Author, F.F. Bosworth: The Man Behind "Christ the Healer"
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F.F. Bosworth
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On October 18, 1906, F.F. Bosworth received the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. The experience occurred in Zion City, IL. The baptism would prove to be a key moment -- a significant turning point -- in his life and ministry.
Bosworth was attending a tarrying meeting, where he was inspired by Marie Burgess. She had prayed to receive the baptism on her birthday, which was Oct. 18, 1906. People were leaving the tarrying meeting when the Spirit came. She reportedly shook under the power for an entire hour. She then had a detailed vision about foreign missions. Bosworth saw this and was moved. According to Gordon P. Gardiner, "As he watched her receive the baptism, he became so hungry that the power of God fell on him."
It was at this time that he received a miraculous healing of a lung condition from playing the cornet and the call to preach. Before his Pentecostal experience, he was fond of saying he was afraid that God would call him to preach. However, after the baptism, he was afraid that God would not call him to preach. After being empowered by the Spirit, he began preaching almost immediately.
In the early days of his ministry, Bosworth gave significant attention to Spirit baptism and speaking in tongues. For instance, in 1908, he held revival meetings in Indiana where "unknown tongues" were spoken. In an article published in The Latter Rain Evangel (December 1908), he reported: "We have never taught the people to expect anything more than the glory and power of the Lord and the 'unknown tongue' to accompany the immersing in the Holy Spirit..." In nearly every service, he wrote, people spoke in tongues and some gave interpretations of the messages shared. In some cases, people in the audience understood the "unknown tongue and the interpretation," Bosworth wrote. He also pointed to a woman who spoke German without ever having learned the language. Her message was understood by a "German lady in the audience," according to Bosworth. On other occasions, people reportedly witnessed Pentecostal fire that fell on the heads of people being baptized in the Spirit. Bosworth described one case as follows:
Fire, seen with the natural eye, has fallen upon some at the time they have been immersed in the Holy Spirit. One night in the tent a large ball of fire came into the tent and fell upon the head of a brother who came that day from Mishawaka to seek for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. At the very instant the ball of fire fell on him, he magnified God with a loud voice, and in a language which he had never learned, while the audience looked on in amazement and tears.
Even though he would later oppose the Pentecostal doctrine of evidential tongues, he still valued his own Pentecostal experience. Bosworth expressed his views in a letter with the headline, "Do All Speak With Tongues? — An Open Letter to the Ministers and Saints of the Pentecostal Movement." He wrote:
Let it not be supposed that I am depreciating God's glorious gift of tongues because i do not believe that this one manifestation always accompanies the baptism in the Spirit. God graciously gave me this gift many years ago and nearly every day in prayer and worship I still speak in tongues, and it is one of the sweetest things in my Christian experience.
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