About the Book
"Born To Win" by David Oyedepo is a motivational book that encourages readers to unlock their potential and achieve success in life by following spiritual principles. Oyedepo emphasizes the importance of faith, determination, and hard work in overcoming obstacles and reaching one's goals. The book provides practical advice on how to develop a winning mindset and live a purposeful life.
Aimee Semple McPherson
Aimee Semple McPherson was born on Oct. 9, 1890, on a farm in Salford Ontario, Canada. Her father, James Kennedy, was a farmer and came from a Methodist background. Her mother, Mildred, known as âMillie,â came from a Salvation Army background.
Although she was raised in a Christian home, she began to question the Bible during her teen years.
When she was 17, she attended a revival Pentecostal meeting presented by evangelist Robert Semple, where she heard the message of repentance. He also spoke of baptism in the Holy Spirit, an experience for which she hungered. After receiving the infilling of the Holy Spirit, she also was filled with a great love and compassion for souls and a fervent passion to serve the Lord throughout her whole life.
The meeting Aimee attended changed her life not only spiritually but also romantically. The evangelist Robert Semple later become Aimeeâs husband. They were married when she was 18. Their ministry desires were compatible. After their ministry trips in Chicago and the Ingersoll area, they headed to China as missionaries.
In 1910 while in China, Robert and Aimee contracted Malaria within months of arriving in Hong Kong. Robert didnât survive, leaving Aimee pregnant and a widow at 19. When her daughter, Roberta Star, was a month old, Aimee returned to United States to raise her. Aimee and Roberta lived in New York with Aimeeâs mother.
She assisted her mother raising money for the Salvation Army. It was there she met and married a Christian businessman named Harold McPherson. They had a son, Rolf Kennedy McPherson. After a decline in health, two major surgeries and a near-death experience, God asked her one last time, âNow, will you go?â She answered yes to Godâs call and almost immediately was healed. She never again questioned the call to preach the gospel.
Aimee is known for founding the Foursquare Gospel Church in 1918. She also was a woman ahead of her time, possessing boldness in her speaking ability and creative ways to communicate the gospel.
The name Foursquare Gospel originated from the Book of Ezekiel. It represents the four phases of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the face of the Man, she saw Jesus our Saviour. In the face of the lion, she saw Jesus the mighty Baptiser with the Holy Spirit and fire. In the face of the ox, she saw Jesus the Great Burden Bearer. In the face of an eagle, she saw Jesus the coming King, who will return in power and glory. It was, in Aimeeâs opinion, âa perfect gospel. A complete gospel for body, for spirit and for eternity.â
Her ministry was dynamic. She witnessed thousands saved and healed during her evangelistic meetings. Being creative and theatrical, Aimee used drama, music and opera to appeal to the audience. Bands, choirs and other crowd-pleasing touches enhanced her dynamic preaching. Though she was well-versed in the Bible, Aimeeâs success wasnât based on her knowledge, but rather the delivery of her messages.
She also was known as a faith healer, with claims of physical healing occurring during her meetings. Her faith healing demonstrations were written about extensively in the media, as they were a large focus of her early ministry. Aimee was an evangelistic pioneer, determined to spread the message of the Pentecostal faith, and used her fervour and flamboyance to win a huge following.
She had achieved what no one had yet done in ministry, which was to build a 5,000-seat auditorium in an influential area of Los Angeles. This paved the way for other female evangelists during a time when women were not accepted in the pulpit. She also launched the first Christian radio station and established a Bible college. By 1917, she had started her own magazine The Bridal Call, for which she wrote many articles about womenâs roles in religion; she portrayed the link between Christians and Jesus as a marriage bond.
Jan. 1, 1923, the new Angelus Temple was opened in a flamboyant style. Aimee was seated on a red velvet throne dressed in a nurseâs uniform and cape. Accompanying her were 200 singers, three bands, two orchestras and six quartets. The Angelus Temple was featured on a float in Pasadenaâs Tournament of Roses parade, while the extravagant dedication service was given full coverage in The New York Times. What became the home of The Church of the Foursquare Gospel filled four times each Sunday and twice weekly. Aimee also ministered at highly sought-after healing services during the week.
Reporters marveled at her oral skills, saying, âNever did I hear such language from a human being. Without one momentâs intermission, she would talk from an hour to an hour and a half, holding her audience spellbound.â Rather than using fire-and-brimstone preaching, Aimee resorted to a style of joyous celebration, representing the loving face of God.
She also brought old-time religion into the modern age, using illustrated sermons to help people understand the gospel better. Also, stage productions were incorporated, drawing people who usual didnât attend church. In an era prior to television, these services proved entertaining, and she used this method to present the message of salvation through faith in Jesus.
Aimee welcomed all walks of life. She preached to the high class of society, as well as the poor and disadvantaged. She treated everyone equally regardless of race, gender or status.
In the 1920s, Aimee became a well-known voice among civic leaders, politicians, actors and actresses, and pastors from various denominations. Her sermons were reprinted in hundreds of newspapers in Canada, the United States and Mexico and were read by millions. In 1927, she opened a commissary to feed the marginalized and supply them with clothing and other necessities. Aimee set up a 24/7 soup kitchen at her temple in 1936 to help families through the Great Depression .She also became involved with war bond rallies and linked religion to patriotism in her sermons when America joined the Second World War in 1941.
Aimeeâs legacy is threefold. Using the dramatic arts to reach the lost (an innovative tool) and the latest technology to spread the gospel. She reached out to the poor, helping thousands in the Los Angeles area who were starving. She taught a full-gospel message and regularly saw thousands of healings and miracles in her meetings.
Aimee passed away due to an accidental overdose in 1944 and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in California. Her son, Rolf, has kept her memory and ministry alive by carrying the ministry for 40 four years. The Foursquare church is still standing strong with 8 million members worldwide.
An Excellent New Book on Justification
If a thoughtful layman asked me what he should read to understand the doctrine of justification in relationship to the New Perspective on Paul, I would send him to Stephen Westerholmâs new book, Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme (Eerdmans, 2013). I enjoyed this book so much I found it difficult to put down. It is constructive. That is, it builds a clear and positive view of what justification is, rather than simply criticizing other views. For that reason, it provides a good introduction to the doctrine of justification itself for those who may not be clear on what Paul taught. According to the New Perspective But it is obviously written with a view to explaining and criticizing the so-called New Perspective (including Krister Stendahl, E.P. Sanders, J.D.G. Dunn, and N.T. Wright). The gist of that perspective is that the Judaism of Paulâs day was not a religion of legalism but of grace, and so, contrary to the historic view of Paul, legalism can hardly be what Paul found wrong with Judaism. His doctrine of justification must have had a different target. Therefore, the New Perspective says, justification âwas not about how sinners could find a gracious God (by grace, not by works), but about the terms by which Gentles could be admitted to the people of God (without circumcision, Jewish food laws, and the like). A new Perspective was bornâ (26). The problem, Westerholm points out, is that the views of grace in contemporary Judaism did not exclude the merit of works alongside it. E.P. Sanders himself shows that the Rabbis âdid not have a doctrine of original sin or of the essential sinfulness of each man in the Christian senseâ (33). It follows, Westerholm argues, that âhumanityâs predicament must be more desperate than Jews otherwise imaginedâ (33). Desperate for Grace This means that Paulâs âdepiction of humanityâs condition required a much more rigorous dependence on divine grace than did Judaismâsâ (34). Therefore, to show that Judaism had a doctrine of grace âis no reason to deny that Paul could have understood justification in terms of an exclusive reliance on grace in a way that was foreign to the thinking of contemporary Jewsâ (34). Therefore, Paulâs doctrine of justification did target not only a Jewish view, but any human view, that presumes to make good works any part of the ground of our being found righteous before God. âFor Paul, Godâs gift of salvation [i.e., justification] necessarily excludes any part to be played by God-pleasing âworksâ since human beings are incapable of doing themâ (32). âPaul sees the only righteousness available to sinful human beings to be that given as a gift of Godâs grace, âapart from worksâ (Romans 3:24; 4:2, 6; 5:17) â distinguishing grace from works in a way other Jews felt no need to doâ (98). What the Doctrine Means In a statement that summarizes the whole book, Westerholm writes that this historic view of justification, shared by the Reformers and most Protestants, cannot be dismissed by the claim that the ancients were not concerned to find a gracious God (how could they not be, in the face of pending divine judgment?); or that it wrongly casts first-century Jews as legalists (its target is rather the sinfulness of all human beings); or that non-Christian Jews, too, depended on divine grace (of course they did, but without Paulâs need to distinguish grace from works); or that ârighteousnessâ means âmembership in the covenantâ (never did, never will) and the expression âworks of the lawâ refers to the boundary markers of the Jewish people (it refers to all the ârighteousâ deeds required by the law as its path to righteousness). (98) And, Westerholm observes, it is, of course, right to âemphasize the social implications of Paulâs doctrine of justification . . . in his own day and . . . draw out its social implications for our ownâ (98). But we should not identify the meaning of justification with its social implications (for example, table fellowship between Gentiles and Jews in Galatians 2; and multi-ethnic implications today). No. âThe doctrine of justification means that God declares sinners righteous, apart from righteous deeds, when they believe in Jesus Christâ (99). Confusing the root with the fruit will, in the long run, kill the tree. Article by John Piper Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org
