The Pentecostal Movement began at the turn of the 20th century with the "discovery" of the Initial Evidence doctrine in the book of Acts.
History
Before embarking on a critical analysis of this doctrine, it is helpful to look at how Christians have historically viewed the matter of the Spirit baptism and the evidential value of speaking with tongues. Instead of journeying through history, I will offer a series of quotes from an important work edited by Gary B. McGee entitled Initial Evidence: Historical and Biblical Perspectives on the Pentecostal Doctrine of Spirit Baptism. This collection of papers includes two very significant studies by Pentecostal historian Stanley Burgess. His two chapters consider the history of the idea of the Spirit baptism and in concluding his study he writes:
This survey of the Christian idea of a baptism in/with the Holy Spirit and the evidence(s) for that infilling indicates that, while the concept of Spirit baptism was very common throughout the Christian centuries, the modern Pentecostal identification of glossolalia as the "initial evidence" of such baptism is completely novel until the nineteenth-century Irvingites (emphasis added). Amazingly, in almost two millennia of Christian life and practice, no one...associated tongues with the advent of life in the Spirit...what is unique about modern Pentecostals is that they consider glossolalia to be the litmus test of Pentecostal orthodoxy and the valid sign for Spirit baptism...This study demonstrates that Pentecostals, who rejoice in the novelty of their teachings and experiences, are fully justified in classifying their doctrine of initial evidence as distinctive. Throughout the twentieth century, they have clung tenaciously to this teaching, and it has in turn become their rallying point and source of identity (p. 37-38).
Though we are bound first and foremost to the authority of God's word, it is also true that we should not be as those who assume they are the first to study God’s word. The history of gifted teachers and thinkers in the life of the Church should humble us to at least consider why it was that they understood God's word as they did. If we choose to accept a doctrine that no one else has expounded or even recognized before our own time period, we should at least understand fully how and why the same passages of Scripture were understood differently. Burgess has done us a great service by frankly admitting that the Initial Evidence doctrine simply does not have a history before the 1800's. Let me say again, this should at least caution us to carefully consider the Scriptures used to support the doctrine itself.
It is also important to note that Pentecostalism has not only accepted an understanding of the book of Acts that is "novel" but it has also made this doctrine the most important distinguishing feature of its identity. An essential area of contemporary Pentecostal theology, then, was simply absent from the church until modern times.
www.abortionessay.com ©2000 Mark McNeil.
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