Pentecostalism's sketchy origins
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I agree that scriptures should be taught focusing on ascertaining the intended message when the author wrote it and using all the rules of hermeneutics to do so. Understanding THAT message and preaching it is what will transform people and cause them to have an encounter with God.
The problem I have with Reformed theology is that they seemed to have stopped before they finished the job. Let's get back to the original pattern. I think the Pentecostals are more reformers than the Reformers.
Next we need to address the Lords Supper. It does not seem to have been reformed to the original method in any of our churches including the Reformed and the Pentecostals. It's as if we still have some Catholic artifacts still hanging around that need reformed.
The problem I have with Reformed theology is that they seemed to have stopped before they finished the job. Let's get back to the original pattern. I think the Pentecostals are more reformers than the Reformers.
Next we need to address the Lords Supper. It does not seem to have been reformed to the original method in any of our churches including the Reformed and the Pentecostals. It's as if we still have some Catholic artifacts still hanging around that need reformed.
The students were looking for truth. And they found it. As can you. Just read the scriptures and let them do what they do when read in faith. They produce faith. The message they convey will create an expectation for one to say "Here Am I Lord. Use Me" and He will. And expecting that He will use you as He did believers in the book of Acts, is the right attitude and right heart of faith.
Parham didn't initiate the speaking with tongues. It happened with a woman in his congregation, and then it spread through the whole group. It was just as new to him as it was with everyone else. He wasn't sure about it at first, but had to accept what was happening as a sovereign move of God. As a matter of fact, when Parham went to Azusa Street and saw what was happening there, he disagreed with it and parted company with it, went back to his home city and continued with what was happening there. It is important to actually read the history of the time to get a good understanding of what was happening. From what I have read about Parham, I don't believe that he was a con artist at all. He just went with the flow of what he believed God was doing at the time.
C
PC, I believe Gideon is referring to me.
Many of us, after having been extricated by God from a particular denominational church scene, have gone searching for a church group where we felt the Lord would truly be regarded as its Head. All I found in my personal wanderings were other man-derived religious institutions and groups that had some theoligical bias that, by implication, caused them to be unbalanced in their thoughts and expectations.
When I got close to the elders and other individuals and saw their worldly behaviour outside of the Sunday theatrics, it became obvious to me that the Holy Spirit would have nothing to do with them. Therefore the conclusion was that, as far as the pentecostal and charasmatic assemblies that I visited were concerned, the spiritual manifestations on display were not sourced from the Holy Spirit, but from their own vain imaginings.
You and others may or may not agree with my conclusions, and that's fine, and I don't intend to get in a barney with anyone over it. I've put my personal point of view out there, and if there is truth in that, then it will not return to the Lord empty, it will have achieved its goal in some instances to save, and in others to convict.
Many of us, after having been extricated by God from a particular denominational church scene, have gone searching for a church group where we felt the Lord would truly be regarded as its Head. All I found in my personal wanderings were other man-derived religious institutions and groups that had some theoligical bias that, by implication, caused them to be unbalanced in their thoughts and expectations.
When I got close to the elders and other individuals and saw their worldly behaviour outside of the Sunday theatrics, it became obvious to me that the Holy Spirit would have nothing to do with them. Therefore the conclusion was that, as far as the pentecostal and charasmatic assemblies that I visited were concerned, the spiritual manifestations on display were not sourced from the Holy Spirit, but from their own vain imaginings.
You and others may or may not agree with my conclusions, and that's fine, and I don't intend to get in a barney with anyone over it. I've put my personal point of view out there, and if there is truth in that, then it will not return to the Lord empty, it will have achieved its goal in some instances to save, and in others to convict.
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K
My friend, you give yourself entirely too much credit. There is no personal affront, you said Pentecostals didn't know the Bible, but to say back to you is an affront ? smh
Aye my friend, there's the rub. You're judging the heart of your brother/sister in Christ. Anyone who wants the in filling of the Spirit can have it, and those who don't can walk away. It has nothing to do with salvation. Seems like there is spiritual jealousy at the root humm.
No, I'm saying there can be two views here and how about acknowledging that
Because that's the topic.
You believe, but there are other POVs. Be mature enough to acknowledge that.
Perhaps I wasn't clear about how my pastor friend was saved. He was passing a church and heard someone speaking in his language, he spoke broken English . Interested, he went into the church and the person speaking told him how to be saved. When he asked the pastor after the service who there was from Lebanon. The pastor said no one there was from that country, but explained the person had been speaking in tongues. That was my mistake, I wasn't clear in my response.
Aye my friend, there's the rub. You're judging the heart of your brother/sister in Christ. Anyone who wants the in filling of the Spirit can have it, and those who don't can walk away. It has nothing to do with salvation. Seems like there is spiritual jealousy at the root humm.
No, I'm saying there can be two views here and how about acknowledging that
Because that's the topic.
You believe, but there are other POVs. Be mature enough to acknowledge that.
Perhaps I wasn't clear about how my pastor friend was saved. He was passing a church and heard someone speaking in his language, he spoke broken English . Interested, he went into the church and the person speaking told him how to be saved. When he asked the pastor after the service who there was from Lebanon. The pastor said no one there was from that country, but explained the person had been speaking in tongues. That was my mistake, I wasn't clear in my response.
My heritage is from the Welsh Revival.
Now the Holy Spirit has been sent by the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ to bring us into all truth. Over the first few centuries there was much error and man made systems. (Acts 20: 27 - 30)
These have continued and abound, however the Holy Spirit still continues to bring the Body to maturity, with the unity (by the Spirit) of Faith and knowledge of the Son of God. (Eph. 4: 11 - 16)
Thus looking to man`s systems is fruitless, but looking and holding fast to the Head is security. (Col. 2: 19)
Now the Holy Spirit has been sent by the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ to bring us into all truth. Over the first few centuries there was much error and man made systems. (Acts 20: 27 - 30)
These have continued and abound, however the Holy Spirit still continues to bring the Body to maturity, with the unity (by the Spirit) of Faith and knowledge of the Son of God. (Eph. 4: 11 - 16)
Thus looking to man`s systems is fruitless, but looking and holding fast to the Head is security. (Col. 2: 19)
I understand that is your testimony and I won't deny that is how you feel.
However, Pentecostals such as the AG do teach from many of the same text books in their bible colleges as Reformists. We believe the same things about the authority of Scripture and how to properly exegete a text.
I also am a lover of careful exegesis. Heremeneutics has been one of my favorite subjects in bible college and we are always teaching people how to identify the intended message in the text and preach that instead of all sorts of topical, and relevant messages that have nothing to do with what the author was communicating.
That the supernatural, life transforming message in the Word of God, the one with AUTHORITY, inspiration, inerrant, and infallible is the one that the author intended when he wrote it based on the original context.
And yes, it is true that when one discovers that message and applies it they will have "experiences." Experiences and the Word of God properly interpreted go hand in hand.
The Assemblies of God uses the same popular text books on Hermeneutics in their bible colleges that the non pentecostal and reformist bible colleges use. Same authors, same text books. They both teach how to identify the meaning that the author intended in the original context. And Pentecostals that do that do not put experience over the scripture, instead it is because they believe the scripture they are able to have the faith necessary to experience the same things that the early church experienced.
But it is true that many laymen Pentecostals do not know how to articulate from scripture a careful answer to the ones that would question them, and they lean on their experience as their proof that it is authentic.
This is simply because it is really true that those who have experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues know that it is real and they don't need to prove it to anyone so they don't educate themselves in such a way as to present a scholarly argument; which in turn opens them up to the accusation that they put experience over the scripture when it fact it was the scripture that brought them to their experience.
And I am not trying to get you to change your mind, I know we are both past that, I am simply trying to present more facts from a Pentecostal perspective about how we think about scripture and experience.
However, Pentecostals such as the AG do teach from many of the same text books in their bible colleges as Reformists. We believe the same things about the authority of Scripture and how to properly exegete a text.
I also am a lover of careful exegesis. Heremeneutics has been one of my favorite subjects in bible college and we are always teaching people how to identify the intended message in the text and preach that instead of all sorts of topical, and relevant messages that have nothing to do with what the author was communicating.
That the supernatural, life transforming message in the Word of God, the one with AUTHORITY, inspiration, inerrant, and infallible is the one that the author intended when he wrote it based on the original context.
And yes, it is true that when one discovers that message and applies it they will have "experiences." Experiences and the Word of God properly interpreted go hand in hand.
The Assemblies of God uses the same popular text books on Hermeneutics in their bible colleges that the non pentecostal and reformist bible colleges use. Same authors, same text books. They both teach how to identify the meaning that the author intended in the original context. And Pentecostals that do that do not put experience over the scripture, instead it is because they believe the scripture they are able to have the faith necessary to experience the same things that the early church experienced.
But it is true that many laymen Pentecostals do not know how to articulate from scripture a careful answer to the ones that would question them, and they lean on their experience as their proof that it is authentic.
This is simply because it is really true that those who have experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues know that it is real and they don't need to prove it to anyone so they don't educate themselves in such a way as to present a scholarly argument; which in turn opens them up to the accusation that they put experience over the scripture when it fact it was the scripture that brought them to their experience.
And I am not trying to get you to change your mind, I know we are both past that, I am simply trying to present more facts from a Pentecostal perspective about how we think about scripture and experience.
It all depends on the quality of the leadership. When I joined the AOG in 1966, many Pentecostal church leaderships had no theological training. In fact, they were anti-academic, because they believed that theology was "the dead letter:, which is actually a misquote of the phrase. Paul referred to the "dead letter" as the Mosaic Law in terms of achieving justification. But as the years went by, some Pentecostal churches trained their pastors in theology. Duffield's "Foundations of Pentecostal Theology" is a good example of sound theological training for Pentecostal and Charismatic church pastors.
I was fortunate to have been mentored by two Pentecostal pastors who believed in being men of prayer and mighty in the Scriptures. One pastor came to New Zealand from the North of England, and he gave a great expository study in Ephesians. He was never the type of pastor who went into flights of fancy "in the Spirit". The second pastor had his background in the Methodist Holiness movement, and believed that anyone who was to move in the Spirit needed to be totally holy, a man of prayer and of the Word, He actually suppressed outlandish manifestations in his church, and would have no hesitation in telling someone to sit down and be quiet if they went over the odds. Other Pentecostals in the city didn't like his ministry because they thought he was too strict.
In my last Charismatic church I was looked down upon because I adopted Reformed Puritan theology as my foundation, and insisted that if something wasn't clearly set out in the New Testament, then it wasn't true. Also, many people in that church fell below the standard of holiness, and some were clearly worldly in the way they lived. After 7 years in that church, I became disillusioned and left it to join up with my local Anglican church and mixed with Anglican Charismatics who were totally different and much more Scripture based.
I was fortunate to have been mentored by two Pentecostal pastors who believed in being men of prayer and mighty in the Scriptures. One pastor came to New Zealand from the North of England, and he gave a great expository study in Ephesians. He was never the type of pastor who went into flights of fancy "in the Spirit". The second pastor had his background in the Methodist Holiness movement, and believed that anyone who was to move in the Spirit needed to be totally holy, a man of prayer and of the Word, He actually suppressed outlandish manifestations in his church, and would have no hesitation in telling someone to sit down and be quiet if they went over the odds. Other Pentecostals in the city didn't like his ministry because they thought he was too strict.
In my last Charismatic church I was looked down upon because I adopted Reformed Puritan theology as my foundation, and insisted that if something wasn't clearly set out in the New Testament, then it wasn't true. Also, many people in that church fell below the standard of holiness, and some were clearly worldly in the way they lived. After 7 years in that church, I became disillusioned and left it to join up with my local Anglican church and mixed with Anglican Charismatics who were totally different and much more Scripture based.
Oh! I see. I am familiar with it. I believe that when it first started the emphasis was on the preaching of the Gospel through Stephen Hill, and many got saved. But as with many revivals, things got out of hand and things degenerated from there. I don't think that the two good Pentecostal pastors who mentored me to be a man of prayer and of the Word, would have gone along with what was happening at the Brownsville church.
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