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

Gordon D. Fee went home to be with the Lord on October 25, 2022.

As a Pentecostal scholar, Gordon Fee was both a pioneer and a role model, showing us that you could be academic and Spirit-filled at the same time. Not only so, but as the general editor of the prestigious New International Commentary on the New Testament, as well as author of the highly-acclaimed commentary on 1 Corinthians, he established a new benchmark for Pentecostals in the larger world of scholarship. Added to this was his brilliant writing on the Spirit’s presence and work, and his accomplishments were huge.

We know that the early Pentecostals were not only known for being non-scholarly. They were often anti-scholarly, and in the church where I came to faith in 1971, I sometimes heard the joke, “Seminary, cemetery.” And this was often true! For me, then, going to college and then grad school, there was a sense of having to choose either the things of the Spirit or solid academics, and I had to go through my own journey before soundly and simultaneously embracing both. But knowing that a man like Dr. Fee existed was of great encouragement to me. Although I never met him, he impacted me through his example and work.

Part of his legacy is that there are so many Pentecostal and charismatic biblical scholars and theologians today. May we continue to see the joining of the Word and the Spirit in our day.

Michael L. Brown, Ph.D.

See also: “Honoring Pentecostal Theologian Gordon Fee” by Rick Wadholm Jr.

Table of Contents from the first issue:

“Editorial”, 1.

Miguel Álvarez, “Contextualización en la hermenéutica latina”, 3-16.

Bernardo Campos, “Aspectos fundamentales en la teología pentecostal”, 17-29.

Geir Lie, “T.B. Barratt y el origen de su concepto de ‘lenguas misioneras’”, 31-45.

Daniel Orlando Álvarez, “Integridad de las Escrituras: Transformando las futuras generaciones”, 47-64.

Darío López Rodríguez, “Pentecostalismo y espacio público: Vida en el Espíritu. Política, Ciudanía e Incidencia Pública”, 65-80.

Carmelo E. Álvarez, “Ecumenismo del Espíritu: Voces pentecostales latinoamericanas y caribeñas”, 81-97.

The premiere issue is available at: http://www.akademiaforlag.no/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/01/Hechos-1-1-2019.pdf

For those that need a physical copy, the premiere issue is now available for sale from Amazon.

Andreas J. Kostenberger, Excellence: The Character of God and the Pursuit of Scholarly Virtue (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 270 pages, ISBN 9781581349708.

As suggested by the title, Kostenberger’s interest in “excellence” has to do with Christian scholarship. For Kostenberger, Christian scholarship is the “pursuit of truth on mission for God in the world” (p. 66). The study of Scripture “must always lead to application” (p.80). The goal is “always obedience” as “there is no place in the Bible where God’s people are enjoined to study solely for the sake of study” (p. 80). The pursuit of excellence is different from the pursuit of perfection. Excellence is to not settle for mediocrity. It is pursued in order to fulfill one’s calling effectively, whatever that calling may be and to “bring glory to God.” Kostenberger’s purpose is “to identify, describe, and encourage those virtues essential to fulfilling the specific call to glorify God in the finest way possible through Christian scholarship. Rather than an end in itself, as adding to our own learning, Christian scholarship is a means of “engaging the unbelieving world with the truth of God’s gospel” (p. 65).

Fundamental to “excellence” in Christian scholarship are holiness and spirituality and he relates them not so much to the process of communication as to the person who is doing the communicating. The character of the scholar “bleeds through” what one says or writes and can have either a positive or negative effect upon the hearer or reader. In part two of the book, Kostenberger identifies six different virtues that lead to vocational excellence. These are diligence, courage, passion, restraint, creativity, and eloquence. His recommendations are priceless. This reviewer encourages any would-be writer to take to heart what Kostenberger shares in this part of his book.