Power From On High

In Power from on High, Charles Finney boldly uncovers the awful truth that today’s Christians, even Church leaders, are sadly lacking from the critical gift of power, but he offers hope as he reveals the wonderful fact that this power is available to every Christian who dares ask for it in faith.

The Holy Spirit, or, Power from on high: an unfolding of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments. Part I. The Old Testament.

For Luke, argues Turner, the Spirit came upon Jesus in order to endow him with the power and wisdom to purge Israel and initiate its restoration. Likewise, the Spirit came upon the early Christian community, not merely to empower it for mission but principally to reshape it in fulfilment of the hopes expressed in Luke 1-2. Thus the Spirit is no mere added gift, but looks towards the salvation of the community as well as for its witness. This substantial study of Luke's theology is also a sympathetic critique of the classical Pentecostal view of the Spirit.

Power from on High offers the first critical survey of scholarship on the subject of Luke's view of the Spirit, assessing the rival theories by means of three criteria: continuity with Luke's background, relationship to other aspects of Luke's theology, and Luke's place in the development of more general New Testament thinking about the Spirit. Turner provides fresh insight on specific Lukan concepts and favored terms (including such phrases as "full of the Holy Spirit" and "baptize with the Holy Spirit") that have been of significance not merely for the discipline of New Testament studies but also for confessional theologies of major streams of Christianity today, and seeks to advance a more coherent understanding of the general shape of Luke's pneumatology than has hitherto been offered.

This is an edited study edition of John Greenfield's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Great Moravian Revival that started in 1727. History is filled with stories of the Spirit of God that stir our souls and encourage our faith. One of the most exciting and practical is the account of the Moravians of Herrnhut who experienced a powerful revival in 1727 that continues to impact the world in our day. Many are writing on revival with the hope of seeing such a movement of God in our day. Power From On High, grounds that hope in history and at the same time provides the practical help for a movement of prayer that prepares the way for the Spirit to do His work in the Church today.

All the while the structure of higher and lower priesthoods fluctuated in response to pragmatic needs. Priests were needed to perform ordinances, teachers to lead congregations, bishops to manage church assets, and elders to proselytize-responsibilities which would be redistributed repeatedly throughout the prophet's fourteen-year ministry.

Have you learned the secret to a life that is wholly surrendered to the leading of the Holy Spirit? Part of Andrew Murray’s classic Secret Series devotionals, The Secret of Power from On High simply presents how to exercise the great privilege of close fellowship with God in prayer through the Holy Spirit and the meaning of a life of all-prevailing intercession.