“The Word of God in Acts that may be regarded as normative for Christians is related primarily to what any given narrative was intended to teach…. Historical precedent, to have normative value, must be related to intent. That is, if it can be shown that the purpose of a given narrative is to establish precedent, then such precedent should be regarded as normative.”
– Gordon Fee, How to Read the Bible for all its Worth (1982), 99.
The Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies is upon us! This year SPS will be joined by Empowered21!
Regent University is hosting the meeting, April 29-March 3, 2012. Early registration is closed, but on-site registration costs $159.
Stay tuned for pics and news…
A song about seminary education on Youtube brought to my attention by Marc Cortez:
Q & A (Starts after 12:54 min):
Q & A (only the first part up to 12:54 min):
“I can only say that the study of the teaching of the New Testament about the Holy Spirit has been for me personally a humiliating, a challenging, and a comforting experience–humiliating, because it has been driven home upon me how far short I have come of experiencing the splendour of life in the Spirit; challenging, because I have dimly glimpsed heights of Christian experience which may yet be reached; comforting, because I never before realized the reservoir of divine power which is available for the man [or woman] who will commit his [or her] life to Jesus Christ.”
–William Barclay, The Promise of the Spirit, 9-10 [brackets mine].
“If the church is going to be effective in our postmodern world, we need to stop paying mere lip service to the Spirit and to recapture Paul’s perspective: the Spirit as the experienced, empowering return of God’s own personal presence in and among us, who enables us to live as a radically eschatological people in the present world while we await the consummation.”
–Gordon Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God, xv.
“The church is a sign likewise when it lives as a community in the world. As those who have responded to the gospel call and acknowledge the lordship of Christ, we seek to model what it means to live under the guidelines of the divine reign. Kingdom principles include peace, justice, and righteousness. But above all, the divine reign is characterized by love. Consequently, by being a true community of believers, we indicate what the reign of God is like; it is the community of love” (Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 503).
“The key event in God’s self-disclosure is the resurrection of Jesus, because there God reveals that he is Lord of salvation, the only Savior. God defeats sin, death, and the powers fo darkness to reign supreme over all. This God is Lord of life whose breath creates and renews life, even glorifies it beyond the bounds of mortal existence” (Frank D. Macchia, The Trinity, Practically Speaking, 30).
