‘What Does It Mean By “Submit”?’: A Question and a [Theological] Response

In the course of any given day, I may receive various questions regarding Scripture or theology. I personally love these as they are chances to reflect with others about what God has revealed and might be making known to and in us. I received the title of this blog post as an email subject line with the following question and, below that, I offer my (perhaps overlong) theological reply. The question emerges from one of my former students who is a pastor.

The question:

So I’m hung up on the fun theological question of relational roles and I think over the last couple of years I have gone so far to the point of eglitarian belief where each member is as valuable and has just as much say as the other that I am wondering that I might have gone to a point where I may be missing what it means for a man to lead. I think I was raised so heavily on the “woman submit” mentality, that when I pushed against the idea in the way I knew it, I may have ran from the actual intent of the passage? I guess at this point I am wondering if treating both members as equals doesn’t mean that there aren’t still some roles within a relationship setting? But I’m stuck on how are two people equal if one person gets the final say in everything?

My response:

I totally get it. There can be a tendency in swinging positions to ignore the critique of the other/s. In this way, I personally contend for egalitarianism even as there must be distinctions of persons, but not any predetermined roles with the one exception of producing a child in bearing a child [mother] and producing a child without bearing a child [father]. Otherwise, I see no clear distinctions of roles for earning income, determining responsibilities, child care, household care, etc. There is only a mutuality of shared agreements between the parents (when two are present) that allows for mutual loving of each other and any children (or others brought into that sphere of life including family by blood or choice, and the Church).

The call to “submit” is a mutual submission in Ephesians 5:21 that seems inclusive of all who are in Christ. In this fashion, there is no distinction of gender, social class, age, etc. Even as any distinctions are not erased, ignored, or imagined to not exist. All relationships are re-oriented in Christ Jesus as the mediator between every person and every other person, between individuals and groups, and groups and groups. He is the mediator for all relationships. In this way there cannot but be mutual submission to the other as to Christ our Lord.

Now, I read Paul as engendering relations of his historical-cultural-social context/s in how he explains such relations playing out following this mutual submission call. In his context, there are culturally delineated roles of husband-wife, parent-child, master-slave that simply are not our own context/s (we not only do not believe the relation of master/slave ought to still be maintained even if “good”, but we actually believe children have rights as humans…and for the Church we contend they are in Christ Jesus by faith and in this manner we relate to them). Even as he calls for relationships to be specifically faithful in the given context they are found in, there is a sense in which through the movement of his letter to the Ephesians that all relationships are upended, transformed, and made new in Christ in whom all things are being brought to submission and brought into for the redemption that is ours in him. This is the end of all things breaking into the present age in the crucified and risen One.

As to the question of both being “equal”, that is a problem that requires further explanation. Our own western contemporary ideals of what it might mean to be “equal” convolutes the discussion. We really may be far better served not speaking of each other as “equals”, but as those who are “in Christ”. This means we all have differing contexts, histories, cultures, responsibilities, gifts, etc., that are honored and remade in our obedience to the Word. This should not be confused with being “equal”. Equality can suggest all things equal, which seems to ignore our specificity as humans that are different from one another and that somehow in this differentiation we bring glory by the Spirit to the Father. It is not in overcoming our different-ness, but in living by the Spirit in that different-ness that we are conformed (and being conformed) to the Son. It is not the removal of difference, but the sharing of difference as a sort of mosaic of new creation in Christ. This actually honors our different-ness and appreciates each social-historical-cultural context.

As to the question of one individual getting “the final say in everything”, I would say there is only one who does this: God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The only person who does this is the God of Israel, given to and for us, the man from Nazareth, Jesus, and poured out and enjoined in his Spirit. To imagine that one spouse has any “final say in everything” would be for that spouse to take the place of the Lord in the relationship. Neither spouse is the Father, nor the Son, nor the Spirit. Nor should either take the place of such. To do so would be as if the Father simply dictated to Son and Spirit and they obeyed. But this misses that our God, in the bonds of love, mutually submits for the sake and glory of Father, Son, and Spirit. The “final say” in this way is the mutually shared agreement of Father, Son, and Spirit in making all things new. But the model you are speaking of is widely held and believed in the Church even as it is precisely the model Jesus condemned as the world’s way where one lords it over another. This is not who we are, because this is not the God we worship and are being sanctified into the image of.

Does this make sense? What are your thoughts in response? Sorry for the long explanation that is perhaps difficult reading. I’m thinking I will go ahead and post my reply as a blog post (so thank you for being my muse 😉 ).

Blessings,

Rick

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Second 2020 SPS Paper Approved

I just received word today that my second paper proposal to the 2020 Society for Pentecostal Studies annual meeting was approved. I submitted the following proposal to the Ethics Interest Group.

“Bonhoeffer Meets Macchia: Toward a Pentecostal – Pneumatic and Embodied – Christocentric Ethic”

This study will propose to bring two theologians’ Christologies into conversation toward a pneumatic embodied ethic centered in Christ as the embodied and enspirited Son of Man. While Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christological foci and most specifically his Ethics have been mined for their own contributions, a number of his insights (regarding Word, Church, history, world, the ultimate, and the real) are brought into conversation with the recent constructive Christological contributions of Pentecostal theologian, Frank Macchia (particularly in his Jesus the Spirit Baptizer: Christology in Light of Pentecost). Bonhoeffer’s rejection of principlizing ethics and focus upon the real, the ultimate, that is the Christ, offers a welcome conversation partner for those seeking to discern an ethic within the Christocentric full gospel message of Pentecostals. This conversation offers overtures drawn from the Christocentric ethic that Bonhoeffer began to envision, but which Macchia might fill out further with insights drawn from the Spirit Baptizer at Pentecost. Thus, the ethics of Bonhoeffer are drawn into a constructive ethical movement with insights from Macchia’s Spirit Baptizer Christology as a means of explicitly Christocentric-enspiriting of the Christocentric embodied ethic of Bonhoeffer. This movement provides a re-envisioning of ethics centered in the Christ of the full gospel emphasizing the manner in which Jesus as Spirit baptizer speaks to faithful/faithfilled response-able living for God and world.

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2020 SPS Paper Approved

I received notice this weekend that one of my paper proposals for the 2020 Society for Pentecostal Studies meeting hosted by Vanguard University was approved. Following is the title and brief summary:

“On Ladies, Women-Folk, and Wives’ Tales in 1-2 Kings: A Pentecostal Literary-Theological Retelling”

This study will examine the texts of 1-2 Kings concerning female characters and portrayals toward discerning the various re-presentations of women for the exilic community/ies that preserved these texts. A literary and theological reading of the relevant texts will offer various categories for the types of texts (along the lines of Form Criticism, but with movement toward canonical shaping and placement) and the manner in which female characters are portrayed, described, and engaged. This literary and theological approach seeks to recover ways in which women may have been recast in the exilic period as part of the social and theological memory of the exilic community/ies of Israel and Judah. Such a study is intended to discern some of the complexities of literary characterization/s and their theological significance/s in self-understanding and self-re-presentation. Further, this study proposes several intersections with historical and contemporary re-presentations of women within the Pentecostal tradition/s noting a number of recent publications: E. Alexander and A. Yong (Philip’s Daughters), K. Alexander and J. Bowers (What Pentecostal Women Want), M. de Alminana and L. Olena (Women in Pentecostal and Charismatic Ministry), and J. Qualls (God Forgive Us for Being Women).

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Let Your Daughters Prophesy: A Call for Women to Preach

I believe part of the issue in our current debates about women preaching is rooted in part in both the Catholic and the Reformed traditions of “preaching” which see such as a specific form of formal congregational instruction that is believed to be excluded by Paul’s instruction to Timothy for women. Setting aside specific engagement of Paul’s instruction here (as a later post meant to address what I believe Paul was addressing), I wish to emphasize that the words of Paul were not specifically excluding “preaching” as Pentecostals understand such (and I contend, the Scriptures themselves). Pentecostals have not traditionally regarded “preaching” in this same manner. For Pentecostals, preaching is directly connected to the prophetic and thus is a speech act of the Spirit (and sometimes, or perhaps even primarily, also an embodied act). In light of this contention, I offer the following several words to our sisters and brothers.

Pentecostals believe in the prophethood of all believers. For Pentecostals (particularly early Pentecostals) the act of preaching was not reserved for clergy, but belonged to whomever the Spirit gave a word to proclaim. Roger Stronstad has argued persuasively for the “prophethood of all believers” among Pentecostals akin to the “priesthood of all believers” recovered among the churches of the Reformation period. He contends for this by drawing from Luke’s vision of the Church described in Luke-Acts particularly.* When we link the prophethood of all believers to the appreciation of Pentecostal preaching as a prophetic act, we find ourselves under the compelling freedom of the Spirit to call for all whom the Spirit empowers to preach the good news of Jesus to all who might hear.

It must be remembered that the first preachers of the resurrection were women who found the empty tomb and received words reminding them of Jesus’ instructions. If we were to reduce preaching to practiced and prepared speech acts reserved for the properly ordained is to declare the limitations of the Spirit to speak freely in the gathered assembly and to the world that desperately needs this Word.

It must be remembered that the Spirit was promised to be poured out on all flesh causing sons and daughters to prophesy (Joel 2.28; Acts 2.17-18). This prophesying is a proclaimed re-envisioning of the world as the God of Israel has intended it to be and is in the midst of carrying out.** It is a call to repentance. A call to holiness. A call to redemption. A call to freedom, healing, and life. A call that the Spirit sends out…that the Bride takes up and all those with her cry: Come!!! (Rev.22.17) This prophetic word is the voice of the enspirited Bride of the Lamb. The prophetic word goes out to every tongue, tribe, and nation, until Jesus makes the kingdoms of this world, the kingdom of his God and Father. And this prophetic word is the good news of salvation to all who receive it. Such prophetic word is indeed the preaching of that eternal message of God.

Those who would silence women from prophesying would find themselves opposed to the writings of Paul instructing women in the proper manner that they should prophesy in the corporate worship gathering (1 Cor.11.5; ). While the prophetic has been regarded as only spontaneous this ignores the writing prophets who must have carried their messages some time before their enscripturation. Further, this excludes that one could plan to prophesy in a gathering and should expect to be prophetically engaged by the people of God. While the form of “prophesying” which Paul is addressing in his letters would not perhaps be akin to much contemporary “preaching”, perhaps the issue is whether or not we are practicing the “preaching” of the earliest churches that seems to have been propehetic in nature as engaging the Scriptures of Israel in their experience of Jesus and his Spirit. Thus, my contention is that Paul expected all in his congregations to act and speak prophetically…and thus to be preaching Jesus in the power and order of the Spirit.

Any reduction of preaching to that speech act found in a formal setting of church gatherings by ecclesiastically ordained officiants falls far short of this call to full-bodied participation in this last days prophetic preaching (and harvest) of all those ordained by the Spirit to proclaim Jesus. This is why I cannot but proclaim with the Spirit to let our daughters prophesy!

_____________________

* Roger Stronstad, The Prophethood of All Believers: A Study in Luke’s Charismatic Theology (CPT Press, 2010).

** On this helpful unpacking of the “prophetic”, see Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Updated and Revised; Fortress, 2001), and The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipating Word (Fortress, 2012).

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Not Afraid of the Antichrist: A Short Response

I was asked by a pastor friend what my thoughts were on Michael Brown and Craig Keener’s Not Afraid of the Antichrist: Why We Don’t Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture (Chosen Books, 2019). For the record, I understand that the Fellowship with which I am ordained holds to “The Blessed Hope” as one of our doctrine and that this has traditionally been read as indicating only Pre-Tribulation Rapture (despite that it is also widely known that the original author of our Statement, D.W. Kerr, held to another view, but wanted some allowance for diversity on this*). This doctrinal statement seems more accurate biblically to point to a broader reference to Jesus’ soon bodily return for His Church to be gathered to Him and the world to be made His (and our) inheritance as His kingdom reigns in all things at the resurrection.

Here was my short response to him:

“I read it just before it came out for the general market. Overall it offers a decent basic discussion of the biblical texts involved in the debates about the rapture. While there are times it is ironic, at others it comes across in a way that some will find demeaning.”

“I think their basic premise is correct: that one simply would not come up with a doctrine of Pre-Tribulation Rapture directly from reading the texts of Scripture, but must presume it theologically to read select Scriptures through such a filter. They do not, however, reject the idea of Premillennialism, nor of the idea of being “caught up” as Jesus returns. They are simply contending that the Dispensational system necessary for a Pre-Trib Rapture reading should not be forced onto Scripture, but Scripture itself best offers how we might interpret it.”

“As to several potential weaknesses…(1) I did not find the discussion of the debated texts from Daniel to be sufficiently engaged. While many of the NT texts were engaged, Daniel was very nearly avoided in the discussion and simply presumed to be self-understood. However, Daniel 7 (in particular, and the chapters that follow) are particularly difficult for interpreters. I’m not sure why it was not more discussed, but wish it had been.”

“(2) It is written at a more popular level. This is both a strength and weakness. For general consumption this volume may prove convincing and/or helpful. For those who seem to really care about such discussions, I’m guessing this more popular level writing will simply not address the issues they believe must be addressed.”

“It is a book I would personally endorse for taking a small group through as a pastor. It would spur on discussions about the texts involved (even if people do not agree with the book’s proposals). If I did that I would use the book to guide the conversations as a starter, but would put the emphasis on looking carefully through the pertinent texts of Scripture as a group.”

Have you had a chance to read it yet? What are your thoughts?

__________________

* See the helpful discussion in Glen Menzies and Gordon L. Anderson, “D.W. Kerr and Eschatological Diversity in the Assemblies of God,” Paraclete (1993): 8-16.

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What Does It Mean To Be Spirit-Led? A Response

I was asked today by a pastor friend what I might think it means to be “Spirit-led” or “Spirit-empowered”? Here is my brief response:

It is to see and hear what the the Spirit is doing/saying, and to find ourselves participants of such by faith.

It is to bear witness to the one the Spirit bears witness to: King Jesus.

It is to find our prayers taken up into the prayers of Jesus where by the Spirit of sonship we cry “Abba, Father” in our affirming testimony of belonging to God as his children in Christ Jesus by the Spirit.

It is to be consumed by the sanctifying love of God in Christ Jesus.

So how might you define being “Spirit-led” or “Spirit-empowered”?

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Why Do We Need the Genealogies of 1 Chronicles?

I was recently asked the following question about the genealogies of 1 Chronicles (which are not typical for a verse-of-the-day reflection):

“I am going through a devotion to read the Bible in a year. A part of that means reading the Chronicles. I’ve read up to chapter 8, but I still don’t get why they are there. The only thing I can think of is that it demonstrates God’s faithfulness with every generation. What role does the Chronicles play in our lives today?”

Here is my reply:

“Great question. Let me offer a couple of thoughts on their inclusion:

1) Like any family tree, the ones who care about it the most are usually those whose family it represents. You will find that you care more about your family history than those not belonging to your family. So these chapters would matter to those families that this records their heritage. It is like the saying you may have heard before “When we are reading the Bible we are reading someone else’s mail”. Yet the Church finds themselves grafted into this family so that this becomes in a certain fashion, our family tree.

2) It traces the families from the beginning (Adam) all the way to the 4-5th century BCE and the exiles who were now returning to the land from exile. This gives a testament to the faithfulness of the God of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The faithfulness is shown in the continuing generations and in the reported numbers. This deity, Yahweh, was faithful to judge the rebellion of the people, but better yet…this God was faithful to his Name (Yahweh) and was gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love to a thousand generations. His mercy is not like his justice. He is a good God.

3) It includes testimonies of both faithfulness and unfaithfulness in the genealogical records which serves to offer an honest appraisal and point the readers toward lives committed to faithfulness to the God of Israel and living faithfully in the land.

4) It provides some sense of a record (in those later chapters of the genealogies) of those who could trace their inheritance back to the promised land. This was paramount in determining who had a right to the various pieces of land as they were returning. It functioned in some sense as a book of life (to borrow the NT idea that seems to draw on these chapters in some fashion) where whoever’s names were in it (technically only the various family heads) were to receive their inheritance. You did not want your name excluded or questioned.

I trust this helps. I know it does not make these chapters any easier to read
per se, but it should at least offer some sense of why they belong here. Hope this helps. Blessings in your readings (and obedience to the readings).”

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God Forgive Us For Being Women: A Theological Response

What follows is my “theological response” delivered today at the annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies as one of four panel respondents to Joy E. A. Qualls’ God Forgive Us for Being Women: Rhetoric, Theology, and the Pentecostal Tradition ( Frameworks: Interdisciplinary Studies for Faith and Learning; Pickwick, 2018).

“God Forgive Us for Being Women”:

A Theological Response

Practical Theology Interest Group

Rick Wadholm Jr.

Trinity Bible College & Graduate School

Presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies

Introduction and Testimony

I am grateful for the work of Joy Qualls regarding her publication of this invaluable work on women in ministry in the Assemblies of God. Her work continues to open the way for further studies of the use of rhetoric in Pentecostal circles, but more importantly in addressing the issues of women serving in leadership in the broader Pentecostal Church. In the movement through the various ways in which the Assemblies of God has addressed this subject, there were many stories and accounts, which gave room for considered pause and reflection. Many more (quite honestly) caused anger sufficiently that I was forced to put the book away for a while (and even tossed the book at one point). There were still other moments where I sensed the Spirit’s call to action on my own part in raising up a new generation of ministers for the good news of the kingdom in preparation for Jesus’ soon coming.

By way of offering some frame of context for my responses to this volume I offer the following. As a professor in an Assembly of God Bible college, I pour my life into discipling women and men called into vocational ministry. I serve several graduate schools and seminaries in the Assemblies of God globally and do likewise in those contexts realizing those students are transformative for the national churches they represent as these women and men are in their pursuit of graduate ministerial training. I am committed to this work. I long to see the sons and daughters of God empowered by the Spirit, educated for the work of the ministry, and serving to the Spirit’s fullest potential in and through them. I have contended for at least one U.S. District Council of the Assemblies of God to revise completely their bylaws to change the explicitly masculine language regarding the opportunities of serving in the presbytery and district leadership (with such a change being made in the upcoming District Council). I count this one small victory, but note that Qualls’ work reminds me that even should the rhetoric turn toward allowing women, this does not necessarily entail the actual election of women to such positions.

As a Pentecostal, I cannot but help to share a personal testimony as well. My mother as a teenager was invited to a revival service in the “Black side of town” at a racially mixed Pentecostal church holding services in a Quonset hut. Sister Lang was the evangelist preaching that evening. During the service, Sister Lang gave a word of knowledge to my mother in the crowd regarding her need for healing. She invited my mom to the altar where she began by asking if my mom had committed her life to Jesus. That very night my mother was saved, healed, and baptized in the Holy Spirit thanks to the prophetic preaching ministry of Sister Lang. In this fashion, I owe my own salvation and Pentecostal heritage to the ministry of Sister Lang.

Three Theological Words of Appreciation

While there could be any number of pointed comments made regarding specific points of Qualls work, I will leave such to others. Further, while there are many things praiseworthy in this volume, I will offer only three specific points. Thus, I would like to offer the following three specific theological ways in which I believe Qualls has helped to further this long-overdue conversation.

First, I would offer that her work on the history of one specific Pentecostal fellowship provides an avenue of investing the development and contours of a sort of theological history. In the case of this project, the Assemblies of God has been examined in ways previously not engaged. As such, Qualls has helpfully offered this gift of taking the reader on a journey through the various movements of Assembly of God leadership and their responses to women in ministry. Such a historic turn allows for a critical self-reflection for those on the inside of said fellowship, and speaks to potential self-reflection for other Pentecostal fellowships to consider their own journeys (for good or bad, for empowerment or silencing) and to offer ways to look to the future in what God has done and might still do among us as we sort through our specific theological claims and discern how the Spirit is speaking.

Second, Qualls has reminded the Pentecostal community that our rhetoric matters. We only often imagine we understand speech as those given to emphasizing divine speech patterns and forms. However, Qualls offers her prophetic rebuke, by way of historical examination, of the ways we have failed to appreciate our rhetoric. The way we describe, respond to, affirm, confront, empower, or silence women in ministry reveals more about our own hearts than it does about the Spirit per se. Our claims seek to draw upon the Scriptures, but seem to prefer cultural adaptations and entrapments more than we might like to admit. We cannot escape our contexts and the ways this shapes our speech (word choices, patterns, etc.), but we can (and must) be enabled to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.           

Third, in a fashion reminiscent of early Pentecostals (like Sister Aimee), Qualls has not based her work upon any forms of Feminism (though she could properly have done so). Instead, she has sought to be descriptive of the Assemblies of God’s history and to root her work in the theology of the outpoured Spirit and Pentecostal testimony to such as engagement of the Scripture’s own witness. My appreciation of this point is not because Qualls chose not to make use of Feminism, but because she instead chose other bases for her work to offer ways (through careful choice of rhetoric) to persuade readers to hear what she says without offering the stumbling block for many who might not otherwise give their ears to hear.

Three Theological Words of Commendation

By commending Qualls work, I mean first off to give thanks for the ways she is helping us to speak to each other and listen better toward faithfulness to our Lord. Second, I mean to commend this work toward ways in which it might be better clarified and strengthened in its contentions. Third, I mean to commend this work for our hearing in call and response to what God is at work doing among us already and desires to do toward that Day. With such explanation of my meaning to commend this work, let me humbly offer the following three specific commendations.

First, this work would be better served through a clarification of language regarding the baptism in the Holy Spirit and pastoral ministry/authority. The baptism in the Holy Spirit functions as empowerment for witness and is not calling to vocational ministry. This failure to distinguish between empowerment as witnesses to Jesus and those called vocationally among those empowered for witness makes for argumentation that does not appreciate the fullest import of the empowerment of the baptism for all, and the distinguishing features of specific gifts within the church for individual members of the body.

Second, and related to the first, there seems to be at times a collapsing of language wherein terms are not sufficiently clarified or distinguished. Qualls seems to collapse such terms as calling and authority, and preaching and pastoring. These terms could use careful distinction as calling to ministry does not essentially entail authority within the church, nor does preaching entail pastoring. In relation to such terminological ambiguities, one might wonder in what ways “pastor” is made use of since many within Pentecostalism seem good with women pastoring women, children, or youth, but somehow not preaching in the Sunday AM worship setting as the regular preacher nor leading a board of elders.

Third, there appears at times to be an over-simplification of the unity of thought in early Pentecostalism (or at any other time in Pentecostalism) that regards the Assemblies of God as primarily in favor of women in ministry, pacifist, etc. There has always been a mixed response to these issues. What we are dealing with is predominant voices who were published and whose writings are extant. We do well not to overplay these nor to imagine things as more cohesive than they might have likely been. While Qualls at times allows for variant voices to be heard in her reporting of history, this work would be further strengthened in the recognition that always we are only dealing with those literate leading voices who were published and preserved. This may or may not be actually indicative of the Assemblies of God even as it is representative of specific leading voices. The broader constituency likely is not aware of such and may not even care. This is perhaps a problem of theological education wherein leadership may speak to issues, but the broader church simply does not hold such in individualized contexts.

Four Theological Orientations of Response

Finally, I would like to offer a four-fold (without offence to our five-fold brothers and sisters) orientation toward a stronger theological reading of Scripture and expression of such through our practice as the Pentecostal Church in better orienting our vision and language regarding women in ministry.

First, creation (as pre-Fall). Qualls rightly notes the ways in which Evangelicals have tended toward appealing to a proposed creation idea of the role of women in the Church drawn primarily from the post-Fall narrative of Genesis. Qualls does well indicating the ways in which appealing to pre-Fall creation is the ideal and ought to inform our trajectory within the redemptive community of God. I would press this yet further along the lines of interpretation offered by J. Richard Middleton’s The Liberating Image.[1] Creation of humans in the image of God was creation liberated into freedom toward and for one another. It was not bounded by relations of power and authority over and against, or exclusionary, but relations in light of God’s own inner communion: Father, Son and Spirit … mutual self-giving in love one for the other. Pentecostals, as those who live in light of God’s soon coming kingdom, also live in light of this beginning (and have perhaps missed this as orientative toward God’s intent in creation). To borrow the German terms for those points, which lay beyond historical investigation – urzeit and endzeit – Pentecostals are well served to draw upon our theology of urzeit (without exclusion of the endzeit), but it should actually be the urzeit to which we appeal as God’s intent and not the sin-filled world of historical experience. These times belong to the margins as those things outside of our experience and belonging to the revelation of God distinctly calling for belief, and to be enacted by faith. These are believed and experienced only by faith as that which belongs not to the fallen world groaning for redemption, but as the world “very good” and where God is with his people and his people with God. Such life is indeed liberating from the very beginning as a move toward the end. While Qualls makes certain overtures toward such a reappropriation of this true beginning, readers would do well to take up this task toward a more fully developed theology of creation pre-Fall.

Second, being in Christ. As Pentecostals we have already begun to experience the new creation breaking in upon us in our experience of the Spirit-anointed, Spirit-anointing Messiah. While this is a foretaste, it means that in our experience of Jesus we are experiencing what was intended from the beginning and have been liberated to a world already being made new in Christ. This inclusion in Christ, and only in Christ, toward that life calls for a rethinking of gendered relations. If indeed, there is neither male nor female in Christ (Gal. 3.28) what does this mean in the praxis of the Church? It certainly does not mean a removal of gendered life in Christ, but does point beyond simply an idea of “salvation” as inclusion in the community of God. It entails a remaking of all peoples as the one people, a testimony against the relations of distinction used against one another and an entering into unity where the “other” is received as Christ. This is not degendering, nor regendering, but engendering all of God’s people into Christ Jesus, the man from Nazareth, Son of Man and Son of God. This is a freeing to be male and female beyond cultural boundedness, but also within cultural expressions as embodying Christ with us.

Third, pneumatologic rhetoric. Perhaps, further we might begin to think pneumatologically and thus see in the “shy member of the Trinity”[2] the very work women (as Qualls helpfully states throughout) in Pentecostalism have taken up as they point to another, the Christ, rather than themselves. There are a number of directions this might develop, but perhaps most relevant to the project of Pentecostal rhetoric is an opening of speaking by the Spirit in tongues. To speak in tongues is to speak beyond the boundedness of the world as we know and experience it and to speak toward the language of the kingdom coming.[3] This is, partially, to exercise the tongue with “pneumatological imagination.”[4] This is to speak by the Spirit, a pneumatologic rhetoric, that points to the in-breaking of God’s kingdom over and beyond all words with imagined power in the present passing age. This liberating of the tongue is orientative toward God’s future where one people live fully in the one Spirit as those speaking in many tongues with one voice. This is the pneumatologic rhetoric of the distinctions among us enabled by the Spirit to bear witness to the one God and Father of all. Following Leonardo Boff, “The Spirit sets humankind free from an obsession with its origins, its desire to return to the original paradise, access to which had been finally closed (Gen. 3:23). The Spirit moves us on toward the promised land, the destiny that has to be built and revealed in the future.”[5] This pneumatologic move points us, orients us, and even draws us, eschatologically as God’s future in-breaks by the Spirit into the present.

Fourth, eschatology, specifically an eschatological hermeneutic.[6] A hermeneutic of eschatological orientation is at play in how Pentecostals read Scripture (or ought to be), make our theological confessions, and our Pentecostal Christopraxis.[7] An eschatological hermeneutic as Christopraxis hears Scripture toward their aim (when all things are brought into the life of Christ Jesus as from the Father) rather than simply via a historical-grammatical reading of Scripture. Such a hermeneutic might be regarded as prophetic which is language which Qualls proposes as the potential of Pentecostalism and as truer of early Pentecostalism. Qualls’ contention was that this earlier hearing of Scripture was impacted by a shift toward priestly understandings over and against prophetic understandings. While a specifically gendered bias might appear in a priestly turn (it is not inherently so), to paint the priestly as inherently conservative and the prophetic as somehow progressive or not conservative, seems to miss the very conservative nature of the prophetic as pointed out in the works of Terence Fretheim and James Barr.[8] Thus, while one might argue for a return to a prophetic engagement with Scripture, such would be ultimately “conservative”, that is, it is thoroughly in light of creation pre-Fall, being in Christ, pneumatologically proclaimed, in light of the making of all things new. Further, a truly “priestly” and “prophetic” turn is a turn to King Jesus as true beginning and end. Perhaps the notion even of “conservative” in such a sense alters the term as many have come to define it in light of life in a sin-fallen world who are not seeming to take seriously the in-breaking kingdom of God. Such an eschatological orientation cannot but hear beyond the historical context and potential historical intent of the texts of Scripture and see these in light of Jesus the Christ in whom those previously in Adam find themselves by the Spirit declaring a world that is testified to by the life of the en-Spirited community toward that dawning day of his return. This is why Bonhoeffer would say, “The church of Christ witnesses to the end of all things. It lives from the end. It thinks from the end, it acts from the end, it proclaims its message from the end.”[9] And thus may it ever be so of those claiming Pentecost, and the God of Pentecost, as their shared experience.

I would actually have utterly missed the point of this book if I did not end where Qualls begins: with a prayer for forgiveness. But here, instead of a rhetorical word of confession by a wounded and abused member of the body of Pentecostal fellowships, I offer a confession of my sins (and our sins), of omission and commission. I have sinned against my sisters here in failing to speak up on their behalf as often and as boldly as the Spirit has compelled me to. I have sinned against my sisters here in speaking and acting in ways that dismissed and damaged God’s fullest calling on their lives to minister fully on his behalf. I have sinned against my sisters here in not always affirming their imaging of God in Christ with regard to the call to care for the flock of God. I have sinned against my sisters here as a man thinking first of being a man among brothers, and have not raised up my sisters as the prophetic witnesses they are in God’s congregation. 

Dear Church, we have sinned against our sisters … and we have sinned against God. We have sinned against Christ’s body. We have sinned against the temple of the Holy Spirit. And we can only begin towards redemption here by saying, “God, forgive us….”


[1] Middleton, J. Richard. The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005).

[2] Frederic Dale Bruner and William E. Hordern, The Holy Spirit: Shy Member of the Trinity (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984); see also, T. F. Torrance, Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (T & T Clark, 2001), 63; Andrew K. Gabriel, The Lord is the Spirit: The Holy Spirit and the Divine Attributes (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), 94. Gabriel prefers the term “the Forgotten God,” 100.

[3] On which see, Robert Jenson, Visible Words: The Interpretation and Practice of Christian Sacraments (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 57.

[4] Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 133-217.

[5] Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, trans. Paul Burns (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988), 192-193.

[6] On just such an example of eschatological orientation in our hermeneutic and speech toward the telos of creation as defining for Pentecostalism/s, see Yong, Spirit-Word-Community, 47-48.

[7] On the construction of a Christopraxis, see Ray Sherman Anderson, The Shape of Practical Theology: Empowering Ministry with Theological Praxis (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).

[8] Terence E. Fretheim, “The Prophets and Social Justice: A Conservative Agenda”, Word and World 28 (2008): 159-168, and James Barr, “The Bible as a Political Document,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 62 (1980): 278-279.

[9] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3 (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 3; ed. John W. de Gruchy; trans. Douglas Stephen Bax; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 21.

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To Be Human: Thinking with Bonhoeffer

What does it mean to “be human”? Have we given sufficiently careful consideration to this topic? Or have we simply made the assumption that it is whatever we are doing? Is it to be rooted only in description of how “we” are or prescriptive of how “we” ought to be? Or is it yet some other thing?

I taught an adult Sunday school class a few years ago where I was asked to address the subject of “being human.” In the course of the conversations, a discussion of holiness was brought up. Someone mentioned that “we know we will sin, because we are all humans after all”. This struck me in light of Bonhoeffer’s statement that popped into my mind at that moment: “While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, God becomes human and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings” (D. Bonhoeffer, Ethics [Vol. 6; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2005], p. 84, emphasis added). While this statement assumes that we strive to be more than human (because we believe our being human is something to be overcome), I wonder if this is not the basis for the excuse echoed in my Sunday school that day.

We blame our humanity for our sinfulness. It struck me that Paul never does this, John never does this, and Peter never does this. The Scriptures blame our sinful or “fleshly” nature (the language of Paul). And, perhaps surprisingly for many, I don’t believe this should be confused with “being human”, truly human. The reason being that Jesus is True Man and all else is but a pale image of the true, being marred by sin. I would actually contend that our sinfulness deprives us of our humanity, because it is only in obedience to the Father that one is truly human in the fullest sense. And this can only come about by the regenerating work of God’s Spirit (the spirit of adoption crying “Abba, Father!”) conforming us into the image of the Son, who Himself is the true image of God.

So what are some potential outcomes of this change of perspective which seems to follow the trajectory proposed by Bonhoeffer?

(1) To be human is to be taken up into Christ. It is to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God which is acceptable and pleasing. It is the humanity of God in Christ taking up our sinful humanity and glorifying God through the obedience of redemption. To be truly human is to be counted as those who are in Christ: the righteousness of God and the First Adam.

(2) To be human is to set aside excuses for sinning. We can no longer say that we will continue to sin because “we are just human after all”. NO! We have been delivered from death to life. The Spirit of Christ Jesus now lives in us. We have been baptized with Christ and our sins have been once for all dealt with. We are not the children of the devil, but the children of God who no longer are slaves to sin and death. We are slaves of Christ Jesus our Lord and have been delivered from death to life! Therefore, to be “real human beings” is to live by the power of the Spirit! To live free! Free of the bonds of sin.

(3) To be human is to live free for the other and free for God. There is no constraint, but the one to love. This is the greatest commandment and all it entails: humanity unleashed from the bonds of self-serving, self-loving rebellion against God and God’s will for creation. The true human is the one who lives for the other because of being made in God’s image. Therefore, the other who is made in God’s image becomes the one by which we grow into the image of God in communion as those created and purchased by God.  As those bearing God’s image, by God’s Spirit we reflect the ineffable God in Christ. Unbounded love for God and for the other: this is being truly human…to be in Christ Jesus.

So I would charge you fully to embrace your humanity; God did!

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This was originally published by me in December 2015 thebonhoeffercenter.org

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Andrew K. Gabriel’s “Simply Spirit-Filled”: A Book Review

I am grateful to Andrew Gabriel for the opportunity to review Simply Spirit Filled: Experiencing God in the Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2019).

Andrew K. Gabriel (PhD, McMaster Divinity College) serves as Associate Professor of Theology and Vice President of Academics at Horizon College and Seminary in Saskatoon, SK. He is a member of the Theological Study Commission of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (with which he is also an Ordained Minister) and the author of three books, including The Lord Is the Spirit: The Holy and the Divine Attributes.

Gabriel’s desire for his readers regarding the life of the Spirit in “Simply Spirit-Filled” is that they be: “Open, but not gullible. Discerning, but not cynical. Engaging, but not fanatical. My hope is that you would be simply Spirit-filled” (10). His style of writing is approachable and engaging offering an intelligent, but readily accessible read for persons from teenagers to adult with any concern for the Spirit (whether wrestling with basic questions, or just seeking a deepened engagement). Personal anecdotes, testimonials, and reflections permeate the chapters and offer pastoral insight in leading others alongside for living as those who keep in step with the Spirit.

After sharing briefly about his personal spiritual journey in chapter 1, he opens in chapter 2 discussing two experiences typical in many Pentecostal and charismatic settings: shaking and being “slain in the Spirit” (he refers to these two as “shake and bake”). Sifting through multiple Biblical texts which have been used for supporting such experiences, Gabriel helps the readers to discern ways of hearing Scripture more properly with regard to experience, but also to remain critically humble in enjoying what the Spirit may in fact  be doing.

Chapter 3 engages issues of hearing God speak to us. The interweaving of personal story and Biblical/theological reflection calls for readers to reflect more carefully along with Gabriel on the ways in which the Spirit is in fact already speaking. To become better listeners. To attune ourselves to hearing well. (This chapter bears many similarities to the ways I continually seek to counsel church-goers and students toward hearing what the Spirit is saying…an issue which often creates tremendous anxiety especially for young college students).

Chapter 4 broaches the subject of tongues. Here he specifically provides responses to three common challenges to speaking in tongues (tongues are only a sign of Spirit baptism, tongues are just for a few people, and it’s “magical” or it’s “just me”). In the end, he clarifies the spiritual gains of speaking in tongues and along the way offers some brief comments toward interpreting Paul in 1 Corinthians well with regard to Paul’s understanding of the place and function of tongues within the life of the Church.

Chapter 5 engages the health-and-wealth/prosperity gospel and “Word of Faith” theology in light of God’s plans to heal and bless. Here he even names numerous such preachers/teachers in order to at least highlight some specifics of what he is addressing before addressing a healthy (pun intended) approach to healing and wholeness. Gabriel’s discussion of “faith” and the many ways it gets abused (usually with regard to someone else’s “faith”) turns to pointing toward a trust in God when we do not understand or do not clearly see an answer as we might desire. Regarding praying for healing, he comments, “If you think you must use a specific technique or formula when praying for healing, you may have a hangover from prosperity teaching” (118). His response, ask for healing and trust God. It remains God’s gift to give.

Chapter 7 concludes this book with a portrait of what it might look like to be Spirit-filled. To be Spirit-filled is to be captured by the love of God…a love which answers in love for God and others. This is to be “spiritual” in the language of Paul…to be ones guided and in step with the Spirit as those who are yielded to the life of the Spirit among us making us to be more like Jesus.

As a tool for reflective devotional purposes, Gabriel provides a prayer in relation to the contents of the chapter along with numerous helpful pointed questions regarding the chapter’s contents. These provide a direct resource for making use of this book for a personal devotional reading, group study, Sunday School, or discipleship, thus adding to the overall value of the book for continued deeper consideration and application. Gabriel is to be commended as a scholar for producing such a work that may prove to bear much fruit for the wider Church should it gain its needed wide reading. Pastors and church leaders would benefit greatly from reading this volume and finding ways to either lead congregations through its contents or to preach and teach upon the topics laid out with specific attention to the Biblical texts discussed.

One notable curiosity from my reading, Gabriel does not discuss the Spirit at all in chapter 5 (on faith and healing) all the while the gifts of “faith” and “healings” belong as gifts of the Spirit given to the body of Christ. His discussion of the topic is pastorally careful and reflective, but seems to lack the integration of the role or function of the Spirit specifically in the processes of faith and wholeness here (though he takes up the gifts of the Spirit in chapter 6). While one will find him offering multiple engagements toward perceiving the life of the Spirit in the other chapters, this chapter could have used a clarification throughout toward faith as the work of the Spirit in us (as gift even) along with the life-giving enjoyment of the Spirit who purposes to make a world fit for our God and Father and His glorious Son, King Jesus.

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I was provided a complimentary pre-publication copy by Andrew K. Gabriel for review purposes only for this review and am offering my review freely.

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