Author: Dr. Powell,

Dr. Powell earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible and Theology, and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies. He also has a second Bachelor (BS) and second Masters (MS) degree in non-theological related disciplines. Dr. Powell also earned his Ph.D. in Bible Exposition (comprehension, interpretation, and application). He enjoys reading and writing “Bible and Theology,” leading congregations, preaching and teaching, traveling with his family, and having long Bible discussions with people. His favorite subjects are on the Second Temple period, New Testament Epistles, and the afterlife (not explicitly limited to eschatology). He does lots of research and investigation on the subjects of heaven and hell. Business Correspondence, Bethesda House of Faith necessarytruth50@gmail.com http://necessarytruth.org

“Does Ephesians 4:11 Lists Five or Four Gifts?”

The Bible lists more than thirty spiritual gifts given to the people of God. In modern Christianity, the less-attractive ones are those that people do not always see, but the ones that lift people up in their importance to others are the ones many claim to have.

“Oneness Pentecostalism” and the “Trinity”

Which View is Correct, Oneness Pentecostalism or the Trinity?

(1) The Perspective of Pastor Steve Waldron

(2) The Perspective of Pastor John M. Powell, Ph.D.

First of all, it is important for me to point out that I am not writing based on any commitment, view, or side with any denomination, movement, belief system or tradition. In doing so, it does not have any aim to fit or coincide with any movement’s interpretation or established system of belief. This exposition is an attempt on my part to interpret (as best as possible) the biblical text itself and to allow it to speak to on its own. 

In terms of the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I am interested in how the Bible itself defines this relationship rather than how post-biblical credal constructs have labeled and categorized it. Those serve no real purpose for our knowing the truth. It seems to me that Scripture reveals, functions, and saves in terms of this relationship more than it abstractly defines it in metaphysical or in philosophical terms. 

Additionally, my goal here is to be a responsible interpreter of Scripture and to let the language, logic, and storyline of Scripture itself control the conclusions reached.  And finally, I indeed believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the relationship of the Father and the Son is more real as it is seen in the human structure, yet more interment. The one God revealed to us in Scripture was done in inseparable yet distinguishable ways of divine self-disclosure in the work of creation and redemption.

In every case, I believe that the job is to listen to the biblical witness as it traces how God has revealed Himself in creation and in the history of salvation, and the manner in which the text makes clear the unity and distinction found in the titles Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – whereas the terms Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not names. If Scripture is allowed to interpret Scripture, a coherent whole can be reached in my interpretation as well.

The One that we know as the Holy Spirit is not revealed as a being or person distinguishable or apart from the Father by nature or essence but is the very self-manifestation and active presence of the Father Himself. The biblical Father–Son relationship is not defined on biological or ontological terms as subsequent metaphysical reasoning would suggest but is derived from the history of God’s incarnational work. Jesus was not conceived by a human father but by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–38). 

In human relationships the male who causes the conception of a child is the father, and Scripture does not stop this logic in mid-sentence. If Jesus is the Son of God, and if He was conceived not by a human father but only by the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit must be the One that Jesus called Father. This is not a conclusion derived from later abstract philosophy, but the direct testimony of the biblical record itself.

In this context, the title “Father” does not identify a separate divine center of consciousness co-eternal or co-equal with the Father, but a relational aspect of the one God as the source of the incarnate Christ. Scripture not only attests to the unity of God (Deu 6:4) but the New Testament also affirms that this one God was manifested (revealed, made known) in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). The Father is never apart from the Son, nor is the Holy Spirit a distinct agent apart from God but is described again and again as God’s own Spirit (Rom 8:9–11; 2 Cor 3:17). 

Jesus makes this explicit when He says, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14: 9) and, “It is the Father dwelling in Me who does the works” (John 14:10). Statements like these are hard to understand if Father and Spirit are separate foci of divine consciousness, but they are easy to understand if the one God is a personal being who reveals Himself in multiple ways of activity and relation.

This use of the Father–Son language requires some serious leave of later doctrinal assumptions and the willingness to let the canonical witness speak for itself on its own terms. The incarnation does not divide God into parts; it displays God in flesh. Simply put, God was made flesh and dwelt among us! The Son is fully man and truly the Son of God, and the Father is the one divine source from whom the Son proceeds in the power of the Spirit. 

When the Bible is allowed to say what it has to say, the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not a bewildering or contradictory aspect of Christian theology, but an integrated witness to the one God who is at work redemptively in history for the sake of human salvation. Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human with two complete natures (divine and human) united in the one person of Christ without division, confusion, or competition. The divine and human do not cancel out the other nor override each other in Christ’s human nature. In the incarnation, God became fully human which voluntarily suspended the free exercise of divine attributes. [1] He depended on faith in His Father to perform ministry like every other human being (see Acts 10:38).

John’s Gospel begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). Here we are told that the Λόγος eternally existed and is wholly identified as God. John continues with the great mystery of the incarnation: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (1:14). The eternal God did not stop being what He was, but became what He was not for all eternity past, a human being. He took upon Himself the complete humanity of the flesh without compromising His eternal existence as God.

This is not a description of a divine hologram or temporary visitation, but an eternal union in which God went all in. He, without reserve, fully entered into the narrative of human history, time, and experience. He was born, grew up, and learned (Luke 2:52; Heb. 2: 14–17), became hungry (Matt 1-4;  21:18-22; Luke 4:1-4), was despised and rejected (Matt 12:14; 26:3-5; Mark 3:6; 14:1-2; Luke 22:1-2; John 11:45-57, suffered and died a human death (Phil. 2: 6–8). At the same time while being a man, He, at times, exercised divine prerogatives: forgiving sins (Mark 2:5–12), exercised power over nature (Matt. 8:26–27), and received worship (John 20:28). 

Paul affirmed the same, in saying that “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9). The whole fullness of God’s being is permanently present in the incarnate Christ. It is not a philosophical system forced on the text, but an act of faithfulness to the biblical witness, that we confess Jesus as fully God and fully human. In Christ God is revealed not at arm’s length but in human flesh and blood, reconciling people to Himself by the lived obedience, suffering, death, and resurrection of the incarnate God in Christ, and Father in the Son (Rom 5:18–19; 2 Cor 5:19). 

The great doctrine of the incarnation sits at the center of Christian faith, the truth that salvation is not accomplished as humanity reaches up to God, but as God graciously stoops down to humanity in Jesus Christ. This doctrine needs no dissecting God into pieces because the God simply was made flesh without ceasing to be who He was from all eternity. The many labels placed on God are of human origin and not as God revealed Himself in Scripture. The same OT God is also the same NT God. He simply became flesh to ultimately die on the cross for our sins.

If one says God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, they have said God three times. This is foreign to any teaching in the OT that violates God’s oneness and completeness as One Being. In Scripture, Jesus is not called God the Son, but called Son of God. And the Holy Spirit is never referred to as God the Holy Spirit. In reality, it is the Holy Spirit that is called God the Father, and the man Christ Jesus is referred to as the Son of God.

And the only way that someone – other than – is to be different from the one being referred to is to be someone or something different. The only way there can be three co-equal and co-eternal persons is for each person to be different in some way from the other. This is not the language of Scripture but language other than Scripture. They are later post-biblical human constructs imposed upon the revelation to the way God revealed Himself.

There is a distinction between the Father and the Son, but not between the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a Spirit (John 4:24), where Christ was a human person, born of a human woman and conceived by the Holy Spirit. Albeit, the Holy Spirit is another way of identifying the Father as a Holy Spirit. The Father-Son relationship cannot work unless Christ was conceived and born into the world to be a Son. Therefore the Holy Spirit of God was the Father of Jesus, and yet, Jesus is the One True God from all eternity.

REFERENCE NOTES

John M. Powell, Coherent Chiastic Oeuvre in the Unity of Luke-Acts: Two-Volumes Conjoined as a Single Book (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2025), 9, 133.

Water Baptism (Purpose)

The purpose of water baptism is for the remission or removal of sins. It is the reason that “Jesus’s Name” must be called out upon the person being completely emerged underwater. Jesus is the only person that died for all the sins of humanity, and it is by his blood that all sins are washed away.

Water Baptism (Action)

Matthew 28:19 and Mark 16:15-16 is Jesus’ Great Commission to His disciples. And from the disciples, they were to commission the church as Jesus instructed. Mark emphasizes the words that the person who believes and is baptized will be saved. Matthew emphasized the baptizing of new disciples in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The commission to baptize people in the Name (singular) not Names (plural) was a command from the Lord. The terms Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is not a Name as referred to in Matthew 28:19. For instance, I’m a father but John Matthew is my name. I’m a son but ‘son’ is not my name. In order to obey His command, we need to know the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost to which the Apostle Matthew is referring. As it was understood by Peter and the other men who were present with Jesus at the time He commissioned them, they understood it to be Jesus Christ. The book of Acts is discipleship put into action when they started carrying out Christ’s command of discipleship. They all quoted the Name Jesus Christ over candidates when they were baptized in the New Testament. Colossians 3:17 says, “Everything you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Let’s consider Matthew 28:19 again. Jesus’ command to make disciples by going, teaching, and baptizing in the “Name” of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is first fulfilled in Acts 2:38, 41. When the Apostle Peter gave this command, Matthew, John, James and all the other Apostles were present to correct him if he was wrong. But Peter wasn’t wrong; he fully and completely obeyed Jesus’ command. The Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – referred to in Matthew 28:19 – is Jesus Christ. And all instances of Christian water baptism in the New Testament were all done in the Name of Jesus Christ (see Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5; 22:16; Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Cor. 1:12-15; Gal. 3:27; ), as fulfillment of Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:19 and Mark 16:15-16, for water baptism.  For those who are still not convinced by Scripture itself, you should therefore be aware that the Catholic Church admitted that they changed the baptismal formula from the words, “Jesus Christ” to the words, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”1 Prior to the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the second and third century, the early Church baptized believers in the Name of Jesus Christ.  After the doctrine of the Trinity was developed in the second and third century, the baptismal formula was changed from the Name of Jesus Christ and replaced with the Trinitarian formula: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.2

– Blessings to all of you.

REFERENCES

1 Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 2, Page 263

2 Canney Encyclopedia of Religion, Page 53

3 Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Pages 365-366

“What Color was Jesus,” and the Damage of Lies!

All of us have been taught all of our lives that Jesus was a white male. White Europeans, such as Michael Angelo, and many Americans have not only taught that Jesus was a white male, but everything that is good, such as God, Angels, and everything in heaven – have been associated with the white race. The devil and everything that is evil has been associated with the black race. It has not been much of a quarrel or outcry over the white-Jesus theory until people (white and black) began questioning the validity of this claim. If we can be honest with ourselves, the teaching of Jesus being a white male never mattered much to anyone until the validity of the claim has been brought into question. The offense to the challenge has often risen up with the confession, “It doesn’t matter what color Jesus was” which is completely false. The truth is that it does matter what color Jesus was on earth, because he has been given a racial status in the minds of many that don’t line up with the Scriptures. And for reasons as such, it has placed a stumbling block before many, and has hindered countless others from coming to Jesus. The white-Jesus theory has been the status quo in America for centuries. The people manifesting seeds of offense to the challenge of the theory are often offended by those who trend upon a theory they believed all their lives. It matters to those who are offended, and it matters to everyone. The reason it matters is that the white-Jesus theory is false. And if we care about truth we would seek it out, and therefore debunk all false theories that do not line up with the Scriptures. Jesus was not born in Europe or in the United States. The truth about Jesus is that He was a Hebraic-Jew from the land of Israel, whose descendants came out of Egypt in Africa (De. 10:22); and not a white male of European descent. In the Bible, Jacob’s household of seventy-people relocated to Egypt because there was a severe famine in their homeland, and there was food in Egypt. They moved to the section of Egypt called Goshen. And when Moses was eighty, God sent him back into Egypt to lead all the Israelites out; where they eventually settled in what became known as the land of Judea. Jesus was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth.

– Blessings to all of you.

“Salvation”

Salvation, from the Greek term Soter, means save, deliver, or set-free.  It is a byproduct of redemption Jesus paid on the cross for all humanity.  It is not something a person can earn, or can anyone give to you.  It is something that only Jesus can give to a person, in accordance to their obedience to His Word. A person’s response to the Gospel message of Salvation comes from he or she hearing the Gospel; and placing their personal faith in Him as their one and only savior of their soul.  The Gospel message of Salvation was proclaimed by the Apostle Peter on the Day of Pentecost.  It was/is specifically based on Acts 2:38, and not Romans 10:9-10.  Biblical faith has always been associated with a person doing something.  Simply believing something mentally is not faith.  Doing what you believe is faith.  For example, Noah believed God and his faith moved him to build an Ark. If he would have just believed God’s Word mentally and not build the ark, he would have died in the flood.  Abraham believed God and attempted to offer up Isaac as a burnt offering to God.  The angel then said to Abraham, “Now I know you believe God…” The presence of faith has always been, and will always be associated with the actions of the individual.  A person’s actions justify the measure of their faith.  In regards to Romans 10:9-10, it is not possible to simply confess with your mouth and believe in your heart in the absence of Repentance from sin, Water and Spirit baptism.  A person cannot simply save you by telling you to repeat words that they say (and then supposedly after a person repeated your words they have then been granted salvation).  While many churches are telling people to believe in their heart and confess Jesus with their mouth – and viola, welcome to the Kingdom of God!  Jesus said, “Unless a person is born again, he or she cannot see the His kingdom.  And unless you are born of Water and the Spirit, you cannot enter His Kingdom” (Jn. 3:3-5).  Peter took Jesus’ Words and preached them on the day of Pentecost – Repentance, Water Baptism, and the Baptism of the Holy Ghost – which all equal Salvation.  The Blood, Water, and Spirit all agree in One. Salvation requires a made up mind and commitment to turn away from sin in repentance to Jesus Christ.  The message of salvation proclaimed by Jesus and preached by the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost is mostly foreign to many so-called Bible believing churches in the world.  These movements claim to be Bible believing but they, in essence, don’t believe in the Bible; nor do they preach it or teach it to people.  It is because many false prophets have entered the churches and planted false doctrines while so-called pastors are still counting their money, and working so hard to please people. The Gospel comes before an Epistle.  A person has to come through the Gospel before being instructed in the Word as a believer.  And if you are living a life of sin, you are on your way straight to hell; regardless of what you claim to confess.

– Blessings to all of you.

“Prayer”

Some of us may feel like we pray and pray, and it seems to us like we never receive a response from heaven. There are two common reasons for unanswered prayer. One has to do with us, and the other has nothing to do with us; let me explain. The first reason is that we do things that hinder our own prayers, and the second reason is that devils hinder our prayers. There are at least 5 common ways that we hinder our prayers to and from heaven. These are not limited to but are the most common reasons as follow: our mistreatment of others, the way we treat our spouses (for those who are married), the presence of sin and unrepented sin in our lives, the lack of faith through doubt and unbelief, and selfish prayers. One of the reasons that seems like it is ‘unanswered prayers’ has nothing to do with us. On many occasions, the Lord uses angels to bring us the answers to prayers. In the process, there are territorial demonic princes that fight to keep angels out of what they believe to be their jurisdiction. In the process of God to dispatching the answer, a spiritual war or battle is presently being fought to which we may be unaware in the second heavens; and the angels sent from God are held up by demonic forces to which we are unaware. To us however it would seem like the prayer was not answered. We are also involved in warfare, which is why God wants us to pray without ceasing. If the devil can make us give up, it will empower the demonic realm against the angels of God. When we continue prayer through… it empowers the angels of God against the demonic realm. This all may seem like science fiction but it is all true. It is an insult to God and to other believers for a person to claim to be a Christian but yet mistreat the people around them. God determines how you feel about Him based on the way we treat others. Consider the affirmation concerning how we say we love God whom we cannot see and yet despise people who we see every day? Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself was not a suggestion. It was the second greatest commandment to which all the Law and Prophets hang. We hinder our prayers when we mistreat or do wrongs to other people, becomes one of the ‘highlighted’ ways that we offend the Lord with our lifestyles.

– Blessings to all of you.

“Politics and the Church”

We all need to vote. This is our civil/civic responsibility, as citizens of this country; just as paying taxes is our civic duty. I learned that many people, especially Christians, do not vote. There are some who never vote but complain about the candidates in office. In 1st Timothy 2:2, the Apostle Paul admonished believers in Ephesus to “Pray for all who are in authority that they may lead a quiet and peaceable life.” This is also a true saying for us today. The practice of praying and ‘not doing’ is not a practice approved by the Bible. If we have it in our power or ability to do something – we need to do it and stop putting everything on God to do; and especially, stop blaming the devil for everything. We need to learn to take personal responsibility and accountability for our lives and actions. We need to learn how to solve problems when we have it in our ability to do so; what if Dr. Martin Luther King (to name one) took on many of the lazy attitudes we see in people today? Would there had been a civil rights movement for the civil rights for everyone? Probably not! So listen to the candidates that are running for public office, and research their backgrounds; to make sure the person you are voting for is the right candidate you are helping to put in office. Don’t vote for someone based on their ethnicity, gender, or because the candidate belongs to the same political party you favor. But vote for people who will do the right things by people and by this country. As a republic, this is the reason we vote candidates into office – not to represent themselves, but to represent us.

– Blessings to all of you.