Jesus the Lord according to Paul the Apostle will both educate and resonate well with its intended audience. One who has heard Gordon Fee preach can hear him preaching in this book, passionately communicating the fruits of his exegesis in language that can profit nonscholars as well as academicians. As I noted in my comments to the publisher, the book is “intertextually rich and theologically provocative,” inviting readers “to rethink traditional academic constructions of Paul’s theology in light of the primary data provided more conspicuously by Paul’s own letters.” While not ignorant of wider scholarly opinions, in this book Fee plunges the reader into more immediate contact with Paul’s own words.

Fee’s extensive Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Hendrickson, 2007; Baker, 2013), which treats all the present work’s questions in far greater detail, is not on a level accessible to the average reader (sort of like my four-volume Acts commentary). By contrast, Jesus the Lord offers a more accessible introduction, in the way that his Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God (1996) complemented Fee’s larger academic tome on Pauline pneumatology, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (1994).

Jesus the Lord according to Paul the Apostle is certainly accessible. The foreword also is a touching tribute from Fee’s daughter Cherith Fee Nordling, a theologian in her own right.

As an exegete who has written commentaries on 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, the Thessalonian correspondence and the Pastorals, Fee systematizes some elements of Pauline Christology only after inductive study of the biblical text. Granted, he displays unabashed theological commitments, but they are commitments ably articulated and defended, reflecting carefully considered convictions. For example, although he sees Jesus as divine, he rejects application of the title “God” to Jesus in Rom 9:5 (124n1).

Some of the convictions that he articulates are less widely shared than others. As defended in his Pastorals commentary, Fee accepts a thirteen-letter Pauline canon (albeit with a different amanuensis and thus different vocabulary in the Pastorals; cf. Jesus the Lord, 125n1). Nevertheless, Fee establishes his central case for divine Christology more than adequately from the undisputed letters. (Given their distinctive content, the Pastorals do not figure as heavily in this work as do the earlier letters in any case.) For those of us who do accept the more disputed letters as Pauline at any level, however, Fee’s treatment of ideas there, alongside those in the undisputed epistles, may prove very enlightening for interpretation.

Although a more popular work includes much less documentation than the academic work on which it is based, it can sometimes also provide a more mature synthesis of the issues, highlighting the issues that further reflection deems most central. In Jesus the Lord, Fee develops the central elements of his case clearly.

Gordon D. Fee, PhD (University of Southern California) is Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada.

The Society for Pentecostal Studies held a special session to honor the life and work of Dr. Gordon Fee in November 2014 as a part of the joint American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature annual meetings held in San Diego, California.

See “The Legacy of a Pentecostal Theological Educator: Gordon Fee” that I wrote for the January 2015 issue of The Pentecostal Educator Newsletter (available as of Jan 18, 2015 at this address: http://wapte.org/the-pentecostal-educator-newsletter/)

A lifelong educator and leading scholar of Pauline pneumatology, Fee is the author of numerous books including:

Co-authored with Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Zondervan, 1981, 1993, 2003, 2014)

God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Baker, 1994, 2009)

Co-authored with Mark L. Strauss, How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth: A Guide to Understanding and Using Bible Versions (Zondervan, 2007) [Read the review by John Lathrop]

Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1995)

Philippians, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (IVP, 1999)

Listening to the Spirit in the Text (Eerdmans, 2000) [Read the review by Steven Brooks]

Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Hendrickson, 2007) [Read the review by Bradford McCall]

Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God (Hendrickson/Baker Academic, 1996)

To What End Exegesis?: Essays Textual, Exegetical, and Theological (Eerdmans, 2001)

Co-authored with Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour (Zondervan, 2009)

Codex Sinaiticus in the Gospel of John: A Contribution to Methodology in Establishing Textual Relationships, Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism (Eerdmans, 1993)

Because of the onset of Alzheimer’s, his final publication will be his revised and updated commentary The First Epistle to the Corinthians in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1987, 2014).

Find numerous audio recordings (MP3s and CDs) of Gordon Fee, including entire lecture series, available from RegentAudio: http://www.regentaudio.com/collections/gordon-fee

Rick and his wife, Jenn, meeting Gordon Fee.

Videos from the SPS Session Honoring Gordon Fee

• 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

It was, to be sure, a celebration that brought us to tears multiple times.

Gordon D. Fee and Mark L. Strauss, How To Choose a Translation for All Its Worth: A Guide to Understanding and Using Bible Versions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 170 pages, ISBN 0310278767.

This is the third “how to” book that Gordon Fee has written. The first two books were How To Read the Bible for All Its Worth and How To Read the Bible Book By Book, both of which were coauthored with Douglas Stuart, Fee’s former colleague at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. For this third book Fee has teamed up with Mark Strauss. Fee and Strauss are both New Testament scholars and both have been involved in the work of bible translation.

In some places in the world a book like How To Choose a Translation for All Its Worth would not be needed. There are places where a variety of bible translations are not available; in fact some people groups only have one translation of the bible (or select Scripture portions). In the United States, and other English speaking countries, this is not the case; there are a lot of different English bible translations from which one can choose. The wealth of translations that are available is a blessing, but it can also be a problematic, it causes many believers to ask the question “which one is the best?” The problem is compounded by the fact that not everyone agrees on which translation is best or the most faithful to the biblical text. One of the more obvious indications of this is the “King James Only Debate.”

In this book Fee and Strauss explain some of the challenges faced by bible translators as well as the different philosophies that guide translators in the making a translation. The book is divided into four parts. Part one is “The Task of Translation.” Under this section the authors address the need for translation and the meaning and task of translation. Part two is titled “Making Words Work.” In this section they address the subject of translating words, giving special attention to figurative language-such as idioms, metaphors and poetry; they also address the problem of translating the Greek genitive. Part three is “Translation and Culture.” In this section they deal with cultural issues related to translation and the issue of using gender inclusive language in bible translation. Part four is titled “The Bible in English” which gives a short history of English translations of the bible. In this section the authors also set forth the strengths and weakness of some of the more well-known English translations and give their recommendations for the best translations.

This book contains some very helpful information. One thing that the authors make clear is that no one translation has it all, that is; there is no perfect bible translation. Every translation is by its very nature already an interpretation. Translators read the biblical text, either in Hebrew or in Greek, and then seek to find appropriate words in English to convey the meaning of the text. This is not always easy because sometimes there are not words that are exact equivalents. In cases where there are exact equivalents translators, at times, do not use the exact equivalent because doing so would make the translation difficult, if not unintelligible in English. Bible translations typically fall into one of two categories. Form equivalents seek to be very literal while functional equivalents are more concerned with trying to convey the sense of the text rather than a word-for-word translation. Bible readers are divided over which is the better translation to use. The authors demonstrate that even the literal translations are not always really literal. Fee and Strauss think that the best translations are those that convey the meaning of the text they say: “Accuracy in translation relates to equivalent meaning, not equivalent form” (page 27). In their view, this is what being faithful to the biblical text is.

Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 707 pages, ISBN 9781598560350.

Gordon D. Fee, Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies at Regent College in Vancouver, and noted Pauline scholar, offers exhaustive coverage of Pauline Christology in this book. Readers of the Pneuma Review need to be aware that Fee is unabashedly Pentecostal, the Spirit holding a central place in his studies, having already released his compendium volume regarding the Spirit within the Pauline corpus (God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, 1994). Seemingly rejecting a narrative approach to Paul’s Christology, Fee opts for the combination of exegetical analysis of passages and a theological synthesis of the materials; the same structure as his earlier work on the Spirit in Paul. Ascribing all of the traditionally credited books to the authorship of Paul, Fee descriptively details each book and its Christological content individually for the better part of 450 pages (10 chapters), and then offers a constructive synthesis of the data as it relates Paul’s distinctive Christology. I note the expansive exegesis so as to highlight the fact that Fee does not lightly hold the Biblical writ, but bases his understanding of Pauline Christology on it, and not upon conjecture (Pneuma Review readers would do well to read his practical guide, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth). Fee’s constructive synthesis provides the following themes: 1) that Christ is the Divine Savior, 2) that Jesus is the Second Adam, effectively undoing what the first Adam did, 3) and that Jesus is both the Son of God and the exalted Lord of heaven and earth. In so doing, Fee demonstrates that Paul possesses a very high view of Christology. Fee consistently shows that Paul is unequivocal in his declaration that Jesus of Nazareth is both God and man at one and the same time. This is supported strongly within Paul by the ease with which he transitions between speaking of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, hence equating the two. Pneuma Review readers will value the attention to detail, along with the various chapter appendices serving as compendia of the relevant passages.

Reviewed by Bradford McCall

Publisher’s page: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/pauline-christology/334413

The Pentecostal/charismatic (P/C) pastor and teacher comes to the proclamation of Scripture with two critical issues in mind: the need to speak in such a way that he or she becomes transparent and God is seen in transforming power; and the opposite need to speak in such a way that the preacher’s own passion does not subtly misshape the message of Scripture. In other words, the need is to let the Spirit and only the Spirit speak to God’s own people.

Gordon Fee, longtime Pentecostal scholar and educator, sets out to aid the pastor/teacher in this crucial job by offering a collection of essays titled, Listening to the Spirit in the Text (LTST). Written over a period of 15 years, they demonstrate Fee’s passionate belief that “the ultimate aim of all true exegesis is spirituality, in one form or another” (p.5). This is balm to the weary P/C pastor’s heart. Fee defines what it means to be spiritual by saying that “True spirituality, therefore, is nothing more nor less than life by the Spirit.” (p.6) Therefore the aim of unpacking Scripture is,

to produce in our lives and the lives of others true Spirituality, in which God’s people live in fellowship with the eternal and living God, and thus in keeping with God’s own purposes. (p.6)

Fee asserts that proper exegesis cannot be done unless we understand and experience who God is in Christ Jesus just as the inspired penmen did. Having this understanding and experience is made possible only by the grace of God, mediated through the person of the Holy Spirit. Fee urges that for true exegesis, we must do more than merely recognize the spirituality of the Biblical authors. Participating in that spirituality, through study of the text, is what Fee longs for his readers to be doing.

Some of the essays deal with how one goes about properly interpreting the text, while the others demonstrate it in Fee’s own words. This is especially true in regards to the issues of women in ministry, spiritual gifts in the church, and the need for the laity to reclaim their role as the usual ministry within and without Christ’s body. Because LTST is a collection of essays demonstrating a consistent hermeneutic style, Fee can speak to the broad range of issues that plague the P/C movement from a firm biblical basis. The chapter on the Christian and wealth is particularly helpful for those grappling with the health and prosperity currents in the movement. Fee’s essay on the ministry of the laity constitutes a powerful antidote to the authoritarian streak of pastoral leadership that occasionally cripples local churches.

Throughout the collection, Fee’s leitmotif remains steady. True spirituality produces true exegesis resulting in true disciples. As Fee observes in the opening chapter, “true exegesis attempts to engage in the author’s Spirituality, not just in his or her words.” The Biblical authors invited us not to merely hear nice words about Christ, but to believe in and experience the reality of who God is in Christ. Those who would break the bread of life for others must invite others to do this as well if they “are to hear the text on Paul’s terms and not simply our own” (p.11).