PneumaReview.com invites you to interact with this academic paper by Pastor Adeboye Godwin.

Abstract

Today it is most difficult to teach or write about the Holy Spirit. This is because there are several arguments, different teachings, various thoughts, different beliefs and divisions arising from the teaching on the Holy Spirit. The aspect of doctrine of Holy Spirit which has been the most controversial is the case for Spiritual Gifts. Spiritual Gifts is given to unite Christians, but it has been the major cause of conflict and ecclesiastical disunity.[1] There are two Greek words generally used to describe spiritual gifts. The first is pneumatikos, meaning “Spiritual things or things pertaining to the Spirit.” This word emphasizes the spiritual nature and origin of spiritual gifts. The other words often used to identify spiritual gifts is charisma, meaning “grace gift.” The word charisma (pl. charismata) emphasizes that a spiritual gift is a gift of God’s grace: it is not a naturally developed ability but rather a gift bestowed on a believer for God’s service (1 Cor. 12:1-7). The interpretation and discussion of the charismata have varied from the various extremes.

Pastor Adeboye Godwin

This research is purposeful. It is to remedy the misconceptions on the possession and exercise of spiritual gift in the community of believers. Nowadays, there appears to be much emphasis on the Holy Spirit, and charismata are gaining more prominence than ever before, it is expedient that Christians be taught the purpose and the appropriate use of charismata. The subject of spiritual gifts has aroused unprecedented interest in every religious circles. With almost universal appeal, the tide of charismatic theology has cut across all theological barriers and ecclesiastical institutions. This works reveals that the spiritual gifts are not given to engender pride, hierarchy and disunity in the church but for the purpose of building up the church and also that charismata are not end themselves but a means to an end, and that end is oikodomen (Building up of the body of Christ)

Introduction

The singular issue that has most divided the body of Christ today is the lopsided orientation about the proper usage and purpose of the Spiritual Gifts. The use of spiritual gifts can mar or make the church. Any casual survey of Christian bookstore and libraries will show that the subject of the Spiritual gifts is a “hot item nowadays.”[2] For the fact that 21st century christian ministry is pneumacentric (full of and centered around the manifestation of Holy Spirit) has made the issue of the Holy Spirit to be in the forefront. Over the last decades the volume of the books written on the Holy Spirit have sprang in to a large proportion. Peter Wagner’s prefatorial words affirms this current trends. He says “I need to make a good case for adding another book to the already too-long list of book on spiritual gifts.”[3] This shows that a lot has been said about the concept of Holy Spirit. Also, the Wagner’s assertion reflects that the most pneumatological concepts that has been widely discussed and demonstrated is the “Charismata.”  Some of the questions that have been raised and misunderstood are: “what are the biblical methodology for the usage of charismata? what is the intention of God in giving out the charisma to some individuals? how can these charismata be appropriately utilized in the body of Christ? Should the charismata be theocentric or anthropocentric? How can egocentric notions be removed from the usage of charismata? and which of the charismata should be given the highest preeminence in christian body? Answers to these questions are important to how united the church will be. And how united the church is will affect the extent the church will go on the Great Commission.

Andrew D. Clarke, A Pauline Theology of Church Leadership (New York: T & T Clark, 2008), 189 pages, ISBN 9780567045607.

This work is important for those considering how best to ‘do church’ and who are also seeking after a Biblical model of leadership. The volume, a theological monograph in the Library of New Testament Studies series, is both theologically up to date and pastorally relevant for today. Clark, a senior lecturer in New Testament Studies in the University of Aberdeen and also the leader of a new church in rural Aberdeenshire, continues and develops the theme of Paul’s understanding of leadership which he addressed in his earlier work, Serve the Community of the Church: Christians as Leaders and Ministers (Eerdmans, 2000). In that work, Clark had noted how Paul’s understanding of Christian leadership should be distinguished from contemporary, social understandings of leadership in the 1st century Graeco-Roman context.

Andrew D. Clarke

Clarke argues that we can only understand Paul’s perspective on leadership and apostolic authority within the ecclesial context in which he worked. That is, a context of house churches where relationship and transparency was integral to the leadership role. He sees the various descriptors—overseer, elder and deacon not as offices, as they would later become in the Ignatian model, but properly as descriptors, often interchangeable or overlapping, of leadership dynamics within the local churches.

For Clarke, the critical ingredients for Pauline leadership were both an ability to teach and an ability to model Christlikeness to others: functions that necessitated relational accountability of such leaders within the local church communities they sought to lead. Clarke see that an attempt to appeal to Paul for models of ministry that vindicate power structures within larger people groups is to remove him from his context.

Reviewed by Jim Purves

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