John Wimber's Teaching on the Gift and Gifts of the Holy Spirit

by Derek Morphew, Øyvind Nerheim

John Wimber’s contribution to fresh theological thinking was more diverse than many are aware of. As a result of his best-known publications, he is usually associated with power healing and power evangelism. But there was more to Wimber than that, including his innovative thinking on the Gift and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. This book is not a replication of his views. Rather the authors take Wimber’s innovative thinking and develop it further, hopefully in a manner that reflects his instincts.Wimber chose to base his views on the Gift or reception of the Spirit on Pauline theology and the theology of Luke-Acts. He was one of the first to argue that what Paul meant by the phrase “baptism in the Spirit” and what Luke meant by that phrase were not the same. Therefore, while conservative evangelicals have tended to impose Paul’s meaning onto Luke, and Pentecostals have tended to impose Luke’s meaning onto Paul, Wimber held to a more nuanced view that affirmed both. This enabled him to come to a flexible understanding of the reception or empowering of the Spirit. In this sense Wimber’s teaching breaks out from the century old disagreement between conservative evangelicals and Pentecostals. Derek Morphew explores this aspect of Wimber’s contribution in Part One.The experience of being empowered by the Spirit leads directly to the Christian disciple operating in the Gifts of the Spirit. Here again Wimber made a fresh contribution. One of his slogans reflects his “we all get to play.” On the one hand, he was concerned that traditional elements within the Pentecostal tradition, and later reflected in the “Kansas City Prophets”, had produced a culture of anointed “superstars” who moved effectively in the charismatic gifts, making the general Christian disciple an observer more than a participant. While he put some of this down to ministry models, often saying that “models rule”, he also discerned that the more fundamental issue was the theology of the charismatic gifts. This led to his notion of “situational” versus “static” gifts of the Spirit and to his metaphor of the gifts as “the dancing hand of God.” On the other hand, traditional conservative evangelical teaching on the charismatic gifts tended to make them little more than natural talents, received at birth, but enhanced at rebirth, reducing their charismatic dimension and severing them from the situational and empowering work of the Spirit. Wimber resisted both the “natural talent” view of the gifts and the “superstar” view of the gifts.Øyvind Nerheim, from the Oslo Vineyard in Norway, explores this aspect of Wimber’s teaching in Part Two.

209 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 18, 2020

Reviews

[Matthew C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books like this are needful for teachers like Wimber, where most of their unique contributions are available only in audio format. The exposition of the both/and view of the baptism of the Spirit was persuasive, and I have come to agree with Wimber on this--that Paul and Luke attach different meanings to the phrase in their respective works. I am not convinced of Wimber's "punctual" view of the gifts of the Spirit. I think the best position is one where some gifts are "vested" while others are "spontaneous."

Unfortunately the second half of this book suffered from typos. This is somewhat forgivable since English is not the first language of the author. However, there was also some kind of editing blunder before publication, wherein every instance of the word "office" was replaced by "gifted equipper (office)." This made sense in some instances (since this was Wimber's definition of office), but the "Find & Replace" was used universally, even in quotations of other authors. This was a huge distraction from the reading.

[Kamry Sands · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me some time to get through- I would read a little, question, process, digest and repeat. I am apart of a vineyard church and this was really helpful to go through. While some of the book went way over my head there were some parts that have provided much needed clarity. As our church and my husband and I dive deeper into the gifts of the Holy Spirit this book was very enlightening and helpful.