whats up, i'm part of a WOF church, actully Rhema one of the biggest! and i go to there bible college and plan to minister ast a WOF pastor one day. i thought it would be nice to answer and questions you might have, confirm WOF teaching to you, and clear up any misconceptions might be out there,
I believed in spiritual gifts. I grew up Pentecostal.
I'd occasionally see one of the well-known WOF preachers on TV as a teenager. I couldn't stand to watch more than a few minutes of them. One of them seemed angry or something, and I found his personality abrasive. But what bothered me more was how often in a short period of time, I'd hear the preacher go on about how a verse didn't really mean what it said. There were preachers preaching against saying 'if it be thy will.'
I got a little older and had a look at one of Kenneth Hagin, Sr.'s booklets. In it, he basically argued that God doesn't do 'bad' stuff to people. He said someone he knew said there was a certain Hebrew grammatical feature that could be translated to either mean 'cause' or 'allow', and it seemed like he just used that as an excuse to take all those Old Testament passages in the Old Testament where God does some things that are 'bad' or unpleasant from the perspective of the individuals on the receiving end of it, and said God allowed it. It seems like, in Hagin's belief system, or at least in the belief system of any rhema grads, the Devil did all the unpleasant stuff.
A problem with this is that it doesn't seem like Kenneth Hagin, Sr. took the time to go see if all the cases in the Old Testament of when God did these things to see if that feature of Hebrew grammar was used, or to see if the argument made sense. If God caused the Egyptians to drown by the breath of his nostrils, does it make sense to say he didn't do it because he 'allowed' the breath of his nostrils to breath the water on them, instead of 'causing' it to happen. That would be a rather foolish argument.
No, God is responsible for drowning the Egyptians in the Red Sea. He took credit for it. Israel praised Him for it. We should not give the glory of God to the Devil. I'm not sure if Kenneth Hagin ever said the Devil did that specific thing, but it sure seems in line with the WOF way of thinking.
Kenneth Copeland gave a teaching about the idea that Adam gave up the rights and power over the earth when he fell. But it was a theory, not something that could be proven from the Bible, parts of it at least. It seems like this idea is core to some of WOF teachings about the power of the Devil and the believer's authority. But the Bible says that the earth is the LORD's and the glory thereof.
There are Pentecostals who will say that God never causes sickness, and probably have been since the beginning of the movement, since there were probably people in the 'faith cure' movement that went that far. But Pentecostals tend to read the Bible, not just a hundred or two hundred or so verses on faith and prosperity. So it seems like most don't go that far. The Bible does show God is responsible for some illness.
Deuteronomy 7:15 says,
And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.
That's a great verse about health, right? But according to the verse, who put sicknesses upon the Egyptians? That destroys the argument of some of the WOFers that would try to give the Devil glory for some of the judgments of God.
Something that has bothered me over time about the WOF movement is that there have been so many cases of teaching doctrines that contradict specific verses, like teaching against praying, 'if it be Thy will' when Christ prayed that and the Lord's prayer says 'Thy will be done.' Preaching against that seemed common in the 1980's. That's one of the beefs I have with the 'hypergrace' people, pushing their philosophy to such an extreme it violates specific scriptures.
With WOFers, it seems like some of their preachers like shock value. So they try to preach a passage in a way that seems new, extreme, and innovative, and it seems to push the doctrine off in weird directions. Other preachers imitate the famous preachers. It seems like some of the preachers have several verses they camp on, and focus on faith, healing, and prosperity, ignoring a lot of important Biblical teaching.
I had a friend who used to quote WOF preachers a lot, and had one of those narrow WOF mindsets. I sat around with him till late at night or the wee hours of the morning a few times talking Bible with him and asking questions that poked holes in his belief system. Years later, he told me how thankful he was for that, and how it really helped him get out of that mindset.
I did know a missionary who went to Rhema, and if you heard him preach, you wouldn't know it, because he sounded like a 'normal preacher' and would preach on a variety of topics, not just a handfull of verses on faith, healing, and prosperity. That did broaden my perspective a bit and let me know that not all people with a WOF background were narrow in their view.
