The uncertainty in defining Anna Bartleman’s role as a minister, comes with the lack of a definite image. With preserved photos of early Pentecostal women like Phoebe Palmer, Lucy Farrow, William Seymour’s wife and even Agnes Ozman, it would be plausible that a photo of Anna Ladd-Bartleman would also be readily available. Especially when just a quick search returns photos of her husband Frank as young adult, mid-life preacher, missionary to Russia with a typical winter hat and even a portrait drawing.  The astonishment grows even further as Frank’s lament of the early death of their first-born child in his 1909 book My Story “The Latter Rain” is accompanied with a photo of daughter Esther, obviously cut out from a larger family photo. But once again no photo of wife Anna.

With this quick observation in mind, a Pentecostal researcher now turns into the appropriate archives at Flower, Dixon, ORU only to find out that a photo of Anna Ladd-Bartleman is not to be found in any known Pentecostal library yet. Quite surprised, I then turned to several secondary sources and publishers. Among many worth mentioning were: Azusa Books that has encapsulated in many publication’s insights of ethnic and cultural struggles among early Pentecostals and the Zion Christian Ministry that has presented a chronological parallel of all Bartleman’s writings in one homogenous story of his life and ministry. They too had never seen a picture of Anna.

In my naïve persistence in the weeks following, I even reached out via friends to noted Pentecostal theologians and historians like De Arteaga (Lucy F. Farrow: The Forgotten Apostle), Faupel (The Everlasting Gospel), Ruthven, Macchia, Lathrop, Bundy, and many more. None of them has seen a picture of Frank Bartleman’s wife, but I was given a helpful hint to contact Dr. Robeck at Fuller being thoughtfully forewarned, “If he hasn’t seen her photo, no one has!”

I persisted on my own terms and contacted friends in Bulgaria with whom we have done research before – all serious scholars with serious intentions. Among them were the son of a Rousse Methodist pastor sentenced in the Pastor’s Trials staged by the communists in 1948-49, who had made it the purpose in life to uncover secret police archives in Bulgaria. With his diligent research back in the day, we found the books of minutes of the Rousse Methodist church and the Rousse Assemblies of God with all attached correspondence, which were all thought destroyed by the communists. Anna’s adopted family oversaw all Methodist missions in Bulgaria up until 1890 and it was plausible that at least their family photo would be in the archives.

Next was another friend, a Harvard graduate, whose dissertation on the Ottoman Empire helped me some two decades ago to discover the personal translation notes of a Bulgarian priest who rendered the first modern Bulgarian New Testament in 1840. While everyone else was searching for the diary notes at Bulgaria’s National Library, we discovered it stored with virtually no public access in the office of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchy just a block down the street.

Finally, to my aid came a colleague who, at the dawn of democracy in Bulgaria, created the Decommunization web-portal dedicated to revealing lost archival records of communist crimes. Around 2007-2008, together we unveiled the secret dossiers of 17 communist agents infiltrated as pastors in various evangelical churches during the Regime to effectively control the life and work of Bulgaria’s evangelical movement in the years to come.

All our combined attempts to find anything on Anna-Ladd Bartleman were in vain. The Methodist archives in Bulgaria contained no pictures from that early period. Bulgaria’s National Library and Archives hardly existed during the times when the Ladds ministered in the country. And as to the National Archives, Bulgaria had virtually no pre-1900s adoption legislation or records. As a last attempt in Bulgaria, I consulted the little remaining museum collections of the primary school in Svishtov (Sistof) and the school for girls in Lovetch (Lofcha) both of which the Ladds oversaw as part of their missionary assignment in Bulgaria. As it was not clear if Anna attended any of those missionary schools, except primary, being only eight years old when adopted and 12 upon leaving Bulgaria never to return there again. And with having no record of Anna, the missionary schools did not have her photo either.

During the Christmas break of 2020, I finally worked out enough courage to email Dr. Robeck with my Brill Encyclopedia article on Anna and a request for help. To my surprise, he emailed me back the next day with tons of information and continued to do so in the days that followed assisting my search in every way possible to the point of even providing every address where the Bartlemans lived. Unfortunately, no picture of Anna was found in his personal archive either. He was told by Bartleman’s son John that all family photos remained with daughter Ruth Bulloti never to be seen again. At this point as even Dr. Robeck “hasn’t seen” a photo of Anna Ladd-Bartleman, my search was to be over. At least on the higher academia side…

I did succeed in following the connection with Barlteman’s daughter, Ruth Margaret Bulloti, and discovered a masterfully created Bush family website managed by a Ph.D. researcher and librarian from the University of Wisconsin. Though his family tree compiled an enormous amount of information, as to uncle Frank Bush who married Ruth Margaret, it only had the family names and an old address from the census. All the Bulloti and Bush children were now deceased, and finding their grandchildren was a task of its own.

This new challenge led me to a wider search through Ancestry, Family Search and various other family tree databases. There were hundreds of searches already created on Frank’s side, but when it came down to his wife, she was only mentioned by name, birth and marriage. Anna’s side of the family had been researched just a few times more recently between 2017-2019. I managed to contact all names listed, assuming some were family members or close relatives. Only a few responded back and none of them had ever seen a picture of Anna. On the plus side, I did notice several of the family trees on the list updating within days using the information I sent out. This encouraged me to contact them again asking for information on family members that were still living, but no answer followed. With this, the family part of my search for Anna’s photo seemed to be over as well.

I woke up around 4 a.m. the following morning in the snow-covered Smokey Mountains, fired up my computer by the fireplace, pulled out all of Frank Bartleman’s books and the available Methodist archives and began mapping Anna’s journey around the globe. Still well before the crack of dawn, I had discovered J. S. Ladd’s obituary with Anna mentioned by her Bulgarian-birth name, Slavka Tanasova (misspelled by the printer due to Ladd’s handwriting as Slarka Lanasova), her listing as Annie Ladd in the ship’s manifest upon their arrival as family to the United States in 1890 and the address where they first resided in Brooklyn, New York. Not only did I not find the long-searched photo, but now I had managed to lose track of Anna for almost a decade between 1890 and 1899 when she became the matron of Christian home for girls in Pittsburgh, PA.

For the rest of the day, in hope to find a picture of Anna, I emailed various historical societies and proceeded to examined the census records of the Ladd family. This attempt followed the path of the churches pastored by J. S. Ladd, at Dover Plaines (1893), Ancram, NY (1894-98), East Chatham (1899-1903), Putnam Valley (1904-08), Patterson (1909-11) and Johnsville, NY (1912) up to his death in 1922. The Putnam Valley, Patterson, Ancram and the rest of the historical societies all the way to Correy, PA where Frank and Anna Bartleman were married and first pastored, had no photo of the Bartlemans or the Ladds. This was quite a surprise given the significance of their ministry, and in the case Rev. J. S. Ladd’s notorious business entrepreneurship in each community where they resided to the point of designing a trolley line in upstate New York. But Anna was once again nowhere to be found except in one single reference given by the town historian of Ancram via the Old Fulton New York archive. The local Columbian Republican posted on September 19, 1922 that,

Mrs. Clara Porter received a card from Mrs. Annie Ladd Bartleman, of Los Angeles, Cal., saying her mother, Mrs Ladd passed away in June at her home in Spring Arbor, (Michigan). Mr. Ladd her husband, was a former pastor in the M. E. here [Ancram, NY].

No census records showed Anna living with the Ladds after arriving to America. They did show, however, that upon his passing in 1922 Rev. J. S. Ladd left to his wife Rosa-Celia quite a large realty inheritance. It was obvious from all census and newspaper articles covering local properties, however, that as the only, though adopted child, Anna was not listed among the beneficiaries of any of the family properties. With this information, it was becoming clearer why a photo from her early years may have not been preserved.

Meanwhile, the general Methodist Archive at Drew University also responded to one of my requests. Though limited to some 50 pages in all, their records on J. S. Ladd contained his handwritten correspondence with the Methodist Mission Board in America. The letters were primarily regarding financial support of the mission station and adjunct schools, but they did contain an interesting reference written by Rev. Ladd in 1889 while requesting to return to America after seven years in the field. All expenses for the leave were to be paid by the undersigned on behalf of his “Wife & little girl.” Though the name of the “little girl” was not explicitly mentioned and neither was of his wife, it was well understood this to be their only (adopted) child Anna.

Indeed, Anna arrived with the Ladds to America in 1890, but even my most persistent attempt could not discover anything about her following upbringing or education in America until 1899 when Frank Bartleman met her as a Christian worker at the Hope Mission in Pittsburgh, PA. Their following assignment to the mission’s branch in McKees Rocks, PA where Frank proposed in marriage, was not coincidental. The growing Russian immigrant community at McKees Rocks was well established with vibrant spiritual life and an Eastern Orthodox church of their own. Anna’s Slavic origin would have given her advantage in communicating and ministering in such immigrant community. Unfortunately, in all numerous archives from the time period, the McKees Rocks historical society had no record of Anna, Frank or even a local branch of the Hope Mission.

Following the next step in Anna’s journey led to Corry, PA proposing an important starting point for the young Bartleman family. Frank’s own record of the story included marriage, pastorship, family ties amid his experience with the early holiness movement, the exact location of the wedding, name of the local Methodist conference superintendent who met Frank at the train station and later performed the wedding and signed their marriage license. It also contained the peculiar detail that Frank travelled to Corry alone to receive the pastoral appointment and apply for marriage license until Anna arrived a few days later. But apart from the marriage license docket in the city archive, nothing in the records of Corry Area Historical Society, First Methodist Church or the United Methodist Church in town pointed to Bartleman’s year-long ministry there or the much sought after family photo with Anna. It was only by the process of elimination that became clear, which was the church they pastored and where they were married.

The following stops in Bartleman’s journey West toward California did not reveal a family photo, though at least one was in existence with firstborn daughter Esther in it. All known group pictures from the Alma White’s Pillar of Fire, Pasadena’s Peniel Mission and early Azusa meetings had no photo identifying Anna Ladd-Bartleman either. Same was the result from my inquiry to B. Martin who extensively researched one of Frank’s close coworkers and travel companions, Edward J. Boehmer. With the same success, I consecutively followed the stops in their multiple home-mission journeys until 1912.

Finally, the examination of early Pentecostal sources through Europe was to be consulted. I focused predominantly on the places where Anna and the children stayed for a longer period of time while Frank travelled and preached. Among them Halifax in England, Bremen and Bunde in Germany, Orebro in Sweden, Gaufiin in Finland and several more all the way to Sister Carnell’s Pentecostal Home in London and Glad Tidings in New York, which were the two final stops of Bartlemans’ world missions’ journey before returning home. A picture of Anna-Ladd Bartleman was nowhere to be found.

With months of research under my belt, I had managed to compile sufficient information on Anna Ladd-Bartleman not just for this current paper, but also for another one on early Pentecostal women in Bulgaria for SPS, encyclopedia article for Brill and a chapter in my upcoming book on the first centennial anniversary of Bulgarian Pentecostalism, Unforgotten. But with all this, I was still missing her photo, which inspired the following appeal in place of an epilogue:

If you are reading this and you have a photo of Anna Ladd-Bartleman, please feel free to contact me directly [Editor’s note: we are glad to connect readers with authors when we can]. Do the same if you would like to inquire if I have already found one past the completion of this paper. I will be more than happy to send you a copy. For if we really want to rediscover the vision, redefine the role and hear again the voice of our women of Pentecost in this digital era, we can start by finding a picture…

The Unforgotten: Historical and Theological Roots of Pentecostalism in Bulgaria 

Hardcover – May 10, 2021

This book tells the story of four early Pentecostal families who brought the message of Azusa to Bulgaria, Eastern Europe and Russia. The research has taken over a decade to complete. It started with a brief article on the beginning of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria, where unfortunately many church archives were destroyed during Communism. Consecutively, the research led my wife and I on a long journey from the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, to the Assemblies of God headquarters in Springfield, the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, Pusey Library at Harvard, the British and Foreign Bible Society in Cambridge, and countless Bulgarian churches. We are grateful to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center for making readily available their denominational archives. Dr. Albert Wardin graciously opened the door for research in Nashville and Berkeley, where most documentation of Voronaev’s early ministry are preserved. Dr. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. of Fuller provided tremendous guidance to the life and ministry of Frank and Anna Bartleman through virtually every step of their journey and every address they occupied. We are also thankful to Dr. Oleg Bornovolokov of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary in Kiev, who helped with various KGB/FSB documents and the NKVD dossiers from Gulag. The papers included in this book were presented at Society for Pentecostal Studies meetings between 2010 and 2021. The first part of the book appeared in vol. 30 (2010) of Assemblies of God Heritage magazine and their December, 2010 editorial. The Bulgarian Pentecostal Union published our translation and commentary of Voronaev’s correspondence in their monthly Evangel. In 2011, Dr. Vladimir Franchuk, translated our Voronaev’s papers in Russian and included them in his book Revival: from the center of Odessa to the ends of Russia just in time for the 90th anniversary of Pentecostalism in Russia. Most of the historiographical data presented in this book is being published openly for the first time.

In 2024, we were blessed to minister in a 200-day revival with 205 consecutive services held across six European countries and two territories. We ministered as a family at all these meetings accompanied by our two small children. To say that there is a lot to be grateful for in such a life-changing experience is an understatement. The following is just a brief glimpse of our observations on what precedes and accompanies a genuine move of the Spirit:

Creative developing of fasting, prayer and giving of alms, all commanded by Jesus Himself as a regular expression of our faith (when you pray, fast, give as in Mt. 6), is the prerequisite for every Spirit-led revival. On the third day of our 10-day fasting, God used a six-year-old child to revive our dead Volvo, which no mechanic in a radius of 200 miles could crank for over six months.

The church that was forced to leave the building during the pandemic, has now returned to multimillion-dollar buildings where God did not choose to start a 200-day Revival. And even when He did, the move was shut down for lack of parking space or nightly supervision. In all actuality, a church building is a result of a revival, its finish and its end. An association with a place, address or location is a sign of a centralized settlement. It was the forced getting-out of a church building (as in Acts 7) that caused the Great Azusa Revival to emerge as a grass-root movement engraved from the streets of L.A. to the Great San Francisco Earthquake and to the end of the world.

Revival must emerge from the Desire and Will of God in order to be supernaturally visited by the Power of His Glory! It cannot be approached as a man-made multiplication initiative, be it local, national or globally dimensioned. It is not a project to involve people, but a spiritual tsunami of authority and anointing that invites a prophetic projection of what God desires for eternity and not merely what man needs in the now.

When the now and then align, revival sparks! When the now has lost its sight on eternity, revival is long done and gone. What remains is but a motion imitating the wave of the Spirit, Who has already moved to other more receptive spiritual trenches and valleys of humbleness. It is in such societal peripheries and spiritual layers where God visits first with Revival before proceeding to the center of religious life. Meaning, the Heart of God for Revival is not in a religious center, but in a movement with a story. As a matter of fact, any association with externally imposed governing denies God’s centrality of what the Spirit wills for His Church. A man cannot vanquish the ocean and cosmos of space!

Happy New Year
2 Chronicles 20:25

Dony & Kathryn Donev began their ministry in the Church of God as teenagers. They share over 50 years of combined experience in the field and have authored multiple books to encourage others with the call to serve. Dony holds a doctoral degree from Pentecostal Theological Seminary and teaches at Lee Online. Kathryn is a Lee University graduate TN LPC/MHSP and leads the Homeschool Network in Polk County, which became the first homeschool sanctuary in the nation.

In 1999, Dony and Kathryn established Cup & Cross Ministries International with a vision for restoration of New Testament theology and praxis. Today they have over 50 years of combined commitment to Kingdom work. This book invites you to spend a few moments each day on the field sharing their experiences of serving as pastors, evangelists, chaplains, consultants, church trainers, researchers, missionaries and educators of His Harvest around the globe.

The paper is over 40 pages long with another dozen pages in bibliography, so therefore not really suitable as something to post online. However, here is an introduction to a related book:

The Unforgotten: Historical and Theological Roots of Pentecostalism in Bulgaria
This book tells the story of four early Pentecostal families who brought the message of Azusa to Bulgaria, Eastern Europe, and Russia. The research has taken over a decade to complete. It started with a brief article on the beginning of the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria, where unfortunately many church archives were destroyed during Communism. Consecutively, the research led my wife and I on a long journey from the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, to the Assemblies of God headquarters in Springfield, the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley, Pusey Library at Harvard, the British and Foreign Bible Society in Cambridge, and countless Bulgarian churches. We are grateful to the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center for making readily available their denominational archives. Dr. Albert Wardin graciously opened the door for research in Nashville and Berkeley, where most documentation of Voronaev’s early ministry are preserved. Dr. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. of Fuller provided tremendous guidance to the life and ministry of Frank and Anna Bartleman through virtually every step of their journey and every address they occupied. We are also thankful to Dr. Oleg Bornovolokov of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary in Kiev, who helped with various KGB/FSB documents and the NKVD dossiers from Gulag. The papers included in this book were presented at Society for Pentecostal Studies meetings between 2010 and 2021. The first part of the book appeared in vol. 30 (2010) of Assemblies of God Heritage magazine and their December, 2010 editorial. The Bulgarian Pentecostal Union published our translation and commentary of Voronaev’s correspondence in their monthly Evangel. In 2011, Dr. Vladimir Franchuk, translated our Voronaev’s papers in Russian and included them in his book Revival: from the center of Odessa to the ends of Russia just in time for the 90th anniversary of Pentecostalism in Russia. Most of the historiographical data presented in this book is being published openly for the first time.

PR

For more about the Society for Pentecostal Studies, visit their website: sps-usa.org/

As a historian of the persecution that Bulgarian Pentecostals endured under Soviet control, Dr. Dony Donev has much to say about becoming an earnest, Bible-believing community of believers.

The meaning of life is hidden behind the answers of the existential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What follows next? The narrow road toward discovering these answers leads to unveiling one’s true identity. Such quest is a continuous and perplexed laborintus vitum, in which human destiny turns to a painful or pleasant reality. Failure to discover the answers of the above questions is failure to fulfill one’s purpose of living.

The era of postmodernity and the present ecclesial paradigm have shifted the role of the individual and community in the search for the meaning of life. The essential errand now is not simple identity realization, but identity preservation and intergenerational transmission. Preservation then is a complex process that includes both the quest for rediscovering one’s true identity and the challenge of reclaiming it for the present moment and the future generations. Based on the belief that by rediscovering the original practices and structure of the Early Church community, they would inherit its Spirit and power, a great number of churches have engaged themselves in the quest for the Primitive Church.

Papyrus 46, the Greek text of 2 Corinthians 11:33 through 12:9. It is one of the oldest extant New Testament manuscripts probably copied between 175 and 225 CE.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

This present research will argue for the importance of the preservation of church primitivism as an identity characteristic of the Pentecostal Movement demonstrated through the triangular scheme of prayer, power and praxis. Having shown the original historical context of the Pentecostal message, it will parallel the ecclesiastical paradigm with the spiritual experience, sacramental praxis and communal structure of the Primitive Church. Finally, it will call the church of post-modernity toward neo-primitivism as the way for preservation and intergenerational succession of Pentecostal identity for the future generations.

I. Toward a Definition of Primitivism

Webster’s Dictionary defines the term primitivism as the “belief in the superiority of nonindustrial society to that of the present.”1 The meaning of primitivism can be further expanded to the “belief that the acquisitions of civilization are evil or that the earliest period of human history was the best.”2 The term primitive derives from the Latin word prima, meaning first. In a church context, primitivism is the term describing the story of the First Church. Commonly, this includes the period of 30-100 AD.3

Contrary to the general understanding, the Primitive Church is not only the church of the oppressed, unlearned and weak, as it often is applied in the negative understanding of the title Primitive. It is rather the First Church that had directly witnessed the life and ministry of Jesus Christ; it is the Church that possessed the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit since the day of Pentecost; and it is the Church that represents the true identity of Christianity.

Frank Viola, From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God (David C. Cook, 2009), 320 pages, ISBN 9781434768704.

In times of postmodernism, when metanarratives, and especially Biblical metanarratives, are being deconstructed and questioned by just about every secular movement, there has been a consistent attempt to explain the story of the Bible again to a postmodern and unchurched generation in a way they would actually understand.

To begin with the obvious, the book is comprised of three familiar narratives that have already been openly discussed: the Bride of Christ, the House of God, and finally the Body of Christ and the Family of God. The careful reader immediately notices that all three of these narratives are framed with the language of family. The story of the first family in Genesis, is not merely the fall of Adam and Eve, but how the whole creation is God’s very plan for redemption of the universe and the salvation of mankind. This perspective changes the understood purpose of the Gospel from being preoccupied with the fall of humankind to God-centered Missio Dei.

From Eternity to Here resembles the expository apologetic style of Augustine in De Civitate Dei. But instead of being philosophical, what we have here is much more a narrative, very similar to the approach taken by St. Symeon the New Theologian.

The view of God’s love being presented is similar to the way Karl Barth treats it in his commentary to the Romans. Perhaps this is because Viola sees it from his own experience of knowing God which tries to see it from God’s own perspective through God’s grace. When speaking of the ultimate purpose of God for mankind and the universe, Viola, almost like Barth, walks on the edges of universalism. While it is true that God draws the creation to Himself through His love, a careful theologian would make their audience aware of the danger of universalism, unless they believe such a soteriological view. So, I wrote Viola to ask if he subscribes to universalism and his response was that he did not. And it seems it would be quite difficult for him to be a Universalist, because of what he believes about the reality of Hell.

The three discourses of the book have been much discussed since its publication, yet a few observations are in order. Part one represents an ageless romance of a transcendent and eternal God who creates His bride and reconciles the entire creation with Himself in order to redeem her back to His love. It is a passion that passes through space and time like no other.

The second narrative shows God on a mission. And while the Creator is described as “homeless” and searching for a home within His own creation, His mission is only completed in making mankind His home. Thus, the creation searches with God and a deserted and wildered mankind is found by God and finds eternal rest in Him alone.

This introduces the third “new species” discourse that resolves the dilemma of one whole generation, reconciling the story of the Bible with a postmodern mindset. The union of Adam and Eve also puts a completely new perspective on the Biblical role of women and it makes an interesting case for their equal roles in creation and ministry.

Disappointment has been expressed in the unchurched language used in the book to describe God’s emotions, but what about a sermon preached in 1741 by Jonathan Edwards under the name “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”? Yet, a warning is indeed in order as the beginning of the 21st century is marked by a surge of postmodern apologetics through which Christian authors address issues outside the institutionalized church (social, political and economic) with the language of the people. But this attempt often goes so “deep undercover” that it remains foreign even to the church itself. A prime example for this phenomenon was the Purpose Driven Church, which being a powerful address to the unchurched, often remains a mystery to many mainline Christians who simply could not separate themselves from the known church language. Could we find a balanced way to present Biblical truths while keeping the language of the Bible itself?

Study Bible Series

There has been a growing number of Study Bibles released in the last few years and Dony Donev is reviewing them along with some classic Study Bibles. Dr. Donev will be evaluating each of the Bibles by focusing on subjects such as the gifts and ministry of the Holy Spirit, free will and the security of the believer, as well as prophecy and eschatology.

John C. Maxwell, ed., Maxwell Leadership Bible, Revised and Updated edition (Thomas Nelson, 2007).

The Maxwell Leadership Bible has drawn lots of attention especially with the publication of John Maxwell’s new bestseller Sometimes You Win—Sometimes You Learn: Life’s Greatest Lessons Are Gained from Our Losses, which deconstructs the winning model of church leadership on a totally different level. We’ve used his study Bible through the years especially in cases of young ministers’ training and mentorship.

Instead of a page by page annotation, the Maxwell Bible setup contains inline articles and discussions on various leadership issues within the text. Over 100 biographical profiles of Biblical leaders and short articles are combined with the philosophy behind two other bestsellers on leadership by the author: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow.

John C. Maxwell

The Maxwell Bible is not oriented to be organized by doctrines. Therefore, there’s not much on eschatology and particularly little regarding either the Rapture or Tribulation. Nevertheless, the lessons from the Seven Churches of Revelation are abundantly annotated and worthy to be read privately or taught in a classroom setting, intended to be taken literary and applied to today’s ecclesial reality.

Study Bible Series

There has been a growing number of Study Bibles released in the last few years and Dony Donev is reviewing them along with some classic Study Bibles. Dr. Donev will be evaluating each of the Bibles by focusing on subjects such as the gifts and ministry of the Holy Spirit, free will and the security of the believer, as well as prophecy and eschatology.

Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation, eds., The Mission of God Study Bible (Holman Bible Publishers, 2012).

The Mission of God Study Bible is edited by Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation and contains essays and commentaries by over 50 contributors including Billy Graham and Jack Hayford. Significant place is given to quotes from Francis Dubose’s 1983 book, God Who Sends. The primary purpose is to introduce a missional manifesto to the church of the 21^st century. Beside book introductions, essays and cross-reference annotations, it promotes ideas from the Bible as QR Codes, text messages and notes from God using the Holman Christian Standard Bible text as a foundation.

The initial commentary introduces God’s mission in creating the world and the divine plan to reconnect with His creation into a promise of an eternal land. The passages of our usual consideration (Numbers 6 and Jeremiah 18) are not particularly commented; however, the introduction to Numbers begins with a beautiful analogy of how serious God takes His mission leading the Israelites for 40 years in the wilderness. The notes on Jeremiah also contain Glenn Barth’s Dwelling and Working for God in the City.

Although not written primarily by Pentecostal authors, the commentary on Acts includes a very charismatic key to revival through making disciples using: (1) empowerment, (2) education and (3) evolving. This process is described as inclusive and hospitable to all in two articles on the gentile conversion in Acts 10. The mission of the Christian ministry is enriched by the gifts of the Spirit, as annotated by Ed Stetzer in 1 Corinthians 14, through the source, search and sovereignty of spirituality. But the mission is also inseparable from the marketplace as described in connection with the Corinthian church Acts 18.

Ed Stetzer

The pneumatological and ministry related commentaries connect well with the urgency of missiological eschatology starting with the phrase “In the Spirit” (Revelation 4:2). The notes conclude with another article with an urban theme on the Heavenly City. The eschatological mission in Revelation is explained as “Refocusing and Renewing the Church.” An article about Hudson Taylor, missionary to China, is placed next to the story of the two witnesses, expressing the eschatological urgency to reach the whole world with the Gospel. This coincides with two commentaries on the Great Commission in Matthew 28, “The Mission of God and the Mission in the Church” and “Go Therefore.”

Overall a great missional tool with over 150 commentary notes and articles begins with the missional manifesto and concluding with the “Letters to the Church” from elder statesmen like Billy Graham, Jack Hayford, R. T. Kendall, Erwin Lutzer, Calvin Miller, and R.C. Sproul.

Reviewed by Dony K. Donev

Publisher’s page: http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/products/the-mission-of-god-study-bible-hardcover/

“Strange Fire”? Not in a Global Pentecostal Context of Ministry

An international panel of ministry veterans responds to John MacArthur’s Strange Fire

Dony K. Donev with Dennis Balcombe, Hanny Setiawan and Marius Lombaard

John MacArthur, Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit with Counterfeit Worship (Nelson Books, 2013).

Almost one year ago, internationally known author John MacArthur began campaigning for his new book Strange Fire. With lots of material written beforehand by many who had not even read the book, the actual premiere was at a conference with the same name, not without some scandal to help its wide popularization. But scandal was hardly needed when the book classified most (if not all) Charismatics around the world as heretics. Тhe bottom line for MacArthur’s work was deconstruction modern day Charismatic theology and exposing it as unbiblical.

Do Pentecostal churches really offer a “strange fire” as MacArthur proposes? Could charismatic extremes practiced by some be evident in all Charismatic churches and classical Pentecostal denominations? And is it possible to declare a world wide movement of half a billion strong as heretical by observing random examples among less than 3% (three percent) of its representatives residing in North America?

The premise of this ad hominem attack is surprising, when even in Pentecostal scholarly circles we have long debated some Charismatic praxis as wrong and destructive to the movement as a whole. So, when an outsider to Pentecostalism as MacArthur jumps in and claims all Pentecostals are bad because some Charismatics have been found in the wrong, the normal response is simply to disagree. Especially when these extremes do not concern Pentecostalism globally, but as MacArthur himself admits, are defined to a North American context of ministry and even more strict and limited Charismatic circle of neo-Pentecostalism.

The purpose of this article, therefore, is to present the view of Classic Pentecostals, as deferred from the variety non-Pentecostal Charismatics. And to discuss MacArthur’s assumptions in an international Pentecostal context, though Strange Fire refuses to view Pentecostalism as the global power it has become. Perhaps, the very weakness of any theological work that seeks international recognition, but fortifies its argument only within the perimeter of westernized theology. To provoke an even deeper discussion, the study explores five of the major arguments of Strange Fire within the ministry context of Pentecostals from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.

Apostolic Relevance or a New Apostolic Reformation?

Admittedly, MacArthur strongest point within his attack on Pentecostals is outlining Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation movement. And even quoting Vinson Synan, who was invited to join the network for $69 a month, but declined with the response, “I could not afford to be an apostle.” But how concerned is the larger Pentecostal world about this apostolic movement? And how important is NAR in global Pentecostalism today?

Study Bible Series

There has been a growing number of Study Bibles released in the last few years and Dony Donev is reviewing them along with some classic Study Bibles. Dr. Donev will be evaluating each of the Bibles by focusing on subjects such as the gifts and ministry of the Holy Spirit, free will and the security of the believer, as well as prophecy and eschatology.

Jack Hayford, ed., Spirit Filled Life Bible: A Personal Study Bible Unveiling All God’s Fullness in All God’s Word (Thomas Nelson, 1991).

The Spirit Filled Life Bible is another great example of a Pentecostal study Bible from the 90s, which sets the stage for this century’s Study Bible revival. It was edited by Jack Hayford who later served as president and chancellor of King’s University (formerly The King’s College and Seminary). The text provides Bible commentary from a conservative Pentecostal perspective and study notes are a bit more detailed than the Fire Bible.

For example, the first Old Testament control passage we use in our study from Numbers 6 is well documented and discussed almost verse by verse. Under the title of “Priestly Blessing,” the Spirit Filled Life Bible makes the case for: (1) wave offering as part of worship (v.20), (2) personal blessing through the singular “you” in the original Hebrew (v.22), (3) a definition of blessing (v. 24) and much more on the final phrases in the blessing: “make His face shine upon you” and “lift up His countenance upon you.”

Jeremiah 18 also has several historical commentaries in the Spirit Filled Life Bible as part of Jeremiah’s laments described in a note in chapter 11. The point here is being made that the responsibility for the law in the Old Testament was given to the priest.

Latest redesign of this popular Study Bible: New Spirit-Filled Life Bible: Kingdom Equipping Through the Power of the Word

The doctrine of the Rapture is commented in Revelation 4 in both the footnotes and a special block note within the text. The first one gives three views of the Last Days (dispensational, futurist and historic/preterist), while the second correlates with the elements of John’s vision. The dispensational interpretation is offered in continuity with the interpretation of the 7 Churches of Asia-Minor. Two other block notes with markings “Word Wealth” and “Kingdom Dynamics” are placed in 1 Thess. 5 explaining the origin of the word “Rapture.” Pentecostals will find it significant that the phrase “in the Spirit” is explained as “a state of heightened spiritual sensitivity.”

The Tribulation is also clearly explained as post-Rapture event with a classic interpretation of the prophecy given in the text of Daniel 8. The 24 elders are viewed as “evidence of the church’s exemption from the Great Tribulation” as they “are already glorified, enthroned and crowned,” which without a doubt proceeds from pre-Millennial doctrinal interpretation.

The doctrine of the Trinity is preserved as per the Biblical Truths of the Foursquare Church, namely: “Trinity of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.” The word “Trinity” itself is absent from the detailed word Concordance at the end of the Spirit Filled Life Bible. And although it is not present in the actual Biblical text, it is persistently present in the commentaries. This is true even in the largely disputed (from a manuscript point of view) 1 John 5:5-6 which is explained as trinitarian in the comments.

Study Bible Series

There has been a growing number of Study Bibles released in the last few years and Dony Donev is reviewing them along with some classic Study Bibles. Dr. Donev will be evaluating each of the Bibles by focusing on subjects such as the gifts and ministry of the Holy Spirit, free will and the security of the believer, as well as prophecy and eschatology.

Fire Bible: Global Study Edition (Hendrickson Publishers, 2010).

I’ve been personally following and using the Fire Bible since it was called the Full Life Study Bible. And not mainly because it is Pentecostal (much like Dake’s and Spirit Filled Life Bibles), but more so because a good portion of the commentaries were written by one of my favorite professors in seminary, Dr. French Arrington. Therefore, I was very truly blessed when our ministry was able to participate in the translation and promoting this great work in Bulgaria.

Beginning with our usual control passages from the Old Testament, Number 6 contains a great detail of explanation on the vow and practice of the Nazarite law. Furthermore, there is a special note on “Wine in the Old Testament” in the Fire Bible, and the Aaronic benediction at the end of the chapter is specifically marked, outlined and discussed as two articles are cited in connection with “Faith and Grace” and “The Peace of God.”

Our second control passage in Jeremiah 18 is also not left without discussion. Actually, the commentary in v.8 makes two powerful points on God taking account spiritual changes in our lives and not forcing our decision despite knowing the final outcome; thus presenting a typical Pentecostal approach on free will, God’s sovereignty and foreknowledge, which is further discussed in the article on “Election and Predestination.”

The doctrine of the Rapture is not only mentioned in Revelation 4, but preceded with a special article from 1 Thessalonians and a detailed chart of Last Day Events in the forward of Revelation in both the early and the Fire editions. The Tribulation is also clearly explained as a post-Rapture event, divided in two parts and well documented with Scripture references. Additionally, in a very balanced Pentecostal manner, the dispensations, although noted by some, are not explicitly defended in the pre-Millennial system. The significance of the phrase “in the Spirit” is dully noted, which brings us to pneumatology.

In regards to Pentecostal theology, the doctrine of Trinity is presented in a careful, orthodox way that follows the Athanasius Confession. The only possible criticism could be that there’s no mention of the fact that some early Pentecostal groups did indeed teach Jesus-only doctrine. The Holy Ghost baptism is both theoretically and practically explained in the forward to Acts, while there’s an additional article on Speaking in Tongues after Acts 2. This is further mentioned in a comment after Mark 16 followed by an article on Spiritual Gifts in 1 Corinthians 12.