Here is a book that lingers in the mind like an unresolved chord. In the cacophony of modern theology, where the church often whispers from the shadows of institutional safety, Wolfgang Vondey’s The Scandal of Pentecost: A Theology of the Public Church erupts like the biblical wind and fire it describes—demanding we confront the raw, disruptive birth of the Christian community not as a tidy origin story, but as a scandalous intrusion into public life.

Vondey, a prominent Pentecostal theologian and professor at the University of Birmingham, draws from his deep roots in Pentecostal scholarship to reframe Pentecost as the foundational event where the church emerges as a “public symbol of humanity,” embodying both brokenness and redemption. The book weaves biblical exegesis, historical theology, and philosophical anthropology into a narrative that challenges privatized views of Pentecost. It argues that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on “all flesh” (Acts 2:17) isn’t a mere spiritual footnote but a transformative scandal, revealing the church’s symbiotic tensions—internal conflicts and external confrontations—that propel it into the world.

Vondey’s engagement with the concept of the church as a public symbol is another highlight of the book. Drawing on the work of public theologians such as Martin Marty, he argues that the church’s public witness is not merely a matter of visibility or influence, but of embodying “the communal character of faith” in a world marked by fragmentation and conflict (p. 8). The church, he writes, is “a faith built of ‘broken symbols,’ manifested above all in the scandal of the crucified Christ” (p. 91). The public nature of the church is thus inseparable from its willingness to embrace brokenness, vulnerability, and the tensions of life in a pluralistic society (p. 91). Vondey is clear that the church’s public vocation is not about triumphalism or domination, but about offering “ordering against chaos and meaning where it had been absent” (p. 12). The church’s task, he suggests, is to engage in a “public hermeneutic” that interprets Christian symbols in ways that are persuasive and life-giving, both within and beyond the boundaries of the faith community (p. 20).

Before I rest my pen, one thing must not go unnoticed: not every academic theological book ends with a poem, but Wolfgang Vondey’s choice to conclude poetically is both striking and fitting. The poem distills the book’s central themes into a vivid, almost breathless sequence of images, capturing the disruptive and transformative energy of Pentecost. Vondey’s language is intentionally visceral—“heart-beating, lips-stammering / sons and daughters / in scandalous intoxication”—evoking the embodied, communal, and even chaotic nature of the Spirit’s outpouring. It’s a powerful poetic summary that resonates long after the final page.

In conclusion, The Scandal of Pentecost is a significant and inspiring contribution to Pentecostal theology and to the wider conversation about the church’s place in the world. It is a work of both scholarship and imagination, rooted in tradition yet open to the future. For those seeking to articulate a public theology of Pentecostalism—one that is both faithful to the Spirit and responsive to the complexities of contemporary life—Vondey’s book is an indispensable resource. It challenges us to embrace the scandal of the Spirit, to risk new forms of community, and to bear witness to the hope that is within us. But perhaps the most enduring gift of Vondey’s work is its reminder that the church’s true vocation is not to seek safety or respectability, but to live in the creative tension of the Spirit’s leading. The scandal of Pentecost is that God’s Spirit refuses to be domesticated—refuses to be confined to our institutions, our traditions, or our comfort zones. Instead, the Spirit calls us out—into the world, into relationship, into the risky, joyful, and sometimes messy work of building communion in the midst of difference. To embrace the scandal of Pentecost is to open ourselves to the Spirit’s surprising, unsettling, and renewing work—not only for our own sake, but for the life of the world.

Reviewed by Ciprian Gheorghe-Luca

You’ve seen it before … an old house that goes through an extreme makeover—It’s like a brand new home!

The attraction is the compelling contrast between life before and life after.

Image: Milivoj Kuhar

Consider, then, the contrast between the Christian life before and the Christian life after the Holy Spirit comes upon you!

After for Christians:

• receive power, be witnesses (Acts 1:8)
• magnify God (Acts 10:46)
• live according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:5)
• put to death the deeds of the body (Rom. 8:13)
• receive gifts of the Spirit (I Cor. 12:4)
• walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16)
• be led by the Spirit (Gal. 5:18)

This is the Promise. The Gift is the Holy Spirit. Embrace the Spirit on this Pentecost weekend!

 Interview with Rev. Dr. Tania Harris about her new book, God Dreams: How to Hear God’s Voice in Dreams and Vision

PneumaReview.com: You have recently published a new book about dreams and visions. Please name some New Testament believers who experienced dreams and visions.

Tania Harris: All the key characters – Joseph, Stephen, Paul, Peter, Agabus, John. Dreams and visions are the most common mode of divine communication under both the Old and New Covenants.

PneumaReview.com: A modern-day Christian might say “Those were the experiences of the biblical characters. But why should we think that we might have these same types of experiences in our time?” How would you answer that question?

Tania Harris: Because the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost gave every believer full and direct access to the voice of the Holy Spirit through visions and dreams (Acts 2:17, 2:39).

PneumaReview.com: Would you say that some Christians are more prone to experience dreams and visions than others?

PneumaReview.com: Do these experiences seem to come regularly in a person’s life or only at important or critical points in their life?

Tania Harris: It’s not really possible to accurately answer that question since everyone’s walk with the Holy Spirit is unique. It’s similar to the question, how often does the Holy Spirit speak? Perhaps the best answer is, as often as God needs to and as readily as we listen. The measure of someone’s walk is not the number of experiences or the level of their ecstatic nature, but how we respond to them. As Jesus said, “my people hear my voice and they follow.” (from John 10:27)

PneumaReview.com: Dreams and visions are very subjective experiences. What can we as individual believers do to help us determine which ones are from God and which are not?

Tania Harris: Every encounter with the Holy Spirit is subjective and must be tested (1 John 4:1). We need to have the confidence to know that we can hear from God as well as the humility to know we can get it wrong. As the Apostle Paul said, we don’t hear and see clearly (1 Cor. 13:12).

PneumaReview.com: In view of the fact that dreams and visions are personal experiences, can input from other Christians be helpful in determining the correct interpretation

Tania Harris: This is the second element of discernment we see in the early church. When God spoke to Peter in a dream-vision about the Gentile inclusion, others were involved in the discernment process – including Cornelius, and later – because it was a church-wide issue – the church leadership at the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:28)

PneumaReview.com: Why do you think that some visions are symbolic in nature rather than plainly stated? Peter’s vision in Acts 10 is one example.

Tania Harris: In fact, nearly all dream-visions are symbolic. They speak the language of pictures and imagery, which neuroscientists tell us is the most powerful and effective form of communication. Perhaps this is why dream-visions are God’s favoured mode in Scripture! It is the most basic of languages and transcends all communication barriers. You may have heard the phrase: “a picture tells a thousand words!” Once you understand the language of pictures, dream-visions are not difficult to understand.

PneumaReview.com: In your research have you found that more people have dreams or visions?

Tania Harris: I haven’t done quantitative research so can’t give a definitive answer on this. (Note also, in the biblical terminology, the terms for dreams and visions are interchangeable). I suspect more people admit to having visions because it is more socially acceptable to say, “I saw a picture as I prayed” rather than “I saw a picture/scene as I slept.” Having said that, anecdotally, I have noted it is not uncommon for at least 50% of congregations to say they’ve have had a God-dream – they’ve just never shared it with others for fear of being labelled strange!

PneumaReview.com: What advice would you give to pastors to help them guide the people under their care to be open to dreams and visions but not fall into error or fanaticism regarding them?

Tania Harris: As with any hearing God experience, we need to train our congregations to discern the voice of God. Telling people they can hear God’s voice without training them to discern it is like giving a toddler a loaded gun. In my experience, this is a common problem and why we have a strong emphasis in the God Conversations ministry in this area. See our resource that leads the whole church community on the hearing God journey, 50 Days of God Conversations.

PneumaReview.com: Please tell our readers a little bit about your latest book God Dreams: How to Hear God’s Voice in Dreams and Vision as well as where they can purchase it.

Tania Harris: Here is the blurb:

God Dreams: How to hear God’s voice in dreams and visions

God’s most common way of speaking in biblical history is through dreams and visions. But today many of us are more likely to dismiss our visionary experiences as the product of a spicy meal rather than a potential message from God. But could we be missing out on the voice we so long to hear?

Drawing on her ministry experience, theological research and the Revelation experiences of the early church, Tania Harris explores the nature of dream-visions, where they come from, and how to interpret their symbolic and sometimes confusing language. You will learn how to hear God’s voice more clearly and that a picture truly can tell a thousand words.

“A brilliant book!” (Pete Greig)

Available here.

Available from Amazon (USA): https://amzn.to/40PYyGI

I cannot recall exactly how I learned of this book that was published almost fifty years ago. The book is out of print and only available from used book dealers [Editor’s note: The same is true for the 1993 edition from Servant Books]. I may have discovered it via a footnote in a more recent book or academic paper, or a mention in a social media post. However I learned about it, I’m glad I did.

Bruce Yocum, the author, was one of the founding members of an ecumenical Charismatic Renewal community called “The Word of God” in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967, which places him in the rise of the Charismatic movement in the mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. Yocum was also a leader in “Servants of the Word,” an international brotherhood of celibate laymen.

The book has two major sections, consisting of four chapters each. The first section discusses the role of the prophet in the church, and the second examines how to grow in the prophetic gifts.

In a statement that seems to prefigure Roger Stronstad’s The Prophethood of All Believers, Yocum writes in the introduction, “It is not only very special people who get to hear God speak. Every Christian can know God in a direct and personal way and can hear the Lord speaking to him.”

Chapter three, “The Prophet’s Role,” investigates what part the person with a prophetic gift plays in the church today. “A true Christian prophet has a role demanding the same vigilance and the same sustained exercise of responsibility. His role can be described under five headings: to receive and proclaim the word; to actively seek out God’s will and God’s word; to ‘stir up’ his gift; to ‘watch over’ the word given and see it acted upon and fulfilled; and to intercede before God on behalf of the church.” While a prophet can “stir up” the gift within, this “does not mean that a prophet can prophesy whatever he wishes and whenever he wishes. Prophecy will always depend upon the action of the Holy Spirit.” Yocum’s teaching here is in stark contrast to much of what we see in purported prophetic ministries today, especially those whose primary arena of influence is not in service to the local church, but on YouTube and other media platforms, where the constant expectation to have a “fresh word” for every new year or every new event in the news cycle drives people to speak out of their own imaginations, rather than from the Spirit.

The fourth chapter delves into how prophecy is governed and administered in the Christian community. Both prophets (by their way of life) and prophecies (by their alignment with special revelation recorded in Scripture) are to be discerned by the elders and the broader community, as there is always the possibility that someone could use the claim of having a prophetic gift to invest his or her own ideas with the authority of God. When God wants to speak a word that requires a definite response from His people, He will usually give the message to multiple people in the community, and not just to a single prophet. This helps protect the community from a “rogue prophet” who is using the guise of prophecy to manipulate. In the Christian community, “the elders have the authority to declare on behalf of the community that a particular prophecy is a word from the Lord. In other words, it is the heads who have the responsibility to discern and the authority to govern prophecy. They, and not the prophets, have the final word.” Contrary to some popular teachings today, the prophet is not the supreme authority in church leadership.

In the second section of the book, chapter five gives instructions about beginning to exercise the prophetic gift. Yocum makes it clear that even when someone receives the gift of prophecy, he or she should not expect to have prophetic revelations on a daily basis. Additionally, when one prophecies, the prophet does not need to speak in elevated language for the prophecy to have the effect God intends. “I have not yet heard a prophecy fail to communicate the Lord’s message because it was cast in simple everyday language. I have, however, heard people trying so hard to use beautiful language that they failed to express God’s word.” Even though the charismata are given as gifts by God, we have to learn how to administer them properly on His behalf.

The sixth chapter lays out various forms prophecy can take. Prophetic exhortation or encouragement, inspired prayer (where the Spirit is prompting and guiding the direction of the prayer topics and wording), prophecy in song, revelation (Yocum’s description of this form parallels what some commonly call a “word of knowledge”), personal prophecy, visions, prophetic actions, and tongues accompanied by interpretation are all possibilities.

The eighth chapter focuses on growing in prophetic service. The more people seek to serve one another out of holy love, the more their desire to see the Spirit’s gifts in operation will be properly motivated (to serve others and meet needs rather than draw attention to one’s self). If our focus is on being something in the church, rather than serving others in love (even possibly in obscurity), then something has gone wrong. A good test of our motives is how we react when another individual begins to be used more in the gifts than we are. “If we become unhappy or jealous, we show that our true desire is to earn ourselves a reputation or attract other people’s attention.” I once heard it said that if I am not willing to minister hidden behind a curtain, where no one knows who I am or what function I am performing, then I have no business ministering on the platform. “A servant is not supposed to do what he likes to do, but what his master gives him to do. The good servant is one who takes care to do just what his master instructs him—neither more nor less.”

Overall, I found Prophecy to be a very well-written treatment of this spiritual gift’s place in the church, with a healthy balance between being open to hearing God speak today, and weighing everything by the standard of the scriptural witness, while making sure our own motivations stay pure. As Yocum says in the afterword, “Certainly we do not have to have the gift of prophecy operating in the church. But if God offers the gift, if the gift will increase our effectiveness in serving God and our neighbor, then it is wrong to decline it. “

If you can find an affordable used copy of this book, or a library that still has a volume available, I highly encourage reading it.

Reviewed by Brian Roden

The editor, Robert W. Graves is a Pentecostal scholar and president of The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship. This non-profit encourages Pentecostal/Charismatic authors, with awards for excellent new works. Mr. Graves has had a long-standing passion to defend Charismatic and Pentecostal claims of the present-day activity and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The topic of the book, a rebuttal of cessationism, is both important and sad. It is sad because many good Christians still dispute the reality of the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 12–14) in the life of the contemporary church. This is over a hundred years after the Azusa Street revival and over sixty years after the Charismatic renewal burst among mainline churches. The suspicion and resistance to the operation of these gifts came under renewed attack in recent decades by the popular and influential ministry of the Rev. John MacArthur. His radio ministry and multiple books have lambasted gifts of the Spirit as bogus and their practice as heretical. This reviewer has had the honor of being the object of his critical comments with an entire chapter criticizing my work.[1] In fact Mr. Graves edited an earlier volume of essays dedicated to responding to MacArthur’s cessationist best-seller, Strange Fire.[2]

The Kingdom Case against Cessationism has a forward by Dr. Craig Keener, currently the most well-known and distinguished Charismatic New Testament scholar. The book is made up of 12 chapters by various authors, several of which are widely known and respected, such as Randy Clark and Michael Brown. But all are distinguished scholars in their fields.

The articles are uniformly excellent, and I found Randy Clark’s contribution, “The Inaugurated Kingdom of God–Now and Not Yet,” particularly useful. The same for Mr. Graves’s contribution, “Cessationism and the Struggle for the Promises and Commands of Jesus.”

The Kingdom Case against Cessationism contains three essays by Jon Ruthven, whose death has been a serious loss to Pentecostal scholarship (and to whom this book is dedicated). They were taken from his PhD masterpiece that also produced On the Cessation of the Charismata.[3]

The Kingdom Case against Cessationism has an index of persons as well as an index of biblical citations and ancient church sources. It is especially valuable to pastors and church leaders who have people in their congregations who still hold to the cessationist view. It is a handy source of biblical answers to the folly and “heresy” of cessationism. Mr. Graves is to be commended for his scholarly and useful work for the Charismatic/Pentecostal churches.

Reviewed by William De Arteaga

Notes

[1] John MacArthur, Reckless Faith (Crossway, 1994).

[2] (Nashville Thomas Nelson, 2013) See Strangers to Fire: When Tradition Trumps Scripture (Tulsa: Empowered Life Academic-Harrison House, 2014). [Editor’s note: See the Strange Fire roundup at PneumaReview.com: “Are Pentecostals offering Strange Fire?” See also the PneumaReview.com interview with Strangers To Fire editor Robert Graves and reviews by Tony Richie, John Lathrop, and further reflections by Jon Ruthven.]

[3] Jon Ruthven, On the Cessation of the Charismata (Tulsa: Word and Spirit, 2010). [Editor’s note: See Amos Yong’s review of Jon Ruthven: On the Cessation of the Charismata.]

Stephen D. Barkley, director of pastoral leadership and campus pastor at Master’s College and Seminary in Ontario, Canada, offers an intriguing study on contemporary prophetic practice in the Pentecostal/Charismatic context. Barkley, being a Pentecostal scholar and practitioner, explores anew the prophetic ministry through the lens of socio-theological inquiry. His utilization of both social scientific lenses and theological lenses resulted in this empirical study that explores, analyzes, and consequently validates the sacramental and contemporary significance of prophecy in the Christian church today.

The prophetic ministry has been plagued by controversies both within and outside Pentecostal circles. Numerous publications have been produced in the theological effort of exploring, understanding, and analyzing the ongoing practice of prophecy in Pentecostal/Charismatic churches worldwide. Barkley joins the conversation by dialoguing Old Testament prophecy with present-day personal experiences in Pentecostal/Charismatic circles. Interestingly, he finds an avenue for dialectic conversation in the intersection of social science and theology. The resulting research became his dissertation, now published in this book form, Pentecostal Prophets.

Having clearly stated the book’s underlying assumption, Barkley describes charismatic prophecy as a “leitmotiv” in the Bible as well as in Christian Church history (11). Simply defined, prophecy for him, is a message communicated from God through a spokesperson for a recipient (whether a community, an individual, or an occasion) (13). Barkley affirms the centrality of prophecy in the ministries of Pentecostals, and its various streams like those affiliated with the Third Wave movement or those considered as Charismatic or Neocharismatic. For Pentecostals, prophecy or the prophetic experience is a key component of Christian spirituality.

The book comprising of six chapters flows like a dissertation report, but with reader-friendly editing. In the first chapter the basic details of the study are clearly laid out, including research questions, assumptions, and methods. In chapter two, the literature review is presented. In said chapter, theoretical and empirical studies done on the practice of prophecy are thematically discussed. The chapter ends with Barkley by offering the study as a contribution to the ongoing theological discussion and a corrective to the over-emphasis on discontinuity between Old Testament prophecy and New Testament prophecy.

In chapter 3, Barkley discusses the experience of Hebrew prophets, specifically highlighting Jeremiah. In chapter 4, he presents data on contemporary experience of prophecy from personal experience, as well as from respondents who are practitioners in prophetic ministry. In chapter 5, the author brings both worlds of Old Testament prophets and contemporary prophets in dialectical conversation. The final chapter offers the author’s findings, limitations, conclusions, and suggested areas for research. The book is a tightly presented case for Pentecostal/Charismatic prophecy.

I recommend the book to those interested in understanding prophetic practice and spirituality. As Barkley explains, the book is beneficial to “the ordinary, the ecclesial and the academic” (17). His study certainly gives us a new perspective in understanding the similarities (or dissimilarities) between Old Testament prophetic practice and contemporary prophetic practice. It also provides insights into a specific context of prophetic ministry, namely that of the PAOC and PAONL. The theological reflections offered can guide the praxis and policy development of prophetic practice in Pentecostal/Charismatic churches today.

Reviewed by Lora Angeline E. Timenia

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781666768022/pentecostal-prophets/

If you read the biographical information about Dr. Hämäläinen on the back cover of the book you will see that he is very involved in both Pentecostalism and missions. Here are just two of the ministries that he has served in: the World Missions Commission of the Pentecostal World Fellowship, he was its founding chairman, and the Asia Pentecostal Mission (back cover). He is also the co-author of To the Ends of the Earth: Building a National Missionary Sending Structure (Baguio City, Philippines: Asia Pacific Theological Seminary Press, 2020) which he wrote with Ulf Strohbehn [Editor’s note: read John Lathrop’s review]. The Holy Spirit and missions go together, Jesus connected the two in Acts 1:8. In that verse He said that the power of the Holy Spirit would enable His followers to be witnesses for Him.

Section 1 of the book is called “Vital Aspects of the Holy Spirit” (pages 5,10). Hämäläinen says that this section deals with “matters related to the actions of the Holy Spirit” (page 8). After an introductory section the remainder of this section is divided into five subcategories (page 5). He writes about why the Baptism with the Holy Spirit is important (pages 10-16), the purpose of the power of the Holy Spirit, which is equipping for outreach (pages 16-21), spiritual gifts (pages 22-48), the fruit of the Holy Spirit (pages 49-61), and how signs and wonders follow the preaching of the Word of God (pages 61-64).

Section 3 is titled “Features Related to Church Activities” (pages 5, 89). The writer says that this section deals with “characteristics related to the activities of the church” (page 8), it contains 9 subcategories (page 5). These deal with: the importance of the local church, with considerable space given to the subject of water baptism (pages 89-95), evangelism and church growth (pages 95-98), revival and success (pages 99-102), the “Priesthood of All Believers” (pages 102-107), the central importance of the Bible (pages 107-113), a holistic view of humanity (pages 113-117), being culturally sensitive (pages 118-122), church unity (pages 123-128), balancing structure and the leadership of the Holy Spirit (pages 129-132), and prayer (pages 132-139).

The conclusion of the book is very brief, just 2 pages. In it the author references Psalm 71:18 in which the psalmist speaks about declaring God’s power to the next generation. This is Dr. Hämäläinen’s desire. He wants to point the younger generations to the time-tested truths that have produced great blessings to peoples around the globe (page 140). He believes that the ministry of the Holy Spirit has played a vital role in the growth and success of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements (pages 140-141). Near the beginning of the book he urged readers to “dig into the original foundations” which caused such tremendous growth in the early church (page 9). When we do we will have a truly biblical Pentecostal faith.

As one scans the topics mentioned above it becomes clear that a lot of ground is covered in this volume. Some of the material is decidedly Pentecostal in nature and some of the content would be held in common with other Bible-believing Christians. The author affirms the positive aspects of Pentecostalism, for example its belief in and reliance on the ministry of the Holy Spirit (page 9) but he also acknowledges some of its weaknesses. For example, some in the Pentecostal Movement adhere to a Word of Faith or prosperity gospel (page 101) and Pentecostalism has a reputation of fracturing or dividing (page 123). Dr. Hämäläinen is very familiar with the Pentecostal experience and movement. He was filled with the Holy Spirit when he was 12 years old (page 13). And his ministry involvements, which are listed on the back cover of the book, have put him in touch with Pentecostals around the world.

Reviewed by John Lathrop

Further Reading

“The Importance of Baptism with the Holy Spirit” an excerpt from Arto Hämäläinen’s book, The DNA of the Spirit-Empowered Christians and Churches

An excerpt from Michael L. Brown’s latest book: Seize the Moment: How to Fuel the Fires of Revival.

Revival is God’s work. It comes from the heavenly throne, not from human effort, and it comes with intensity. That is the very essence of revival: it is sovereign (in that we cannot schedule it or make it happen), and it is intense (in that it comes with force and power in order to bring about radical change). Just as the fire alarm is meant to wake people up and stir them to action, revival is meant to awaken sleeping believers, to alert the lost to their condition, and to fill the hungry and thirsty in dramatic and lasting ways.

If it’s not intense, it’s not revival. If it’s not overwhelming at times, it’s not a real outpouring. And if it doesn’t test your faith in God and your trust in the Spirit’s leadership, it’s not a real visitation.

This is not spiritual rocket science. It’s Revival 101. But this is where we often fail, wanting to conform the revival to our sensibilities, wanting to avoid the reproach of the unusual, wanting to avoid the fear of the unknown, wanting to keep things under our own control.

So, mark this down and never forget it: the moment you try to tame the revival, you end the revival. The moment you decide to quench the Spirit, the fire will go out. It may not happen at that very instant, but soon enough, there will be no doubt at all. You have put out the flames, and you cannot start them again. You have tried to take control and harness the Spirit. You have ended the move of God in your midst. We must be very careful here!

This chapter, “Never Try to Control the Spirit’s Work,” is an excerpt from Michael L. Brown, Seize the Moment: How to Fuel the Fires of Revival (Charisma House, 2024).

If you want an outpouring that you can turn on and turn off, then you don’t want a real outpouring. If you want a visitation that fits conveniently in your schedule, then you don’t want a real visitation. If you want a lovely home-and-garden type of revival, then you really don’t want revival at all.

Elsewhere in this book, I talk about the dangers of overwork (chapter 18) and about the importance of being conscious of the condition of your flock (chapter 17). I also warn about the dangers of getting caught up in weird doctrines and practices (chapter 7). It is important to find a sustainable pace if you’re experiencing a multimonth (or, even more, multiyear) revival. It is important to be wise stewards of the revival and to shepherd the move of God (see chapter 11). Demonic activity should not be tolerated. Fleshly responses should be gently corrected. Spiritual oversight is needed.

But all that is very different from trying to control or harness the Spirit. All that is very different from quenching the holy fires. Instead, we must wholeheartedly embrace what God is doing, no matter how challenging that may be (see chapter 19). We must fall on our faces and say, “Let God be God!” We must submit our programs and plans to the Lord’s programs and plans, in many cases scrapping our own entirely. More than ever, we must say, “Your will be done!”

Again, like everything else in this book, this is easier said than done, more easily theorized than realized. It’s like looking at an obstacle course thinking, “I can do this easily,” only to fall into the water after the very first hurdle. There’s a reason others fell into the water too.

Most of us who love the Holy Spirit would say, “Of course I would embrace everything He does.” But when He comes with suddenness (at the wrong time, in fact!), when He comes with intensity (this is a bit much!), and when He comes for a while (we’re ready to go home now!), that’s when the rubber meets the road. It’s one thing to pray and fast for revival. It’s another thing to welcome revival when it comes.

John Kilpatrick would be the first to tell you that he was somewhat of a control freak before the revival came. And although his church was technically Pentecostal, belonging to the Assemblies of God, he said you would not have known that if not for the sign in front of the building. Everything was under control.

But when revival came suddenly on Father’s Day 1995, Pastor Kilpatrick welcomed it, publicly and openly. He recognized that a holy river had swept into the building (he literally felt it and heard it), and he announced to his people, right there on Sunday morning, not in a back room at a midnight prayer service, “This is it. Revival’s here. Get in!”

This was a total shock to the congregation since he had never done anything like that before. He was always at the helm in total control. Yet now, he was flattened by the Spirit, lying there motionless, and this further sparked the faith of his people. They knew it was real!

Reflecting on what had happened, a perceptive leader said to me, “Pastor Kilpatrick’s desire for the glory of God overrode his desire to be in control.”

Exactly! It was more important to Pastor Kilpatrick to let God move and to experience the Spirit than to exert his fleshly control over what was happening, even if it took him out of his comfort zone. (Note this, too: If you’re not willing to be taken out of your comfort zone, don’t even bother praying for revival. Pray for yourself first!)

To be sure, in the years that followed, Pastor Kilpatrick became an excellent steward of revival and of his congregation. But, to repeat, we always knew that when God broke out in power and in unusual ways, he would get out of the way, as would Steve Hill, Lindell Cooley, and any others among us who were helping to lead.

In fact, some nights, right in the midst of joyful celebration, Lindell, the worship leader, would make a sudden turn, dramatically changing the direction of the meeting. Under normal circumstances, you would think to yourself, “That guy just quenched the Spirit!” But we knew Lindell too well. Instead, he was riding the wave of the Spirit, sensing the Lord had other plans. I remember we would turn to each other and say, “Let’s see where this goes.” And suddenly, the Lord would break out powerfully, with glorious, lasting results. To say it again, let God be God!

It is absolutely true that “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (1 Cor. 14:32, NKJV), meaning you can decide to wait to deliver a prophetic message you have received, allowing someone else to speak first. It’s also true that everything must “be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:26–33, 40, NKJV), meaning that when we gather together (say, in a house meeting), one person speaks in tongues, another interprets, another leads in a song, another prophesies.

But when the Spirit took over and changed our order, we went with the Spirit. When the Spirit’s plans were different from our own, we went with the Spirit—even if that meant skipping the offering that night (which was needed to pay the weekly bills) or shortening the message or eliminating planned testimonies or keeping us on our faces for protracted periods of time. All of us knew, to the core of our being, that revival was a sovereign work of the Spirit. In the holy fear of God, we knew that we could not get in the Spirit’s way.

PR

This chapter, “Never Try to Control the Spirit’s Work,” is an excerpt from Michael L. Brown, Seize the Moment: How to Fuel the Fires of Revival (Charisma House, 2024).

My presentation was 18 minutes, and it begins at the 32-minute mark. You can watch it here: https://video.horizon.edu/en/c….

In my presentation I mentioned one of my articles and one of my books. I’ll note them below.

• “The Intensity of the Spirit in a Spirit-Filled World: Spirit Baptism, Subsequence, and the Spirit of Creation.” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 34.3 (2012): 365-382.

• Simply Spirit-Filled: Experiencing God in the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2019.

I also discuss the intensity of the Spirit in this essay:

• “Pneumatology: Eschatological Intensification of the Personal Presence of God,” The Routledge Handbook of Pentecostal Theology, edited by Wolfgang Vondey (London: Routledge, 2020), 206-215. [Editor’s note: preview this 2020 book]

The title of this book may be initially off-putting to some, as though the author is proposing a view of the Holy Spirit akin to what is known as “adoptionist Christology.” But in the foreword, Matthew Bates makes it clear this is not the case: “While the revelation of the divinity of the Spirit (as part of the Christian doctrine of God) has an origin in time, nevertheless the Spirit’s divinity is not constrained by time or by our process of discovery” (xi). So, the book is not about the Spirit becoming God, as though there “was a time when he was not” God, but about how the Spirit came to be understood as being God.

The author, Kyle Hughes, apart from being an ordained deacon in the Anglican Church in North America, is also chair of the history department at Whitfield Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. He brings both a doctrinal lens and a historian’s perspective to this topic.

Chapter one, “The Problem of the Holy Spirit,” starts off by tackling some of the difficulties raised by the ways the Spirit is portrayed in Scripture. While the Father and Son are consistently portrayed in personal terms, phrases that depict the Spirit being “poured out” on people, or “filling” them, seem to suggest an inanimate substance rather than a personal being (3). Hughes then outlines how this historical study will not simply summarize the dogmatic teachings of various church fathers, but dive into how the early church’s methods of biblical interpretation that informed their declarations about the Godhead. Hughes proposes that the development of pneumatology in the first few centuries of the Christian era was based first on ideas being grounded in Scripture, while also including the church’s lived experiences of the Holy Spirit in light of Scripture.

Chapter three deals with “The Spirit and Christian Identity.” In discussing how the increasingly Gentile church came to see itself as no longer simply a messianic Jewish sect, Hughes looks at the Epistle of Barnabas and the writings of Justin Martyr. Barnabas argues that not only did the Spirit inspire the writers of the Ole Testament to look forward to Christ, but the Spirit himself looked forward to Christ, which is a personal activity rather than that of an impersonal force (42). Hughes points out that Justin wrote about the ongoing presence of the charisms in the second century, in the lives of both male and female believers, which means that the Montanists and other charismatic groups in the early church were not as innovative as some versions of history would assume (48-49). Justin also argued that just as the central Old Testament figures had gifts of the Spirit, the presence of these gifts among Christians showed that God’s Spirit was now upon them and had departed from the Jewish people as a group, indicating that the Christians had properly recognized the arrival of the Messiah.

The fifth chapter, “The Spirit and the Divine Economy,” examines Iranaeus’ presentation of the Spirit as the one who gives life, prepares believers for eternal life, reveals God across all of Scripture, and realizes the risen Christ’s presence in redeemed individuals (80-81). The work of Tertullian is further examined as well, discussing how his battle against modalistic monarchianism led to the development of trinitarian language, with Tertullian showing how that activities of the Father, Son, and Spirit are carried out by three divine Persons, and not simply one God playing three roles (85). The author also points out that Tertullian’s particular language sets up a problem for later trinitarian theologians, that of subordinationism (87). Novatian’s contribution of the eternal distinction of the Son from the Father is discussed (92), as is Origen’s articulation of the eternal existence of the Spirit with the Father and the Son (95).

I found this book to be very helpful in understanding the development over time of the doctrines we learn today in basic Christian discipleship classes and courses of systematic theology. The church’s teaching on the divine personhood of the Spirit—and thereby of the Trinity—did not descend fully-formed from heaven on golden tablets but was hammered out over the centuries through theological reflection on Scripture in the midst of the Spirit’s working among believers. I highly recommend Hughes’ volume to students of historical theology, as well as to anyone who desires to know more about “how we got here.”

Reviewed by Brian Roden

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781532693748/how-the-spirit-became-god/