|
| Christian news worldwide |
 Home |
 Archives |
 Subscriptions |
 Adverts |
 Find a church |
 About us |
 Contact us |
 Site Map |
 PrintableVersion Wigglesworth: the complete storyWithout a shepherdWIGGLESWORTH: I was unhappy about being asked to review this book — until I read it, that is! I had been prejudiced against Smith Wigglesworth by almost everything I had heard about him (from the early 1970s). Indeed, it does seem that certain people are remembered most for their least desirable traits. However, if this book is a truthful account (and the author really has tried his best to get at the facts), then I was indeed wrong. Smith Wigglesworth was an uneducated man, encouraged in his early ministry largely by his wife, Mary (usually known as ‘Polly’), who predeceased him by about 34 years. She had a powerful preaching ministry and was in great demand to conduct evangelistic campaigns across the north of England in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Even though Wigglesworth himself had an intense zeal for the conversion of souls since his own conversion, it was really his wife who taught him to read and to engage in public speaking. Yet he still found it difficult to address public meetings fluently. In fact it was only after his Pentecostal ‘baptism’ that his ministry really took off. His wife was amazed when she first saw him in action after this experience. Although the theological constructions around this experience can readily be disputed, in my mind there is no doubt that at least some people who claim this experience do experience a genuine work of God. The danger lies in making an experience normative for all Christians — which of course Pentecostals usually do. To do otherwise is to weaken ‘the Pentecostal witness’! But it would seem, in Wigglesworth’s case, the experience was genuine. A number of Wigglesworth’s views were not solidly based in Scripture and I feel that certain prophecies for which he is remembered should have been tested by his contemporaries. This would have been difficult because of the awe with which some viewed him and the kind of ‘apostolic’ conviction which gripped him. At the same time this biography does reinforce the fact that some actions which would normally come across as contrary to social convention can be vehicles for blessing when a person is ministering according to the Spirit’s guidance. But, for me, all of this paled into insignificance beside the central message of the man’s life: compassion for the lost. I felt shamed as I read of the lengths he would go to take opportunities to pray for people’s healing and, even more, to lead them to the Saviour. So if you want to be challenged about your lack of compassion for the lost and lack of zeal for reaching them, then please read this book. Mike Taylor© Evangelicals Now - May 2005 |
|
