To my knowledge as of April 2019, John Perkins has not yet preached a sermon or written an article describing in some detail how the Holy Spirit anointed his life and ministry that he implemented
Luke 4:18-19.
I have repeatedly requested that he do so, and he has repeatedly said he was working on it. So I guess one can say that my chapter on the four ministries on the Holy Spirit on John Perkins’ life and ministry published in the Mobilizing for the Common Good is the closest thing to an authorized version.
In 2013 the University of Mississippi Press published Mobilizing for the Common Good: The lived theology of John M. Perkins in which my chapter on the Holy Spirit in John’s ministry can be found.
In this chapter I described four ministries of the Holy Spirit which I discovered in the scriptures and which I saw in John Perkins’ life and ministry. The first and most important ministry is Jesus
description of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth. This is found in John chapters 14, 15 and 16 in which he said it would be to the disciples advantage if Jesus himself goes away because Jesus has to return to heaven before the Spirit of Truth can come. The world, and too often the church, is full of false teaching. And so the Spirit-filled church needs to know the truth before it can preach and live the truth.
In Mississippi, where John returned to minister in 1960, the church was full of false teaching about oppression and false teaching, or no biblical teaching about oppression and justice. So John’s first
ministry was to expose the false teaching and declare and live the truth about justice and reconciliation.
For fifteen years—1994-2010—my wife and I lived at the Perkins Center in Jackson, Mississippi. For fifteen years we witnessed his ministry in action. It was as plain as the nose on my face that I
was seeing a Spirit-filled person in action. Possibly one of the most vivid examples of this took place when President Philip Eaton from Seattle Pacific University and some SPU students were listening
to a biblical teaching on the woman of Samaria. How Jesus in John 4 broke through the gender and cultural barriers to reveal himself to the Samaritan woman. It was such a powerful Spirit-anointed biblical teaching that soon after President Eaton asked to meet with John Perkins to ask this third grade drop-out how they could set up a Perkins Center at Seattle Pacific University. In a few short
years the Perkins Center was established and soon John Perkins will give his annual April lecture at the Perkins Center.
In this blog I recommend you order the book, Mobilizing for the Common Good and read the whole chapter on the Holy Spirit which I am only going to briefly summarize today. So the first ministry of
the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. The second ministry is the Spirit and the kingdom of God, and I base this on the following scriptures: Acts 1:1-8 and Luke 4:18-19 which operationalizes
Acts 1:1-8. The biblical kingdom of God is all about releasing the oppressed by doing Jubilee Justice. This is what I saw demonstrated in John Perkins’ life and ministry. John, as he often did, provided
his own label, and he called this Christian Community Development. So in one way or another, John’s seventeen books describe some aspect of Christian Community Development. If you want to
know what CCD is all about and you haven’t heard John Perkins in person, read all seventeen books. One of his seventeen books that I would most highly recommend to understand CCD is
A Quiet Revolution.
The third ministry of the Holy Spirit is found in Galatians 5:22-23, the fruit of the Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit produce in the life of the Spirit-filled person? Love is probably
the most important fruit of the Holy Spirit. Unless love is present to control the exercise of the gifts of the Holy Spirit the gifts are often misused for personal edification, or even personal profit, the
most obvious example being the Prosperity Gospel. All of this is fairly plain and obvious and easily understood as you read Galatians 5:22-23.
Last and least important, though still important, are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These gifts can be and have often been misused. John has noticed this and in no way shape or form does he want to misuse the gifts of the Holy Spirit in his ministry. So this may be one reason why he is too quiet about explaining how the Holy Spirit has anointed his life and ministry. We all could profit from John speaking clearly and authoritatively how a Spirit-filled person and a Spirit-filled church can and should be implementing Luke 4:18-19 in its ministry.
This is not just for John M. Perkins. Every church should be tapping into the person and the power and wisdom of the Spirit. Every church should be releasing the oppressed and doing justice.
Sadly in modern America this is not the case. So I urge each reader to get a copy of Mobilizing for the Common Good and read it in much more detail about how these four ministries of the Spirit have
made John into a modern day prophet.
For a more metic expression of this truth, see the following five verses based on Luke 4:18-19 to be sung to the tune of Amazing Grace:
Amazing Justice
Based on Luke 4:18-19
Words by Lowell Noble
To be sung to tune of Amazing Grace
The Spirit is on me to share
The jubilee of Christ
Lib’ration’s come in Him, I will
Let justice roll on down.
The Spirit is on me to preach
Good news to all the poor
He calls me to free the oppressed
And proclaim justice now
The Spirit is on me to heal
The crushed and broken down
I will let flow the freedom and
The justice of our Lord
The Spirit is on me to free
The captives bound in chains
By grace we are released at last
To live in harmony
I know the jubilee Jesus
The justice of his light
He reigns in me and in our world
He came to give us life
Shalom,
Lowell Noble
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