Thursday, January 22, 2009

What is it to be a Pentecostal?

To be Pentecostal is to fundamentally believe in the direct personalized experience of God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit , as what the apostles of the early church encountered on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4 with them being filled with the Holy Spirit speaking of what was not of their language which they do not know but understood by others with the enablement of the Spirit.
Evangelization is of great importance to be Pentecost stressing the great need to be abide by the Bible and transforming one’s life with undivided faith in Jesus Christ.
For salvation, it is fundamental for Pentecostal to be born again or regenerated in accordance to scripture as in John 3:3 & 5. Jesus said that unless one is to be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven. For the Pentecostal, the gift of salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and no way can it be earned through good works or deeds, Ephesians 2:8-9.
Receiving of the Holy Spirit after salvation with repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus is greatly emphasized for the Pentecostal.
Pentecostal believes that the spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit prevail in the church at the present time particularly in the speaking in tongues: - words of wisdom to provide supernatural guidance in decisions; words of knowledge in the impartation of factual information; healing miracles, prophecies of God’s messages, distinguishing of spirits from that of the evil, tongues and interpretation of tongues as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11.
To the Pentecostal, doctrinal beliefs of speaking in tongues are that firstly it is that of the baptism of the Holy Spirit with believer doing it for the first time which is the personal prayer to God or glossolalia of unintelligible utterances. Secondly it is the gift of the tongues for interpretation to the congregation to understand or xenoglossy which is the experience of the gift of tongues from the Holy Spirit speaking a natural language unknown to the speaker proclaiming the Gospel.
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8 comments:

  1. lionel.lkyJanuary 30, 2009 at 2:36 AM

    What is it to be born again?

    Your explaination is so technical, but what is it to you?

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  2. Freddie OngJanuary 30, 2009 at 7:05 AM

    Hi Mike,
    Well, true that Pentecostals emphasised regeneration - born again. Early Pentecostal pioneers also emphasised on second grace - sanctification. But on the last part of your article on tongues; you did mention about speaking in tongues (glossolalia and xenoglossy) is what distinguished a Pentecostal. Does that means the main-line churches are incomplete Christians if they do not speak in tongues? What is your opinion?

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  3. ƈϞɕяιʈɣJanuary 30, 2009 at 8:31 PM

    unintelligible utterances? Well do you mean speaking in tongues is an unintelligible language. How could a God who is all intelligent make us utter unintelligibly...

    PLEASE EXPLAIN!

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  4. bryanbooFebruary 3, 2009 at 11:15 PM

    Woohoo... Chill, Charity.. Haha! Let me defend Mike a lil'. I think when he uses the word 'unintelligible', he doesn't mean without intelligence. Unintelligible is defined as not clearly understood, or in the case of speaking in tongues, not understandable to us at all (unless you have the gift of interpretation of tongue).

    But Mike, you mentioned about both glossolalia as well as xenoglossy. Does this mean that Pentecostals are required to be able to have both to be classified as a Pentecostal?

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  5. AlwinFebruary 4, 2009 at 12:41 PM

    Hi Mike.
    You mentioned that being baptized in the Holy spirit with the initial evidence of tongues as the demarkation of Pentecostalism. You also implied that evangelism is of great importance to the Pentecostals. How does the ability to speak in tongues and interpret tongues come into play in evangelism efforts?

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  6. kenrickFebruary 5, 2009 at 8:47 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. kenrickFebruary 5, 2009 at 8:48 AM

    Hi Mike,
    A short question I would like to ask.
    What is your take on missionary tongues? Is it biblical? Because Pentecostals used to do that back at Azusa but we don't seem to see its occurence these days. Thanks:)

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  8. Freddie OngFebruary 9, 2009 at 2:40 AM

    Hi Mike,
    I am still waiting for your reply. Anywhere I would like to ask you more question. Pentecostalism started off a revival but took its progress to become a movement. As a movement, do you think it may have out-lived its purpose?

    ReplyDelete

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