Gordon Fee

Gordon Donald Fee (born 1934) is an American-Canadian Christian theologian and an ordained ministerof the Assemblies of God (USA). He currently serves asProfessor Emeritus of New Testament Studies at RegentCollege in Vancouver, Canada.[1]

1 Biography

Fee was born in 1934 in Ashland, Oregon, to Donald Ho-race Fee (1907–1999) and Gracy Irene Jacobson (1906–1973). He has one older sister, Donna Mae. His fatherwas an Assemblies of God minister who pastored sev-eral churches in Washington state. Fee received his B.A.and M.A. degrees from Seattle Pacific University and hisPh.D. from the University of Southern California.[2] OnApril 21, 2010, Fee was awarded an honorary Doctor ofDivinity degree from Northwest University in Kirkland,Washington, where Fee has taught in the past and wherea building is named for his father, Donald Fee. Afterteaching briefly atWheaton College in Illinois and for sev-eral years at Vanguard University of Southern California,Fee taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary inSouth Hamilton, Massachusetts from the Fall of 1974 un-til 1986. He then moved to Regent College where he isnow professor emeritus.[2]

Fee is considered a leading expert in pneumatology andtextual criticism of the New Testament.[3] He is also theauthor of books on biblical exegesis, including the pop-ular introductory work How to Read the Bible for All ItsWorth (co-authored with Douglas Stuart), the “sequel,”How to Read the Bible, Book by Book, How to Choosea Translation for all its Worth (co-authored with MarkL. Strauss) and a major commentary on 1 Corinthians aswell as numerous other commentaries on various booksin the New Testament. In the 1990s, he succeeded F.F.Bruce to become the editor of the notable evangelicalcommentary series, the New International Commentaryon the New Testament of which his commentaries on 1Corinthians and Philippians are a part.Fee is a member of the CBT (Committee on BibleTranslation) that translated the New International Version(NIV) and its revision, the Today’s New International Ver-sion (TNIV).[3] He also serves on the advisory board ofthe International Institute for Christian Studies.[4]

He discovered that Codex Sinaiticus in Gospel of John1:1-8:38 and in some other parts of this Gospel does notrepresent the Alexandrian text-type but the Western text-

type.[5]

In 2012, Fee announced that he is retiring as general ed-itor of the New International Commentary on the NewTestament series due to the fact that he has been diag-nosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.

2 Views

2.1 Christian egalitarianism

Fee is a Christian egalitarian andwas a contributing editorto the key Christian egalitarian book Discovering BiblicalEquality: Complementarity without hierarchy (2004). Hisabove mentioned commentary consistently translates thegeneric “men” as “men and women” with an explanatoryfootnote. He is also a member of the board of referencefor Christians for Biblical Equality, a group of evangel-ical Christians who believe the Bible teaches completeequality between men and women and that all Christians,regardless of gender “must exercise their God-given giftswith equal authority and equal responsibility in church,home and world”.[6]

2.2 Pentecostal distinctives

Fee is a Pentecostal; nevertheless, he has disagreed withsome long held and deeply cherished Pentecostal be-liefs. Specifically, he has questioned article 7 of theAssemblies of God Statement of Fundamental Truths,which articulates a classical Pentecostal understanding ofbaptism in the Holy Spirit as subsequent to and sepa-rate from Christian conversion. In “Baptism in the HolySpirit: The Issue of Separability and Subsequence”, Feewrites that there is little biblical evidence to prove the tra-ditional Pentecostal doctrinal position.[7]

On the other hand, he maintains that “the Pentecostal ex-perience itself can be defended on exegetical grounds as athoroughly biblical phenomenon”.[8] Fee believes that inthe early church, the Pentecostal experience was an ex-pected part of conversion:

The crucial item in all this for the earlychurch was the work of the Spirit; and [the em-powerment for life], the dynamic empoweringdimension with gifts, miracles, and evangelism(along with fruit and growth), was a normalpart of their expectation and experience.[9]

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2 5 EXTERNAL LINKS

Fee believes the Spirit’s empowerment is a necessary el-ement in the life of the Church that has too often beenneglected.[10] It is this neglect, Fee argues, that led earlyPentecostals to seek the presence and power of the Spiritin experiences which they identified as baptism in theHoly Spirit.[11]

2.3 Opposition to prosperity theology

He is a strong opponent of the prosperity gospel and pub-lished a 1985 book entitled The Disease of the Health andWealth Gospels.[12]

3 Works

• The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT 1987,904 pages. ISBN 978-0-8028-2507-0

• God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in theLetters of Paul, BSIS, 1994. ISBN 0-943575-94-X

• Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, NICNT, 1995, 543pages. ISBN 978-0-8028-2511-7

• Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-TheologicalStudy. Baker Academic, 2007, 744 pages, ISBN978-0-8010-4625-4

• The First and Second Letter to the Thessalonians,NICNT, 2009, 400 pages. ISBN 978-0-8028-6362-1

• 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, NIBC, 1988, 332 pages.ISBN 0-943575-10-9

• How to read the Bible for all its worth Zondervan1981

4 References[1] Gordon Fee online, accessed June 4, 2011.

[2] Christianbook.com, Meet Gordon Fee, August 2008, ac-cessed June 4, 2011.

[3] Committee on Bible Translation, Gordon Fee Biography,accessed June 4, 2011.

[4] International Institute for Christian Studies, Board of Ad-visors, accessed June 4, 2011.

[5] Gordon D. Fee, Codex Sinaiticus in the Gospel of John: AContribution to Methodology in Establishing Textual Rela-tionships, Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testa-ment Textual Criticism, Wm. Eerdmans Publishing 1993,pp. 221-243.

[6] Christians for Biblical Equality, Leadership and Our Mis-sion and History, accessed June 4, 2011.

[7] Gordon D Fee. “Baptism in the Holy Spirit: The Issue ofSeparability and Subsequence,” Pneuma: The Journal ofthe Society of Pentecostal Studies 7:2 (Fall 1985), p. 88.

[8] Fee (1985), “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”, 91.

[9] Fee (1985), “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”, 97.

[10] Fee (1985), “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”, 95-96.

[11] Fee (1985), “Baptism in the Holy Spirit”, 98.

[12] See his booklet entitled The Disease of the Health andWealth Gospels, Regent College Publishing, January 1,1985, ISBN 1-57383-066-6.

5 External links• Gordon Fee and Basic Rules for New Testament Ex-egesis

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6 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1 Text• Gordon Fee Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Fee?oldid=686650897 Contributors: DopefishJustin, Delirium, DJ Clayworth,Drernie, Flauto Dolce, Gontroppo, One Salient Oversight, Karl Dickman, GlenDavis, Flex, PatrickDunfordNZ, Mairi, BD2412, Steven-JRossi, Koavf, Paul foord, Ajma, BrainyBroad, Kdbuffalo, Whobot, SmackBot, Arcan~enwiki, Kevinalewis, Markbarnes, OrphanBot,Pastorwayne, Robofish, MonkeeSage, Chris83, Cydebot, Marokwitz, Fayenatic london, Colin MacLaurin, Will3935, Waacstats, Tonicthe-brown, Sagabot, KylieTastic, Funandtrvl, John Carter, Hyper3, Witnessforpeace, StAnselm, Mr.Z-bot, Fratrep, Precious Roy, Xnatedawgx,OfficePuter, Drmies, Ltwin, Ἀλήθεια, Good Olfactory, Addbot, Leszek Jańczuk, Tassedethe, Lightbot, Yobot, AnomieBOT, LucienBOT,Kyteto, RedBot, MondalorBot, Lodi Lib, Linwood Street, RjwilmsiBot, E-tw-miss, Jdlindell, Candidatus sum, Chucksings, Davidvkimball,Helpful Pixie Bot, BG19bot, Pastordeh, Bpc.sg, VIAFbot, Lgfcd, KasparBot and Anonymous: 28

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