Customer Reviews

Acts of the Holy Spirit

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I use this as a textbook in a classroom to help new Christians understand the roots of the Christian faith as well as the nuances of evangelism and church growth. What's distinguishes this from traditional commentaries is the emphasis on missiology (missionary work and church planting) since so much of Peter Wagner's life experience centers on that subject. While the book is easy to read, it is not a shallow in depth. It will increase your awareness of how each segment of the early church was built with indigenous people - a pattern that is still working all over the world today.

Peter Wagner obviously writes this book from the perspective of "power evangelism." That will turn some people on, it will turn others off. Often, it seems that he allows that framework to guide the biblical text, rather than allow the text to guide his discussion/commentary. Yet, I would suggest that you read the book, anyway. He provides the forum for a discussion that needs to take place. Why don't people get healed today, as they used to in Scripture? Why don't we pray like we used to? What is the difference between how other nations handle missions, as opposed to how we do in the U.S., and could we not learn from them...? Such are some of the issues Wagner discusses. If you read this, two things...

1. Read it alongside MacArthur's Commentary on Acts 1-12, in which MacArthur seems to dismiss the idea that healing and power evangelism takes place, except in cases of theological excesses and misappropriation of Truth (see both commentaries comments on chapter 3:1f. with the lame man at the temple, for instance).

2. You will want to pick up another of Wagner's books on Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, because, again, much of what Wagner writes here seems to be filtered by those books, first, rather than the biblical text. (Then, again, we all bring our preconceptions to the table-- and he is very honest about them-- and they are definitely issues we need to wrestle with).