But before Nelson gained fame as a scholar, author, and
founder of Southwestern Bible School (now Southwestern Assemblies of God
University), he was a healing evangelist whose ministry was inspired by the
miracles of healing he witnessed in the revival meetings of F.F. Bosworth. The
brief time he shared with Bosworth left an indelible impression on him as a
preacher of the gospel. The experience, which included the laying on of hands, dramatic
answers to prayer, miraculous healings, and multitudes finding Christ as
Savior, helped to transform Nelson’s theology on divine healing. At the same
time, the experience prompted him to leave his pastorate and become an
evangelist who preached what he called the “full
gospel” of Christ that included salvation for soul and body.
Man of many languages
Nelson, an immigrant from Denmark, was born in 1868. He was
a linguist and a preacher with strong Baptist roots. He earned degrees from
Denison University and Rochester Theological Seminary. He reportedly had a
reading knowledge of 25 languages. According to his book publisher, “He taught
Latin, Greek and modern languages at several universities and could hold
religious services in several languages.”
That linguistic ability alone generated praise and respect
from the people who knew him. "Nelson’s academic prowess was legendary," according to Rodgers, who is director of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center in Springfield, Mo. He suggested Nelson's "linguistic
achievements, in particular, merit further attention.”
Although much has been written and discussed about his
contributions as an educator and theologian, little has been noted about his
experiences with Bosworth. A glimpse of his time with Bosworth is suggested by
Eunice M. Perkins in Joybringer Bosworth:
His Life Story (1921). She wrote: “Other ministers and consecrated laymen
have gone out from the Bosworth meetings to conduct similar services, and God
is working in mighty power thru them. Evangelist P.C. Nelson, formerly of
Detroit, is being used marvelously in this great service, in Kansas, Minnesota,
and other places."
Noticeable pattern in healing ministries
It seems that Nelson’s experience was similar to the
experiences of several revivalists who participated in the post-World War II
healing revival. In his book, Only Believe: An Eyewitness Account of the Great Healing Revivals of
the 20th Century (1999), Don Stewart mentioned a number of
preachers who attended revival meetings of famous evangelists and became so
moved by the experience, they felt led to begin their own healing ministries.
He reported, for example, the testimony of T. L. Osborn who attended a
meeting held by William Branham in 1947. Osborn witnessed the healing of a deaf
girl when Branham commanded the spirit of deafness to leave the girl. Stewart
wrote: “Osborn, sitting in the audience felt flooded with the power of God
while an inner voice whispered, ‘This is what you should be doing.’ Stewart
noted “Osborn began holding crusades that very year.”
Stewart reported O.L. Jaggers began his healing
ministry after he attended a Branham meeting in Arkansas. When A.A. Allen
attended a 1949 revival meeting held by Oral Roberts in Dallas, Texas, he felt
inspired to launch his own healing ministry. According to Stewart, that
experience “was the turning point for Allen.” He explained: “The miracles of
healing seemed very genuine, and he found himself in an experience similar to
that of T.L. Osborn in the Bill Branham crusade. Allen felt God speaking to him
to launch his own healing ministry.”
In Nelson’s case,
his sense of calling into the healing ministry occurred after his miraculous
healing and the baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1920. He had suffered a serious
injury when he was hit by an automobile on October 16, 1920 in Detroit. He
reportedly endured “a week of intense suffering,” which nearly cost him his
life. But on October 23, 1920, the Lord healed him in answer to prayer. His
next goal was to receive the Spirit baptism.
Note: Most of the excerpts that follow were taken from a typewritten version
of Nelson’s Autobiography (1924). The work is available at Flower Pentecostal
Heritage Center (https://ifphc.org).
“After my healing with intensified interest, I began to
seek the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” Nelson wrote in his unpublished
autobiography. In a booklet about his Spirit baptism, he noted that Nov. 16,
1920 was “one of the greatest days of my life, for at two o’clock that morning,
the Lord Jesus baptized me in the Holy Spirit, and filled me so full of His
glory that I could not tell it all in English.” He received the baptism after a
time of prayer and tarrying. When it happened, he spoke in an unknown tongue.
Soon after his Pentecostal experience, he heard reports and testimonies about
divine healing occurring in the revival meetings of Bosworth. He recalled:
Immediately after receiving my
baptism in the Spirit, I heard of the mighty works of God in connection with
the revival campaign conducted by Evangelist F.F. Bosworth in Carnegie Hall in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Labor Tribune of that city printed most
astonishing reports of the miraculous healings in that meeting, and I decided
to go to Pittsburgh and make a close personal investigation of these reports and
testimonies. To my delight, I found the meeting in full swing from morning to
after midnight, and talked with many who had been healed by the Lord in a most
marvelous way. I was asked to preach in
the afternoon, and to assist in the healing services that afternoon and night.
What he saw in the Bosworth meetings
Nelson had served for many years as a Baptist preacher
and sincerely believed that the age of miracles had passed. He had read the
Bible in its original languages and did not believe that miracles of healing
were occurring in the 20th century as they did in Bible days. But
his views underwent a change in the Bosworth revival meetings. For it was
during his time in the meetings that he saw the power of God as he had never
seen it before. Below is an overview of what he witnessed.
First, he “saw
the multitudes come to hear the word of God, and to receive for soul and body
from the Lord. The blind, the deaf, the paralytics, and the rheumatic and
people who were afflicted with all kinds of internal
maladies, were there in large numbers.”
Nelson watched as massive crowds of people from diverse
backgrounds came to be healed. They came with many types of sickness and disease. To Nelson, it was like watching the “early days of Christianity, when
Jesus walked the shores of Galilee.”
Second, he saw “the real meaning of the Gospel and its
power to minister to man in all of his needs."
Third, he saw the reason Christ "began His healing
ministry along with the preaching of the gospel, and commanded the Twelve, and
then the Seventy, and the whole multitude of believers to heal the sick as well
as preach the life-giving message.”
Up to that time, Nelson said, he had been preaching an
incomplete gospel. That was something he had done for 31 years. But thanks to
the moving of the Spirit in the Bosworth revival, he decided to go forward
preaching a gospel that included healing for soul and body.
Fourth, he “saw … why the multitudes came to Jesus and
clung to him,” bringing to him the sick in droves from many different areas
near Jerusalem.
Fifth, he saw that Christ wanted to connect with all
people on all levels who had all kinds of problems, ailments, and afflictions
through the actual hands of his followers. Nelson found that the Lord wished to do
that “while he himself is sitting at the right hand of Power commanding the
blessings down to us humble followers on earth to distribute to the multitudes.”
Sixth, he saw why many people had turned their backs on
their churches and why their congregations began to shrink under the leadership
of educated preachers who had fancy equipment and “great financial resources.”
Seventh, he “saw that there was power in the gospel of
Jesus Christ when preached in its original fullness in the power of the Holy
Spirit to draw back the multitudes which [had] deserted the worship of the
churches to receive deliverance in soul and body by the mighty Savior….”
Finally, he saw his own futile attempts in evangelism. He had been “trying to win men and women to Christ by offering them a gospel in
which there was no relief for their sufferings and afflictions, and little
comfort for their sorrows.” Nelson discovered that his previous method of
“chasing after people to come to the services” was less effective than
presenting them with “a gospel so rich and full that they could not be kept
away.”
Launch of his own
healing ministry
The things that Nelson saw had a profound impact on his
life and ministry. That brief time that he spent with Bosworth became a turning
point in his life as it set him on a course for something different –
and better – than what he had previously seen in his ministry. It was time, he
reasoned, for the status quo to change. Despite being well educated and having
a reading knowledge of 25 languages, he saw the need for a gospel of power that
includes salvation for the soul and divine healing for the body.
After holding revival meetings in a Baptist church in January 1921, Nelson returned to Detroit where Bosworth was holding another salvation-healing meeting. As he had done in Pittsburgh, Nelson assisted by
praying for the sick and by leading people to Christ for salvation. “It was
here that the Lord began to give me outstanding cases of healing in number,”
Nelson recalled. “It was a great training school for work I was soon to undertake
single handed.”
It was soon after the Bosworth meetings that Nelson
sensed the Lord calling him to leave his church. “Feeling called of God to leave my pastorate to go out
into the evangelistic field and close our work in Detroit, I immediately began
a campaign on these new lines in Wichita, Kansas,” Nelson wrote. “We began in a
small way, and soon the meeting grew to such proportions that the largest
churches in the city would not hold the crowds, even on week days, and people
came from ten different states to be healed by the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Nelson went on to see many dramatic healings in his ministry. In addition to cripples, he saw the blind and deaf healed. In some cases, people discarded their crutches and wheelchairs. Reports of the healings, which apparently happened on a regular basis, helped to boost the attendance at his meetings.
Closing thoughts
Nelson's ministry of
healing extended far beyond his church and Bible school. Through his
writings, he reached a wide audience of readers. He also had an impact on the
healing revivalists of the 1940s and 1950s. A prolific writer, Nelson authored
a popular book titled, Does Christ Heal Today? Messages of Faith, Hope
and Cheer For the Afflicted. It was promoted by healing
evangelist Jack Coe and The Voice of Healing Magazine.
In his Introduction to
Nelson's book, Coe wrote about the quality of the book’s message and his
relationship with the author:
"This
book contains the most scriptural, yet simplified method to receive healing
from God of any book I have ever read. It was my happy privilege to be closely
associated with this great man of God while I was a student in his
school."
Nelson and his writings
also received praise from Kenneth E. Hagin, who said he sat under the teachings
of the Pentecostal theologian.
Nelson's story shows that
education, while important, is not a substitute for power. Although gifted and
trained as a linguist, he needed help from above to fulfill the call of God on
his life. While he excelled in his knowledge of known languages, it was only
after he had spoken in an unknown language did he find the power he needed to
become an effective preacher of the Gospel. Through his work with Bosworth, he
discovered how he could be used by "Christ the Healer" in the
ministry of healing and deliverance to the masses.
References:
Coe, Jack. Introduction to
Does Christ Heal Today? Messages of Faith, Hope and Cheer For the Afflicted
Hagin, Kenneth E. The Woman Question. Tulsa, OK: Faith
Library Publications, 1983.
McGee, Gary B. “Nelson, Peter Christopher.” In Dictionary
of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, edited by Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee. Regency Reference Library, Waxahachie,
TX: Regency Reference Library, 1988.
Nelson, P.C. Autobiographies
(1889, 1924). Available at Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (https://ifphc.org).
------. Bible Doctrines (Revised Edition). Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 2009.
------. Testimony of
P.C. Nelson To His Healing and His Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Enid, OK: The
Southwestern Press. Available at ifphc.org.
Rodgers, Darrin J. Foreword to Bible Doctrines by P.C. Nelson. Springfield. MO: Gospel Publishing House, 2009.
Stewart, Don. Only
Believe: An Eyewitness Account of the Great Healing Revivals of the 20th
Century. Shippensburg, PA: Revival Press, 1999.
Perkins, Eunice M. Joybringer
Bosworth: His Life Story. Dayton, OH: John Scruby, 1921.
White, Edward Speer. Past and Present of Shelby County,
Iowa, Volume 1. Indianapolis, IN: B.F. Bowen & Company Inc., 1915.
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