And he committed his entire life to doing just that. Here is his amazing story...
A Man of God Like You
Victor Paul Wierwille was born in 1916, the youngest of six children. As a child he would spend hours out in the woods preaching to the trees. When he was about eight years old he told a preacher he wanted to be "a man of God like you."
During his teenage years Wierwille loved motorcycles, playing the guitar and shooting basketball. But his heart was set on the ministry.
Although he was very energetic, V. P. Wierwille was an average student in high school. That is, until an obnoxious teacher told him he would never amount to anything. That fired him up and he settled down, worked hard and became a good student.
Hungry for The Truth
After high school Wierwille studied at Mission House College and the University of Chicago Divinity School. He then studied under some of the finest professors, including Richard and Rhinehold Niebuhr, at Princeton Theological Seminary.
In 1937 V. P. married Dorothea Kipp, a childhood friend who had just finished her nursing degree. "Dotsie" worked as a nurse while he finished his studies for his Master's Degree at Princeton. They eventually had five children.
Wierwille read constantly and took every correspondence course he could get from Moody Bible Institute. He studied under, learned from, and was grateful to many Bible teachers and scholars. He learned from Glenn Clark, Karl Barth, E. Stanley Jones, Paul Tillich, Starr Daily, Rufus Mosley, E. W. Bullinger, E. W. Kenyon and other men.
Critics would later accuse Wierwille of plagiarism, of not acknowledging his sources. But Wierwille always freely acknowledged the men he had learned from, and his ministry sold many of their writings. Books by Bullinger, Kenyon and others.
Wierwille openly stated that "Lots of stuff I teach is not original. Putting it all together so that it fit—that was the original work. I learned wherever I could, and then I worked that with the Scriptures. What was right on with the Scriptures, I kept; but what wasn't I just dropped."
Pastoring His First Church
Wierwille was ordained into the Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1941 and began his first pastorate in Payne, Ohio.
He soon realized his theological training had not equipped him to give people any real help. So he hauled his "theological library" to the city dump and began studying God's Word for himself. "I prayed that I might put aside all I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. I did not want to omit, deny or change any passage for, the Word of God being the will of God, the Scripture must fit like a hand in a glove."
A missionary to China, Rosalind Rinker, visited the Wierwille family in 1942 and she emphasized that the Bible is God's Word. Her encouragement helped Wierwille, but he was still frustrated with his lack of real answers.
God Speaks to Him...
After Rinker's visit, Wierwille told God he was quitting unless there were real, genuine answers that he would never have to back up on.
Then something amazing happened…
God spoke to Wierwille audibly, and he nearly flew off his chair.
God told him He would teach him the Word as it had not been known since the first century if he would teach it to others.
The next day, Wierwille asked God for a confirming sign, to help him believe. It was a clear autumn day, but Wierwille closed his eyes and said, "Let me see it snow." When he opened his eyes the sky was so thick with snow he could barely see out his window.
Searching The Scriptures Daily
Right after that phenomenon, Wierwille began his first radio broadcast of the Vesper Chimes on WLOK in Lima, Ohio. That broadcast plus his weekly sermon responsibilities really forced him to dig into God's Word.
Wierwille became interested in healing ministries and invited people to come teach his "Spiritual 40 club."
He also began learning teaching principles from a Dr. Lininger, the former head of Colorado's Department of Education. Wierwille later earned his Doctor of Theology degree from Lininger's Pike's Peak Bible Seminary.
In 1944 Dr. Wierwille moved to Van Wert, Ohio. His brother Harry was proud of him and encouraged him in his ministry.
God's Word became everything to Victor Paul Wierwille. He studied the Word from 8:30 am to 2:30 am each day, for fourteen years. An osteopathic surgeon in Chicago called him every night and asked him what God had taught him that day. Wierwille appreciated the encouragement.
But almost a decade after God first spoke to him, he was still frustrated. Because although Wierwille had studied and memorized all 385 of the Bible's verses on the holy spirit…
He still had not spoken in tongues.
Finally, Speaking in Tongues in Tulsa
Wierwille heard about a Full Gospel rally to be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma in December, 1951. All the great charismatic leaders would be there, including Oral Roberts. Maybe they could help him speak in tongues.
Wierwille flew down to participate in the meeting, but was disappointed with the proceedings. He still did not speak in tongues. However, a lady introduced Wierwille to a man named J. E. Stiles. Stiles told Wierwille God had sent him to Tulsa to minister the holy spirit to one man.
Stiles began talking with Wierwille privately, going over and over the Scriptures with him, eliminating his fears of doing something foolish. And Wierwille finally believed and spoke in tongues! He later said it was like a burning light, such a flood came out.
Wierwille was up all night, higher than a kite. And he began to see miracles in his life.
The Class on Power For Abundant Living
The next year Wierwille and his family and friends traveled to Canada to take B. G. Leonard's class on "Gifts of The Spirit." They learned much about the manifestations, especially healing and believing. When Wierwille arrived back home he began tying all this information together from God's Word.
Later that year, in October of 1953, Wierwille began teaching the class that he called Power for Abundant Living. He was soon teaching the "PFAL" class all over Ohio and in other states.
The next year Wierwille published his book, Receiving The Holy Spirit Today. This how-to-do-it manual discussed all of the Bible's "holy spirit" verses and addressed all the common fears that prevent people from receiving.
The Way Ministry Begins...
Wierwille became frustrated with his denomination's policies and failures. So in 1957 he resigned his pastorate, left the Evangelical and Reformed Church and began teaching God's Word in his home.
His brother Harry remodeled the family home place for him. So in 1961 Wierwille moved his family to the quiet, rural atmosphere of the Wierwille farm in New Knoxville, Ohio.
They named their ministry "The Way," following the pattern of the first Christians in Acts 9:2. After building a Biblical Research Center on the farm, Wierwille began teaching Power For Abundant Living full-time.
Each summer Dr. Wierwille also taught the Advanced Class and other specialized seminars, including classes in Estrangelo Aramaic, The Renewed Mind, Dealing With The Adversary and Basic Keys to Research.
Summer School students learned how to handle God's Word accurately for themselves. They learned how to use a Bible concordance, Greek lexicons, Bible Handbooks and atlases and other research tools.
During these early years on the farm The Way grew slowly but steadily.
But two important events caused the Way Ministry's growth to explode...
Filming Power For Abundant Living
In 1967 Wierwille and others began thinking about putting the PFAL class onto film. When they finally found a studio that could do it for the right price, Wierwille began preparations.
For two months he studied and really lived the class. By the time filming started he had virtually memorized the whole class…notes, Scriptures, charts, everything.
They filmed the PFAL class for twelve days, six hours a day. And it was a real struggle. The bright lights burned Wierwille's eyes and the hot studio temperatures left him drenched in sweat. He would teach for awhile, change his sweat drenched clothes, lie down and have ice packs placed on his swollen eyes. After a brief rest they would begin filming again.
They finally finished filming and what a class! Thirty-three hours of the finest teaching of God's Word available anywhere in the world.
In the Power For Abundant Living class Dr. Wierwille taught students how to know God's will and the five keys to receiving anything from Him. He explained how we got God's Word by revelation, how the Bible interprets itself in the verses and contexts, and how students could study the Scriptures for themselves with precision and accuracy.
Wierwille explained the new birth, how to renew the mind and the believer's sonship rights. He showed what the five gift ministries and nine manifestations of the spirit are all about. The class concluded with Wierwille leading all of his excited students into speaking in tongues!
With Power For Abundant Living now captured on film, Wierwille would no longer have to be present for each PFAL class.
Standing on God's Word
Some people criticized Wierwille for his "unorthodox" teachings. Some of Wierwille's teachings were indeed different, because he adhered to the accuracy of God's Word, not traditions. God's Word alone is truth.
Religious leaders did not like Wierwille's controversial book,
Jesus Christ is Not God, because it revealed that the doctrine of the "trinity" is nowhere to be found in Scripture. The trinity doctrine and its "definitions" were added much later at the first council of the Roman Catholic Church.
Protestants had later jettisoned many man-made Catholic teachings and practices. But they kept the trinity doctrine, the habit of meeting in church buildings, having formal worship services, using pulpits and pews, etc.
None of those things are in the Bible, either.
You can check this for yourself in any Bible concordance. We will be covering all this in depth in our Super Heart Living DVD series.
Today the "house church," "home church" and "emerging church" movements recognize that many of these traditions are unbiblical. Millions of Christians are fellowshipping outside of the "traditional" churches because they are hungry to get back to God's Word and follow Christ, not religious men.
The Ministry Explodes...
Soon a second event caused the Way Ministry to grow rapidly…
In January of 1968 God told Dr. Wierwille to visit the Jesus Movement hippies on Haight-Ashbury street in California. He shared God's Word with them, they got turned-on and many came to visit and learn at The Way International Headquarters.
That's when The Way Ministry really began to expand.
Young people not brainwashed with denominational doctrines were zealous for God's Word. And The Way appealed to them because it taught them self-control and hard work and offered them the "abundant life." The Way helped them become happy and self-confident.
Wierwille organized his ministry like a "tree," with informal fellowships in the home or on campus. Believers taught each other the Word, played teaching tapes, sang together and prayed for one another. They loved one another as a family.
By August of 1968 The Way had the finished PFAL film in their hands. Soon thousands of small fellowships were promoting audio or video Power For Abundant Living classes all across the United States and in more than 35 foreign countries.
Students were allowed to repeat the Foundational, Intermediate and Advanced classes at no charge. The Advanced Class was still taught live, at headquarters, until a filmed version was made in the late 1970s.
The purpose of the PFAL class was to get believers into God's Word so they could follow Christ. Wierwille once said if he had a video tape of Christ's Emmaus road conversation with the two believers (Luke 24:32), they wouldn't be listening to him teach. He would just play that tape of Christ over and over and over.
Wierwille's love for the Lord was evident in two special books he wrote: Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed and Jesus Christ Our Passover.
The Way Living in Love
In 1970 the Way International began holding a yearly festival known as The Rock of Ages. Each August thousands of believers from The Way flocked to New Knoxville, Ohio, for this special "homecoming." They camped out, fellowshipped together, listened to teachings of God's Word and soaked up the music by The Joyful Noise, Good Seed and other ministry groups.
These Christian believers, from various religious backgrounds, were all drawn to this rural Ohio setting by their love for God and their belief in His Word. Some of them called The Way International Headquarters "a little piece of heaven on earth." Many simply called it home.
One young person called The Way "The closest thing you'll find to the first century Church anywhere in the world."
Religious critics have called The Way a "cult." But these critics belong to man-made "denominations" which are forbidden divisions in the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:10, 3:4; Jude 1:19; Romans 16:17).
Their charges of "cult" are nothing new. Religious leaders accused Jesus Christ himself of being demon-possessed and insane, and they called the Apostle Paul a heretic (John 7:20, 10:20, Acts 24:14).
One outspoken critic of The Way says the believers were not following Christ but Wierwille. And yet this critic himself is openly following Martin Luther and teaching Lutheran doctrine.
In 1971 an international journalist, Elena S. Whiteside, discovered the Way Ministry and the Power For Abundant Living class. Here is what she said...
"I have never seen anyplace like The Way, nothing so positive and constructive. I learned more about life and living in 33 hours of teaching than I had in years of college, graduate school and traveling."
Whiteside, who had previously written for Time/Life, Newsweek Books and ABC-TV, wrote about The Way ministry in her book
Training Others to Teach...
As his ministry grew, Victor Paul Wierwille saw the need for trained and committed leaders. So in the fall of 1969 he started a program called the Way Corps. This two-year "in-residence" training began developing leaders at Way International Headquarters and later in Kansas and Indiana.
The Way also created a special Word Over The World (WOW) Ambassadors program to establish home fellowships and promote the PFAL class. They established special WOW programs for committed Christians in the medical, educational and college arenas.
The Way set up summer camps, retreats ("Advances") and special summer-outreaches called the Minute-Man program. They even founded The American Christian Press, to publish their books, literature and The Way Magazine.
By 1975 the Way had its own college in Emporia, Kansas. They also purchased a 100-acre ranch in Gunnison, Colorado and a training facility in Rome City, Indiana.
In 1982 Wierwille retired from leadership of The Way International and passed on the presidency to the leader of the Way Corps program. But Wierwille soon became alarmed about the unbiblical direction The Way was heading.
Victor Paul Wierwille died in 1985.
Afterwards, the new leaders had a disagreement and the ministry split apart into separate groups. Ten years later most of the members were gone.
Today The Way International barely even acknowledges its founder.
V. P. Wierwille's Impact on Christianity
V. P. Wierwille attempted to restore first-century Christianity by calling Christians back to the accuracy of God's Word.
His writings and recordings still encourage men and women to push beyond their denominations and flawed Bible translations and study God's Word for themselves, in the original biblical languages.
Wierwille learned much from E. W. Bullinger and E. W. Kenyon and the many evangelical and charismatic leaders of the 20th century. He checked and rechecked all their work for biblical accuracy.
He then shared with his students the basic principles for understanding God's Word and walking by the spirit. That is what his Power for Abundant Living class was all about.
And although Wierwille's class is no longer being promoted, you can still enjoy his books:
Victor Paul Wierwille never did claim to be 100% right on everything.
He said, "I could be right on 98 things out of a hundred and people would be against me because I'm wrong in two."
Wierwille was all too human, just like the rest of us. The hero of the Way Ministry was not him, but God.
But for thirty years Wierwille researched God's Word and then with enthusiasm and conviction shared it with hungry people everywhere.
And his stand on God's Word is still touching thousands of lives all over the world. He shows us how to allow God's Word to interpret itself, in the context and the original wording of the text. He will show you how to identify the Bible's figures of speech and recognize the biblical mannerisms and customs. You will really get excited about God's Word!
Most of all, Wierwille challenges you to read and study God's Word for yourself. To look beyond your denominational upbringings and ask yourself...
"What does God's Word actually say about this?"
Today all around the world there are Christians obeying Jesus Christ's command: to live "by every Word that comes out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).
Simply because…
They were once shown how by a Christian Hero:
Victor Paul Wierwille.
Then you will really enjoy seeing God's Word come alive on your television screen. We have begun filming our revolutionary new DVD series, Super Heart Living. And you can now purchase the first exciting episode, The Self-Esteem of Sonship, which is already being marketed worldwide.
You can get a free SNEAK PREVIEW of this exciting DVD on
our products page...
Victor Paul Wierwille
Do you believe the Bible is God's Word and is accurate in all its details?
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This Christian Hero not only believed in "the accuracy and integrity" of God's Word, he could prove it to you!
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