Share this story. 
|
Seminary Grad Finishes One Chapter, Begins Several More
By Jadell Forman 90
| |
| |
| |
|
"When I got the book in my hands... I opened the box, and the book looked exactly like I wanted it to look. I walked around showing all my office mates" at Christian Chapel in Tulsa, where Isgrigg, who started as the janitor, is now an associate pastor. "It was really cool to see the dream come full circle. Seeing your name on it is pretty cool."
Days away from presenting his master's thesis on Ervin at the Society for Pentecostal Studies meeting at Duke University, Isgrigg "put a rush on the order to send some to the meeting," along with one intended for a special recipient. "I called him and told him I had the book. I told him, 'I'm going to the [SPS] meeting. Can I meet with you?'"
Isgrigg took the book, Pilgrimage into Pentecost: The Pneumatological Legacy of Howard M. Ervin, to Ervin's home. In typical grandfatherly fashion, said Isgrigg, the retired professor softly oh-ed while thumbing through pages.
"I really don't know him that well. This project was instigated by Dr. [Cheryl] Iverson," Isgrigg said. (Iverson is the associate dean for Academic Affairs in ORU's Graduate School of Theology.) "I grew to appreciate him through class research -- a journey of trying to get to know him through facts, theology. He doesn't let you into his world very easily.
"When I've talked to him in his home, he goes from professor to the real Howard Ervin." As he was leaving the house that day, Isgrigg said, he thought he saw Ervin's more personal side. "He really looked me in the eye with deep appreciation. It was a side people don't normally get to see." Speaking of Ervin's time of championing the Pentecostal cause, Isgrigg explained, "He got a lot of opposition. So, this is the only book written about him."
In Ervin's scholarship, Isgrigg learned how to articulate his own thoughts. "I found a model for being comfortable with Spirit baptism theologically. After the first class, that's definitely what I want to do. Here's this old man, with a very light voice; he calls roll. Then he begins to talk about the unique perspective of Luke on the Holy Spirit. As he does that, his voice grows to commanding level. He's articulate -- everything you'd want in a scholar, and he was talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit!"
Isgrigg found himself inwardly saying, Yes. Exactly. That's what I believe. That's what I experience. "I'd been looking for this biblical, historical, theological validation that this experience is still true." And in Ervin, he found it.
Isgrigg said he wrote the book in part because he's concerned about his generation's view of the Holy Spirit. "We are Spirit people. Dr. Ervin gives us the solid, biblical grounds to understand our experience and what God wants us to have."
With aspirations to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and teach in a seminary, Isgrigg considers publication as "totally an investment" for his career. He's writing an eschatology paper for next year's SPS conference and has written a new book (due out in July): Why I Want To Be Left Behind: Exposing the Fiction in Today's End-times Prophecy Teaching.
"Some of the popular beliefs of the end times are based on bad interpretation of Scripture," he said. For example, one chapter is titled "Why I Want To Go Through the Tribulation." Isgrigg argues, "Tribulation is part of the Christian life." And it's part of standing for your beliefs, as Dr. Howard Ervin can attest.
