Smith-Wigglesworth
Short answer: Mark 16:15-20 records the risen Jesus sending his disciples to preach the Good News to the whole creation and promising that signs will accompany those who believe. Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1947), a British evangelist known for healing services and bold faith, built much of his ministry on this passage. But the text itself does not promise that every believer will perform every sign, nor does it measure a person's faith by whether a healing occurs. Scripture places the signs within the church's mission to proclaim Christ, and it warns against treating them as the gospel itself. Wigglesworth's ministry is best understood as one historical expression among many, not the standard by which Mark 16:15-20 is judged.
Who Smith Wigglesworth Was
Smith Wigglesworth was born in 1859 in Yorkshire, England, into a poor family. He worked as a plumber for years and came to faith as a young man among Plymouth Brethren assemblies before moving into the early Pentecostal movement. He never received much formal education and reportedly learned to read only as an adult, yet he became one of the most widely traveled healing evangelists of his era, preaching in Britain, Europe, Scandinavia, and later in other parts of the world.
His sermons were short and direct, and his method was confrontational by modern standards. He often prayed for the sick with a plain command, expecting immediate results. Accounts from his meetings describe crowds, testimonies of healing, and strong emotional responses. He was not a systematic theologian and wrote little; most of what is known comes from transcribed sermons and recollections of those who knew him.
Wigglesworth died in 1947. His influence outlived him, especially in Pentecostal and charismatic circles where his sayings and stories are still repeated. Some of those stories are well documented and others are not, which matters when people use his ministry as proof of a doctrinal position. Historical honesty requires reading the firsthand material rather than only the popular retellings.
What Mark 16:15-20 Actually Commissions
The passage opens with a commission: Jesus said, “Go into all the world, and preach the Good News to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). The primary assignment is proclamation, not spectacle. The signs that follow are attached to the message going out, not presented as an independent ministry of wonders. Whoever reads verse 15 cannot separate the signs from the sending; the signs serve the announcement of the Good News, and they mean nothing apart from it.
The verses that follow describe casting out demons, speaking with new tongues, taking up serpents, drinking deadly things without harm, and healing the sick. Wigglesworth appealed to this list constantly. Yet the text presents the signs as accompanying those who believe, not as a checklist each believer must reproduce. The church's history shows the preaching of the gospel, not a uniform record of every sign in every place, and that gap should be acknowledged rather than explained away.
Mark 16:15-20 also ends with the Lord working with the disciples as they went out and preached everywhere. The emphasis falls on the going and the preaching. Signs confirm and accompany; they do not replace. A ministry measured only by the dramatic has already begun to drift from the commission's center, which is the message of the crucified and risen Christ for the whole creation.
Is Mark 16:15-20 Reliable Text?
Anyone teaching from this passage should know an honest fact: in many early manuscripts the Gospel of Mark ends at verse 8, and verses 9-20 are absent from some of the oldest witnesses, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Most Bibles print the longer ending but note the textual question. This does not make the passage false, but it does mean teachers should not build a doctrine on these verses alone without support elsewhere.
Wigglesworth did not have the benefit of the textual research available today, and he was not alone in that. The right response is not to discard the passage but to read it alongside the rest of Scripture. Acts 1:8 says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” The Spirit's power is tied to witness, which fits the commission's shape.
This textual honesty does not weaken the church's call. It strengthens it. When a passage's textual history is acknowledged, teaching from it becomes more careful, not less. The commission to preach, the promise of Christ's presence, and the Spirit's empowering for witness stand on wide biblical ground, and they do not depend on a single disputed ending.
How Wigglesworth Read the Signs
Wigglesworth treated Mark 16:15-20 as a straightforward promise and acted on it. He prayed for the sick publicly, rebuked illness, and expected God to answer. In his sermons he frequently urged believers to take God at his word without qualification. Whether or not one shares his methods, the underlying impulse, that Scripture should be obeyed rather than explained away, is a healthy instinct. The church often hedges where God has spoken plainly.
At the same time, his approach raised a practical difficulty he did not fully resolve. If every believer is promised every sign, then every failure of healing becomes a crisis of faith, usually placed on the person who was not healed. Scripture does not frame it that way. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” and that verse is often quoted to prove God must always heal now. Yet the same Bible records faithful servants who were ill, and Paul himself speaks of a thorn in the flesh.
The right posture is confidence in God's character and honesty about outcomes. We can pray boldly and leave the result with the Lord, refusing both cynicism and presumption. Wigglesworth's courage in prayer is worth imitating; his tendency to make every outcome a referendum on faith is not something the text itself demands, and many faithful Christians today disagree with that reading.
Signs, Gifts, and the Profit of All
The New Testament locates healing and other signs within the church's life, not merely in revival meetings. 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 says, “But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all,” and then lists gifts including healings, prophecy, and tongues. The gifts are distributed as the Spirit wills to each believer, which rules out a formula that guarantees every sign to every person and contradicts the idea that one minister's experience defines the norm.
Acts 8:5-8 describes Philip going to Samaria and proclaiming Christ, with the result that crowds paid attention and many were healed. Notice that the preaching leads, and the signs confirm. The church in Acts did not pursue wonders for their own sake; the wonders served the announcement. A ministry that produces excitement without producing disciples has not reproduced the pattern of Acts, however impressive the meetings may have been.
This is where a study of 1 Corinthians helps. The church in Corinth had no shortage of gifts and no shortage of problems, and Paul corrected both by pointing them to the cross and to love. The proper goal is not more spectacle but more of Christ, formed in a people who love one another and bear witness to the risen Lord.
What Wigglesworth Does Not Prove
Wigglesworth's ministry does not settle doctrinal debates about healing, tongues, or the continuation of spiritual gifts. A single life, however striking, cannot carry the weight of a doctrine, and the stories about him vary in reliability. He is evidence that claims of healing occurred in the early twentieth century, not proof of how God always acts. The honest historian can say he was significant and leave some stories unverified.
His life also does not prove that faith is a technique. He prayed with a certain boldness, but nothing in Mark 16:15-20 says the quantity or quality of a believer's faith is the mechanism that triggers a sign. James 5:14-15 says, “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,” and the instruction focuses on the church's prayer, not the sick person's performance or the elder's technique.
What Wigglesworth does illustrate is that a person can take God's word seriously, obey the commission with courage, and trust God for outcomes beyond his control. That pattern is worth learning from. Making him the standard, or turning his methods into a rule, is where the lesson goes wrong.
Reading Mark 16 Today Without Presumption
Few things damage faith more than over-promising. When people are told that Mark 16:15-20 guarantees their healing if they believe, unanswered prayer becomes a spiritual failure, and the wounded often walk away. The passage does not make that guarantee. It promises the gospel will advance with signs accompanying it, and history shows that advance has happened even in places where few dramatic healings were reported.
A wiser approach treats the signs as real but not as a formula. We pray for the sick, expecting God to be gracious, and we trust him when the answer is not what we asked. We preach Christ to the whole creation and let the Spirit decide which confirmations accompany the preaching. That posture keeps both expectant faith and pastoral care intact at the same time.
Wigglesworth would have agreed that the message outranks the signs. The question he leaves with every generation is whether we will take the commission seriously enough to speak of Christ without embarrassment and to pray for the sick without cynicism. That question is more important than any debate about methodology, and every believer can answer it.
Biblical fidelity check
The passage establishes a commission to preach the Good News to the whole creation and describes accompanying signs. It does not promise that every believer will perform every sign listed, does not tie healing outcomes to the strength of a person's faith, and does not make signs the center of the Christian life. The center is the crucified and risen Christ, proclaimed to all peoples. Whatever else the text does, it sends the church out with a message, and it grounds the church's confidence in the Lord who works with them.
A common misreading is that Mark 16:15-20 guarantees healing whenever a believer has enough faith, so that an unhealed person must be at fault. That reading imports an idea the text never states and contradicts the wider witness of Scripture, which records faithful people who remained ill. Another misreading turns the passage into a test of spiritual maturity, as if gifts validate a person. The New Testament instead distributes gifts as the Spirit wills and measures maturity by love, holiness, and faithfulness to the truth.
Other passages that speak to Mark 16:15-20
The commission's shape appears elsewhere in Scripture and repays careful study. Acts 1:8 links the Spirit's power to witness across widening circles, and the article on What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application shows how unity serves the church's testimony. The piece on What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application grounds that calling in God's faithfulness, while 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord and 1 Corinthians 10: Warnings and Freedom together show how gifts and freedom must be governed by the cross and by love for the whole assembly.
Frequently asked questions
Was Smith Wigglesworth really a plumber?
Yes. Wigglesworth trained and worked as a plumber in England before his preaching and healing ministry became his full occupation. He had little formal education and reportedly learned to read as an adult. His background is part of what made him striking to the audiences of his day, and it is one reason his sermons were plain and direct rather than academic. It is worth remembering that God has often used ordinary people with ordinary trades to carry the gospel, from fishermen in Galilee onward.
Does Mark 16:15-20 promise healing to every believer?
The text says signs will accompany those who believe, but it does not promise that every believer will experience every sign listed, nor does it establish healing as a guaranteed outcome whenever a person believes. James 5:14-15 directs the sick to call for the elders, who pray over them, and the result is left with the Lord. Faithful Christians differ on how to interpret the exact form of the promise, but all should avoid telling the sick that their own weak faith caused their illness.
Should I expect the signs of Mark 16 today?
Christians have answered this differently for centuries. Many hold that the signs continue and should be expected in the church's mission; others hold that the sign gifts served a foundational period and are no longer the pattern. Neither view is a rejection of Scripture, and both appear among serious believers. What all can agree on is the commission itself: preach the Good News to the whole creation, trust the Spirit's power for witness, and leave the timing and manner of signs to God.
