With a cover made to look like an organizational chart (indeed, the author believes in hierarchy), and the catchy, contemporary title, a potential reader might assume the content is similar to the business leadership manuals that have been popular over the past thirty years. In fact, the reader wouldn’t be far off. The focus of the book is primarily focused on non-profit organizations and how to lead them. Institutions, Smith iterates repeatedly, matter and they are “essential to human flourishing.” For an organisation to be effective, members must have institutional intelligence: “the wisdom of working effectively within an organization with others … by understanding how institutions work, how they can be effective, and how all people in the organization can contribute to the whole system.” This book is relevant not only for church planters—just starting new institutions—but also for seasoned pastors and other non-profit leaders who want more synergy between the institution’s mission and its operations.

The book contains ten chapters, a conclusion, and three appendices. Chapter one introduces seven “distinctive” features of an effective organization. These features include mission clarity, appropriate governance, quality of personnel, a vibrant culture, financial resilience, appropriate ‘built space’, and strategic alliances. Indeed, these seven characteristics comprise the remaining chapters of the book.

Good governance is another distinctive feature of an effective organization. In chapters three and four, Smith posits that institutions must ask themselves questions about decision-making and implementation. Effective organizations not only make good decisions, but they have the capacity to implement those decisions. Leaders should have a clear understanding of how to use power responsibly and to whom they are accountable. Smith specifies three “entities” of an effective organization: executive, board, and practitioners. Each entity needs to know what it is responsible to achieve. As a learning organization, effective institutions get the wisdom and knowledge they need to make good decisions and ensure they can carry them out.

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 Lynch is Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology at the University of Kent. His current research concerns a detailed study of post-war British child migration schemes to Australia, which is an extension of this recent volume. The book consists of the rigorous facts, histories, methods, and rationales of children re-location programs that grew “significantly in the United Kingdom and the United States, where more than 300,000 children were re-located away from birth parents and home communities between 1851 and 1970.” These schemes, influenced and strengthened by the moral sentiments of their time, were perceived as a means to grant children “better future and making them better people,” in order to save them from poverty, parental ill-condition, or family breakdown. It is important to note that, to obtain the tickets for the “orphan trains,” the majority of these children had to experience disconnection from their birth parents, family members, and their root community. Christianity played a crucial part in advancing these schemes: the society was dependent on the moral inspiration of the churches and charities and, in many cases, the participating institutions minimized the hidden problematic aspects in order to promote humanitarian piety and moral certainty. What is more, “child migration was presented as an excellent opportunity for relocating children to new environments in which their faith could be nurtured and protected.” Lynch, throughout the book, lays out the findings of his research and constantly reminds the readers to see the “shadow-side of this humanitarian ethos” so that we do not repeat “their failing in different ways today.” In brief, in the process of remembering child migration, one should always acknowledge the gap between the “obligation of the giver” and the “rights of the receiver”—the disparity that can only be mended with the “sensitivity to the experiences of those believed to be its beneficiaries.”

Evangelicals are known for their emphasis on conversion, but unfortunately they often neglect life after conversion and beyond justification. Needed, therefore, is a comprehensive theology of the Christian life from beginning to end, along with an explication of the means of that transformation. In Called to Be Saints, Gordon Smith invites us to think theologically about what is means to be a mature Christian. To address matters of the Christian life and its spirituality effectively, we need to find an answer to the questions of what is the beginning of the Christian life, what is the character of Christian maturity, and what is the approach and means of the formation of this character. A comprehensive theology of the Christian life will address all three of these questions, that is, the beginning, the end, and the means by which one grows toward maturity. There are a number of publications regarding the initiation into the Christian faith. Moreover, there are likewise plenty of resources on the spiritual formation of believers. However, there are few resources regarding what it means to be a mature Christian. This book seeks to address this lacuna in Christian scholarship.

The chapters within address the goal and objective towards which Christians walk. That is, the end to which we are converted. The opening chapter makes the case for why such a theology is needed. It notes that there is a significant “sanctification gap” in the churches today – that is, there is a marked distinction between what we profess to be, i.e. saints, and what we actually are. However, there is a call to holiness – or perfection – made by the Father to participate in the life of Christ, through the power of the Spirit. As Aquinas stated, a thing is said to be perfect when it attains its proper end. Chapter 2 is the central chapter within the text, with its insistence that the Christian vision for maturity is one that is “in” Christ. To be a Christian is to be a disciple of Jesus, and a mature disciple is one who knows Jesus through the fruit of learning that leads to intimacy, loves Jesus such that he is the first and deepest love, and serves Jesus such that all one does is in response to Christ’s call and is an expression of allegiance to him.

Chapters 3 through 6 identify four distinctive features of a mature Christian, that is, what it means to fulfill the purpose for which we are created. There are also two appendices, the first of which is an invitation to pastors to consider what it means for the character of congregational life to be “in” Christ, and the second of which is an invitation to leaders within the academy to consider how they can design the life of the university setting around a vision of transformation “in” Christ. This text affirms that our lives are a gift that is offered to us in Christ.

Overall, this book is both a call and an invitation to live life “in Christ” – more precisely, to live a life that is the fruit of dynamic participation in the life of Christ. The title has four marks, all of which are presented as invitations: 1) to be a wise person and to pursue wisdom with passion and persistence; 2) to do good work in response to the call of Christ – i.e., vocational holiness; 3) to love others as one learns to live in love; and 4) to know the joy of God, which is the deep wellspring of the blessed life. Each of these – wisdom, good works, love, and joy – are offered to us in Christ.

Being consummately practical, this book presents a trinitarian theology of holiness that encompasses both justification and sanctification, as well as union with Christ and communion with God. Smith unfolds how and why Christians are called to become wise people, do good work, love others and enjoy rightly ordered affections. This is for the whole Christian community. It is a challenge to young people to establish early in their lives the kind of life that they wish to live. It is also a guide to those in midlife who might need to make midcourse corrections to their priorities in order to focus on what matters most. And finally, it encourages those who are in their senior years to be attentive to what sort of legacy they wish to leave behind them. For each group, it is about stewardship. Christians in every walk of life, therefore, will find this text a rich resource for learning what it means to “grow up in every way… into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). I recommend it to all comers.

Reviewed by Bradford McCall

Publisher page: http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=4030

Preview Called to Be Saints: https://books.google.com/books/about/Called_to_Be_Saints.html?id=OppYAgAAQBAJ

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 Smith’s book deals with a central piece of Pentecostal life: conversion. Thoughtfully read, it can deepen understanding and expectations of conversion, which in turn have evangelistic and pastoral implications. On the other hand, it will challenge much that is taken as unquestioned fact regarding conversion. Because of this challenge, some may bypass it altogether. But it would be better to read it and take away as much as presently possible.

The occasion of writing is Smith’s observation that nineteenth century revivalism has set our understanding and language of conversion. It is assumed that conversion is entirely a point action, that the focus of conversion is religious activity, and that the goal of conversion is life in heaven. The problem is that Bible teachers have much more to say on the subject. The concept of conversion has a history that is largely ignored, and that other streams of Christianity have been dealing with this subject for a much longer time. Beyond this, evangelicalism as a whole is undergoing changes. No longer can an Anglo-American perspective be considered the norm. Evangelicalism is a world-wide phenomenon with the majority consisting of Pentecostals and the pentecostalized.

Gordon T. Smith is the president of Ambrose University College and Seminary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

The language of conversion is important. Many evangelicals feel alienated from their churches when their genuine experience does not match the patterns of conversion either preached or broadly assumed. Additionally, if language about conversion does not reflect how people actually come to Christ, evangelism methods will be skewed. Though nineteenth century revivalism rightly emphasized the necessity, possibility and current invitation of conversion, it never addressed some major difficulties. Conversion and salvation are made out to be synonymous when in fact, they are not. Salvation becomes something that “happened” when a commitment was made. As true as that is, NT language of salvation “happening” and “will happen” must receive equal weight. Salvation is the work of God; conversion is the human response to God’s initiative. Again, conversion is seen as simple and without struggle. Without implying that there is a minimum threshold of difficulty, conversion counts the cost and leads one to become a “disciple,” one that actually is in the game. Revivalist inspired language leaves us with the notion that one gets converted (saved), and then we must make every effort to get him or her “discipled.” We have gone from a necessary noun to a hopeful verb. Furthermore, the place of children of believers is left ambiguous. Do they need conversion? Does a child’s conversion look like that of an adult? If a child is converted at age five, is there any place for further conversion at, say, sixteen after profound personal development? For Pentecostals especially, how is the NT connection between conversion, baptism and the gift of the Spirit fostered?

Prior to revivalism, there was the evangelicalism represented by Jonathan Edwards and John Wesley. Though of differing theological commitments, both shared an engagement with the beginning and progress of the life of God in the soul. They understood the integration of the affections, the intellect and the will in both conversion and salvation. They understood the place of both process and crisis as the grace of God was encountered. Knowing that mere talk of conversion was cheap, they looked for change in a person’s life. It was a different era. Unlike his predecessors, Edwards found a way to bring the gospel invitation into a person’s grasp. And unlike his successors, Wesley was no revivalist in the later sense of the term. This leads to Smith’s reminder, needing broad proclamation, that how conversion is understood has a long history, and that there are others who have experience with conversion, long preceding our own, from which we might learn.

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).

Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World, expanded edition (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997) 228 pages, ISBN 9780840733863.

This book has become a classic among Christian leaders, and I can whole-heartedly agree. The general theme of this book is the necessity of putting the inner life in order and how to do so. Books on managing time or on ‘managing’ other spheres of life are common. This book is different in that Gordon MacDonald looks at ordering all areas of life including mental, spiritual, recreational, educational, and motivational.

MacDonald’s main points include the following:   recognizing and diagnosing the problem of disorganization, understanding the importance of ordering the inner life (spiritual life), recognizing the root of our motivation, coming to grips with the proper use and misuse of time, the necessity of continuing to grow, building spiritual strength through the proper use of spiritual disciplines, and understanding God’s intention and purpose for the shabbat (sabbath rest).

I found this book to be immensely challenging and something I will need to return to more than once in the future. Although I did not personally find MacDonald’s stories particularly memorable, his broad use of illustrations helped to draw me in to his point and see with clarity what he was pointing out. I realized that the areas of motivation/calling, use of time, mental growth, building trust in God, and partaking of true rest are areas I need to continue to grow in. Some of these struck me as areas I best not be slack in. The chapters on the use and misuse of time were very eye-opening and gripping for me. I have come away from this book with a sense of urgency to put my use of time under greater scrutiny and thereby, by the grace of God, engender a more fulfilling spiritual life. Also I have recognized the necessity of establishing a better expression of the shabbat in my family while my children are still young.

I believe most readers will find some real food for thought in these pages.

Reviewed by Raul Mock