Wanted--PCI Type Books

[Hoovie]

Thanks Sam - I added a quote to my sig.

[Barb]

Originally Posted by Hoovie

Thanks Sam - I added a quote to my sig.

Yes, I found that interesting...

[Hoovie]

The much spoken of "spirit of the merger" is sadly diminished today.

[MrMasterMind]

The best PCI type book I ever read was the Bible.

[Michael The Disciple]

I am not of the UPC or ever have been. I have followed the debates between the PCI group of them and themselves. We always hear from the PCI side that Frank Ewart the modern day founder of the Apostolic Movement was a "one step" believer.

We must consider the fact that Ewart like many of that day had been in fellowship with people who seemed to love the Lord and be faithful so he and many others did have a personal problem in reconciling Oneness and Acts 2:38 with their own past experiences.

However it is noteworthy for those who reject Ewart as being a "three step" teacher it is he himself who began teaching Acts 2:38 as a distinct message from the usual John 3:16 or Romans 10:9 message so common to the Protestant movement.

I loosely quote from page 45 of Phenomenon Of Pentecost:

In raising up a witness for THE WORD God jumped back over the centuries beyond Dr. Simpson, John Wesley,Martin Luther and the dark ages back to the first century.

He indicates here these famous men did not teach the same word as those in the first century.

Page 13 in his own personal testimony (loosely quoted).

My journey from an INITIAL CONTACT with God to a FULL RELATIONSHIP with him was indeed a long one....

Note that he did not consider himself in full relationship with God in his Baptist years.

Again Ewart speaking of his role in the Oneness Pentecostal Movement Pg. 67

Since it is widely known that I was the RINGLEADER of the Oneness crowd and that I consider the revelation of the Oneness of God as FUNDEMENTAL TO PARTICIPATION IN THE FAITH ONCE DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS.....

See? It would certainly NOT be revisionist to say Ewart taught those he influenced that those outside Oneness were not in the true faith.

On page 114 he certainly leads us to believe he was not a one stepper. Loose quote:

Even the superintindent of the local Baptist Sunday School and his wife were filled with the Spirit. In his testimony he declared he never was saved until he surendered to Christ, was baptized in Jesus name, and received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

As to the essentiality of the baptism of the Holy Ghost Pg. 46.

Christianity without Pentecost is impossible and is in fact an absurdity. It is not Christianity it is Churchianity.

Much is made of the fact that Ewart and other early Oness fellowshipped Trinitarians. This not that big a deal. I have friends that are Trins also. Some of them have broken contact with me some have not. Ewart says it was the Trintarian Assemblies of God who broke the fellowship between Oneness and Trins forcing them to accept the Trinity or leave the org.

A 27 point creed including Trinty was forced on the Ministers. Loose quote Pg. 67.

The Oneness people who had grown into a great imposing company were forced to withdraw.

So my point here is that all the talk that 3 steppers are revising the past must be taken with caution.

I personally believe the UPC has it as close as we can get it when they say "the full standard of New Testament salvation is Acts 2:38.

This agrees with Ewarts testimony that he went from an "initial contact" into later through Acts 2:38 into a "full relationship" with God.

It also agrees with the Apostle Peter who in the first gospel message ever preached in the New Testament Era:

Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Acts 2:38.

Some one steppers are now calling this a "mantra".

If so it was given into our trust by the Apostle Peter and the other eleven for they were all present.

I trace my heritage in Christ back to the teachings given by them. Peace and love, Michael

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

I am not of the UPC or ever have been. I have followed the debates between the PCI group of them and themselves. We always hear from the PCI side that Frank Ewart the modern day founder of the Apostolic Movement was a "one step" believer.

Actually, Ewart's contributions came along a bit later. Charles Fox Parham used the term "Apostolic faith" before 1899, and William Seymour of Azusa Street seems to have picked it up from him. A small, but I think, important point.

Seymour's Azusa Street Mission:

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

We must consider the fact that Ewart like many of that day had been in fellowship with people who seemed to love the Lord and be faithful so he and many others did have a personal problem in reconciling Oneness and Acts 2:38 with their own past experiences.

However it is noteworthy for those who reject Ewart as being a "three step" teacher it is he himself who began teaching Acts 2:38 as a distinct message from the usual John 3:16 or Romans 10:9 message so common to the Protestant movement.

I loosely quote from page 45 of Phenomenon Of Pentecost:



He indicates here these famous men did not teach the same word as those in the first century.

Page 13 in his own personal testimony (loosely quoted).
Note that he did not consider himself in full relationship with God in his Baptist years.

I have the revised edition of 2000, what edition do you have? From page 9 I read:

The writer of this book had a long journey from his
conversion to the miraculous experience that is the capstone
of all others in the flesh—the baptism with the Holy
Ghost and fire, with the Bible sign of speaking in other
tongues. A personal reminiscence would probably be in

order at this point.

That's the only thing I can find in the opening chapter that closely resembles your loose quote.

To clarify a bit, from what I've read, he did consider himself in a "full relationship with God" up until he met a Pentecostal evangelist and Ewart's subsequent visit to a Camp Meeting in Oregon in 1908. It was the Pentecostals who persuaded him that he needed something more."

Before that time, the only thing he said he was "missing" was the power that Finney and Moody had in their ministries - and neither of them were Pentecostals!

The issue of whether he was saved or not wasn't even an issue for Ewart; and that's the point of contention between the One and Three Steppers. Ewart believed himself saved and was deeply involved in the Lord's work a Baptist missionary and pastor. He was preaching to others and seeing them saved - or at least he thought the folks he reached to have been saved. That's the true mark of a "One Stepper," I suppose. People are saved at repentance or conversion.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

Again Ewart speaking of his role in the Oneness Pentecostal Movement Pg. 67

See? It would certainly NOT be revisionist to say Ewart taught those he influenced that those outside Oneness were not in the true faith.

By "Faith once delivered..." Ewart was referring to the Apostolic Faith message along with the newer addition of the Oneness message. He saw this as a restoration of the First Century apostle's teachings. And that's key: it was a restoration and he believed that he was a part of it.

He never questions whether or not the people he had ministered to as a Baptist minister were saved. That's the important distinction between the One and the Three Stepper mode of thinking.

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

On page 114 he certainly leads us to believe he was not a one stepper. Loose quote:

The complete quote:

God took the most spiritual people out of the local
Baptist church. Even the superintendent of the Sunday
school, Brother E. D. Yeoman, and his wife were saved
and filled with the Spirit. In his testimony afterwards he
declared that he never was saved until he surrendered to
Christ, was baptized in Jesus’ name, and received the gift
of the Holy Ghost. He is now state chaplain for the

Spanish-American War veterans in California.

This was the testimony of the Baptist gentleman as recorded in 1947, and NOT Ewart's statement, though Ewart seems to have concurred by 1947.

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

As to the essentiality of the baptism of the Holy Ghost Pg. 46.

All Christians everywhere would probably agree with this statement. However the contention arises when we take the full context of Ewart's meaning and see that since at least 1908, he has meant that the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost was "speaking in other tongues." In this regard he was a true disciple of the Trinitarians Seymour and Parham.

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

Much is made of the fact that Ewart and other early Oness fellowshipped Trinitarians. This not that big a deal. I have friends that are Trins also. Some of them have broken contact with me some have not. Ewart says it was the Trintarian Assemblies of God who broke the fellowship between Oneness and Trins forcing them to accept the Trinity or leave the org.

A 27 point creed including Trinty was forced on the Ministers. Loose quote Pg. 67.

I've read and heard AoG sources who claimed that it was the feistiness of many of the Oneness people who forced the issue; but the historical record does stand. It was the Trinitarians who broke fellowship officially. However, this doesn't really speak directly to the issue of the "One Stepper" versus "Three Stepper" divide within the Oneness ranks.

The Oneness people who do fellowship Trinitarians obviously consider them saved and brethren in Christ. I think the "fellowship Trinitarians" thing comes up around here mostly when the definition of "Apostolic" is debated.

The historical record is plain: the originators of the Apostolic Faith Movement were all Trinitarians. Therefore, belief in the Trinity does not exclude someone from this category, and certainly believing that a Trinitarian could be saved shouldn't remove one from the ranks of "Apostolic" either.

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

So my point here is that all the talk that 3 steppers are revising the past must be taken with caution.

The practice of historical revisionism within the UPC and among others in the Oneness movement is rife. If we include the attempts to identify such historical movements as the Cathari and the Waldensians as "Oneness Pentecostals" then the revisionism is really quite egregious.

I don't think that I've seen anything here that would cause me to think Frank Ewart considered his Baptist converts lost. Nor do I recollect him ever saying anything to that effect in his book. The one attempt to prove otherwise were the words of an unnamed Baptist Sunday School superintendent.

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

I personally believe the UPC has it as close as we can get it when they say "the full standard of New Testament salvation is Acts 2:38.

This agrees with Ewart's testimony that he went from an "initial contact" into later through Acts 2:38 into a "full relationship" with God.

The phrase "initial contact" does not appear in Frank Ewart's book.

The man was a Baptist missionary and church planter with a zeal for the things of God. It would hardly seem likely that he would have considered that a shallow or even an unsaved condition.

Again, the only thing he felt that he was missing at the time was the spirit and power of Finney and Moody. Neither of those men were Pentecostals.

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

It also agrees with the Apostle Peter who in the first gospel message ever preached in the New Testament Era:

Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Acts 2:38.

Some one steppers are now calling this a "mantra".

If so it was given into our trust by the Apostle Peter and the other eleven for they were all present.

I trace my heritage in Christ back to the teachings given by them. Peace and love, Michael

Peace and love, bro.

[Michael The Disciple]

I have the revised edition of 1975. Im looking at Pg. 13 as I type. Pg. 13 is the first page of the chapter called "Introduction". I never noticed before but Pg. 13 is the first page that is numbered.

The quote I gave in my post is from the first sentence of the chapter. I present here the first three sentences exactly as they are written.

My journey from an initial contact with God to a full relationship with him was indeed a long one spanning several years and several thousand miles. Although my first encounter with him caused me to forsake all and follow him it did not include the baptism of the Holy Ghost as evidenced by speaking with other tongues. The revelation of baptism in the name of Jesus was almost 20 years down the road for me.

Im not saying he never thought he was saved when he first repented. Obviously he did as we all who came up in Protestant Churches did. My point is as he looked back he understood that his initial repentance and faith had not given him a full salvation experience.

I think from other quotes I gave he clearly thought that. Ewart was a Restorationist. He was trying to present the truth that he now saw from scripture as the full gospel without condemning others to Hell who he thought had a walk with God.

I started out much like he did. Repenting while reading a Baptist book. I assumed I was saved I did not know any different. I received the Holy Spirit 6 weeks later with tongues and prophecy while on the job.

I was not in Church period at that time. I was not in fellowship with anyone who was teaching this. I did not at first even know this was the baptism as I had no teaching of it. But I know it took me into a deeper experience. A reality that reminded me of characters in the Bible.

It was still another 4 years before I was baptized into the name of Jesus.

All this would normally have been done in short order in the early Church who taught this full gospel. Or had I come initially into an Apostolic Church the same would have been true. But because of the multitude of sects, Church groups, and religous material out there God has to take us from where we are to where he wants us in our understanding.

I was out witnessing one night with our Coffee House ministry in the days of the Jesus Movement of the 70's. At about midnight outside a bar where we were preaching to the lost two Apostolic young men approached us.

In their message they pointed out that it was the FIRST SERMON EVER PREACHED BY THE APOSTLES at Pentecost.

When the crowd cried out what must we do Peter told them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and they would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

That really struck me. The Apostles could not have been wrong! Who knew more about salvation in Christ? The Protestant Teachers I had been under or the apostles of Yeshua?

From that moment I could not shake that truth until the day I was rebaptized in a Charismatic Church that had also just came to the revelation.

To this day I judge what men are saying about salvation against what Peter and the rest of the apostles said on that day.

Was Peter wrong? Were they all wrong?

Is it considered wrong to say what they said? If it is not whats the beef?

If what they said was in error we are all in trouble if the apostles messed up their very first assignment.

I understand the dilemma Frank Ewart was in. But better to see our experience as going from partial to complete over time than to distort what was plain to the apostles and early disciples.

[Michael The Disciple]

The practice of historical revisionism within the UPC and among others in the Oneness movement is rife.

Ok my book by Ewart definitely contains the words "an initial contact to a full relationship".

Your copy evidently does not.

Who is doing the revising? Your copy is from 2000 mine from 1975.

Which side of the issue stands to gain by revising his statement? Was Ewart alive in 2000? I dont think so. Its unlikely he revised it.

[Timmy]