Thank you for watching!

Thank you for watching!

In this session, Dr. Joe looks at the other gifts and roles in the two major Pauline Holy Spirit gift lists found in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 respectively. Scripture and Christian history can help us better understand these expressions of Holy Spirit through God's people. We are using about 17 resources from professional Christian scholars of the highest caliber, across the theological spectrum, to aid our understanding of these gifts.

This video series teaching incorporates years of scholarship and some of the best and brightest pneumatologists under the Pentecostal & charismatic tent to help Christians understand the discreet gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12 & Rom. 12). Wherever the viewer might find themselves in the debate about God's use of gifts today through His children, I pray that this will encourage understanding and a Biblical approach to even further yielding to the Holy Spirit of God in private and cautiously in public. We are trying to avoid the cessationist "ditch" on one side that posits no more spirit expression like those listed in the key passages to avoid abuse, manipulation and embarrassment. We also want to avoid the other "ditch" which is the Pentecostal and Charismatic penchant to use the Holy Spirit "told me so" as a trump card to all evaluation and consideration given to alleged Spirit expression. Many times Christians have unfortunately used the preface of Holy Spirit "sensitivity" and "receptivity" as a thinly cloaked veneer for self-centered rebellion. I pray you will enjoy this shortened version of our Sunday School class at First Assembly Ft. Myers.

Pentecostals and Charismatics share a major similarity in emphasis in that both Christian movements accentuate and recognize the continuing power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians, especially during the gathering of believers. In this session, I attempt to show that even with the major similarity, substantive differences exist and should be noted between Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians. Dr. Joe explains what are the historical and functional distinctives between the two expressions of Christianity.

In session three, we look at some issues with Bethel church in Redmond, CA. Dr. Joe attempts to qualify his analysis by openly stating that he has only engaged in about 20 hrs of Johnson & Co.'s work, as well as the fact that there is much commendable in Bethel's overall output. Bill Johnson has been forthright about the fact that they are consciously exporting their particular HS revival model, openly using their media wing of the ministry in this encouragement. As such, we can look at the issues involved in imbibing the Bethel revival model wholesale & not attempting to extract the good and remove the theologically and Biblically questionable. I am hardly alone in my concern about Bethel's revival and church praxis commitments. Many Christian, indeed even Pentecostal, scholars, leaders and pastors have echoed these concerns. Bethel, like Hillsong before it serves as great compare and contrast laboratory, as it were, to try and honor 1 Cor. 12 (Rom 12) as well as heed the Corinthians problems that so often plague even sincere Christian groups that want more HS expression among them in the gathered body of believers. This analysis is in no way a shaming of those that enjoy Johnson and Bethel music nor to deny their status as true Christians.

In this session, Dr. Joe concludes the first half of the two part Holy Spirit Gifts for today teaching. In this video, he will be brutally honest about the issues facing pentecostalism even in the midst of worldwide growth and substantive missions activity. He will highlight Biblical ways of discerning pseudo-gifts and counterfeit Holy Spirit expressions. After this the teaching will turn to understanding more deeply the discreet Holy Spirit gifts, their proper expression and purpose, as well as how to discover your own. After this we begin the second half of our teaching sessions.