BY SIGNS AND WONDERS:
How the Holy Spirit grows the church
By Stephen D. Elliott
Seedbed. 178 pages. $16.95
ISBN 978 1 628 242 829
This is a strange, misleading, and ultimately unsatisfying book, despite the absolutely key issue it looks at, namely the work of the Holy Spirit in growing Christ’s church. How so?
Strange, because it strikes me as a rehash of the John Wimber/Jack Deere emphases on ‘power evangelism’ of the 1990s and early millennium. That case was made then, and to many it was found wanting. But here it is being made again, as if it had never been so. Misleading, and on several levels. The author asserts, ‘By now, I suspect some think I am calling for the church to abandon its current ministry practices, jump on board with the Pentecostals and charismatics, and fully adopt their ministry practices. I am not.’ (p.47). ‘With respect, to a very large degree you are’ is how I felt, well before the end of the book.
Misleading, because of a frequent ‘excluded middle’ approach to making a case. For example, church growth needn’t be a choice between, either (largely ineffective) friendship evangelism or (hugely effective) miraculous power encounters.
Misleading, because of a confusing combination of ‘soft-sell’ (the church in North America is statistically doing badly) and then ‘hard-sell’ (that is because most neglect the Holy Spirit’s miraculous gifts and only by being open to all of them will we go forward).
Misleading, because of what struck me as a cavalier approach to citing historical evidence. An unwitting reader will tend to think that all those quoted agree with the case he is making, when they do not.
Unless you accept what I say...,
But most significantly is the unsatisfying nature of the book. It gives the impression that unless you accept his whole argument you are only what has been labelled ‘Binitarian’, not authentically Trinitarian. Yet many of the very people who would argue against his case are some of the strongest proponents of the crucial and sovereign work of the Holy Spirit to empower the believer and regenerate the ungodly.
Most of all, unsatisfying because of what struck me as a disconnect between his vision of the ministry of the Spirit, and the great finished cross-work of the Saviour the Spirit has come to glorify. Galatians 3:1-3 argues so strongly that it is as we preach Christ crucified that people come to faith in him, and thus the Spirit comes into our personal lives and does his wonderful works. That note just seemed to be missing, and if you miss that, what have you got?
