I am fortunate to have one of very few first editions in hard cover form, by courtesy of its author who I telephoned in August 1993 after reading the typewritten version I had 'found' the previous day. A personal friendship has developed with him since that time.
Most of the final printed copies were released in soft-cover (see the illustration below) with a number of pages rewritten to remove some personal names from the text by request. Excerpts from the book will be included here from time to time as the opportunity to type sections from it become available.
'God's Wheel' was originally written by Jeff Hammond as a thesis for his ThD, and due to demand, it was then circulated in typewritten form for many years. During this time it was adapted and translated into a number of languages.
'The Biblical Church Pattern'
which was the name of the original spiral-bound typewritten thesis.
The title page describes the work as:
a revolutionary vision
of God's plan for the
formation of the
Body of Christ
in the Last Days.
and the book is dedicated, simply,
To the hope of unity in
the Body of Christ.
There is an ISBN (0 7316 0964 6) - so perhaps there may be a copy in one of the Australian State libraries - most likely to be Melbourne (because the author came from Victoria), and maybe Canberra (the national capital) if the same rules applied in the 1980s as do now.
Unfortunately there are no copies anywhere of this book for sale; I am told that what were left from the only print run were destroyed in a fire in Melbourne around 1996 or 1997. The book was produced prior to both the Personal Computer era, and computer typesetting, so the laborious job of a second edition has, I understand, been started all over again.
It is my belief that this work is an exegesis par excellence of the whole topic of how the church that Jesus Christ founded should be operating, and if you don't share that opinion, I have no fight with you! There are many who would agree with you.
However, Jeff Hammond has done a great job piecing together many scriptures and known practices from early Christian days, and in so doing has answered a number of questions which were on my mind for years.
Those of you who know that I used to be a Mormon will realise that some of my interest in this subject is because much of the LDS' hold on their members is because they (the members) can see that the 'church' at large does not conform to the biblical pattern. They are unaware, of course, that theirs doesn't either.
The book looks at the teachings which W H Offiler (an English clergyman) took to, and then developed at, Bethel Temple in Seattle early in the twentieth century. Offiler became a pentecostal - in a traditional sort of way - and in fact he spoke against much of the excesses of and from the 1948 Saskatchewan revival, as indeed have many other church leaders both then and since.
His church was highly missionary in outlook, and he taught the concept of multiple ministries from early on. Missions were planted in Japan and Indonesia by people from Bethel Temple well before World War II. Indeed their current minister, as I understand it, came from there himself.
William Henry Offiler wrote a number of books, in the rather dated style of the early 20th Century - almost the previous century style in places, and perhaps the most interesting ands valuable for Posterity was 'God and His Bible, or the Harmonies of Divine Revelation', seen here in its rather dated looking 1946 printing. Of recent years, it has been reprinted with virtually no change in content, but jointly sponsored by both Bethel Temple in Seattle, and Waverley Christian Fellowship in Melbourne (Australia).
One of his right-hand men, W W Patterson, equally contributed in print material very useful for study, and here we see the cover of his fascinating study on 'The Tabernacle', this particular one being a 1975 reprint.
Offiler's 'word', combined with a few of the Saskatchewan teachings were brought to Australia and New Zealand in 1950 by his other right-hand man, Ray Jackson. In New Zealand, a number of independent churches grew from Jacksons' teachings, while in Australia the word he taught was divisive, perhaps because of Australia's inherent suspicion of 'something new'.
Possibly what frightened most church leaders about Jackson's teachings were the concept of a local church being managed not by one minister responsible to a board, but a 'board' of ministers each equal in authority to one another, without any 'boss' per se, 'speaking the truth in love' to one another, and in submission to one another. This concept completely erodes the possibility of one minister 'lording it' over his associates (A reference to one of the NT epistles). Maybe this accounts for much of the 'flack' that has been directed by prominent pentecostal churchmen over the last thirty years or more towards what became known as the 'Associated Mission Churches of Australasia'.
If one reads the New Testament account, I believe this pattern of multiple leadership - elders - of peers without an hierarchy - is evident, if one chooses to look at it from that perspective. It is my considered opinion that this is the 'Melchizedek Order' described in the epistles, which is so obviously different from (even 'superior to' ? - another epistle reference) the hierarchal 'Levitical Order' which appears to be followed in many places.
Please watch this space for snippets, taken no so much in isolation, but as complete sub-topics in themselves.
The one I hope to tackle first is...