Gordon Fee
Encyclopedia
Gordon Donald Fee is an American-Canadian Christian theologian and an ordained minister of the Assemblies of God (USA). He currently serves as Professor Emeritus of New Testament
Studies at Regent College
in Vancouver
, Canada
.
, to Donald Horace Fee (1907–1999) and Gracy Irene Jacobson (1906–1973). He has one older sister, Donna Mae. His father was an Assemblies of God minister who pastored several churches in Washington state
. Fee received his B.A.
and M.A.
degrees from Seattle Pacific University
and his Ph.D.
from the University of Southern California
. On April 21, 2010, Fee was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington, where Fee has taught in the past and where a building is named for his father, Donald Fee. After teaching briefly at Wheaton College
in Illinois
and for several years at Vanguard University of Southern California
, Fee taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
in South Hamilton, Massachusetts
until 1986. He then moved to Regent College where he is now professor emeritus.
Fee is considered a leading expert in pneumatology
and textual criticism
of the New Testament. He is also the author of books on biblical exegesis, including the popular introductory work How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (co-authored with Douglas Stuart
), the "sequel," How to Read the Bible, Book by Book, How to Choose a Translation for all its Worth (co-authored with Mark L. Strauss
) and a major commentary on 1 Corinthians as well as numerous other commentaries on various books in the New Testament. In the 1990s, he succeeded F.F. Bruce to become the editor of the notable evangelical
commentary series, the New International Commentary on the New Testament
of which his commentaries on 1 Corinthians and Philippians are a part.
Fee is a member of the CBT (Committee on Bible Translation) that translated the New International Version
(NIV) and its revision, the Today's New International Version
(TNIV). He also serves on the advisory board of the International Institute for Christian Studies.
He discovered that Codex Sinaiticus
in Gospel of John 1:1-8:38 and in some other parts of this Gospel does not represent the Alexandrian text-type
but the Western text-type
.
, a group of evangelical Christians who believe the Bible teaches complete equality between men and women and that all Christians, regardless of gender "must exercise their God-given gifts with equal authority and equal responsibility in church, home and world".
, which articulates a classical Pentecostal understanding of baptism in the Holy Spirit as subsequent to and separate from Christian conversion. In "Baptism and the Holy Spirit: The Issue of Separability and Subsequence", Fee writes that there is little biblical evidence to prove the traditional Pentecostal doctrinal position.
On the other hand, he maintains that "the Pentecostal experience itself can be defended on exegetical grounds as a thoroughly biblical phenomenon". Fee believes that in the early church, the Pentecostal experience was an expected part of conversion:
Fee believes the Spirit's empowerment is a necessary element in the life of the Church that has too often been neglected. It is this neglect, Fee argues, that led early Pentecostals to seek the presence and power of the Spirit in experiences which they identified as baptism in the Holy Spirit.
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
Studies at Regent College
Regent College
Regent College is an international graduate school of Christian Studies, located next to the campus of the University of British Columbia in the University Endowment Lands west of Vancouver, British Columbia, and is an affiliated college of that university....
in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Biography
Fee was born in 1934 in Ashland, OregonAshland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...
, to Donald Horace Fee (1907–1999) and Gracy Irene Jacobson (1906–1973). He has one older sister, Donna Mae. His father was an Assemblies of God minister who pastored several churches in Washington state
Washington State
Washington State may refer to:* Washington , often referred to as "Washington state" to differentiate it from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States* Washington State University, a land-grant college in that state- See also :...
. Fee received his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
and M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degrees from Seattle Pacific University
Seattle Pacific University
Seattle Pacific University is a Christian university of the liberal arts, sciences and professions, located on the north slope of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, Washington, USA. It was founded in 1891 by the Oregon and Washington Conference of the Free Methodist Church as the Seattle Seminary...
and his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
. On April 21, 2010, Fee was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington, where Fee has taught in the past and where a building is named for his father, Donald Fee. After teaching briefly at Wheaton College
Wheaton College (Illinois)
Wheaton College is a private, evangelical Protestant liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago in the United States...
in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
and for several years at Vanguard University of Southern California
Vanguard University of Southern California
Vanguard University is located in Costa Mesa, California, USA. During the summer of 1920, Harold K. Needham, D. W. Kerr, and W. C. Pierce opened a school to prepare Christian workers for the various ministries of the church. The new institute, Southern California Bible School, moved from Los...
, Fee taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary is an evangelical theological seminary whose main campus is based in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, with three other campuses in Boston, Charlotte, North Carolina and Jacksonville. The current president of Gordon-Conwell is Dennis Hollinger...
in South Hamilton, Massachusetts
South Hamilton, Massachusetts
South Hamilton is that part of Hamilton, Essex County, Massachusetts, United States that the Postal Service has assigned the zip code 01982; otherwise it is indistinguishable from Hamilton...
until 1986. He then moved to Regent College where he is now professor emeritus.
Fee is considered a leading expert in pneumatology
Pneumatology
Pneumatology is the study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the interactions between humans and God.Pneuma is Greek for "breath", which metaphorically describes a non-material being or influence....
and textual criticism
Textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
of the New Testament. He is also the author of books on biblical exegesis, including the popular introductory work How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (co-authored with Douglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart
Douglas K. Stuart is Professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, an interdenominational Evangelical Seminary . He received his B.A...
), the "sequel," How to Read the Bible, Book by Book, How to Choose a Translation for all its Worth (co-authored with Mark L. Strauss
Mark L. Strauss
Mark L. Strauss is an American Biblical scholar and professor of the New Testament at Bethel Seminary San Diego, of Bethel University.-Background and education:...
) and a major commentary on 1 Corinthians as well as numerous other commentaries on various books in the New Testament. In the 1990s, he succeeded F.F. Bruce to become the editor of the notable evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
commentary series, the New International Commentary on the New Testament
New International Commentary on the New Testament
The New International Commentary on the New Testament is a series of commentaries in English on the text of the New Testament in Greek. It is published by the William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.The individual volumes are as follows....
of which his commentaries on 1 Corinthians and Philippians are a part.
Fee is a member of the CBT (Committee on Bible Translation) that translated the New International Version
New International Version
The New International Version is an English translation of the Christian Bible. Published by Zondervan in the United States and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK, it has become one of the most popular modern translations in history.-History:...
(NIV) and its revision, the Today's New International Version
Today's New International Version
Today's New International Version is an English translation of the Bible developed by the Committee on Bible Translation. The CBT also developed the New International Version in the 1970s. The TNIV is based on the NIV. It is explicitly Protestant like its predecessor; the deuterocanonical books...
(TNIV). He also serves on the advisory board of the International Institute for Christian Studies.
He discovered that Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...
in Gospel of John 1:1-8:38 and in some other parts of this Gospel does not represent the Alexandrian text-type
Alexandrian text-type
The Alexandrian text-type , associated with Alexandria, is one of several text-types used in New Testament textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of biblical manuscripts...
but the Western text-type
Western text-type
The Western text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts...
.
Christian egalitarianism
Fee is a Christian egalitarian and was a contributing editor to the key Christian egalitarian book Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without hierarchy (2004). His above mentioned commentary consistently translates the generic "men" as "men and women" with an explanatory footnote. He is also a member of the board of reference for Christians for Biblical EqualityChristians for Biblical Equality
Christians for Biblical Equality is non-profit organization of churches and individual members who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of believers of both sexes, all racial and ethnic groups and all economic classes...
, a group of evangelical Christians who believe the Bible teaches complete equality between men and women and that all Christians, regardless of gender "must exercise their God-given gifts with equal authority and equal responsibility in church, home and world".
Pentecostal distinctives
Fee is a Pentecostal; nevertheless, he has disagreed with some long held and deeply cherished Pentecostal beliefs. Specifically, he has questioned article 7 of the Assemblies of God Statement of Fundamental TruthsAssemblies of God Statement of Fundamental Truths
The Statement of Fundamental Truths is a description of the 16 essential doctrines adhered to by the General Council of the Assemblies of God in the United States of America. These doctrines are heavily based on evangelical confessions of faith but differ by being clearly Pentecostal...
, which articulates a classical Pentecostal understanding of baptism in the Holy Spirit as subsequent to and separate from Christian conversion. In "Baptism and the Holy Spirit: The Issue of Separability and Subsequence", Fee writes that there is little biblical evidence to prove the traditional Pentecostal doctrinal position.
On the other hand, he maintains that "the Pentecostal experience itself can be defended on exegetical grounds as a thoroughly biblical phenomenon". Fee believes that in the early church, the Pentecostal experience was an expected part of conversion:
Fee believes the Spirit's empowerment is a necessary element in the life of the Church that has too often been neglected. It is this neglect, Fee argues, that led early Pentecostals to seek the presence and power of the Spirit in experiences which they identified as baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Opposition to prosperity theology
He is a strong opponent of the prosperity gospel and published a 1985 book entitled The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels.Works
- The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNTNew International Commentary on the New TestamentThe New International Commentary on the New Testament is a series of commentaries in English on the text of the New Testament in Greek. It is published by the William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.The individual volumes are as follows....
1987, 904 pages. ISBN 978-0-8028-2507-0 - God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, BSIS, 1994. ISBN 094357594X
- Paul's Letter to the Philippians, NICNT, 1995, 543 pages. ISBN 978-0-8028-2511-7
- Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study. Baker Academic, 2007, 744 pages, ISBN 978-0-80104-625-4
- 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