, speaking in tongues) in his commentary on 1 Corinthians written for lay people:
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"'Tongues' refers to the gift of speech which, through making sounds, and using apparent or even actual languages, somehow bypasses the speaker's conscious mind. Such speech is experienced as a stream of praise in which, though the speaker may not be able to articulate precisely what is being said (a point to which Paul will draw attention later on), a sense of love for God, of adoration and gratitude, wells up and overflows. It is like a private language of love." Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (Westminster John Knox Press)
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A website featuring the ministry of N. T. Wright can be accessed here.

GUEST BLOG: A tribute to Edie Iverson

2008-12-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

On December 20, I posted a short item about the passing of Edie Iverson. She helped her husband pastor a church in Portland, Oregon for over 40 years.
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Interest in that item has been heavy and constant, so much so, that I thought it would be appropriate to have a more in-depth tribute. But since I never had the pleasure of meeting Sister Iverson, I asked good friend, Steve Ganz, to write the tribute. His thoughts about Sister Iverson follow:

"I first met Edie Iverson in 1972 at a church called Bible Temple in Portland, Oregon. Although her husband pastored the 500-member church, her influence was unmistakeable and everywhere. Sister Edie, as she was known, would lead worship with enthusiasm. She was not a good singer, but her love of Jesus was so obvious that we in the congregation could care less and followed her as she led us in honoring God with all our hearts. In all the years I knew her, I never once heard her complain or say something unkind about anyone. Although she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, she never made it an issue.

"Her mother, Sister Swanson, was a Scandinavian woman with a true gift of faith, who never made any allowance for doubt. Edie was out of the same mold, but had learned to be compassionate towards those of us who wrestled with doubt. Edie, if I remember correctly, was going to the Bible School in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada when the Latter Rain Revival started. Through this revival she became involved in the prophetic and in the 'song of the Lord' as it was then called.

"She and her husband, K. R. "Dick" Iverson, were a doctrinally-balanced eye in the midst of that prophetic storm. Sister Edie could always be counted on to see the issues from the position of faith informed by love. Her passion and zeal for the Lord never waned. They led Bible Temple for 44 years, from a church of just a few families (known at first as Deliverance Temple), through several building projects, until it became a church of several thousand. Though the church became so large, she was always a mother to each of us. Even after the Lord had led my wife and I to go to other places, Sister Edie would always remember us and our kids.

"I will miss her until that Day."

Steve and his wife, Malana, pastor Tree of Life Church in Portland, Oregon. His teaching and prophetic ministry take him as far off as Kamchatka, Russia. Malana posted an item on Edie Iverson's passing on the Tree of Life website. It can be read here.

A video of her homegoing service can be seen here.

Readers interested in Latter Rain Movement personalities may want to read an item I posted on my other blog earlier this year concerning the passing of both Garlon Pemberton and John Gimenez. That item can be read here.

Edie Iverson's life to be celebrated December 27

2008-12-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

[Updated January 2]

Edie Iverson, wife of well-known Full Gospel minister, Dick Iverson, died on Friday, December 19. She was 77 years old. The obituary from the Portland Oregonian can be read here.
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Her homegoing service was held December 27 at City Bible Church in Portland (a video of that service can be seen here). The Iversons pastored that church (formerly known as, Portland Bible Temple) for over 40 years. Frank Damazio is the current pastor.

During those decades of ministry, Pastor Iverson also oversaw the creation of both Portland Bible College and Ministers Fellowship International.

Dr. Wendell Smith posted a tribute to Edie Iverson on his blog. It can be read here. Steve Ganz wrote a tribute published on this blog. It can be read here.

Messages can be left for the Iverson family here.

Bob Mumford at 78 (with video link)

2008-12-20T12:13:00.000-08:00

At the height of the Charismatic Movement in the 1970s I had four favorite bible teachers: James Beall, Ern Baxter, Malcolm Smith, and Bob Mumford.
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Baxter went on to his eternal reward in 1993. Smith, twice-divorced, maintains a ministry out of San Antonio that I do not take interest in. Beall turned 84 this month and is pastor emeritus of Bethesda Christian Church in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

[My review of Beall's book, Straight Talk about the Holy Spirit, can be read here.]

Mumford, now 78 and living in Ft. Lauderdale, is head --- along with his son, Eric --- of a ministry called Lifechangers. That ministry provides teaching to the body of Christ and sponsors two ministry homes, one in Uganda and one in Ukraine.

I was pleased to find out that Lifechangers had produced a video Christmas card this year, featuring Bob and his wife, Judith. You can view that video here. (YouTube also has a 10-minute sample of a recent teaching by Bob. You can view that here.)

Now I do understand that the men listed had ministries that were to varying degrees controversial (Beall --- baptismal controversy; Smith --- twice-divorced; and Baxter and Mumford --- Shepherding/Discipleship controversy).

The benefits I reaped from their ministries, however, had nothing to do with those controversies. I learned early in life the necessity of adhering to the old adage: "chew the meat and spit out the bones." Their ministries blessed me by taking the Scriptures seriously and presenting them in an interesting manner. I saw in each of them a sincere effort to "rightly divide the word of truth."
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Beall and Mumford kept their audiences interested by using humor in their teaching on practical Christian living. Baxter was a wordsmith with soaring rhetoric, and Smith had the gift of being deep and clear at the same time (not such an easy task, I submit).

There was a roughly two-year period in my life where Mumford's Tape-of-the-Month did much to sustain my spiritual life. All the controversy swirling about his ministry did nothing to abate my excitement each month when the tape arrived. That's because the tapes were not so much --- as some might suppose --- indoctrination into the Shepherding/Discipleship movement, as they were teachings on how to live out the abundant life Christ has provided for His people. (It is my understanding that one encountered the troublesome aspects of the Shepherding/Discipleship teaching in meetings that were "closed" to those not in covenant with that movement.)

Mumford also radiated a joy that had to be seen to be fully appreciated. I only saw him preach once --- in Bay City, Michigan --- but I came away from that evening with more than just some good 'meat' from his teaching (the Lord used Bob's sermon to correct a surly and ungrateful attitude I had been fostering). I also was struck by how truly happy the man looked.

That joy was underscored for me when I found out later that Mumford was at that very time on the losing end of a large lawsuit (you can read the details here). As I recall his words that night, there was no plea for money (none!), no snide remarks about his opponent in the lawsuit, in fact, nothing said about the lawsuit at all --- how different from the antics of many preachers today. But, there was that countenance that indicated a deep peace and joy within.

To be sure, Bob Mumford and his ministerial brethren in the Shepherding/Discipleship Movement (pictured to the left) made some serious errors. Bob owned up to his errors in the January/February 1990 issue of Ministry Today magazine (the stark cover featured his words in yellow, sitting on a black background: "Discipleship was wrong. I repent. I ask forgiveness.")

But, more importantly, Bob Mumford stayed true to his Lord and Savior. He is finishing the course strongly. I am thankful for him.

Mumford's most recent book, Agape Road: Journey to Intimacy with the Father (Destiny Image Publishers) can be sampled here. The complete archive of New Wine magazine, the house organ of the Shepherding/Discipleship movement, can be accessed here. A short, biographical sketch can be read here.

Audio of messages from the series, The Purpose of Temptation (only three of the seven messages --- delivered in 1970 --- are available on YouTube):

Davids comments on Anglican upheaval

2008-12-06T11:10:00.000-08:00

News broke on Wednesday that conservative Episcopalian churches were breaking away from from the worldwide Anglican communion and forming their own province, the Anglican Church in North America.

Good reporting on this can be found in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the New York Times, and Christianity Today.

On September 15, Peter Davids, a prominent New Testament scholar and charismatic Episcopalian priest, was interviewed on this blog about tensions in the Anglican communion. That interview can be read here.

I reached Dr. Davids today and he graciously consented to provide insight on this week's news. His comments follow:

"It seems to me that there are two good parts to this (not unexpected) move. First, a number of Anglican 'splinters' have gotten together. This proto-province is made up Reformed Episcopalians and AMNA and other groups, as well as those, like the Diocese of Pittsburgh, affiliated with the Province of the Southern Cone. There are Anglo-Catholics on the one side and rather conservative Reformed on the other. That in itself is newsworthy and worth celebrating. Before this each splinter has remained separate and often out of fellowship with the others. Second, in forming a proto-province (it will only be after the convention in the summer and the acceptance by other Anglican provinces that it will be fully a province), these leaders are trying to influence the Anglican Communion rather than taking their Anglican marbles and sitting in a corner. They are not struggling within the Episcopal Church, but rather on the global Anglican level. If they succeed, it will transform the Communion, for it could lead to official recognition of a rival to the Episcopal Church, the sidelining of Canterbury (unless the archbishop embraces the new province), and the enhanced strength of the Global South provinces.

"However, it would be premature to call all of this a done deal. This is a fractious coalition that is made up of overlapping movements, diocese, and other jurisdictions. To be successful they will eventually have to unify their structures, which will mean some will have to give up power. Furthermore, while all are orthodox, they hold different ecclesiologies, e.g. some ordain women and others left the Episcopal Church over the ordination of women. Can they find a way to live together long term, especially as the rivalry with the Episcopal Church fades? I hope so, but only time will tell.

"Finally, let us not think that this spells the end of the Episcopal Church. TEC still has 2 million members (the Anglican Province of North America has 100,000). TEC is declining, but at present rates it would take about 1000 years for it to reach zero. It gets along perfectly well with the Anglican churches in the northern hemisphere (e.g. Canada and Great Britain), and it is well-endowed. Cultural shifts could even start it growing again. The question will be whether the Anglican Communion splits into two or whether the two parts find a way to live together with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the pivot. There are also plenty of orthodox believers and clergy in the Episcopal Church.

"So I welcome this news for what it is, hope that the new province coalesces and is recognized, but I do not see this as the end of the Episcopal Church or even the end of orthodoxy in the Episcopal Church. On the other hand, while competition has not been at all Anglican, it is surely rather American, which might mean that a competitive Anglicanism in the USA/ North America will end up strengthening both sides of the competitive rivalry."

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part Eight

2008-10-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the final installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.

Besides being a highly-regarded New Testament exegete, in his book Gift & Giver, Craig says, "I have been miraculously healed, experienced supernatural gifts such as prophecy, followed the Spirit's leading in witnessing, and had deep experiences in the Spirit during prayer (including, regularly, prayer in tongues)."

His personal website can be accessed here. His Palmer Theological Seminary faculty page can be seen here.

Craig's cooperation in the interview was, and is, deeply appreciated.

JR: Go ahead and tell us about George Ladd's influence on you. I know the readers will be fascinated.

KEENER: Thanks for asking me that question that I sort of hinted that you should ask me (smile). The eschatology issue that attracted me to Gordon also attracted me to George Ladd, and a bit earlier. From another part of my testimony, you may rightly gather that I was initially suspicious of scholars, my freshman year in Bible college. Yet I noticed that it was scholars (rather, a particular group of them) who were pointing out the same things I saw in Scripture itself, in contrast to their critics. Thus I decided that perhaps scholarship might also be a good thing. I had also felt led to take Greek and Hebrew starting my freshman year, though I had not yet seen the connection with scholarship.

There were a few other evangelical scholars talked about at our school, such as F. F. Bruce and I. Howard Marshall. But George Ladd's books were widely available at that time, and I devoured them. I never met him, but I later heard descriptions of him from those who knew him. One told me how he (Ladd) grieved whenever he heard what he felt was bad exegesis. I can identify with that! It sounds to me like he faced so much criticism, saying things that contradicted both secular scholarship and popular evangelical ideas, that he was personally wounded, though he kept saying what he believed was right. I believe that God really raised him up, and he could not have known the wide impact he has had on scholarship of all stripes, including even in circles once dominated by his critics. When the criticisms come hard, I need to remember his example; it is not about popularity, but about faithfulness to God's call and the foundations that lays for the future.

One of those foundations was obvious in his work on the kingdom: Jesus not only proclaimed God's reign; He demonstrated it by healing the sick and casting out demons. Now I don't know where he stood personally on expecting such signs today, but his theology does not easily fit cessationism. One of our professors, who was pretribulational and I think not happy that so many of us liked Ladd, pointed out that he had been at Harvard with Ladd decades earlier and Ladd was anti-Pentecostal. I don't know if this professor had had some unexpected influence on Ladd, or if it was simply his exegesis or something else, but Ladd's published work on the kingdom puts signs and wonders in their biblical place so well that his work was not at all anti-Pentecostal.

If the kingdom is already/not yet, and the kingdom is demonstrated by healings and exorcisms in the Gospels and Acts, and if you do not hold to a dispensational schema, then the kingdom should be demonstrated in healings and exorcisms today as well. John Wimber, provoked by reports of what was happening in evangelism in other parts of the world, agreed with Ladd's theology and simply started putting it into practice, as a practitioner. This in turn shaped both the early Vineyard movement and, if I'm not mistaken, the New Wine renewal within the British Anglican church. It offers one of the sound, biblical models for Pentecostal/charismatic experience and theology today, keeping us centered on Christ and the kingdom. As a good biblical scholar, Ladd gave us important foundations. He took a lot of criticism and did not live to see all the fruit of his ministry, but God used him greatly. When discouragement with my task overwhelms me, Ladd's example (and that of other early evangelical scholars who pioneered the way for us today) encourages me as a biblical scholar to stay faithful to Scripture and not be moved (or at least try not to be).

JR: Thanks for your time, Craig.

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Eight

2008-09-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the final installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick.

Dr. Davids was interviewed because he is a highly-regarded New Testament exegete, and also believes that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for today. He discusses some his experiences of the Spirit here.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Davids for his generosity with his time.

JR: What writing projects do you have planned for the future?

DAVIDS: In the past I have not planned my writing projects. While I did purposely write my first two articles, one a scholarly one on a word in James, published in New Testament Studies, and the other a popular one on Jesus and wealth published in what became Sojourners, and did so because those were areas I wanted to continue to write in, that was not how my books happened.

I was invited "out of the blue" to write my first commentary (James) and then a second, also on James. When I was almost finished with my first James commentary F. F. Bruce, a close friend of I. Howard Marshall, was aware of the fact and invited me to write on 1 – 2 Peter (the person to who it had been previous assigned had not managed to produce a commentary after 25 years and he hoped I would be faster). I gave the 2 Peter part away, but finished 1 Peter and thought I might be through when God told me that writing was part of my call. I wrote that to an elder in my former church, posted the letter, turned back to my work on my desk, and an hour or so later InterVarsity Press called to invite me to write More Hard Sayings of the New Testament, later incorporated into Hard Sayings of the Bible. Later they would invited me to help edit the Dictionary of the Later New Testament. Then I was invited by the series editor to write 2 Peter – Jude. I have always had a book going, normally producing one slowly, but in each case I have been invited to write the book rather than coming up with the idea on my own. The latest in this category is a Greek handbook on 2 Peter – Jude for Baylor University Press.

However, I do have projects that I want to do. I started and never finished a New Testament survey book (I wrote a rough draft), but what I think I really wanted to do was write a NT theology that consistently looks at the text from a kingdom of God perspective. That may be an after retirement project, so in another 9 or 10 years (I am presently 60).

Another project that fascinates me is the idea of writing a book applying Bowenian family emotional systems insights to biblical interpretation. I think that it could be as helpful as applying sociological theory, rhetorical insights, and the like have been. Jesus is the most well-differentiated person who has lived. The fall narrative can be analyzed from the point of view of the rise in anxiety and the reactivity that this engendered. The many commands against judging are not just God telling us how to behave, but family systems shows that focusing on the sins of others keeps us from looking at our own contribution to the system and focuses us on what we cannot change rather than on we can change (i.e. us), so it is unproductive as well as evil (in other words, sin is not good for us, which should come as no surprise). There are a number of ways that I use this type of analysis in teaching already, but there is so much more to do. This is not reductionism, but rather using a tool to help understand the dynamics in texts in a different (perhaps deeper) way. Or, to put it another, way, using a tool God has given me to help others understand the Bible, just as I use linguistic tools, historical tools, etc. to help people understand the Bible.

But right now I am teaching five courses per term plus doing some writing and church work – and our house is being renovated because our daughter, husband and family are living with us while he studies at St. Stephen’s University. Any writing that I do will probably have to wait until next summer, assuming that the Lord does not have plans for that summer which do not include writing.

JR: Thanks again, Dr. Davids.

Friday's with Craig Keener ... Part Seven

2008-09-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the seventh installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.

In today's installment, Craig pays tribute to three men who influenced him toward becoming a New Testament scholar.

Two of those men have been featured on this blog previously: a tribute to Gordon Fee can be read here, and an entry referencing Ben Aker can be read here.

In the interview, Craig mentions New Testament Survey tapes by Gordon Fee. A set of such tapes (an updated set, not the set Craig used almost 30 years ago) is available here.

JR: Knowing that you have great admiration for Gordon Fee (as I do, as well), I can't let this interview close without giving you an opportunity to explain something of what Gordon Fee has meant to you.

KEENER: When I was an undergraduate, three people most influenced me toward scholarship: Gordon Fee, Ben Aker and George Eldon Ladd (two Pentecostals and an evangelical whose theology of the kingdom informs the Vineyard movement). Ladd was extremely influential on me (through his writings), and I doubt that I would have become a scholar without his influence as well as that of the other two. Nevertheless, given the main issue at hand in this interview, I will focus on Gordon --- and, if you'll permit me, Ben.

I had been an atheist since at least age nine until my conversion, and had connected that posture to my other intellectual pursuits. After I was converted through an encounter with Christ, I initially viewed my mind as an idol and tried to suppress it while I let the church teach me. Unfortunately for that plan, as I was reading the Bible I kept noticing conflicts with what I was being taught, and having questions about what I was reading in the Bible. It was actually in my charismatic experiences with the Spirit that I began to hear God teaching me that I should use my mind. It was not my god, but it was a tool I could use in serving God. I still had all my unsettled questions left over from atheism that I then had to confront, which was a painful and lengthy process.

I had enrolled at Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, and one of my teachers was Ben Aker. I heard some prosperity-teaching-oriented students complain that Ben Aker just cared about the Bible, whereas real people of faith ought to be able to see the sick healed. (I later learned that my professors' rate of people being healed was comparable to that of the prosperity teachers.) So I was praying for Ben Aker that God would convict him, when suddenly the Holy Spirit convicted me instead. "I have given him the gift of teaching," I felt the Lord say, "and you need to listen to him." I signed up for three classes with Ben Aker the next semester. Things that God would teach me in prayer, I would hear from Ben Aker's exegesis the next week in class. I realized that one could hear God exegetically as well as charismatically, and learned from Scripture that the Spirit is behind both ways.

I had planned to attend Bible college for two years, then go out and preach, since God had called me to minister in His Word. But toward the end of those two years, I felt increasingly drawn to the example I saw in Ben Aker: a ministry of the Word that equipped other ministers of the Word. As I kept praying, I felt increasingly this direction in my calling, and felt that I should finish college. If I had known that the Lord was going to lead me through seminary and a Ph.D. after that, I might have balked! (But He did pay for it, though I needed to live very simply.)

Gordon Fee was about the only model we had for Pentecostal scholarship in the wider world that we had at the time. We had Pentecostal scholars who had given their whole lives to the Pentecostal movement, so we could have the opportunities we had in Bible college. But as far as an example of an open Pentecostal who was making a difference in larger evangelical and mainstream scholarship, Gordon Fee was the only one we knew of. Some people did not appreciate Gordon's determination to grapple with Scripture honestly in the larger academy, and one particularly dogmatic teacher was heard to denounce him as a "heretic." Once we heard that, those of us who were annoyed by that particular teacher's ranting against honest exegesis found Gordon Fee's New Testament survey tapes in our library. I listened to them over and over, taking notes more copiously than I could have if he were my professor.

One of my pet peeves at the school was that those who could voice their views publicly were pretribulational. With all due respect to those who disagree, including close friends of mine, I couldn't see it. I had tried to believe it, but as I kept reading Scripture it became clear to me that every single text used to support that teaching was out of context. An evangelist browbeat me into believing it as a young Christian, around 1976 or so. I answered every text he gave me with its context, but exasperated, he finally warned me that all men of God, like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, were pretrib, and I had been a Christian for just a year. Who did I think I was? I reluctantly conceded his point, but a few months later learned that no one until 1830 had even heard of the doctrine, so most men and women of God through history, as well as many today, did NOT believe the doctrine. That was a turning point in my life: I decided never to believe what someone told me the Bible said without honestly grappling with it myself. The Bible's authority was not just a doctrine to be placed alongside our other doctrines: it was the source for all true doctrine.

When I was going through Gordon Fee's tapes, he declared that someone who asserted that the church would not go through the tribulation had simply never read the New Testament. Because that was such an issue in my environment, I gravitated toward Gordon and toward Ladd's books, because I felt that they would do honest exegesis no matter what the popular opinion was. If my calling was to call believers back to Scripture, then that has to mean Scripture over denominational tradition, as well as Scripture over culture (a problem in some liberal churches) and over experience (a problem in some charismatic churches).

A lot of our graduates were going off to Gordon-Conwell to study with Gordon; I could not afford the move at the time, so I stayed, and Gordon soon left for Regent anyway. It was only years later, while I was doing my doctoral work at Duke and he came to speak in the area, that I was able to meet him in person and tell him what his example meant to me. In subsequent years I have gotten to know him better in person. When he mentored me, however, it was not in person (like Ben Aker) or through his books (like George Ladd). It was, amazingly enough, through his New Testament survey tapes in our library, which circulated like contraband in defiance of an overly dogmatic professor's criticisms. I guess that should be an encouragement to us that if we are faithful to what God called us to do, He is able to make a difference through us for the kingdom even in ways we cannot yet see.

NEXT FRIDAY'S QUESTION: Go ahead and tell us about George Ladd's influence on you. I know the readers will be fascinated.

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Seven

2008-09-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the seventh installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick.

JR: You are probably best known as a New Testament exegete, but having a bachelor's degree in psychology, you and your wife are involved in a counseling ministry, as well. Please tell us a bit about that.

DAVIDS: I went to Wheaton to study Bible, there is no doubt about that, but I was already interested in psychology. My old brother had taken an introductory course in psychology in university, and I had dipped into his textbook enough to be fascinated. One reason for this is that it put a name to my mother’s paranoid/ paranoid schizophrenic breaks that the family experienced but did not talk about.

Once in Wheaton I vacillated, for I knew I needed to study Bible, but (1) I learned that seminaries existed and (2) I realized that the Bible department was weak. In fact, my good friend had to take graduate courses for undergraduate credit because the Bible department could not offer him the courses he needed for a Bible major. So I took all of the support courses for a Bible major, including Greek and Hebrew, but majored in psychology. This was not counseling, although there was one course in abnormal psychology, but it did help me to look at human behavior on a scientific basis. I am, in fact, still fascinated by learning theory and studies of the human brain and its function.

I entered Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with advanced standing in languages and one or two other areas, so I could continue my two tracks. I took advanced courses in exegesis and biblical languages (e.g. I learned Aramaic), but I also took most if not all of the courses required for a MA in counseling. I did not do the internship, but at the suggestion of Dr. Busby, the psychiatrist who taught some of my courses, I did work for a summer at Lutheran General Hospital, ostensibly as an intern, but in fact so that he could give us access to his patients (and in practice to all of the patients on our unit). And following that my wife and I were houseparents for a year in a girl’s residential high school (we had our own newborn daughter and 23 high school sophomore girls, who were by no means Christians).

JUDY DAVIDS AND COUNSELING
Now my wife was educated as an elementary school teacher, not a counselor. Yet looking back we realized that she was focused on the two or three disturbed children in her class, not on the 22 or so with no emotional or behavior issues. Later in Germany she would spend time in the girls’ dorm listening to the girls. After that in Sewickley, PA she would notice that people might come along the street as she was gardening, stop, and pour out their lives to her. I suggested to her that she had a gift of counseling, she demurred, and I pushed her to take counseling courses in the seminary where I taught. She enjoyed them and also enjoyed learning about prayer counseling. So I suggested using my sabbatical so she could take those courses, add to them, and add a general theological education, and get a degree. That is why we spent the year in Berkeley, CA, and she received a M.C.S. from New College.

But the saga was not over. A year after she received her degree, I started working as teaching elder at Austin Avenue Chapel (Coquitlam, British Columbia) with the explicit agreement that I could split the job with her. After we got settled (with three children that takes some doing in a new country) she started doing pastoral visitation, which turned into starting a prayer counseling ministry (especially after John Wimber came to Vancouver in 1985), which turned into counseling as Burnaby Christian Counseling Group started to offer their Caretakers course, a two year internship-based counseling course (Judy did three years because she was in their first cohort and so after year one they had year 1.5 while they developed the program for year two). I might add that during this time Judy was discipled in spiritual direction by Prof. James Houston, so she can approach an issue from multiple aspects.

Meanwhile, because I had almost not done my Ph.D. in biblical studies but in clinical psychology (which I recognized in the end would have been a leaving of God’s call) and because I had some discouraging experience with marriage counseling as a chaplain in the US Army Reserve (I would later learn that marriage counseling was just too undeveloped at that time to have been helpful), I had backed away from counseling, but was still interested. Eventually I felt led to take Caretakers because, as God explained to me, it would help me understand my students and so be a better teacher. It did more than that, for it helped me grow personally. And I was part of a counseling group at Regent College, working together with Maudine Fee and Rosemary Green. That was for me a life-giving experience, and I more than once drove home praising God for the privilege I had had of entering into someone’s life. But I did not make that my vocation.

Meanwhile Judy sparked the formation of a Christian counseling ministry in Regina, Canada, became a registered clinical counselor with the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counselors, and worked in a Minirth Meir clinic. She had found her vocation. On occasion we would do marriage counseling together.

Judy started to teach counseling while we were in Austria, for she discovered that counseling Eastern Europeans through a translator was too unsatisfactory (she counseled German speakers, but did that in German), so teaching Eastern Europeans to counsel was far more helpful. She also got into working with burnt out pastors, one part of which was helping David Huggett with retreats for pastors.

VINEYARD COUNSELING
Then Judy received an invitation to provide pastoral care for pastors in the Vineyard movement in the USA and to be based in her home town of Houston. But there was no call for me. Well, the Bible says that a man is to lay down his life for his wife, so I believed (and still believe) that God was calling me to do just that – to practice what I knew was in scripture. We moved to Houston where Judy was employed by the Sugar Land Vineyard and ordained by the national director of the Vineyard movement. What she principally did was create and direct multidisciplinary recovery retreats for burnt out pastors and train, deploy, and supervise a group of recovery group leaders and lay counselors for the Sugar Land Vineyard (the team eventually had 30 members, of which I was one).

Meanwhile I taught as an adjunct professor in Houston, did a lot of traveling to teach, and had a lovely time as honorary assistant at All Saints Episcopal Church (which had a wonderful blend of sensitivity to the Spirit and liturgical structure, of contemporary and traditional music and practice).

Through my teaching at Houston Baptist University I was asked to take over a course called Formation for Christian Leadership. It combined the Christian spiritual tradition (e.g. Dallas Willard) with Bowenian family emotional systems. I had the background to teach this and I loved it. I went on to do post-graduate study at the Center for Family Systems in Bethesda, MD, a center started by the late Edwin Friedman, who had first applied Murray Bower’s family systems theory to church and work systems (and eventually to national systems). "Ah, that explains what was going on in that church situation," I realized. "This is what pastors need to know. My wife would have a lot less burnout recover work to do if pastors would take this to heart." More important personally, I realized I now had a tool for working on my own situations and my own issues.

We both decided that God was calling us to leave Houston and come here to St. Stephen, New Brunswick, to teach at St. Stephen’s University. Yes, there was a desire to work in the same organization. And, yes, there was some naivete about St. Stephen’s climate and some misinformation about the situation. But in the end it was surely a strong conviction that persuaded Judy to give up the best paying job either of us had had, leave her native city, her sister, her relatives, and her close friends, and journey to an impoverished county in Canada to work without a salary at a tiny university. My losses paled in comparison to hers. She is now pursuing her calling of caring for burned out pastors (especially Vineyard pastors), but now she has to raise the money to run the retreats.

I am using my family systems insights to help me navigate in this very interesting university setting. And I have slowly won my way in the local diocese, which is conservative liturgically as well as theologically and trying to cope with the fact that young people often leave the province upon graduation, so the province as well as the churches is graying. Serving as interim rector in the local parish gave me an opportunity to fall in love with the people and do a lot of grief counseling. And, yes, God was correct in that I do understand my students much better due to my counseling training.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: What writing projects do you have planned for the future?

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part Six

2008-09-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the sixth installment of an eight-part interview with Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary in Pennsylania.

He and his wife, Medine, both have doctorates. Their marriage story can be read here.

JR: You ministered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this summer. How did that go?

KEENER: Although I was in the DRC for a day, most of the trip was in Republic of Congo (the smaller country also named Congo, across the river), where my wife is from. Ministry went well but I personally learned a lot more from those doing ministry there.

Let me tell one story, about Mama Jan. Because she prays for us regularly, my brother-in-law said she wanted to meet with us. We went to the tin structure outside her home where she meets with people much of the day to pray for their needs. She is not a pastor, but is a deacon in one of the local evangelical churches. (Although the "evangelical church" is the country's mainline Protestant church and is not Pentecostal, there is great openness to any of God's activities in Scripture.) Mama Jan prayed for us and began to prophesy at length, and what she shared about my work was deeply encouraging to me. When we were parting I told her that I have always had very high respect for prophetesses. She responded very humbly.

A few days later we returned, because I was collecting some healing testimonies for a book that I was writing, and my brother-in-law assured me that Mama Jan had some. This humble woman began to narrate various healings in a matter-of-fact way (as if to say, who wouldn't expect Jesus to heal people?), including three people raised from the dead directly through her prayers. (In one case, there was someone in the room who was present at the time and could verify the story; my brother-in-law knew some other people in her stories.) I was dumbfounded. "Mama Jan, if I write these stories in this book, you will have people from the U.S. wanting to come have you pray for them!" She broke up laughing and pointing to an old picture of Jesus on her wall. "It's just Jesus!" she said. In other words, Jesus is the same in the U.S. as he is in Congo.

As I have said about the other questions, I have a lot of growing to do. Some of my fellow charismatics may think, "Keener is a charismatic scholar; that's great." But Keener has a long way to go in the Spirit. I thank God for giving us examples like Mama Jan.

NEXT FRIDAY'S QUESTION: Knowing that you have great admiration for Gordon Fee (as I do, as well), I can't let this interview close without giving you an opportunity to explain something of what Dr. Fee has meant to you.

Monday's with Peter Davids ... Part Six

2008-09-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the sixth installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick.

JR: Scholars like J. I. Packer are taking firm stands on the tensions currently in the Anglican Church. Have you felt the necessity to identify yourself with either side of the struggle?

DAVIDS: The short answer is, “No.”

Make no mistake about it, I have followed the discussion concerning homosexual practice that has taken place in biblical studies circles. I have sat at the long table where Robin Scroggs and Katherine Kroeger debated the meaning of Pauline passages. And I have yet to be convinced that Paul would approve of homosexual genital behavior for people who called themselves believers in Jesus, even if Paul said relatively little directly about it despite widespread homosexual practice in the surrounding Greek communities.

At the same time, I am also convinced that there are a lot of other things that he would not approve of, nor would Jesus, and yet they are not major issues in the believing community, things like divorce and angry outbursts.

It is also clear that he would not be interested in the behavior of non-Christians, for he makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 5 and applies it to the issue of divorce in 1 Corinthians 7. Those “outside” are not our concern.

So in my mind there is far too much anxiety around the issue of homosexuality.

On the conservative side people are constantly saying that it is not the issue but only a small symptom and then they are constantly coming back to it, which tells me that it is the issue for them.

On the liberal side people try to put the whole opposition to, say Gene Robinson, in terms that make it a moral crusade without looking at the whole complex of issues that it raises.

Both sides seem so anxious, so polarized, so reactive that I feel rather uncomfortable with the debate. Where is there someone who is a calm leader?

Certainly there is the issue of faithfulness to the witness to Jesus in scripture, i.e. obedience to Jesus as Lord, but that was there long before Gene Robinson was consecrated as Bishop of New Hampshire. Those issues were there in spades back when I was ordained, which is almost 30 years ago. And in fact, those issues were around in England back in the 1800’s. This latest surge of high anxiety is not triggered by that per se.

Finally, I see no place in scripture where one is encouraged to leave a church over such issues. There are churches in Revelation where very little positive is said about the church and other churches where nothing positive is said about the church. And yet the followers of Jesus are called to be faithful to Jesus, not to leave and form another group. While that is the clearest example, one should also note that even in Corinth Paul calls for unity, not for separation.

So I am not convinced that I am called to separate, and the stand that I want to make is against the highly reactive atmosphere surrounding the whole situation in the church. I may indeed be forced to make some type of move, for I am canonically resident in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which is threatening to leave the Episcopal Church, and I live in the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton, that would not approve of that move. Yet right now I feel called to live with tension.

The liberal side does not particularly like me because of what I say about genital homosexual practice both practically and biblically, and the conservative side does not like it that I do not wish to join in with them in their reactivity. But when I feel uncomfortable with this stance, I remember that more than one follower of God/Jesus (depending on the Testament) also found themselves in a similar position.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: You are probably best known as a New Testament exegete, but having a bachelor's degree in psychology, you and your wife are involved in counseling ministry, as well. Please tell us a bit about that.

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part Five

2008-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the fifth installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary.

Craig is co-editing, with Michael Bird, the New Covenant Commentary Series (Wipf & Stock) that is scheduled for publication 2009-2014. He is writing the commentary on Romans for that series. Gordon Fee is contributing the volume on the Revelation.

An 88-page manual that Craig has written on biblical interpretation is made available for free at the Pneuma Foundation website. It can be downloaded here (allow a few seconds for downloading).

JR: In your book, Gift & Giver (Baker Academic), you mention that you have been used in prophecy and prayer for the healing of others. How do your cessationist peers in NT scholarship react to such unabashed charismatic beliefs and practices?

KEENER: Ah, those gifts are in the Bible, aren't they? If it's all right, I'd like to comment briefly on how one of those gifts, prophecy, has shaped me. Regarding the other, healing, it's true that I've seen some people healed in clearly miraculous ways; but the pain I see is inviting me to try to learn to trust God more in that area. I think anybody (cessationist or not) who prays with compassion for the sick and confidence in who God is, will sometimes see God answer their prayer; but I really need to grow in that area.

Regarding prophecy, when I was a young Christian God gave me a deep hunger to hear His voice. When I first started hearing the Spirit privately, I did not realize that it was a common experience. But as far as publicly, I understood that prophecy was biblical; I had been praying in tongues since two days after my conversion from atheism (and before I had ever heard of tongues) but learned from 1 Cor. 14 that for public edification we should seek prophecy more than tongues. So I started praying for the gift, and that one came quickly. Much of what God said shocked me --- both the deeply loving, comforting parts (I had not internalized the reality of such deep love before) and the scarier parts --- such as where the Church is missing it. Some things the Lord warned about back then may be afflicting the U.S. church today even more than back then.

I know that prophecy can take different forms. With a few exceptions, the form in which I have received it has usually not been telling people where their lost donkeys were (as Samuel could do). Mine has usually been less spectacular, yet deeply intertwined with my calling in the Word. It was like I was full of Scripture and the Lord would cause the message of the text to flow through me, to groups or individuals. Sometimes I have trouble even discerning guidance for myself; the more my personal feelings are wrapped up in something, the more difficult the subjectivity becomes for me, and sometimes that very subjectity has invited me to retreat more into objective exegesis of the Word. We very much need the objective foundation in the Word to keep our subjective experience from getting skewed. Yet if we read Scripture very much, we also see that God normally is active in our subjective experience; we can't take Scripture seriously and avoid that.

The gift that dominates much of my activity now is the gift of teaching, whether it's in explicit teaching or in research and writing. But in my case, that gift is very much shaped by my experience with prophecy. My objectives and goals in teaching are influenced by what I have felt the Lord saying to the church. In the same way, the insights I received in prophecy were bounded by Scripture: the ones I held fast to were the ones I could be sure of from Scripture, even though some of the insights about the state of the church would not have broken through my cultural and personal defense mechanisms without that gift. Prophecy doesn't determine my exegesis, but it influences what I feel passionate about the church needing to hear. That doesn't come out so much in my scholarly commentaries, which are "raw material," but comes out, for example, in application sections of my Revelation commentary, or in my preaching. I want to be tethered to God's heart.

CESSATIONISTS

How do my cessationist peers react? Surprisingly, most of them respond respectfully and graciously. I don't think most evangelical biblical scholars today are cessationist --- it's pretty hard to prove from Scripture. (It is easier to become cessationist by reacting to charismatic excesses. If it weren't for Scripture, I could have gone that route myself, because I often find myself reacting against such excesses!) Moreover, many who are theologically committed to cessationism are really good exegetes --- hence often recognize that the case is not very strong.

Still, even with strong cessationists, I have been quite surprised. The dividing lines in scholarship differ from what they once were. (Of course you have more skeptical scholars who deny anything supernatural today or in the past, but they are not "cessationists.") I have been very painfully and astonishingly torn to shreds over one issue that I did not expect on this level (my support of women in ministry; for several years, that seemed to be the litmus test of orthodoxy on both sides of its divide). But on issues where I expected major controversy, such as eschatology or tongues --- big debates in the 1970s --- it seems that most people who disagree with me have disagreed graciously. To my surprise, some faculty at places like Dallas and Liberty have reached out to me and graciously affirmed my work, focusing on our common ground rather than where we disagree. That has meant a lot to me. My academic training was mostly in Pentecostal, mainline and secular circles, and I had some stereotypes of some parts of evangelicalism that I had to surrender. That is not to say that no one fit the stereotypes, but they did not fit where I expected and I had to repent of my own prejudices.

Some non-Pentecostal, noncharismatic scholars have even approached me with their thoughts because they know that I am charismatic. One well-known evangelical scholar was telling me that it looked to him from the Bible like people should get healed on a regular basis. Then here I was, the charismatic, having to answer, "You do seem to be right but I have to admit that is not yet my experience." Being a biblicist, I realize that my experience is likelier the problem than our exegesis. But many people are hungry for more of the experience they see in Scripture.

On another occasion there was a scholar at SBL who was so sick he was going to leave the meeting and not give his paper the next day. A colleague in Hebrew Bible and I asked if we could pray for him, and laid hands on him in front of the book exhibit area at SBL. Just about that time the exhibit was closing and people were now milling all about us (quite politely, they seemed not to notice us!) I was surprised to learn that the scholar did present his paper the next day, reporting to us that God healed him after we prayed. That has nothing to do with me or my faith (maybe my Hebrew Bible colleague had more --- smile), but with our awesome God eager to show His love, mercy and power. I still have a long way to go in growing in faith, though.

NEXT FRIDAY'S QUESTION: You ministered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this summer. How did that go?

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Five

2008-09-08T00:01:00.001-07:00

This is the fifth installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick.
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JR: You grew up in the Plymouth Brethren fellowship and have ministered a great deal in Vineyard Fellowship circles, and you are an Episcopalian/Anglican minister. Tell us some of the things you have learned from that ecumenicity and why you have chosen the Anglican/Episcopalian communion as home.
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DAVIDS: The Brethren taught me to immerse myself in scripture and to seek to understand the early church, although in many ways they are as much children of the 1800’s as of the first century. They also taught me that the Lord’s Supper is the central act of worship, something that I believe that both biblical theology and church history confirm.
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Thus when God called me into the Episcopal Church (while I was in Wiedenest), he was confirming some of what I learned in the Brethren. Of course, I had been using the Book of Common Prayer and the classic works of other denominations in my devotions for two or three years by then, so he had been leading me before he spoke to me. But I realized that most of what divides us denominationally has more to do with style and history than with things that the scripture teaches.
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An exegete does a lot of "debunking" in that one often sees that the scriptures used to establish this or that teaching in a movement or denomination do not really support what they are supposed to prove. I started to learn that in Wheaton College where student friends did not all become Brethren when I explained "scriptural principles of gathering" to them.
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So for me the move into the Episcopal Church was not giving up something, but adding new dimensions to my previous commitments, something that the Bishop of Pittsburgh, Robert Appleyard, made easier by accepting me as a transfer of ordination from the Brethen (he accepted commendation as tantamount to ordination) and stating when he ordained me that he was not giving me a ministry but widening my ministry.
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When I left Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry to teach at New College, Berkeley, and later Regent College, it was because I knew that the believing world was wider than evangelical Anglicans. It was at Regent that I got involved with an interdenominational renewal group led by George Mallone and it was that group of 30 pastors that invited John Wimber to Canada..
John was not an innovative theologian – he used the standard evangelical works I knew well – but he put some "hands and feet" to those truths. Yes, Jesus came to bring the kingdom; yes the gospels were written so that we could follow Jesus; and yes the Holy Spirit is the on-going gift to the church to help us to follow Jesus. All of that I believed. Now, said John Wimber, let’s do it not just here in the meetings but in the streets. There is nothing "un-Brethren" or "un-Episcopal" about that.
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At that time I was involved in both a very progressive Brethren church and an Anglican parish. When the Holy Spirit came to the Brethren church our eldest member, whom I expected would be shaken, instead tapped her cane and said, "O, the glory. O, the glory. I never thought I’d live to see this day." So what I have learned is that each denomination has gifts and that we minister best if we minister using all of the gifts.
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The reason why I call the Anglican or Episcopal communion my home has two parts..
The first part is that I am convinced that the high point of worship in both Old and New Testament is a meal in the presence of God and in the New Testament we call this the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist. This goes back to my Brethren days and it is one place where I think that the Brethren pick up a significant theme of the New Testament. Thus I feel incomplete in situations where there is worship without the Lord’s Supper, for it is like almost getting to a climax and then stopping. The Episcopal Church is generally Eucharistic for its main service on Sunday and often at other times as well..
The second part is simply that I am convinced that God did call me both to the communion itself and to ordained ministry in that communion, so while I have drifted away from that call at various points in my career, the more my experience with God, the more I want to follow that call until he calls me elsewhere. Of course, I do like liturgical worship, for it is thoughtful and absolutely full of scripture; I do like the continuity down the ages that the liturgy gives one; and I recognize that many groups are led by "bishops" whether or not they call them "bishop" (so why not be part of a group that selects its bishops through a relatively open process), but those first two reasons are the main reasons..
I might add that I see my ability to enjoy multiple traditions to be a gift. I know that all do not have this gift. In fact, my wife finds it difficult and normally focuses on the Vineyard alone. I accept it as a gift and try to use it for God’s glory. So presently I am a theological advisor to the German-speaking Vineyard movement, am sometimes called upon for an article or theological advice by the Canadian Vineyard movement, but generally minister in Anglican churches in New Brunswick or Episcopal churches in Maine (other than a lovely 10 week stint earlier this year teaching at a church-based Anglican training college in London)..
God loves his whole church, so I hope I can copy him just a little and embrace as much of it as he makes possible for me, all the while keeping my roots in that part of his church where he has planted me..
NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: Scholars like J. I. Packer are taking firm stands on the tensions currently in the Anglican Church. Have you felt the necessity to identify yourself with either side of the struggle?

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part Four

2008-09-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the fourth installment of an eight-part interview with Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary.

Craig and his wife, Medine (pictured on the left), both have doctorates. Their marriage story can be read here.

Craig is co-editing, with Michael Bird, the New Covenant Commentary Series (Wipf & Stock) that is scheduled for publication from 2009 to 2014. He is writing the commentary on Romans for that series. Gordon Fee is contributing the volume on The Revelation.

An 88-page manual that Craig has written on biblical interpretation is made available for free at the Pneuma Foundation website. It can be downloaded here (allow a few seconds for downloading).

JR: You have also written more slender commentaries. Given your proclivity to thoroughness, is that type of writing somewhat frustrating for you?

KEENER: The smaller Matthew commentary I wrote was frustrating for me because I had to leave so much out --- that was why I wrote the bigger one for Eerdmans. (Because it started that way, it did keep it from being as big as it might have been otherwise.) I think the bigger one for Eerdmans uses over 10,000 references from ancient sources besides the Bible, and the John commentary uses about 20,000 (a bit more or less, depending on whether one counts the Apocrypha as extrabiblical --- smile). The Revelation commentary was a bigger frustration--I wanted to put in enough that I would not have to write another scholarly commentary later. Some material was cut in the notes, and it tempted me to write a scholarly one later (though I think it has enough background material to satisfy most readers, and I can probably live with it).

But I also am old enough now to realize that I cannot do everything I once dreamed of doing. I have so much material that I wanted to write on the entire New Testament --- and be done by 40 (though I knew that ideal wasn't really realistic, I never thought I'd have covered so little of the NT by age 48). I didn't realize that even if one is sitting on mounds of information, it still takes time to write a good commentary, and then one has to proofread, plus check the editor's proofreading, plus do indexing. The John commentary took about 3-4 months of 60-hour weeks just for indexing, and sleep was very difficult once I started dreaming about indexing at night!

After all that, shorter commentaries become somewhat more appealing, and I will probably do some more of them in the future. For awhile now my friend Ben Witherington has been suggesting I move in that direction, and it's no coincidence that I wrote my most concise commentary (on 1-2 Corinthians) for his series. I had to choose judiciously among my information, using maybe one-tenth to one-seventh of my sources. What I discovered, though, was that if I didn't try to do everything, I could write a commentary informed by ancient sources in a few months. I hoped to do a scholarly commentary on 1 Corinthians someday, so I didn't feel like my readers were missing out too much.

Encouraged that I might realistically finish publishing my notes on the NT and be able to retire and go back to some other form of ministry, I calculated how long it would take me to finish the NT if I did short volumes. It still looked like it would take me till I was 70 at that rate, so I have narrowed my focus regarding which books I'll write commentaries on. The big thing is that life is too short to duplicate someone else's effort (if I can't offer something significant that isn't already offered, I'll just recommend what is already offered). So whether a commentary is short or long, I want to offer some fresh material that readers wouldn't likely get on their own. Even in the short 1-2 Corinthians commentary, I was able to illumine a lot of turns of phrase in Paul's letters from other ancient letters and various other sources.

There is so much to do and my heart burns for God's Word. I am also aware that many brothers and sisters would have loved to do what I am doing, but the doors were not open to them. For many years as I went through college, seminary and doctoral work I did not know where the money would come from; God supplied my needs. He did the miracles I needed at all the decisive moments, or I would not have the opportunity to do what I am doing now. Because I know that God blessed me to do what I love so much --- handling His Word --- I feel keenly the responsibility to do my best. I try to be diligent in providing as much of this work as I can to the rest of the body of Christ. That is the main reason God gives us gifts in the body of Christ --- to use us as conduits of His blessing to others.

I know that many people pray for their pastors and for prominent ministers of the Word. I hope people will not forget to pray for us scholars, too. We need God's leading and God's blessing.

NEXT FRIDAY'S QUESTION: In your book, Gift & Giver (Baker Academic), you mention that you have been used in prophecy and prayer for the healing of others. How do your cessationist peers in NT scholarship react to such unbashed charismatic beliefs and practices?

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Four

2008-09-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the fourth installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick.

His commentary on the epistle of James is part of The New International Greek Testament Commentary series (Eerdmans), edited by I. Howard Marshall and W. Ward Gasque.

JR: Your highly-regarded commentary on James' epistle was published in 1982, just as the explosion of evangelical commentary publishing was beginning. From a scholar's point of view, what do make of this explosion?

DAVIDS: I think that things had been building for a number of years. F. F. Bruce and some others had started the Tyndale Fellowship back in 1935, I believe, when no faculty in the UK had an evangelical biblical scholar. When I was there in the early 70s, no faculty did not have an evangelical biblical scholar.

Back in the USA evangelicalism was maturing, often coaxed and coached by British evangelicals. Rather than defensive biblical scholarship ("How the liberals are wrong"), more and more were feeling secure enough to ask questions that had not been asked before and explore the text with historical eyes rather than simply repeat the answers that their dogmatic tradition demanded that they give.

Parallel to this maturing of scholars came the maturing of presses. Eerdmans was joined by InterVarsity Press and then Zondervan and Baker as presses that wanted their own place in the evangelical scholarly market. When I was in seminary, only Eerdmans was in that market.

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So you have the maturing of scholars and scholarship at the same time that you had presses that all wanted to be in the scholarly market, broadly defined, and that led to the explosion of commentaries.

I did not set out to write a commentary on James. I was teaching in Wiedenest when Ward Gasque visited me (as a fellow Brethren – he was on his way to a conference elsewhere) and read my thesis one night, unbeknown to me, then consulted with I. Howard Marshall and offered me a contract to write that commentary. They wanted someone able and ready to produce a commentary for their new series. Scholars in Tyndale Fellowship wanted to create an evangelical scholarly tool, a press was amenable, so they sought out other scholars to write.

That pattern was repeated multiple times, although in some cases presses decided that they needed a series (often because of the success that they saw at other presses) and sought scholars to be editors and recruit the writers of the volumes.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: You grew up in the Plymouth Brethren fellowship and have ministered a great deal in Vineyard Fellowship circles, and you are an Episcopalian/Anglican minister. Tell us some of the things you have learned from that ecumenicity and why you have chosen the Anglican/Episcopalian communion as home.

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part Three

2008-08-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the third installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary. Part One can be read here and Part Two can be read here.

Craig is co-editing, with Michael Bird, the New Covenant Commentary Series (Wipf & Stock) that is scheduled for publication from 2009 to 2014. He is writing the commentary on Romans for that series. Gordon Fee is contributing the volume on The Revelation.

Reviews and endorsements of Craig's commentary on The Gospel of John can be read here.

JR: Hendrickson Publishers is getting ready to publish your commentary on the Acts of the Apostles --- another massive commentary. What should a 21st-century reader make of the speeches in the Book of Acts, especially an elongated one like Stephen's?

KEENER: You have deliberately highlighted a big debate in Acts scholarship. (I wish you would have asked me a good Pentecostal question about tongues in Acts, or healings --- smile.)

I spend a few chapters of the introduction establishing that Acts is a work of ancient historiography and showing what ancient historiography was. It was of course similar in many respects to the way we write history today, but different. (There were also different kinds of ancient historiography. The elite historians often spiced things up rhetorically --- Josephus does that a lot. But no rhetorical historian would have speeches as short as most of those we find in Acts.)

One difference between ancient and modern historiography is that we want to narrate only clear information, whereas they wanted to really NARRATE their information, to tell a good story. That means that some historians took their genuine information about events and fleshed out scenes. If a historian knew that a speech occurred on an occasion, and something of what the speech was about, the historian would not normally just say something like, "Themistocles advised that they build some ships." They would be more likely to flesh out the speech based on both their direct information and their indirect information, that is, what they could infer that he would have said based on what else they knew. Some historians were more careful with speech material than others (some, in fact, mostly plagiarized earlier historians!) But whereas you can use the genre of Acts to say, "Since this is historiography, Luke reports genuine events," you can't so easily extrapolate from the genre for the speeches.

In fact, Luke does not flesh out the speeches much; most are pretty concise by ancient standards. There are many points where I think we can say Luke knew what was going on in the speeches. In Acts 20, where Luke was likely present in person, I found signs that Luke has condensed what must have been a longer speech (some implicit connections to a particular biblical passage, for example, that Luke never makes explicit). At the same time, no one claims that these speeches are verbatim. Even at the end of Peter's speech in Acts 2, Luke says, "and with many other words" Peter exhorted them. In other words, Luke has selected from the speech; he edits them to make part of his larger work. Everyone expected historians to do that. Also, they didn't have much choice in any case; they had to work with what was remembered of the speeches, or of the kinds of things that the speaker or speakers were known to have said. No one had tape recordings or verbatim transcripts to work from.

So we hear in the speeches both the voice of the speaker and the voice of the inspired author weaving together common gospel themes in these speeches in the Book of Acts. We can learn from the theology on a couple levels. Since my commentary is on Acts itself, my interest is especially in Luke's theological level, but because of the work's historical genre, I believe that he also invites us to hear the voice of the apostolic church.

I have just summarized about 60 pages of material in a few paragraphs and hopefully not done it too much injustice. But you might add the editorial comment regarding my Acts commentary, "and with many other words" he spoke (smile).

NEXT FRIDAY'S QUESTION: You have also written more slender commentaries. Given your proclivity to thoroughness, is that type of writing somewhat frustrating for you?

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Three

2008-08-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the third installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick. You can read Part One here and Part Two here.

Davids earned his Ph. D. at the University of Manchester in England. In the 1970s it was very desirable to study in Manchester because the great scholar, F.F. Bruce, taught there. In a festschrift for Bruce, Professor C. F. D. Moule --- himself a noted scholar --- said, "to think of Fred Bruce is to be assured that the Psalmist's vision can come true: 'Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other [Ps. 85:10].' I know no better example of uncompromising truthfulness wedded to that most excellent gift of charity; Fred Bruce always speaks the truth in love."

JR: Can you give us a thumbnail sketch of your graduate studies under F. F. Bruce at the University of Manchester?

DAVIDS: I was in Manchester while F. F. Bruce was the Rylands Professor of Biblical Studies. It was for me a strange time. First, I am the only person I know of from those years who did not have Bruce as his supervisor – I was assigned to S. S. Smalley, whom I believe Bruce hoped would take over his students after Bruce’s retirement. This actually gave me closer supervision than I would have had under Bruce, for FFB never asked about your work, figuring that you would come to him if you needed help, but Smalley wanted to see my work every 6 weeks or so.

The time in Manchester was in some ways a lonely time, for while I did sit lectures in my first year (because I was the first student from Trinity and had a M.Div., which they did not consider a true masters), generally you work alone, seeing fellow students only in the NT Seminar, where you read a paper once a term or so. There are no grades until you turn in your thesis, so three years of work depend on that one document and its oral exam.

I did have contact with Bruce at the annual study groups of the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research in Cambridge, which I went to yearly. There all present ate together and Bruce presided over the meetings that were held in a large living room like space. I also heard him preach in my Brethren church (that proved that he was very Reformed, but not that he was a good preacher). I did have to sit the lectures that he gave on 2 Corinthians (he told us that all he was going to say was in his recent commentary, and to a large extent he was right, so those who were wise purchased the commentary and annotated the margins). And once I invited him to my house (a very cheeky thing to do, but Americans did it and he would come) – he in turn invited me and my family out to his home in Buxton.

Bruce did influence me, but it was by offhand comments, and the atmosphere that he created in the Seminar, and perhaps by the fact that he was Professor of Biblical Studies, not just New Testament. But generally those years were spent in the library or at home in my study.
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Those years were also very hard on my wife. My father was English (I would learn in my 40’s that I had inherited his citizenship, and now have a British passport among the three that I possess, but at that time I just loved England and loved to be more a part of the country). I fit in well enough. Judy is Texan and did not find that her directness and the English culture fit together very well. (She would very much enjoy Germany.) She was also home with our eldest daughter who was about one year when we arrived in England. Our second daughter was born there and would be about one year when we left. Her alienation from the culture, my constant study, and our not living near any friends meant that our marriage was under a lot of stress before we left. In fact, she says that she believes that our experience of the Spirit in Germany about a year later preserved our marriage.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: Your highly-regarded commentary on James' epistle was published in 1982, just as the explosion of evangelical commentary publishing was beginning. From a scholar's point of view, what do make of this explosion?

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part Two

2008-08-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the second installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary. Part One can be read here.
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Palmer, just outside Philadelphia in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, is part of Eastern University.
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Craig is the author of a one-volume commentary on the background of the New Testament. And to date, four more of his commentaries (covering five NT Books) have been published.
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Four lectures that Craig gave in January at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary can be heard here.
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JR: In his New Testament Commentary Survey (Baker Academic), Donald Carson gives both the Matthew and John commentaries his prized, "Best Buy", designation. He says the Matthew commentary "in some respects sets new standards" and lauds your commentary on John because "the breadth of learning and the bibliographical richness combine to make the work indispenable for the serious student." However, he does note that in the Matthew commentary "Keener's focus on the socio-historical context comes at the expense of penetrating comment on structure, grammar, and sometimes theology." Was it simply the case that a commentary can only be so big?
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KEENER: I have answered some of this in question 1, but yes, keeping a commentary from getting too big is a major issue.
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I am very grateful to Don Carson for his kind comments about the commentaries. His criticism also is a fair one. I don't deal in detail with some of these other issues, especially the grammar and structure (I do deal with theology, but usually as concisely as possible. Sometimes, especially in the Matthew commentary, I was so concise that I was simply citing other passages where the theme recurs.) The reason is to keep the commentary from being too large, and because there are some things I trust that a reader can and should get on their own.
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If someone loves the Bible, they will read it in context and not take short-cuts. I deal with the passage in its context but I also assume that the reader will examine its context on their own, and come up with their own sermon from the biblical text, etc. If they don't love the Bible, a commentary can't really help them. (I could write sermons for them, but so could 100,000 other people, and there are other commentaries that can do that.)
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Likewise, regarding grammar: if you have a laptop with a good Bible program it can parse the Greek and Hebrew verbs for you and even tell you everywhere those terms occur in that tense elsewhere in Scripture. Plenty of commentaries do that, and there's no need for me to make the commentary longer (and make my publisher charge more for the cost of the paper) for something your computer can do for you even more conveniently.
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What I can give is background that you wouldn't get unless you spent a couple decades working through ancient texts. I didn't get it from using a concordance of ancient literature seeing where terms occurred. I got it from reading through ancient sources in context and looking for parallel ideas, not just parallel terms. No concordance can do that. So I wanted to focus on what people could not afford the time to dig out if I didn't make it available to them.
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My heart has been in ministry--in evangelism, in encouraging the hurting, and so on. I could not justify all the time spent in front of my computer if I didn't know I was providing something new. There are other resources providing other things and I would rather recommend them than reinvent the wheel.
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NEXT FRIDAY'S QUESTION: Hendrickson Publishers is getting ready to publish your commentary on the Acts of the Apostles --- another massive commentary. What should a 21st-century reader make of the speeches in the Book of Acts, especially an elongated one like Stephen's?

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Two

2008-08-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is the second installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick. You can read Part One here.

He has written four highly-regarded commentaries (covering seven of the books of the New Testament). Craig Blomberg's review of Davids' commentary on the letters of 2 Peter and Jude can be read here.

JR: What noticeable, practical effects did coming into the fullness of the Spirit have on your ministry?

DAVIDS: I cannot say exactly what effect that experience had upon my ministry other than that it was part of a complex of things God was doing in our lives.

In that year I became involved in Christian social action, discovered the great Christian spiritual tradition that starts with the scripture and reaches through the desert fathers and mothers and continues in folk like Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, and Dallas Willard today, and had that experience with the Spirit.

Through the influence of my boss I went on my first fasting retreat (a short one for the Germans, for we only had one week). I was seeking the Lord in all of these ways and all of them were bearing fruit in a closer experience of God.

Perhaps the one concrete effect was that during that fasting week I heard the Lord call me to move towards the Episcopal Church. That would become more concrete later, but it was during a listening time that week that it happened.

I might add that at Wiedenest I was in contact with people who had experience in praying for healing such as my boss, Arnim Riemenschneider (who was himself healed of cancer the following year), Roland Brown (an American from Chicago), and Helmut Alvers. And as I talked about it I learned that my boss’ boss, Ernst Schrupp, could also talk about experiences of praying for the healing of others.

That would come into my story later in that I would avoid praying for healing myself until I was ordained, after which God spoke to me, brought Jas 5:14 to mind, and "arranged" that my first "solo" service as an Episcopal priest would be a healing service.

The bottom line is that in Wiedenest the Lord laid the foundation for later ministry. Through relationships with students I make my first moves towards really being a pastor. I learned about spiritual gifts and healing. I did my first teaching – in German.

This would start to come to fruition in my next post, that of one of the founding faculty of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. The most formative experience there was the birth and then death six weeks later (sudden infant death syndrome) of our third daughter. While I do not believe God "sent" that, I do believe he could see it coming, for he spoke to me and prepared me for it.

Through that experience I became far more of a pastor than I even was before. And in and after that experience my wife and to a lesser degree I had a series of experiences with God that were formative in our lives. It was that experience and its aftermath that made me ready for move towards ordination, which took place a year later.

So we both had experiences of the Spirit before 1975, but both experience May 1975 as a significant time of renewal and conscious awareness of the Spirit. Yet it did not result in instant change, at least not in me, but rather was one step towards building me towards the Lord’s goals for my ministry.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: "Can you give us a thumbnail sketch of your graduate studies under F. F. Bruce at the University of Manchester?"

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part One

2008-08-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

When I was boy growing up in a small Pentecostal church, biblical commentaries and seminaries were looked upon with suspicion. What did we need with all that 'readin and learnin' if we had the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth?

In fairness, a lot of commentaries and seminaries back then were not worth owning or attending.

But, thankfully, there have been great strides made in both; plus, many believers have come to realize that the better commentary writers are simply part of the teaching ministry of church --- a ministry gift of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Craig Keener, who is a professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary, is one of those commentary writers giving that enterprise a good name.

He is the author of a one-volume commentary on the background of the New Testament. And to date, four more of his commentaries (covering five NT Books) have been published.

Like Peter Davids, Craig is charismatic in both belief and practice. (In my last blog entry, I noted that he makes clear that, charismatic, in his case, in no way indicates belief in the health-and-wealth gospel. The same is true of Dr. Davids, of course).

For next few weeks, Fridays on this blog will be devoted to an interview with Craig that largely covers his commentary writing.

JR: Your commentaries on Matthew and John were massive (1,040 and 1,636 pages, respectively). How long do you work on commentaries so detailed? And tell us about the work routine you follow when writing commentaries.

KEENER: When God called me to the ministry of His Word, I did not know what that would involve. I assumed I would just go out and preach. He gave me such a hunger that I began reading through the New Testament once a week, or the Bible once a month (though I did not keep that full pace up regularly). One way this changed me was that it forced me to read verses in their context--both of the immediate passage and of the argument of the entire book in which they appeared.

But as I was diving into the Word, I began to notice that passages often assumed customs and situations that the biblical writers didn't need to explain, because their original audiences understood them. I realized that while we had translations to try to make the original Greek and Hebrew message clear to us, we lacked much of the background. Once I realized that we needed background, I started reading a book here and there, only to discover that they did not always agree on details.

Eventually my hunger for the Word became hunger for background, too, so I could understand the Word always better, in greater detail. (There is no spiritual life in the background per se, but once one has it, many biblical texts jump alive in fresh ways with clarity of meaning. Only later did I realize that God had been preparing me for this task even before my conversion. As a boy I was reading Homer, Tacitus, Plato, and various other ancient works. After my conversion, I dropped these things and read only the Bible; when I started working in background, I started with Jewish sources, yet later began to realize that I could use these other sources, too, to help me understand the world that Paul and others were sent to reach.)

That brings me to the answer to your question. Over the years I collected about 100,000 index cards of information, before I began just typing new data into the computer. So I had a massive amount of background information (and information on scholarship) already available. As I collected it, I filed it under the verses where I thought it would be most useful, and also arranged the background material in my mind according to the framework of Scripture. Once I started on a commentary, I would go do more research on what other scholars said about that book (I had already looked through the older commentaries, but would try to get up to date; also, I had already translated and exegeted the book, but I would normally do that again as well). Then I would begin writing, one passage at a time, arranging the background information around the points in the passage that it would help us understand.

I could have actually gone into much more detail in the John and especially Matthew commentaries. I was simply summarizing information, to keep them from getting longer. For example, I might cite five ancient references in a footnote, but those references might represent five different index cards with a full paragraph each going into some detail on what those ancient passages said, plus (if it wasn't something that I would remember offhand) the dates of the speakers (e.g., whether a rabbi was from the second or fifth century can make a difference in how much weight I give to a reference).

As for the work routine: I take out significant time for prayer, for my family, for my students, for eating and sleeping, plus keeping the sabbath. But in the deepest part of my work on a book, most of the rest of my time goes into it; I have to sacrifice a lot of other potential ministry to do it, so I have to keep praying and feeling convinced that God is in this. During times when school is not in session, I might spend as much as sixty hours in a week working on a commentary. John took a number of years (not including the previously collected research; my dissertation was also on John). Acts, recently finished, took roughly six years of full-time work. Even when teaching, I usually try to put in close to 40 hours a week (but most days I don't keep exact count, so maybe it just FEELS like that many hours--smile).

Keener on fasting and persecution

2008-08-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

In preparation for an upcoming interview with Dr. Craig Keener, professor of New Testament at Palmer Seminary, I have been reading his book, Gift & Giver: The Holy Spirit in the Church Today (Baker Academic).

It is a delightful blend of scriptural teaching and anecdotal examples of how we can be truly charismatic christians (he makes clear that his use of the word, charismatic, has nothing to do with the prosperity teachings so popular among many known as, charismatic --- "I would rather abandon the title than risk anyone thinking that I advocate such teachings!" To that, I add a hearty, "Amen, Craig!")

The book is truly loaded with nuggets of truth. I wanted to pass along two edifying passages that will hopefully encourage you to read this book. You can sample it here.

First, on fasting: "I have found that regular fasting helps me to direct my heart toward God and humble myself before him. When I started, I thought I could fast for a particular prayer request, but eventually I became overwhelmed when I realized I would have to fast every day to cover all the requests! I then changed my approach: I began fasting just as a spiritual discipline before God, to humble my heart so I that could seek to please him more fully. God does not hear my prayers because I fast, but because I am his child who loves him. But I keep my love for him more attentive by spiritual disciplines. Jesus is my atonement and sin offering; fasting serves more like a freewill offering or thank offering, a way I can voluntarily demonstrate further to devotion to him."

I had long ago learned to appreciate the scholarship of Dr. Keener. When I read the following passage, my appreciation of him as a brother and elder in the body of Christ significantly deepened:

"As a young Christian, I witnessed in some situations in which suffering was likely. Two weeks in a row I had led someone to Christ on Sunday night in a particular part of town; the third week I decided to try it again. Unfortunately, the first person I spoke to was not in a pleasant mood; he descended on me immediately with anger, pummeling me with his fists and kicking me. I managed to get away, with him cursing that he would kill me if he saw me again. On some occasions when I was beaten, the physical pain remained for several days after the beating. Once, however, the Lord mercifully caused me to feel nothing, though my hair was being torn out and my head was being repeatedly slammed against the floor."

Yes, there is a lot I can learn from Craig Keener's books.

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part One

2008-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today we begin an eight-part interview with New Testament scholar, Peter Davids. A new installment will be posted each of the next seven Mondays.

Davids, who earned a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester in England, is also charismatic. An Episcopal priest, he also has ministered in Vineyard Movement churches and conferences.

Dr. Davids currently serves as Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephens University in New Brunswick.

His four commentaries (covering seven books of the New Testament) are highly regarded. Consider the words of Donald Carson, Davids' editor for his commentary on 2 Peter and Jude:

"... I am grateful for the work of Peter Davids, whose lifelong interest in the General Epistles is well known and widely respected, and whose mix of service, in both academic and ecclesiastical settings, has doubtless contributed to his ability, on the one hand, to form sharp, independent judgments, and, on the other, to apply them to the contemporary church. In epistles so controverted, no commentary, including this one, will win universal agreement. But all of us will happily acknowledge how much we stand in debt to Dr. Davids." series preface, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, The Pillar New Testament Commentary series (Eerdmans).

JR: When did you and your wife, Judith, come into the fullness of the Spirit?

DAVIDS: In one sense this is a tricky question in that I was called into biblical studies through a vision when I was 16, so certainly had experiences of the Spirit in my teen years, but because of my theological upbringing (Plymouth Brethren) did not label them as the Spirit.

For instance, I would say, "It was as if I had an audible vision." My wife would report similar experiences of the Spirit before she left for university.

Our conscious experience of the Spirit came in stages. While in Wheaton College I experienced a charismatic home group and it dawned on me that nothing happened there that was "unscriptural" (again, my Brethren language).

Later in Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and reinforced in my study in the University of Manchester, I looked at the various texts about the Spirit and could see no reason for gift cessation and thus, being Brethren, I started to desire to experience all that the early church had experienced. But I did not know anyone who could put "hands and feet" to this theoretical conviction and inner desire.

Then in 1973, during my time in Manchester but while serving my two weeks as a chaplain in the US Army Reserve in the active Army base in Aschaffenburg, Germany, I came across the first book to describe practice, Sherrill’s book They Speak with Other Tongues. I spent time before God seeking what was described there, and I had good times with God, but "nothing happened."

In 1975 I was in the middle of my first year after the doctorate, teaching in the Brethren-Baptist Bible College in Germany, Bibelschule Wiedenest (to my knowledge, I am the only non-German to serve there as a full-time teacher) and I was still waiting for God to "zap" me when through a series of circumstances we came into contact with the Fisherfolk from the Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Texas. Both Judy and I liked the life we saw in them, but what they did significantly was give me Michael Harper’s address in England.

Through that contact I obtained books and pamphlets, read them all, ordered more (30 in all). Thus it was while sitting on my balcony one sunny spring day and reading Dennis and Rita Bennett’s The Holy Spirit and You that I realized that I had been asking for the gift of tongues but had been waiting for God (whose presence I often felt) to hit me over the head and make me open my mouth. So I just started speaking according to his leading.

Now we knew about some charismatics in the area, and I was seeking intently enough for a deeper life with God that that same week I had decided that we were going to a Segnungsgottesdienst in Lieberhausen and had set it up complete with babysitter.

My wife was terrified and thought I was "going off the deep end". She went to her spiritual friend, whom she did not know was the leading charismatic student in the school, who suggested they talk to my boss’ wife (I realized that my boss was involved with the Rufe Gemeinschaft, a Baptist charismatic group, but Judy did not – she just thought of them as "safe" and "spiritual").

Judy did, explained her confusion about what was happening to me (she did not know about my "balcony experience" the day before), and not seeking any gift or experience, just peace, asked for prayer. Annalee agreed, the student slipped out of the room and down to my boss’ office and asked him to alert the prayer chain, and Judy ended up "floating" out of that room.

She did not experience any gift – she would experience several in the next week or two, but quietly at her desk or while working around our flat – but she knew the Spirit in a new way.

By the way, we did not go to Lieberhausen that Friday, but to my boss’ home instead for a private time of instruction and prayer. We would go to Lieberhausen and other groups at a later date.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: "What noticeable, practical effects did coming into the fullness of the Spirit have on your ministry?"

An interview with Thomson Mathew

2008-08-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

The fall semester gets underway at Oral Roberts University on Friday, and so I thought it would be good to get a firsthand account on how things are shaping up for the 2008-9 academic year.

And since theology is near and dear to my heart, I could think of no better person to interview than the Dean of the School of Theology and Missions, Thomson Mathew.

With two doctorates, Mathew is also a professor of Pastoral Care at ORU. A bilingual writer, Mathew has three books in print: Ministry Between Miracles (2002), Spirit-Led Ministry in the 21st Century (2004), and What Will Your Tombstone Say? (2008).

JR: How many years have you been the dean of the School of Theology and Missions?

MATHEW: I became dean in January 2000. Prior to that I served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. I have been a part of ORU since 1981 when I was appointed as the first chaplain of the City of Faith Hospital. I joined the teaching faculty of the School of Theology and Missions in 1989.

JR: Is this your dream job?

MATHEW: Yes, I feel called to do this. Having served under all the deans (Drs. James Buskirk, Larry Lea, Paul Chappell, and Jerry Horner) of the School of Theology and Missions in some capacity, I feel that I have had the privilege of being mentored by each of them. When other opportunities have come my way, it was easy for me to say "No" because of this sense of calling.

JR: Even though last year had its share of turmoil for the university, what gave you your greatest joy in 2007-08?

MATHEW: I can list several things that gave me joy. The sense of a new beginning and greater opportunities for the School of Theology and Missions to impact the world. To become a transdenominational school more intentionally. The opportunity to work with Trustees who have a great appreciation for higher level theological education. The Association of Theological Schools (ATS) visited us in February 2008 for a comprehensive site visit. After a thorough review, the ATS Commission on Accrediting granted us the maximum period of accreditation possible, which is ten years (until 2018). It was pure joy to receive such an affirmation during a very turbulent time in the history of the university.

JR: With two lawsuits still pending and the office of president still vacant, it can be assumed that the dust has not settled yet in Tulsa. But, what puts a spring in your step as you head into the new school year?

MATHEW: The possibilities of impacting the global Church in terms of leadership training and possible collaborations with other Pentecostal/Charismatic schools (Regent University, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, and Church of God Theological Seminary) give me great pleasure. The graduate and undergraduate theological programs now being together in the ORU School of Theology and Missions, we have a stronger theological faculty that is capable of offering traditional and non-traditional education. This gives me much optimism.

JR: Businessman Mart Green's $70 million donation set ORU back on sound financial footing. How does that effect the School of Theology and Missions?

MATHEW: This should provide better faculty support including increased pay, retirement benefits, and assistance for scholarly work. Additionally, we should be able to update academic facilities (classrooms, library, Holy Spirit Research Center, etc.), assist students with increased scholarships, and have opportunity to let the world know (PR) about the academic/theological resources we have.

JR: How many undergraduate students are enrolled for this fall?

MATHEW: Current numbers are not available. Last year the School of Theology and Missions had over 900 students majoring in theological disciplines; four hundred forty-five (445) of them were graduate students. (JR Update 8/30/08 --- ORU enrollment is down three percent, according to the Associated Press).

JR: What distinctives are those students going to experience at ORU that they would likely not experience anywhere else?

MATHEW: In the School of Theology and Missions students will experience a distinctively Charismatic transdenominational context. They will receive mission-directed education where learning can take place in an atmosphere open to the Holy Spirit. They will be taught by Spirit-filled scholars who practice their faith and are aware of the needs of the church. They will experience a truly global community. In effect, they will experience the three strengths of the School of Theology and Missions identified by the ATS site visit team: 1) deep commitment to the university's mission; 2) strong theological faculty; and, 3) "dynamic leadership".

JR: Knowing how busy you must be with the beginning of the fall semester just a couple of days away, I very much appreciate you taking this time.

Readers may want to link to Dr. Mathew's Ministry Today article entitled, "We Still Need Seminaries".

The $70 million gift from the Green family has allowed for many renovations on the campus. Photos and videos may be seen at this link.

Gordon Fee: A Man of the Word & Spirit

2008-07-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

Gordon Fee and F. F. Bruce had a conversation in August 1980 at the annual meeting of the Society of New Testament Studies being held in Toronto. Like many moments we later look back on as momentous, that one could have passed without much fanfare.

However, that conversation resulted in Pentecostal scholarship being put on the map. The evangelical 'map', that is. Pentecostal scholarship existed before that day (for instance, the Society for Pentecostal Studies was formed ten years earlier). But, Fee was asking for a full place at the evangelical table. And Fee, and the cadre of Pentecostal scholars that has risen up behind him, have never looked back.

When Fee approached Bruce, who was de facto dean of scholarly evangelicalism at that time, he asked if he might write a replacement volume for the commentary on I Corinthians in The New International Commentary on the New Testament series (Eerdmans).

Bruce, who was editor of the venerable series from 1962-1990, was agreeable to the request and Fee went on to produce a commentary seven years later that received wide acclaim. Virtually every serious bibliography for the literature of I Corinthians lists Fee's contribution. Some, like scholars Donald Carson, Bill Mounce, and the late Raymond Brown, list Fee's commentary as a preferred volume.

Fee's work was so impressive, in fact, that in 1990 he took Bruce's place as editor of the series, when the great scholar from the University of Manchester in England stepped aside.

Patrick Alexander, who is editor-in-chief of the Penn State University Press (and also a former student of Fee's), wrote this about his mentor:

"Fee's work as a scholar who happens to be Pentecostal --- and vice versa --- has not only opened the door for an entire generation of Pentecostal and charismatic scholars who want to take scholarship and their spirituality seriously. It has also opened the eyes of those not within a Pentecostal tradition to see that a faith that embraces the experiential dimension can also take seriously the role of scholarship." (in Bible Interpreters of the 20th Century, Baker Books)

Fee's choice of I Corinthians was not random. He taught the book in college classrooms for over 15 years before writing the commentary. And, he had a personal, vested interest in Paul's letter to the very charismatic Corinthians.

"The commentary on I Corinthinians (1987) perhaps afforded him the most visible opportunity to speak as a scholar on issues germane to pneumatology (especially in his analysis of I Corinthians 12-14), but even here his primary concern was to produce a commentary on I Corinthians. His approach was first and foremost that of a New Testament scholar," Alexander wrote in Bible Interpreters.

That matter of being a scholar first and a Pentecostal second is no small matter to some.

"Scholars within Fee's tradition respect his work as a New Testament academic, and they welcome his voice as having secured Pentecostalism an entree to the guild. They seem frustrated, however, that Fee does not bear the banner of the Pentecostal intellectual tradition into the academy's camp," Alexander, Bible Interpreters.

Fee has provoked even more pointed criticism from his own denomination, the Assemblies of God, by not adhering to its honored shibboleth, "The baptism of believers in the Holy Spirit is witnessed by the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues as the Spirit of God gives them utterance." AG Statement of Fundamental Truths

Fee responds in chapter six of his book, How to Read the Bible for All its Worth, "There is no express teaching on such matters as ... which charismatic phenomenon is to be in evidence when one receives the Spirit ....". Fairness to Fee dictates that the entire chapter, Acts: The Question of Historical Precedent should be read. The book, co-authored with Douglas Stuart, is published by Zondervan.

Fee, who earned a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and is specifically an expert textual critic, had written other scholarly works --- including a commentary on the Pastoral Epistles --- before the volume on I Corinthians, and he has certainly written scholarly works since.

The 72-year-old, who has retired from teaching New Testament at Regent College in Vancouver, has written two magisterial works he will long be remembered for: God's Empowering Presence, a study of the Holy Spirit in the writings of Paul, and, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study.

Both works bear the Gordon Fee imprint: spiritual and exegetical sensitivity, done with exacting care. That exacting care had Fee working "at the writing task on the average of twelve hours a day, six days a week, for a period of fourteen months ...." when writing the commentary on First Corinthians. (Fee in I Corinthians, NICNT)

Does such scholarly devotion desiccate the spirit? Not in the case of Fee. To hear Fee preach or pray is to hear a Pentecostal preach or pray. He is unmistakably impassioned about the God of the bible. I heard him speak to a Full Gospel Businessman's convention not long after he wrote God's Empowering Presence. The research had left him in broken awe of the Holy Spirit. Tears coursed quietly down my cheeks as I listened to a man who had not only sat contemplatively in libraries, but in the presence of the Living God.

But, we are not left with just an intellectual pioneer among an experiential people, or, just a man who has been baptized into the Holy Spirit, with all the joy and glory that entails.

No, we also have a man that knows the scriptures beckon us to, what the theologians call, orthopraxy --- right living. The dedication to his family in his book, New Testament Exegesis, intimates that:

"To Maudine, Mark, Cherith, Craig, and Brian, who taught me that exegesis is not an end in itself, but must always be applied."

Free online audio teaching by Gordon Fee:

At the 2005 Vineyard USA National Conference

Teaching materials by Gordon Fee for purchase:

Books, DVDs, CDs, and cassette tapes

Text materials by Gordon Fee available on the internet:

Fee's commentary on Philippians (from the IVP New Testament Commentary Series)

Fee writes about commentary writing

Zondervan interview with Gordon Fee

Gordon Fee in Christianity Today magazine:

Profile of Fee's pneumatology (Part One)

Profile of Fee's pneumatology (Part Two)

Videos featuring Gordon Fee:

27-minute video on, Jesus: God's Exact Likeness

Video Fee talking about his commentary on the Revelation

2009 video of Fee talking about his favorite authors

Half-hour interview with Fee on biblical interpretation

Older video of Fee talking about Biblical interpretation

1972 talk on the Will of God at Wheaton College

Facebook group that follows Gordon Fee:

The Gordon Fee Appreciation Society

An interview with Larry Hart

2008-07-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

My first two posts featured Truth Aflame (Zondervan), a systematic theology written from a charismatic perspective. The author, Dr. Larry Hart, is a professor of theology at Oral Roberts University. He was also one of the contributors to Perspectives on Spirit Baptism: Five Views (Broadman & Holman). He graciously consented to be interviewed for this blog.

JR: Understandably, you use your book, Truth Aflame, as a textbook when teaching systematic theology at ORU. What kind of feedback have the students given you about the book?

HART: Students give me enthusiastic (and quite gratifying) feedback. They are less enthusiastic about Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology, which I use alongside Truth Aflame in my online courses. But I find him to be a great foil, his being a moderate Calvinist and my being a "Bapticostal." Erickson is a fine guide through all the postmodern turmoil.

JR: In the past few months much has transpired at ORU. With a new Board of Trustees and an ongoing search for a new president, what is the spiritual 'tenor' on campus for the coming fall semester?

HART: Morale is really high at ORU. We have strong leadership already in place and wait with positive expectancy for the new president the Lord has called. A thorough search is underway. This is a new era for ORU, and I believe her influence will spread out again to serve the whole Body of Christ.

JR: As an ordained minister in the Southern Baptist Convention are you noticing an increased openness to legitimate charismata?

HART: There is more openness, but much progress still awaits. Adapting Tertullian’s words to a new context, I’m afraid Southern Baptists may have "crucified the liberals and put the Paraclete to flight." Dead orthodoxy and traditionalism is as perilous as liberalism. There are signs of decline, which grieves me, because I truly love my mother church, which gave me the milk of the Word. Several new wineskins could pop up in the next decade.

JR: You have also fellowshipped in charismatic circles for more than three decades. Is the charismatic movement maturing theologically?

HART: I believe it is, even though there are many examples of continued antipathy or apathy toward the need for sound doctrine and loving God "with all our minds" (Mark 12:29-31).

JR: And now, a fastball right down the middle of the plate, a grooved pitch: Tell us what Southern Baptist theologian Dale Moody meant to you as a mentor and friend.

HART: I graded every course he taught. He preached my ordination. He was a truly amazing individual. His brother was a Pentecostal minister, and Dale himself cut his teeth as a teenaged preacher in Fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches. I’ll never forget a sermon he preached to a packed chapel entitled "The Charismatic Crisis," warning Baptists against pouring cold water on charismatic fires. (JR: a profile of Moody can be read here.)

JR: Finally, do have any additional writing you are working on?

HART: Perspectives on Spirit Baptism is selling quite well (if my royalty checks are any indication), and a follow-up volume on tongues may be in the works. I’ve written a little volume, entitled "For God So Loved the World: The Biblical Doctrine of Grace," which I may enlarge and submit to a publisher. My wife keeps nudging me to finalize some popular works I’ve done, but I’m dragging my feet a little. And I’ve started a Christology volume—I love my Christology class! What a day to be proclaiming the true Jesus in these confused and chaotic times!