In Praise of Dr. Gordon Fee (d. October 25, 2022)

If you know anything about Biblical Studies over the last fifty years, you probably have heard about Dr. Gordon Fee. One of the top textual critics of his time, head of the NIV committee, and, for anyone who had the privilege of having him as a professor, one of the best Biblical Studies teachers…ever. When I did my first master’s program at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia in the mid-90s, he was by far the most influential teacher I had. In any case, I just found out today that yesterday, October 25, 2022, Dr. Fee passed away.

And so, I want to take the time to write this post about how he impacted my life, not only during my time at Regent, but afterwards as well. I know there will no doubt be many people praising him as both a scholar and a spiritual mentor, and all of that is certainly true. For me, I don’t know how this post really will turn out. I just want to write out my immediate thoughts and reflections of him.

My Time at Regent College…and Gordon Fee’s Classes
I attended Regent College in Vancouver during the 1995-1997 school years. I chose Regent College because, although I wanted to do further study in the Bible and Theology, I knew I didn’t want to become a pastor—I’d be a horrible pastor. And one of Regent’s stated purposes was to train people in Biblical Studies and Theology, but then equip them to return to the everyday world and impact their world that way. Besides, at the time, Regent’s “faculty bench,” so to speak, was stacked. Although the entire faculty was tremendous, Regent had four “big names”: J.I. Packer, Eugene Peterson, Bruce Waltke, and, of course, Gordon Fee.

When I first got to Regent in the Fall of 1995, they were just names to me, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly what specific area I wanted to focus on. That first semester, among the courses I took, there was a Biblical Spirituality class by Eugene Peterson. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it didn’t completely grab me. Then there was Systematic Theology with J.I. Packer. I know he is a legend, and I certainly learned a lot in that class, but I came away from that class with one firm conviction: I’m not into Systematic Theology.

That first semester, I did not take any class by Gordon Fee, although a number of my new friends were taking a New Testament Introduction course with him. And oh my gosh, they were constantly raving about him. I was skeptical–no one could be as dynamic as they were claiming. On top of that, at that time during that first semester, I knew two other things about him. First, he was a big-time Assemblies of God figure. And right there, I thought I wouldn’t like him. Why? Because I had grown up in the Assemblies of God church and, although I didn’t have any “theological beef” with them, let’s just say my personality was not really “Assemblies of God” material. And by my mid-twenties, I was just pretty sick and tired of the whole thing—the fired-up preachers who would practically scream their sermons and try to get everyone whipped up into a frenzy. It turned me off.

The second thing I knew about Gordon Fee is what I experienced and heard in the Regent College atrium, particularly the couches between the offices and the chapel. While my friends were attending his class in the chapel (so many signed up for his classes, they had to be in the chapel), I was outside on the couches reading—and all I could hear, practically every day, was Dr. Fee’s voice booming. The doors were closed, so I couldn’t actually hear what he was saying, but it was clear that he taught like an Assemblies of God revival pastor during a summer-long revival meeting. All I could think at that time was, “Oh geez…and I have to take two classes with that guy next semester!” I was sure I was going to hate it.

As it turned out, I had never been more wrong in my entire life. During that spring semester, I took (among other classes) both Biblical Exegesis and Biblical Theology—both classes were team taught with both Bruce Waltke and Gordon Fee. Now, Dr. Waltke was amazing to be sure, but literally after my first couple classes with Dr. Fee, I felt my entire life had changed. There is absolutely no way I can possibly articulate just how much it changed within this short post. As for the question of what area I wanted to focus on at Regent? After those first couple classes, it was settled: Biblical Studies, 100% no doubt about it. During the rest of my time at Regent, I took both Romans and Advanced Biblical Exegesis: Philippians with Dr. Fee. In addition, I bought his audio courses on Galatians and I Corinthians, and he was one of my professors for my comprehensive exams in New Testament. I was even in his community group during my second year at Regent.

Now, all of that is information about how I was briefly in Dr. Fee’s orbit for those two years, but none of that gets close to describing how he impacted my life. I’ll do my best to do that now…

First, the reason I had come to not like style of the Assemblies of God pastors I had heard throughout my life was because I found so much of it to be emotionally charged and theologically thin. Quite frankly, a lot of it was just hot air. Staged emotionalism wrapped up in fiery preaching is not the same as true spirituality. In fact, at that time, I had become a bit jaded to the point that whenever someone spoke of “spirituality,” I immediately thought, “Oh, okay—here comes some manipulative emotional appeal to get everyone to come forward to get saved, or recommit their lives, or whatever, and have a bit of a show.”

With Dr. Fee, though, although he effectively preached in classes very much in that “Assemblies of God” manner, what he preached/taught in in classes was anything but manipulative emotionalism. It was Spiritual—with a capital “S”—meaning the Holy Spirit was in the room. I don’t say that lightly. Having grown up in the Assemblies of God, I heard a lot of claims like that, and, quite frankly, I found most to be thin emotional appeals. But when I sat in Dr. Fee’s classes, it was different. There was a Presence there that I felt—not every single class, to be sure, but constantly during those classes. Like I said, it was different—the Holy Spirit was in the room and my own spirit was stirred. I don’t know how else to say it.

Maybe the closest I can get to describing it is by comparing it to the story in Luke, when Jesus appeared to the two disciples the day of his resurrection and walked with them to Emmaus, teaching them about what the Scriptures said about the Messiah. After he disappeared, they said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

For the rest of my life, whenever I read that story and the disciples’ description of how they felt when Jesus opened the Scriptures to them, I will always think of my time in Gordon Fee’s classes—because that verse describes what I felt in those classes. And although I have certainly had a lot of Biblical Studies training, if I have to admit it, the reason I am a Christian—the reason for my commitment to Christ—really isn’t just a matter of intellectual knowledge. Rather, it can really be boiled down to a handful of genuine “encounters,” if you will, where I had the utmost certainty that I felt…no, I KNEW…God was speaking to me and essentially saying, “This…pay attention TO THIS.”

So, if someone asked me, “Why are you a Christian?” five things would come to mind: Reading Thomas Merton for the first time, an experience I had in the Peace Corps involving the Christmas hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” the Compline service at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, and Gordon Fee’s classes. His classes were a Spiritual revelation that said, “This…pay attention TO THIS.”

Two Humorous Memories from Regent College
That being said, there were also a couple of humorous memories I had in connection with Dr. Fee. So, indulge me a bit.

My first humorous memory happened in the Romans class. That particular semester, Regent was recording the audio for that class to eventually sell in the bookstore as an audio class. One particular day, a friend and I got to class a few minutes late, and because Dr. Fee’s classes were always so full, that meant we had to make our way down to the front row, right in front of Dr. Fee. Now, I hate sitting in the front row of anything, so I just hunkered down, kept my eyes on my notebook, and just took my notes as I listened. There was absolutely no way I was going to look up—I mean, he was right there.

As it turned out, Dr. Fee decided to use me as an example to make one of his points. As I was taking notes, my head down, I hear, “So, Joel hits me…and I say, ‘I forgive you.’” In my mind, I thought, “Okay, that’s weird, I must have zoned out and missed something”—all the while, keeping my head down. Then Dr. Fee said, “Then Joel hits me again…and I say, ‘I forgive you…but watch it!’” At that point, I said to myself, “Okay, what’s going on?” I then raised my head, and Dr. Fee was standing right in front of me—it completely startled me and everyone in the room erupted in laughter. I had no clue he was right in front of me. I’m told that little bit made it to the audio course.

Incidentally, in case you’re wondering, Dr. Fee’s point was that if you say you forgive someone but still keep tabs on how many times that person has wronged you, then you haven’t really forgiven them.

Another humorous memory at Regent I had involving Dr. Fee was in regard to a particular impression I had of him. I’ve always tended to be pretty good at doing impressions of people. At some point, I came up with a bit of a comical impression of Dr. Fee talking, not about anything biblical, but about what was wrong with the minor league baseball games at the Vancouver Canadians (the minor league team in Vancouver) ballpark. In particular, in my impression of Dr. Fee, I had him saying something like, “And those Canadians! They don’t know how to eat hot dogs! They don’t put NEARLY ENOUGH…NEARLY ENOUGH mustard on them! And then you have to get the ketchup and PUT IT ALLLLL OVER THE HOT DOG!”

I realize that merely reading that is not going to be funny to most, but to those of us who took his classes, the particular way he would emphasize things when he got going was unforgettable. I imagine any of my Regent friends who read this will remember what I’m talking about…and hopefully my impression! In any case, it was all in good fun and we all had a good laugh…and there was absolutely no way I ever wanted Dr. Fee to know about it! As it turned out, one of my friends (who shall remain nameless) apparently told him about my impression. And so, during one of our community group meetings that year, at one point, Dr. Fee jokingly quipped about how he’d like to see my impression of him. I was horrified…and my friend had the biggest grin on her face. To be clear, the whole thing was funny…at my expense of course.

And no, I did not do my impression in front of him.

Some Final Thoughts
To be clear, I don’t want to give the impression that I was a close, personal friend of Gordon Fee. In reality, I was just one of his students who was in complete awe of him. I don’t like to use this word, but in reality, I idolized the man. Maybe not “idolize.” Maybe revere is a better word. I remember him signing my copy of Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God, writing, “To Joel: One of ‘my people’ this year,” and just being giddy that he called me one of ‘his people’ for that year.

I remember being ecstatic when he handed back the sermons we wrote for the Philippians class and said in front of the class, “Joel’s sermon…Yeaoh! Spicy!”

And I remember getting to chat with him years later at the Society of Biblical Literature conference in Boston 2009, only a few years after I had been rather mistreated by a former Christian high school I had worked at for a few years. During that ordeal, I had exchanged a few emails with him about what was going on, but it wasn’t until two years later, at the first Society of Biblical Literature conference I went to actually, that I was able to talk with him a bit about it. I remember him telling me that one thing he had observed about me while at Regent was that I was incredibly open and honest about things, and I was not afraid to be a bit edgy at times. It was something he liked about me, but at the same time, the fact was that sometimes that sort of thing gets you into trouble. He was right.

Over the past few years, it was known that Dr. Fee had been battling Alzheimer’s disease, and so it was clear to everyone that at some point he would pass away. Occasionally, I’d go online and find a clip of him teaching or giving an interview, and just hearing his voice made me cry. I can’t explain it. It wasn’t sadness—it was just something stirring in my spirit. Well, maybe it was sadness, but more of a beautiful sadness and reverent awe. Because of him, I simply can never approach the Bible and the Christian life through solely an intellectual lens. If your academic interest in the Bible isn’t filled with a Spiritual hunger, it is self-indulgent crap—that’s just the fact. In my life, I’ve read plenty of self-indulgent crap in the academic world, enough to make most people jaded and cynical.

But I’ve also been blessed to have had Gordon Fee impact my life. And he is one of the major reasons I can say without any doubt that Jesus Christ is Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit changes lives. It is a terrifyingly beautiful thing to feel that deep inside your bones.

Rest In Peace, Dr. Fee.
Save me a seat in the front row for one of your seminars in the Kingdom of God.