This year the Foundation conferred its first Lifetime Achievement Award; it went to physicist-theologian Paul Elbert. He worked mainly in interpretive methods and narrative-rhetorical backgrounds with respect to Luke-Acts, including Greco-Roman education and the fulfillment of prophecy theme. He was a member of the Steering Committee for the Formation of the Luke-Acts Section within the Society of Biblical Literature and a member of the New Testament Section within the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical and Theological Research. He served as chairperson of the Charismatic Themes in Luke-Acts five-year dialogue within the Evangelical Theological Society.

Paul served as editor of two festschrifts for American Old Testament scholars, Essays on Apostolic Themes (in honor of Howard Ervin) and Faces of Renewal (in honor of Stanley Horton), and his writings have appeared, for example, in Theologische Zeitschrift, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Journal of Biblical Literature, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, Journal of Theological Studies, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Evangelical Quarterly, Trinity Journal, Refleks: Med Karismatisk Kristendom i Fokus, Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, and the Journal of Pentecostal Theology. He served on the editorial board of the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies and was the founding editor of the Journal for Biblical and Pneumatological Research.

His essays have been recently compiled and published in Essays in Biblical Studies and Luke’s Rhetorical Compositions; The Lukan Gift of the Holy Spirit was published as a monograph (you may find more about these books in earlier posts in this group; search below). He is also the author of Pastoral Letter to Theo: An Introduction to Interpretation and Women’s Ministries.

In addition to being a long-time member of Society for Pentecostal Studies and Society of Biblical Literature, Paul was also a member of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and formerly served as chairperson of the Georgia Superconducting Super Collider Committee.

2022 — Scholar and Author Gordon Fee Passes Away 

Leaves Behind a Rich Legacy of Scholarship

Gordon Fee taught for almost two decades at Gordon-Conwell—Hamilton, from the 1970s to the early 1990s. He was a popular New Testament professor, hosted students and their families often in his home, and preached and taught widely in the United States, Canada, and frequently in Africa and Europe. He and his wife Maudine had a special ministry to foreign missionaries, visiting mission stations where groups of missionaries in a given region would gather, teaching biblical topics and methods to them in ways that they in turn could teach to the people among whom they ministered.

Gordon earned his doctorate at USC and was already an influential specialist in New Testament text criticism by the time he joined the seminary faculty. I first met him in Wheaton, IL, where he was teaching. Three of us faculty members from Gordon-Conwell (David Scholer, Ramsey Michaels, and I) took him to lunch during a scholarly conference to try to persuade him to leave Wheaton and come to teach at Gordon-Conwell. It worked. (Actually, God worked.) He and Maudine stayed at our home when they first visited the Massachusetts North Shore to look for housing, and our families had many happy interactions thereafter.

Gordon was a passionate teacher and preacher. Students loved his courses because he taught with authority, unafraid to contend vigorously for whatever he believed was true and worthy of believing, unlike academics who present their views with endless qualifications and disclaimers. Audiences loved his preaching, which was enthusiastic and direct, often involving deep emotion as Gordon preached even the supportive details of a passage with the conviction that every word of God’s revelation was an integral part of God’s saving truth. He often broke down and wept when preaching, so moved was he to show the greatness of what God had inspired, and the power of the Spirit to use the Word to transform people for eternity.

He was a disciplined and prolific writing scholar, whose works have influenced more than one generation of scholars and pastors. But he also had a deep desire to help lay people become better readers of the Bible. One day in 1981, he stopped me in the faculty office hallway in the lower level of the Goddard Library and said, “I need your help. I’ve got an idea for a book, and I can’t write it by myself.”  The idea was to help people understand the Bible better by breaking up its contents into the ten major literary genres (law, narrative, gospel, prophecy, parables, apocalyptic, etc.) and then to lay out basic ground rules for making sure that readers would not confuse genres and would get the most out of each category of literature God had inspired in his Word. Although I wrote the chapters on the five major Old Testament genres and he wrote on the five major New Testament genres, we spent many hours sending manuscripts back and forth, critiquing each other’s contributions, and making suggestions to each other, right down to individual sentences and words. Gordon had very strong opinions but loved God’s truth, so he always gladly considered suggestions for improving things. We even spent a long time trying to come up with the right title. Gordon’s working title was Let the Reader Understand, but when I came up with How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth he loved it and readily endorsed it. We went on to work together on a total of four editions, the most recent appearing in 2014, as well as a sequel, How to Read the Bible Book by Book, and two exegesis handbooks, Old Testament Exegesis and New Testament Exegesis, both of which also became best sellers. Once, in the middle of writing How to Read the Bible Book by Book, he said, “It’s a good book now, but not yet a great book. We have to keep working.” That shows something of the nature of his drive for excellence in everything he did.

Gordon left Gordon-Conwell to complete his teaching career at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where for many years he worked under a special arrangement that allowed him to spend half the year teaching at Regent and half the year teaching missionaries on the field. Gordon developed Alzheimer’s and by his early seventies stopped teaching. He and Maudine, who had suffered uncomplainingly from arthritis for decades, left Vancouver and moved to New York City to live with one of their sons. Eight years ago, even though his Alzheimer’s was rather advanced by then, he was still working on various scholarly projects, and he and I were working on the most recent edition of one of our books. He had trouble remembering conversations and recent events but had lost none of his sharpness for biblical scholarship nor his love for God’s word. After 88 years on earth, he joined God’s eternal family on October 25, 2022, “old and full of years” as the Bible says, and still full of enthusiasm for helping people to know the truth that he so eagerly had preached, taught, and written about during his influential lifetime. (By Douglas Stuart as posted on Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary Website)

Fee’s commentary on Galatians won the Foundation’s 2009 Award of Excellence. Several of his books were award worthy, for example, his commentary on 1 Corinthians (1987), God’s Empowering Presence (1994), and Pauline Christology (2007).

Foundation Publishes Paul Elbert’s The Lukan Gift of the Holy Spirit: Understanding Luke’s Expectations for Theophilus, which Challenges the von Baer-Dunn Conversion-Initiation Thesis

This may be our most important book to date, a short but seminal work that supports the Pentecostal doctrine of subsequence. Those arguing and building upon the von Baer-Dunn model will have to interact with this book. Robert Menzies writes in his foreword to the book: 

“. . . Jesus’s encouragement of his disciples to pray for the Holy Spirit in Luke 11:13, the climax of Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:38, and the account of the Ephesian disciples’ reception of the Spirit in Acts 18:23–19:7 are key passages that take us to the heart of Luke’s pneumatology. How students of the Bible read these important texts will not only shape how they understand the work of the Spirit in Luke-Acts, but will largely determine their response to the Pentecostal movement. . . . This volume analyzes in context and at length each of these important passages from Luke-Acts. While this monograph is notable because of its subject matter, it is also marked by excellent scholarship. The book is filled with helpful exegetical insights, enhanced by an astonishing command of and interaction with the scholarly literature, and characterized by sensitivity to Luke’s literary skill. . . .

"This work is significant because, as the chapter titles indicate, it analyzes three critically important texts in context. Actually, the term “context” here can be understood in three ways. First, the author carefully interprets each of these passages within the larger literary context of Luke-Acts. So, Elbert argues that Luke writes to encourage Theophilus by setting out “a coherent pneumatological picture” for him, affirming that if Theophilus “prays for the gift of the Holy Spirit as Jesus taught, then it will be given” to him.” Elbert demonstrates that we must read Jesus’s exhortation to pray for the Spirit in light of the Pentecostal event and promise (Acts 2:38) and Luke’s successive descriptions of its fulfilment, including the decisive story of the Ephesian disciples’ reception of the Spirit (Acts 19:1–7). As Luke’s narrative indicates, this gift of the Spirit will include “prophetic-type phenomena” and “make [Theophilus] a more effective witness” for Jesus.

"Second, the author analyzes these key texts in the light of the first-century context of Graeco-Roman rhetorical conventions. Elbert shows how Luke frequently reflects his Hellenistic setting and upbringing by utilizing literary techniques common in the Graeco-Roman world of his day. So, for example, Elbert helpfully points out how Luke’s description of Apollos (Acts 18:24–28), juxtaposed as it is with his account of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus (Acts 19:1–7), follows a “comparison and contrast” literary strategy common among Hellenistic authors of this period.

"Finally, by highlighting Luke’s desire to strengthen and encourage Theophilus, an exemplar of Luke’s audience, Elbert encourages contemporary readers to apply Luke’s message to our context. So, just as “the phenomenological categories of prophecy, glossolalia, dreams, visions, and physically defying transcendent signs” might seem as strange to us as they were to Theophilus, hopefully we, like Theophilus, will also read this record with the knowledge that Luke is a reliable and trustworthy guide. Above all, Elbert calls us to recognize that Luke, a Spirit-inspired and authoritative guide, urges us to desire and expect the power of the Spirit to transform and enhance our participation in God’s great mission.”

Foundation Compiles and Publishes Paul Elbert’s Essays in Biblical Studies: New and Penetrating Ideas on the Work of the Holy Spirit

This is a compilation of nine essays, each containing new and specific ideas on the work of the Holy Spirit in various capacities. For example, in creative deeds, in biblical interpretation, in the administration of spiritual gifts, in Spirit-reception and narrative sequence, and in Pentecostal hermeneutics, to name a few.

From Lyle Story’s endorsement: “. . . Paul Elbert wears many hats: philosopher, Pentecostal, theologian, Greek expert with acumen in Greek rhetoric, professor, scientist, and of utmost importance, a servant of Jesus Christ in his personal and church life, and the academy, with a solid Pentecostal witness.

“His welcome essays reinforce the principle that presuppositions mean everything as we look at the Bible, including its nature and interpretation.  He takes on approaches such as relativism, proof-texting, and dogmatic chasmal and epochal distortions of meaning as we read the Bible to know God, not simply to “make-it-fit.”  Paul accentuates the purpose and message of biblical writers within specific historical, literary, and cultural contexts and regards many aberrations as attempts to harmonize everything in the Bible that narrowly select and filter the Bible, governed by faulty presuppositions.  He pays particular attention to connections between Acts 2:4; Luke 3:6, and Luke 11:13 in ways that readers would note common bonds and thematic links.”

The Foundation's First Anthology Published—Strangers to Fire: When Tradition Trumps Scripture

Strangers to Fire is an anthology of 35 previously published (for the most part) essays by 26 authors of the Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Third Wave movements, or non-cessationists of traditional denominations, responding to John F. MacArthur's Strange Fire or cessationism and the abuse of the charismata in general.

Contributors:

Stanley Burgess, Randy Clark, Ronald Cottle, William De Arteaga, Jack Deere, Paul Elbert, Andrew Floris, Robert Graves, Gary Greig, Wayne Grudem, James Hernando, Melvin Hodges, Eddie Hyatt, William Kay, Craig Keener, Robert Menzies, J. P. Moreland, Doug Oss, Mel Robeck Jr., Jon Ruthven, Mark Rutland, Omer Jaye Sharp, Gary Shogren, Sam Storms, Horace Ward, David Womack

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT STRANGERS TO FIRE:

"Cessationism is no longer the default position of evangelical Christianity. This is partly due to the worldwide growth of the Pentecostal-charismatic movement, in which miraculous spiritual gifts play a prominent role. It is mostly due, however, to the biblical, theological, and historical errors of cessationism itself, errors that are patently refuted in this new anthology from The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship." —George O. Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God (USA) and Chairman of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship

 "John MacArthur’s cessationist views, which he has advocated over a few decades now, have been re-stated in a recent publication. This is the occasion for a compilation of chapters by many highly competent scholars to deal with far more than an effective rebuttal of cessationism. In dealing with cessationism the authors have actually engaged in substantial biblical theology. I have always been of the view that the best defense against ces­sa­­tionism is not simply to refute the details of the position, but to positively describe major theological themes of scripture, particularly the kingdom of God as inaugurated eschatology, the primary mission and message of Jesus. Where such theology is positively articulated, cessationism will with­­­er on the vine. This is the virtue of this work. The first half does refute MacAuthur’s position, point by point, but the second half includes various examples of a positive biblical theology. This is most gratifying. There are also a number of chapters on signs and wonders in church history, proving continuation. A general impression of the contributions from this gathering of scholars is that they are both competent in their academic fields and living witnesses to the ongoing charismatic presence of the Holy Spirit today."  —Derek Morphew, Ph.D., Academic Dean, Vineyard Institute, Author of Breakthrough: Discovering the Kingdom