Smith Wigglesworth praying for a sick woman.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

In 1888, Wigglesworth established the Bowland Street Mission in Bradford, England. It was there he and his wife Polly fed the poor and ministered the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to all who would come. He was a chief forerunner of what came to be known as the Pentecostal Latter Rain Revival. In 1913, he left the Bowland Street Mission with a call to the nations of the world, including the United States. In 1947, Wigglesworth met with his friend Lester Sumrall (another mighty man of God), and essentially prophesied the last four great moves of God in the earth. He saw the healing revival of the 1950’s in the US. He also saw the Charismatic Renewal of all the denominations in the 1960’s – 1970’s. Then he saw people going to church with a Bible in one hand and a notepad in the other, this was the Word and Faith movement of the 1980’s into the 90’s. Finally, Smith saw hospitals being emptied out, and hospitals working with the Church that knows how to move with the Holy Spirit. On a separate occasion he said churches would wane [gradual reduction] in attendance and then take a steep decline. It would cause a great hunger to rise in many of the unchurched people who would see a marriage between the Spirit and the Word. He said that from that spiritual place the greatest harvest the earth had ever seen would spread to the nations.

We are right now in a prophetic timeline of fulfillment of these words from Wigglesworth. I know of a hospital setting in Haiti filled with Cholera patients that was emptied out by Dr. Chauncey Crandall and his tax accountant. Chauncey said, “It was the best of God, and the best of medicine.” A significant number of hospitals are now partnering with those of us who know how to flow in the Holy Spirit. Amazing healing is happening in a beautiful partnership. Christ Healing Center and other affiliates here in the San Antonio area are in relationship to 7 hospitals. A number of these partnerships are popping up in Houston, TX with our dear friend Jan de Chambrier.

Recently, Lil de Fin, great granddaughter to Wigglesworth, was invited by Pastor Vincent Mann to reopen the Bowland Street Mission in Bradford. It had been closed for 97 years. The British Broadcasting Company Radio group covered this very significant event. What happened there was very powerful in terms of prophetic impact and an impartation of the Wigglesworth anointing.

Someone asked me what it was like to reopen Smith Wigglesworth’s Bowland Street Mission in Bradford England. It was a packed house with fabulous worship with the Spirit and Word fused together like Wigglesworth said would launch us to the nations! It was like a war zone. People were lying all over the floors during ministry time, having been overwhelmed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Healing and more healings broke out spontaneously with fresh Baptisms in the Spirit as well. Several people had prophetic utterances that rang true and authentic, reinforcing the impact of the moment. There was raucous dancing, high praises, and singing in the Spirit. Holy laughter broke out!! There was also weeping, brokenness and fire from heaven burning up diseases! It was wild. When the smoke cleared, the consensus in the sanctuary was this: We all want these manifestations and empowerments for the United Kingdom for a launch into Europe.

I believe a prophetic door is opening now for Great Britain, Europe, and even the United States for the Harvest of the Ages. In essence, The Bride of Christ is waking up. It is a door of destiny. Many are saying this is the Year of the Door in the Hebrew calendar. We must, for Jesus’ sake, go through that door.

The Rev. Dr. Jack Sheffield with the Rev. Anna Marie Sheffield
November 4, 2017
San Antonio, Texas

God continues to give dreams and visions to his people.

Introduction

This chapter is from Dreams & Visions: Divine Interventions in Human Experience by John P. Lathrop.

The Bible has been around for a very long time; it has stood the test of time and been widely distributed. The Bible is available in many different English translations and has been translated into numerous foreign languages as well. It is probably both the most loved and most hated book of all time. Its detractors claim that it is full of errors and contradictions, or that it is irrelevant. On the other hand, devout Christians believe that it is the Word of God. The doctrinal statements of many Christian denominations contain a statement to the effect that the Bible is the only reliable guide for faith and practice.

I believe that the Bible is the Word of God and that it was given to instruct and guide us. However, it must be admitted that it is not always an easy book to understand. There are a number of reasons for this. First, there is the matter of time. The Bible was written over the course of many centuries, in times that are very distant from our own.¹ This distance can create difficulties for us as we seek to understand what the biblical text is saying. Second, the biblical books of both testaments are set in cultures that are very different from our Western 21^st-century culture. The cultures of the Bible sometimes have different thoughts than ours.² As a result, some of the cultural practices and understandings are foreign to us. Third, there are some things in the Bible that just are difficult to understand. For example, the apostle Peter said that some of the things the apostle Paul wrote about in his letters were difficult to understand (2 Pet. 3:15-16). If one inspired writer thinks that another inspired writer is difficult to understand, then you can be sure that it is true! Fourth, we should expect to find the Bible difficult to understand at times, because the Bible comes from a God whose ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isa. 55:9). We are finite beings trying to understand an infinite God; the creation trying to understand the Creator. Lastly, there are some things in the Bible that we do not understand because we have not had any personal experience with them. People in the Bible experienced them, but many of us have not, especially those of us in the West.

Writing about the empowering ministry of the Holy Spirit, Gordon Fee says that some people conclude that this dimension of the Holy Spirit’s work does not exist today because they are exegeting their own experience, rather than the biblical text.³ They use their own experience as a grid in interpreting the Bible, and their experience becomes the norm of what God does and does not do today.⁴ This is certainly not the way that we are supposed to interpret the Bible, but the sad truth is that we can all be guilty of this from time to time. This is a potential problem, and all believers should be on their guard in an effort to keep from falling into this error. When Christians fall into this trap, they violate the evangelical tenet that the Bible is our only rule for faith and practice. In his book Gift & Giver: The Holy Spirit for Today, Craig Keener says that he has rarely witnessed miracles like those of Elijah, Elisha, or like the ones that we find in the gospels or the book of Acts; thus, based on his experience, he might conclude that such miracles do not happen today.⁵ However, he goes on to say that it is his desire to see what the Scripture teaches and to attempt to bring his experience, and that of the church, more in line with the biblical norm.⁶ This should be our desire as well.

Craig S. Keener, author of Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, discusses miracles that have occurred in history as well as recently. This is part 3 of a special lecture series on apologetics given at Southwestern Assemblies of God University in the Summer of 2014.

Every chapter from Professor Williams’ book, The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today, about the greatest reality of our time.

Spring 2002: Author’s Preface

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Preface

Spring 2002: Introduction

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Introduction

Spring 2002: Chapter One: Background

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Background (Chapter 1)

Summer 2002: Chapter Two: Dimensions

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Dimensions (Chapter 2)

Fall 2002: Chapter Three: Response

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Response (Chapter 3)

Winter 2003: Chapter Four: Purpose, Part 1

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Purpose (Chapter 4, Part 1)

Spring 2003: Chapter Four: Purpose, Part 2

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Purpose (Chapter 4, Part 2)

Summer 2003: Chapter Five: Reception

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Reception (Chapter 5)

Fall 2003: Chapter Six: Means

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Means (Chapter 6)

Winter 2004: Chapter Seven: Context

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Context (Chapter 7)

Spring 2004: Chapter Eight: Effects, Part 1

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Effects, Part 1 (Chapter 8)

Summer 2004: Chapter Eight: Effects, Part 2

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Effects, Part 2 (Chapter 8)

Fall 2004: Epilogue & Bibliography

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today: Epilogue & Bibliography

The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today by J. Rodman Williams, was published in 1980 by Logos International. Used by permission of the author. Reprinted in Pneuma Review with minor updates from the author.

by Wayne A. Grudem

Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 1

Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 2

Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 3

Should Christians Expect Miracles Today? Objections and Answers from the Bible, Part 4

Craig S. Keener discusses his book, Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. Part of the Seedbed series from Asbury Theological Seminary.

How should we lead the church?

New Testament scholar Andrew D. Clarke imagines what it would be like to interview the Apostle Paul about church leadership today.

The opportunity to interview the Apostle Paul about his perceptions of church in the early twenty-first century was an opportunity not to be missed.

Interviewer: Paul, could you start by telling us some of the most striking things that you notice about churches today?

Apostle Paul: The thing that amazes me the most is to see how church buildings now have such a high profile in every town and in some of the best city centre locations.

 
Interviewer: Did you ever foresee church buildings would be so large, so permanent and so centrally located?

Apostle Paul: No – our imaginations in the first century never quite expected this. But then, nor did we expect so many centuries would pass without seeing the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly these churches are amazing testimony to centuries of significant growth, development and influence.

 
Interviewer: Would you have liked to minister in these kind of churches?

Apostle Paul: I can certainly see advantages, but then I can also see disadvantages. The biggest advantages are public profile and space. Christians travelling through a strange city can immediately identify where believers are gathering. For many years, identifying whether there was a group of believers in a city was a major challenge to me on my travels.

These church buildings also offer an amazing space for large crowds to worship and hear the gospel proclaimed. Our Lord Jesus, of course, often spoke to very large crowds of my countrymen, and we also looked forward to festival days when the whole city of Jerusalem could offer loud worship to the Lord, with many musical instruments. These new buildings must be ideal for this. When I wrote to the churches in Asia Minor, Macedonia and Achaia, however, this was something I knew was not a realistic option – so I said little about it.

 
Interviewer: And the disadvantages?

Apostle Paul: Probably the same – public profile and space! As I look around today, it seems to me that ‘church’ is now identified either with a building, or with what happens in that building – at fixed times each week. It’s as if church comes down to a list of weekly activities, advertised on large notice-boards outside locked church buildings.

 
Interviewer: But, what about when church is ‘on’?

Apostle Paul: As I say, I’m excited about the opportunities for both teaching and worship, but I’m puzzled about how the mutual up-building of the body is carried out in spaces like this, and I’d be surprised if these buildings were good places to meet unbelievers.

Max Turner, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts in the New Testament Church and Today, Revised Edition (Hendrickson Publishers/Baker Academic, 1998), 383 pages.

The purpose of this work is to explore the significance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. The book consists of two parts. The first part examines the development of New Testament pneumatology through an understanding of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the intertestamental period. The second part analyses the significance of the New Testament witness (Luke-Acts, John and Paul) for a contemporary theology of spiritual gifts by examining the nature and purpose of three predominant gifts of the Spirit in the New Testament (prophecy, tongues and healing) and their significance in the Pentecostal and charismatic communities today. The first part offers an excellent example of the anti-cessationist argument, whereas the second part relates the perspectives on spiritual gifts held by the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements to those of traditional Evangelical forms of Christianity. The result is a work that crosses disciplinary boundaries and begins to ask questions about the appropriation of the New Testament witness on spiritual gifts for the Christian life today. It is this aspect that has already made The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts a classic of its discipline.

As can be expected, Turner finds in the Old Testament and intertestamental periods a primary witness to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of prophecy, wisdom and revelation. Nonetheless, while some would argue that this activity of the Holy Spirit is “merely” an empowering activity, Turner argues that it is indeed necessary for God’s work of salvation, providing not only the power of God’s holiness but also the very life of Israel as the people of God. Turner then suggests that the writers of the New Testament further developed this theme. Luke, John and Paul portray the Spirit of prophecy as the life-giving Spirit transformed by the event of Jesus Christ, Pentecost, and an implicit Trinitarian theology. For Turner, this understanding offers a coherent New Testament theology of the gift of the Spirit to believers, which is best explained in terms of a broad one-stage conversion-initiation paradigm instead of the classical Pentecostal two-stage paradigm of conversion and subsequent empowerment.

Max Turner is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at London School of Theology.

From the Pentecostal perspective, a one-stage model of the Spirit’s reception would collapse the distinctive work of the Spirit of empowerment and prophecy into the reception of the soteriological work of the Spirit at conversion. This would eliminate the most crucial aspect of contemporary Pentecostal theology, namely, that the baptism of the Spirit is theologically distinct (at least logically, if not chronologically) from conversion. Proponents of the one-stage model, on the other hand, argue that the New Testament witness shows only one giving of the Spirit and not two distinct acts, so that the Spirit of conversion is also the Spirit of empowerment. According to this view, conversion and empowerment represent one ongoing activity and not a subsequent and theologically different giving of the Spirit. Turner’s work upholds the argument of the latter group and proposes that there is only one gift of the Spirit to believers which affords the entire experiential dimension of the Christian life. The book will undoubtedly remain an important contribution to the ongoing debate of this subject matter, and no serious participant in the discussion can afford to neglect Turner’s insight into the arguments.

Craig S. Keener, Gift & Giver: The Holy Spirit for Today (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 224 pages.

Craig Keener, a New Testament professor at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has already made a name for himself in the world of biblical studies. The present work on the Holy Spirit will undoubtedly introduce his name also to the field of pneumatology. Gift & Giver is a concise and well-written book on the Holy Spirit. Its outline may as well be called exemplary, its goal and informative value priceless. Published by an academic publishing house, the book speaks well to a much wider audience than the academic world. From the perspective of the latter, one could also entitle the book “Discerning the Holy Spirit.” The framework of the book is formed by a discussion of the discernment and recognition of the Spirit and spiritual gifts. However, the decisive question for Keener is, “How do we discern the Spirit’s work today?” It is this question of applicability to our lives today that elevates the book beyond many of its academic contemporaries.

Keener admits that much of the material of the book is based on his earlier work 3 Crucial Questions about the Holy Spirit. However, the reorganization of that material and the application of biblical principles to daily life through personal stories of the author make Gift & Giver a more accessible book for a wider Christian audience than its predecessor. The sharing of personal stories is no longer limited to authors of the charismatic and Pentecostal movements but has long found entrance into theology as a valuable tool of teaching, confirmation and illustration. Difficult biblical and theological issues are dealt with in a scholarly and pastorally sensitive manner that offers a refreshing perspective on the work of the Holy Spirit. Even if one disagrees with Keener’s conclusions and personal insights at some points, the reader will remain challenged by the presentation of the biblical texts and their application to contemporary life.

Richard N. Longenecker, ed., Community Formation in the Early Church and in the Church Today (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002), 251 + xix pages, ISBN 9780801046964.

The new believer is not likely to progress far in his or her spiritual walk before coming across someone calling the church today to return to our New Testament roots. One of the foundations of this call is the desire to discover (or rediscover) what may be called “the New Testament model” of church structure and Christian community. Some have even gone so far as to suggest the abolition of church buildings and worship centers and the return to small home groups as “the only true New Testament norm” for Christian fellowship.

Regardless of whether there is validity to these claims or not, a number of questions still remain: Does the New Testament present the 21st century church with a model for Christian community? If so, is it a normative model, exclusive of any other structures? Or is there a freedom to be enjoyed in how the church today can be structured? Is the decision to be based on theological bases, sociological bases, both, or neither? It is obvious that the most basic of observations reveal a wide variety of church structures along denominational lines, and even within those same denominations.

These are important questions to the life and ministry of the church in general and every Christian in particular, and that church (and Christian) has been blessed with a collection of twelve essays, from a variety of Canadian and American scholars, which examines these questions in detail. The general perspective that developed from these studies (originally presented in June 2000 at the Bingham Colloquium, held at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) is that Christian community formation is based on both the biblical doctrine of the gospel and the sociological elements that define each society in which that gospel is presented and followed.

As editor, Longenecker has grouped these essays into four natural sections. Beginning with the social context of the Greco-Roman world in the first few centuries of the church’s existence, the first three essay take us on a walk through the various communities, fellowships, and “voluntary associations” which were in abundance at that time and place. By way of archaeological descriptions and discussions, the reader discovers how closely the early church structures resembled similar structures of which the first Christians were well aware.

Archaeological examination is closely followed by biblical examination in the second section of the book. The fact that Christianity (and the church) stands or falls on the person of Jesus Christ, leads to the natural and necessary corollary that the ministry of the church should be guided and shaped by the ministry of Christ. “The paradigm of ministry for Christians was established by Jesus himself, whose example was followed—even though not always successfully or willingly—by his disciples and those who came to believe in him. Every model of ministry, therefore, if it is to be truly Christian, must be guided by the teaching and example of Jesus” (p. 59). Following on the heels of Jesus’ ministry was the ministry of his disciples, and Longenecker himself contributes a chapter on the vision and image of the church described by the apostle Paul in his missionary letters. The New Testament portion of the book continues with a look into Luke’s theology of ministry and leadership as presented in the book of Acts, and concludes with a look into the various elements of the New Testament congregations as described by Paul in his pastoral epistles.