Gordon Donald Fee (May 23, 1934—October 25, 2022) arguably stands as one of the most widely known and influential Pentecostal scholars of the late twentieth to early twenty-first centuries. His works range broadly on topics of hermeneutics, translation, textual criticism, New Testament, Pauline studies, and theology (among other topics) and have been translated into numerous languages worldwide. Sadly, I only once was able to meet him in person for an all too brief conversation, though some of my family moved to Canada in the nineties specifically to study with Fee while he taught at Regent College in Vancouver, BC.  The following are my own personal reflections on the writings of Fee that impacted my own life and calling and are neither comprehensive of his many writings nor intended as reflective of others’ experiences of his life and ministry upon themselves, but only an offering of one student of Scripture desiring to honor the legacy of another student of Scripture.

It was, in significant measure, owing to Gordon Fee maintaining ministerial credentials with the Assemblies of God, USA (AG) that I also received and maintain credentials with the same Pentecostal fellowship. He served as a constant reminder that the AG might be a broad tent among Classical Pentecostals to allow one (such as himself) to hold credentials even though Fee publicly diverged in writing on such issues as “initial physical evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit” and the traditionally held Dispensationalist eschatology of the AG. It has not always been the case that Pentecostal scholars (in the AG or elsewhere) have been able to maintain such tensions. I thanked him in person for this testimony at a celebration of his life held by the Society for Pentecostal Studies at the joint meeting of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego, CA, in November, 2014 (see below for video links to the archives on YouTube of this event).

However, Fee did not always enjoy wide embrace by AG leadership. His views (some of those, for example, published in Agora: A Magazine of Opinion within the Assemblies of God) found him removed from the faculty of Southern California College (now Vanguard University), but he was never defrocked. This removal may precisely have been the opening needed for Fee among the wider Church in relocating to Gordon-Conwell. He was regularly challenged by AG leadership yet remained staunchly committed to the life of the Spirit and its proclamation in the church and academy globally. It was this commitment which encouraged me as a young pastor and emerging Pentecostal scholar to remain within the AG despite pressures against scholarship which seem to present themselves to those committed to the life of the church as part of the academy. Fee was a stalwart and potent example that one could indeed do this.

Further, Fee contributed greatly to my sense of commitment to the study of ancient manuscripts and to not fear such historical critical inquiries—inquiries which had seemed to be something to fear in many of the contexts I had found myself growing up and in my early education. This was furthered when, in my first few years as a twenty-something year-old pastor, I read two volumes Fee co-edited with Eldon Jay Epp, New Testament Textual Criticism: Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce Metzger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981) and Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993). These two volumes suddenly opened to me the world of NTTC (and more broadly the work of textual criticism) that created an insatiable appetite to study more within the field. I found myself suddenly consuming the works on NTTC of Kurt and Barbara Aland, Bart Ehrman, Bruce Metzger, Daniel Wallace, and others on the OT, most particularly the many articles and publications of Emanuel Tov. I was preaching anywhere from 3-8 times a week and during my “free” moments reading every bit of these works I could find thanks to Fee’s inspiration. While I do not work professionally in TC I do teach on TC and have led many churches and classes on the topic as a way of addressing questions of faith and serious commitment to study of Scripture and faith. It has also meant that I have made several trips over the years to visit ancient biblical manuscripts in libraries and traveling museum collections as part of my love of the history of manuscripts and the preservation of Scripture.

As the young pastor tasked to preach for youth and adults many times a week I turned regularly to commentaries as learned companions to help in our congregation’s meditation of Scripture. Here I also discovered the help of Gordon Fee. The two commentaries which most impacted me were his commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles and 1 Corinthians: 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (New International Biblical Commentary 13; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988) and The First Epistle to the Corinthians (New International Commentary of the New Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987; Revised Edition: 2014). In the first of these, I found help for wrestling with the texts of Paul to two young pastors (and I needed that). I also found help in how to reconsider the words of Paul with regard to what seemed a silencing of women (something which seemed in my thinking to be out of sync with Paul’s ministry in the book of Acts). The egalitarian approach of Fee provided scholarship for my own pastoral concerns about the female members of Christ’s body and how they are also called and empowered by the same Spirit as co-equal workers and preachers of the good news of Jesus.  In my reading of Fee’s (first edition) commentary on 1 Corinthians, two things (among many others) still remain firmly in my mind: (1) Fee’s proposal that the instructions regarding the silencing of women in 14:24-25 was perhaps an interpolation into the manuscript tradition based on some other locations for this text in the manuscript tradition (pp.705-708), and (2) that the body of the resurrection was not going to be “spirit” (as in disembodied), but Spirit-ed as transforming the body to be alive by the Spirit to the utmost.

The first of these issues was not something I found support for among other scholars and frankly questioned myself whether Fee might be overclaiming. Yet, some scholars have since found further support for precisely this sort of claim and I have come to be persuaded of Fee’s early claim (though this view still seems a minority interpretation of the data). The most notable recent potential support of Fee’s claim was an article by Philip B. Payne, “Vaticanus Distigme-obelos Symbols Marking Added Text, Including 1 Corinthians 14.34-5,” New Testament Studies 63.4 (2017): 604-625. On the second issue, the revolution in my own pastoral thinking and preaching shifted from a very spiritualizing notion of life after death to a very Spirit-ed notion of embodiment made right in Jesus at the resurrection (this happened long before I read N.T. Wright’s very helpful, Surprised by Hope). I found myself turned from ideas which owed more to Gnostic-like distinctions between “spirit” and “body” and to the Lord’s intentional redemption of all creation as very good. One thing that struck me in one of the recently published stories about Fee concerned him telling a class to not believe he had died when they hear about his death, but that he “is singing with his Lord and his king” [Editor’s note: This was also published in Regent College’s “Remembering Dr. Gordon D. Fee”]. This seemed both in line with Fee’s work on 1 Corinthians, that we live because he lives and we do not simply go to non-existence, but also disjunctive with Fee regarding the hope that has consistently been the confession of the church (and which Fee goes to great lengths to contend precisely for): we believe in … the resurrection of the dead. This is a hope not in our spirits dis-embodied living in a heavenly sphere after death, but in the resurrection of bodies that are Spirit-enlivened in every way at the return of the Lord Jesus to consummate God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven.

Gordon Fee’s name was such a household word among the Pentecostal pastors I found myself regularly engaging while pastoring and continuing graduate studies that we would regularly discuss his work with one particular highlight and turned-to-reference: God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994, 2012). It was this massive collection of exegesis of the Greek text of Paul’s writings followed by theological essays intended to articulate a Pauline theology of the Spirit that was part of the very inspiration for my own later PhD work (since published as) A Theology of the Spirit in the Former Prophets: A Pentecostal Perspective (Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2018). Fee’s attention to the nuances of the Greek text (grammar, discourse, TC, etc) and attempts at a cumulative theology of such drove me to consider how this magnum opus among his writings might be applied to other corpora of the Scriptures.

During my later graduate work, I read Fee’s newly published Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007) and found a potent articulation of early exaltation of Jesus in light of the OT revelation of Yahweh and Jesus’ unique revelation of the God of Israel (spurring my readings Larry Hurtado and James Dunn). This proto-trinitarian argument was an aid in considering the ways theology continued to develop not just into the NT, but into the earliest church who would only later give voice to a trinitarian confession and would do so as acts of worship. It served me well to seek to hear the texts of Scripture in their own contexts even as the Church was inheritors and proclaimers of that word seeking always to hear better what had once and for all been delivered. I was grateful to see that a more accessible form of this publication has become available for a wider readership in Jesus the Lord according to Paul the Apostle: A Concise Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018).

While I have found many of Fee’s publications to be great aids to myself (even if only in spurring on further studies that move well beyond his own contributions), I would be remiss to not mention a particular aspect of Fee’s work with which I have found myself opposed. One of his most well-known writings (which has also spurred on numerous spin-off publications), How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth coedited with Douglas Stuart (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, originally published in 1981; Fourth Edition, 2014) finds its mention here at the end of my reflections, not because I encountered it after all of these other writings (it was his first book I read while in college), but because of my own critique of it. It also is not because it essentially espouses what some Pentecostal scholars might consider simply another Evangelical hermeneutic (which is reductionistic of Evangelical hermeneutics as if it is monolithic). When I first read this volume, I found one of the most helpful and accessible proposals for a Biblical hermeneutic that I had read to that point (his part being specific to the NT texts). It was only later while in graduate school and pastoring that I found myself pushing against his claims in one very specific area: historical narrative. Fee argued in this book, and at greater length in his Gospel and Spirit: Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991), that historical narratives (with Acts as the aim) were insufficient as Scripture toward developing theological claims because of lack of perceived authorial intent. This was a challenge to the Classic Pentecostal reading of Luke-Acts as setting a precedence and expectation of tongues bearing public evidence of this experience Pentecostal’s labeled “Spirit Baptism”. To be fair, my own rejection of Fee’s argument was not because of the Classical Pentecostal theological claims (which in my own estimation bear too many marks of a modernist epistemological impulse as influencing such), but because the Scriptures, OT and NT, are intended toward theological confession and worship as we find ourselves taken up into these words in adoration and conformity to the Word made flesh and now exalted at the right hand of God. My own contention is that theological intent is true not only of didactic texts (like Paul’s) but of narrative texts (like Luke-Acts, or the Joshua-Judges-Samuel-Kings as my own work contends). Roger Stronstad (who also passed away this year) was one of the most outspoken critics of Fee early on regarding Fee’s proposal (and their engagements at the Society of Pentecostal Studies remain the stuff of legend). It was the works of Stronstad which (for me) articulated the beginnings of a far more theologically defensible hermeneutic of narrative texts though I have traveled in yet other directions, see Stronstad’s, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke: Trajectories from the Old Testament to Luke-Acts (2^nd edition; Baker Academic, 2012), The Prophethood of All Believers: A Study in Luke’s Charismatic Theology (Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2010), and Spirit, Scripture and Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective (2^nd edition; APT Press, 2019).

This critique notwithstanding, I am forever in the debt of Gordon Fee. He has inspired me to love the Scriptures as faithful witnesses to God’s self-revelation in Jesus. He has inspired me to seek to lovingly and faithfully follow God’s self-revelation even when it pushes against the norms of one’s theological and ecclesiological tradition. He has inspired me to be a faithful preacher and teacher, to pass on to others what I have received and to do so with words audible and written until all know and proclaim with the Spirit that Jesus is Lord.

Video Archives of SPS Honoring of Gordon Fee at AAR-SBL 2014

Blaine Charette, Mark Fee, Russell Spittler, and Murray Dempster (Blaine Charette chaired the special session)

Sven Soderlund

Andrew Lincoln (shared by John Christopher Thomas)

Rick Watts

Marianne Meye Thompson

Ron Herms

Gordon Fee’s Response

Other Tributes to Gordon Fee

“Honoring Pentecostal Theologian Gordon Fee” by Rick Wadholm Jr

“Craig Keener on Gordon Fee, Giant of Pentecostal Scholarship”

“Michael Brown on Gordon Fee, Pioneer and Scholarly Role Model”

Despite the fact that the contours of the Christian canon were decided by the fourth century, vibrant and vigorous discussion about the authenticity of the books has persisted into our day. Indeed, for many years now, the New Testament canon has been a subject of research and dispute. When and how these 27 books became recognized as a new scriptural deposit has been a chief source of contention. More importantly, why did the new Christian sect perceive the need for a new canon at all? Does the New Testament exist because of some action done in the second or third century church, or did it arise more naturally from within the early Christian faith itself? Was it an extrinsic phenomenon, or an intrinsic one? Were the books written as Scripture, or did they become Scripture by a decision of the second-century church? These are the types of questions that led Michael J. Kruger to challenge modern scholarship’s dominant view that the New Testament is a late creation of the church imposed on books which were originally written for another purpose.

Michael J. Kruger is President and Samuel C. Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reformed Theological Seminary Charlotte.

Calling into question the commonly held extrinsic (or “from without”) view, which holds that the New Testament was an ecclesial product designed for ecclesial needs in the later Church, most directly to address the rise of Marcionism in the early church, Kruger tackles the five most prevalent objections to the classic understanding of a quickly emerging, self-authenticating collection of authoritative scriptures – he refers to his model as an “intrinsic” one. This framework recognizes the canon as the product of internal dynamics evolving out of the historical situation in which Christianity found itself, not a development retroactively imposed by the church upon books written hundreds of years before. He argues that the makeup of first-century Christianity created a favorable environment for the growth of a new revelational deposit. Kruger stipulates that the extrinsic model is correct as far as it goes, but that we should not rule out other definitions that bring more balance to our understanding of canon, and that therefore there is no sharp delineation between “Scripture” and “canon,” the latter of which only applies to the final, closed list of books. Moreover, he argues that there was a matrix of theological beliefs held by early Christians that would have resulted in a canon developing quite naturally, even if the early church did not recognize it formally. Third, he argues that while most Christians were illiterate, they were nonetheless characterized by a robust textuality – that is, the knowledge, use, and appreciation of written texts. Furthermore, he asserts that the New Testament authors, contrary to the interpretation of the extrinsic model, provide substantial indications that they understood their message as authoritative, showing this often quite plainly. If the extrinsic model were true, Kruger contends, we would expect that it would have taken quite a while for the New Testament writings to be attain Scriptural status, but in fact the Scriptures were deemed to be such at a much earlier time than commonly allowed by scholars.

While The Question of Canon scrutinizes today’s popular scholastic view, it also offers an alternative concept that is, in some respects, a better empirical foundation for canonical studies. He does not deal with the standard questions about the canon. For example, how do we know we have the right book? Instead, he asks more fundamental questions about where the canon comes from. I recommend this text to those who have interests in knowing how, when, and why the Scriptures became “the Scriptures.” Kruger has offered the church a service with this volume.

Reviewed by Bradford McCall

Publisher’s page: http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=4031

Companion website: http://michaeljkruger.com/tag/the-question-of-canon/

Preview The Question of Canon: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Question_of_Canon.html?id=eYgMAgAAQBAJ

By Scott Lencke.

Continuationists believe God still speaks today. This happens not only through the word of God in Scripture, but even through specific words or what we might term as “revelations.” These revelations can come in various manners – prophecies, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, visions, dreams, etc. – but God still communicates and speaks today. He actually never desired anything less.

However, what can get easily leveled against continuationists, from a more cessationist camp, is the idea that such revelation would no longer be needed knowing we now have the completed revelation of God in Jesus Christ, which is, of course, summarized in the full canon of Scripture. This revelation is the final word and no other such revelation is needed. And I understand the concern, especially noting such doctrines as the sufficiency of Scripture. However, I believe there is a very balanced approach that allows for the God-breathed Scriptures to maintain their authoritative place as God’s written revelation while also maintaining that God still speaks, reveals and communicates today.

Here is what I believe we need to recognize.

We must confess there is no more needed revelation from God with respect to his redemptive purposes in Jesus Christ. No more! The work of Christ and the revelation concerning this work – summed up in his life, ministry, death and resurrection – are the final word on God’s redemptive revelation and purposes. And I believe the New Testament makes this quite clear.

Yet, I do not think it is out of bounds to believe God continues to communicate in what I might term as a non-redemptive measure. This is where continuationists part from cessationists.

Again, I reiterate that it would be quite detrimental to say there is still more for God to reveal concerning the redemption of humanity through Christ and the gospel of the kingdom. Christ remains the final word on such. But, to believe God still reveals today, in a non-redemptive sense, should not be seen as harmful to a faith that looks to be grounded in Christ, the gospel and the testimony of the canon of Scripture. Matter of fact, I would argue that, to not allow for God to still directly speak and reveal today, in all his various manners, would cut us off from something very dear to the heart of God.

In all, I want to give two pointers as to why I believe in continuing, non-redemptive revelation:

1) Even while the canon of Scripture was being formed, God was always speaking para-Scripture, meaning he was speaking alongside what would be included in the canon of Scripture.

A couple examples would be found in places such as 1 Samuel 10:10-13 and 1 Timothy 1:18-19.

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine … (Acts 2:42)

Apostolic doctrine, therefore, is not the new and novel teachings of someone who calls himself/herself an apostle. Apostolic doctrine is the message of Jesus, His redemptive work, and His call to selfless discipleship that is found in the 27 books of the New Testament.

The “apostles’ doctrine” of Acts 2:42 is a reference to the original eyewitness accounts of Jesus by the 12 apostles. This “doctrine” consisted of their first-hand reports of His life, teachings, death, and resurrection. This was, at first, an oral message spread by the Twelve and those that heard them. It was later written down in what we know as the four gospels. Paul’s writings were later added to this original testimony and, with the addition of James, Jude, Hebrews, 1 & 2 Peter , 1, 2, & 3 John , and Revelation there came into existence what we know as the New Testament canon.

Canon, of course, refers to a measure or rule. As such, the twenty-seven books of the New Testament became the standard or rule against which all other teachings and revelations must be measured. Why? Because the New Testament canon contains the original, apostolic testimony and teaching. Hans Kung, the well-known Roman Catholic theologian and reformer, says,

The preaching of the apostles, as it has come down to us in the writings of the New Testament, is the original, fundamental testimony of Jesus Christ, valid for all time; being unique, it cannot be replaced or made void by any later testimony. Later generations of the Church are dependent on the words, witness and ministry of the first “apostolic” generation. The apostles are and remain the original witnesses, their testimony is the original testimony and their mission the original mission.

The Significance of the Twelve & Paul

Although there are other apostles in the New Testament, it is obvious that the Twelve chosen by Jesus are a select company and occupy a unique place in God’s purposes for the Church. This is borne out by the fact that throughout Scripture they are referred to as “the Twelve”, a set number neither to be added to nor subtracted from (See, for example, Matt. 10:2; 26:14; Mark 9:35; Luke 18:31; Acts 6:2; 1Cor. 15:5). Their uniqueness is clarified by the fact that Jesus tells them that, in the age to come, they will sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28).

- AC

Response from Kevin M. Williams

Great comments. Let’s see if we can narrow in on the scope and turbulent history of the canon. In truth, the Roman Catholic canon is not the same as the Evangelical canon. But before anyone decides that was a byproduct of the Reformation, read on. What was once considered a “closed canon,” that is to say with nothing left to be added or deleted has had, from time to time, theological hands in the scriptural cookie jar. Most recently, for instance, the Church of Latter Day Saints opened the canon to add their own “sacred” texts known as the Book of Mormon.

On the other side of history is the Bryennios Manuscript, dated to around 100 AD. Written in Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew with 27 Old Testament books including Jesus Nave, 2 of Esdras, and many of the books of the Septuagint.

Several other attempts were made to codify what books should be canon over the next two hundred years. Not until Eusebius, around 300 AD do we find something that comes close to what we recognize today as canon. But even so, such books as the Didache, Barnabas, Hebrews, Jude, Revelation, and the Apocalypse of Peter were disputed. As you can see, at least three in the list were later adopted (though in some camps, the debate continues over the author of Hebrews).

During the years of the Roman Catholic Church, the canon came to be what we know today, as well as the apocryphal books. By the time of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther attempted to have the New Testament books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation removed and declared apocryphal. The original King James Bible of 1611 included the modern canon as well as the apocrypha, which was adopted whole-heartedly by the Church of England. Today, most Evangelical organizations reject the authority of any apocryphal texts.

The study of the canon of Scripture is a lengthy study, and requires far more than space here allows. That said, I would venture an opinion (which does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the Pneuma Review).

Nothing, in my opinion, can replace reading and studying the Word, allowing it to interpret itself. Nevertheless, we are left with all of this traditional literature that was an important part of Jewish life and the early life of the Church, and can be dealt with in a way that edifies without compromising the Word of God.