How J. W. Arnold Influenced Pentecostal Preaching
John C. Carroll
William Jessup University/Wilson University
Professor Dorisa Costello
02/04/2019
How J. W. Arnold Influenced Pentecostal Preaching
Introduction
J. W. Arnold is popular and polarizing, charismatic and confrontational. Therefore, I have chosen to write about the significant impact that he has had on my love for preaching. My passion for preaching is twofold: I love to hear preaching, and I love to preach. Arnold has been one of my favorite preachers since I was a teenager. I not only like to listen to him preach, but I have cited him in many of my sermons. I am not alone in this. Many of my friends have either cited him or preached entire sermons of his.
Conversion Experience
Arnold has told his conversion story on many occasions. One of the more animated versions of his testimony can be found in a YouTube video titled, “STORE 2012 Jeff Arnold” (Arnold, 2013). He described the condition that his life was in immediately before his conversion. He was an alcoholic. He and his wife Patty were about to get a divorce. He described what he now believes to be the presence of God waking him like nudging someone on the shoulder. The waking event happened three nights in a row. Each night he got up and went to the kitchen and opened a can of beer and lit a cigarette. He felt a sensational presence in his room and house. He would get up and check all the windows and doors to make sure that there was no intruder.
Finally, after the third night, he went back into the bedroom and woke Patty and asked her, “If God were to call me to be a missionary to China, would you go?” Patty said, “Go to bed, Jeff. You’re drunk.” Jeff replied that he believed that God was talking to him and that he needed to go to church. He recalled the first time he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in the little Pentecostal church they attended, and that it was the same presence that woke him up those three nights in a row.
He didn’t know that Patty had been raised in a Pentecostal church. The first church that they attended was another denomination. When they told Patty that if she signed a card that she would be saved, she said to them that she had not even received the baptism of the Spirit yet. She was expecting that she would receive the baptism of the Spirit and speak with tongues.
The usher that was speaking with them at the altar got the attention of other people and told them what she was saying. Eventually, the pastor had them removed from the service. Arnold remembered how embarrassed he was that he had been thrown out of a church. He said that he had been thrown out of whorehouses, honky-tonks, hotels and other places. However, he had never been thrown out of a church. He felt like at that moment that was the lowest place in his life.
Eventually, he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which changed his life forever. His conversion set him on a course in his life that will cause him to go down in history as one of the most prolific Pentecostal preachers of his time. His vernacular, flamboyance, charisma and depth of biblical knowledge has changed how Pentecostals judge preaching for the rest of my life. For generations, Apostolics and Pentecostals of all stripes will be listening to J. W. Arnold’s preaching. God changed his life, and he has changed ours.
Arnold’s Preaching Career
Children’s Evangelist
Arnold began his preaching ministry as a children’s evangelist. He was an accomplished ventriloquist and magician. So, he would travel and preach kids’ revivals. He developed an act with his puppets that communicated the gospel (Traffic talk with Jeff Arnold, 2016). He was effective and in demand. However, his gift as a communicator would not allow him to remain as a kids’ preacher. Pastors and leaders within his organization began to recognize his talents. Consequently, his speaking matured and so did his audience.
Pastor
Eventually, he became the pastor of a church in Gainesville, FL. He remained the pastor there for three-plus decades until his recent retirement. For a new pastor like myself, staying in one church for over 30 inspires me to remain faithful in my role through all the ups and downs of serving God’s people. Arnold has preached about many of the issues he has faced over the years—but he stayed through it all.
Preaching Style
Arnold’s preaching style is as polarizing as it is popular. He draws crowds that fill large sanctuaries and conference halls. Most come to listen to the revelatory nature of his preaching. Others come to hear what he will say. Rather, they come to hear how he will say it. He speaks with a vernacular that his childhood, Brooklyn, New York home gave him. He uses crude, but not vulgar, language effectively. He makes people listen to what he has to say. His verbiage commands attention.
In addition to his crass, Brooklyn accent, he is one of the most honest Pentecostal preachers. He often speaks about his struggles with different sins. He discusses openly his past lifestyle as well as his present temptations. A combination of these factors has been how Arnold has changed how my generation of preachers see preaching.
Arnold makes unique connections between texts of scriptures in a way that no one else we have heard. When he preaches about the characters of the Bible, he leaves you feeling as if he interviewed them for his sermon. It is almost like he knows them. I, and those who have grown up on Arnold’s preaching, have never heard another preacher speak the way he does. As a result, we strive to know our bibles like a person knows their best friend.
Conference Speaker
J. W. Arnold’s style made him one of the most prolific conference speakers of more than a generation. He preaches in camps and conferences across all organizational boundaries. Perhaps the best example of his national platform is his long-running presence at a minister’s conference in Louisiana every year. He preached Because of the Times (BOTT) from 1983 to 2014. BOTT is just one of many meetings that Arnold graced with his ministry. Thousands of preachers and their wives attend annually. The sermons that he has preached at these meetings gave to us revelation of God and his grace that draws us closer to Christ.
Ministry Themes
The primary themes of Arnold’s sermons are grace and the miraculous. His greatest message about miracles was “The Miracle is Looking for a Vessel.” His greatest message about grace was “A Refuge from Despair.” The message about despair has been a refuge for me more than once. Every Christian needs to hear “A Refuge from Despair.”
“The Miracle Looking for a Vessel” let us know that all we have to do is make ourselves available to God and He will use us to do extraordinary things. We don’t have to have great ability, but we do need great availability. “A Refuge from Despair” reminded us that in Christ there is a place of refuge from the despair that often follows failures. Arnold let us know that some Christians may not forgive us, but Christ will.
Cultural Respect
Social Media
Beyond his ministerial resume, the respect that Pentecostal culture gives to him is significant. There is a Twitter account that is dedicated to his quotes (@JArnoldQuotes). When I last looked, his tribute Twitter account had 7,175 followers. There are also many memes on Facebook and Instagram of his one-liners. Arnold is among the most quoted preachers in the Pentecostal movement. The fact of how often he is quoted in various formats demonstrates how inspirational his preaching is to my generation of ministers.
Preachers Who Plagiarize Him
For a preacher, the highest form of flattery is for another preacher to preach his material. Using this criterion for flattery would make J. W. Arnold one of the most flattered Pentecostal preachers. Jentezen Franklin, among others, has preached Arnold’s messages. “Jentezen Franklin is the Senior Pastor of Free Chapel, a multi-campus church. Each week his television program, Kingdom Connection, is broadcast on major networks all over the world. A New York Times best-selling author, Jentezen has written nine books” (Senior Pastor, Franklin, 2019). Franklin is just one of the mainstream ministries has made use of Arnold’s content.
I will cite one example from Franklin to demonstrate my point. Franklin preached a sermon called, “Be the Vessel” (Franklin, 2014). Franklin’s sermon was taken almost exactly and specifically from Arnold’s 1989 message titled, “The Miracle is Looking For a Vessel” (Arnold, 2015). The Arnold sermon discussed here is one of his classics. In an academic context, Franklin would be convicted of plagiarism. The above example is one of many to demonstrate the impact that Arnold’s ministry has had, not only in the United Pentecostal Church, but also across denominational lines.
Conclusion
A combination of the above points should provide a compelling argument for the significance of Arnold’s influence on my generation—a generation of preachers. His national presence in preaching conferences, the tribute Twitter account, the many memes of his quotes on all forms of social media, the number of sermons that he has on the internet in various forms, the number of times that preachers across denominational lines have preached his sermons should demonstrate adequately that Arnold has been an influencer.
Reference
Arnold, J. [The Pentecostals of Sarasota]. (2013, December 5). STORE 2012 Jeff Arnold. [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWuqnqIuqLY
Arnold, J. [Because of the Times]. (2015, May 9). The miracle is looking for a vessel. [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DPmXgsCMjM
Franklin, J. [Jentezen Franklin]. (2014, October 31). Be the vessel. [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVcjlKl39-w
Franklin, J. (2019). Senior pastor of Free Chapel. Retrieved from https://www.jentezenfranklin.org/about
Woodward, M. [Traffic Talk]. (2016, July 12). Traffic talk with Jeff Arnold. [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWj6CoIHEhI&t=241s
