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The Promise of Pentecost
"I am going to send you what my Father promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
Luke 24:49(NIV)
Since the Old Testament, the Spirit of God was promised to come to the people of God. The prophet Joel wrote: "And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions." (Joel 2:28 NIV) Nine hundred years later, the Spirit of the living God was poured upon His church in an event named Pentecost. The purpose of the following research is to show the Pentecost as a major point in the life of the apostles, as well as the beginning of the church of Christ.
Fifty days after Jesus was risen form the grave, in Jerusalem was taking place a celebration called the Feast of Weeks, time in which every Jewish male was required to appear at the sanctuary. This celebration, used to bring Jewish people from all around Asia and Europe to Jerusalem. It was about this time when the Pentecost took place (Grieb).
The eleven disciples were "all together in one place" waiting for the promise to come. Katherine Grieb tells us in her article Church on Fire that "Luke is careful to tell us that along with the 11 "apostles" he names, there were some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and also his brothers."(Grieb) After ten days waiting at the upper room without really knowing what to do, the promise came to the disciples. "It was attested by miraculous signs in the form of a rushing mighty wind, a tongue of fire which sat upon each of them, and the ability to speak ecstatic tongues in praise of God."(Ockenga 17) Arno Clemens in his book for seminaries and biblical institutes wrote: "
He came not as a dove, but in the form of cloven tongues like as of fire. He came on the Lord in the shape of a dove, because He was not to make His voice heard in the streets. But His disciples were to give the testimony, the Word with power, which is like consuming fire."(33) Like mentioned before, by that time, Jerusalem had several visitants from different countries, who spoke different languages, and the testimony the disciples were supposed to give was magnified by the fact that this Galileans were speaking in languages these visitants could understand.
Pentecostalism is considered one of the greatest universal movement that transformed immensely the history of Christianity. It emphasized a personal interaction with God facilitated by baptism of the individual by Holy Spirit (Alexander, 43). One of the proponents of Pentecostalism is William Seymour. He is regarded as the initiator of Pentecostal movement because of his fundamental teachings on the role of Holy Spirit in a Christian’s life (Heaton 35). Therefore, this research paper aims to describe the contributions of William Seymour to evolution of Pentecostalism. The guiding thesis is that Seymour orchestrated the Pentecostal movement that swept the nation all over the world, which later contributed to the creation of new religious denominations that shared common beliefs, practices, and customs.
The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity written by Philip Jenkins looks over religion as a whole in the future. Philip Jenkins was a Distinguished Professor of History in 1973 and was the Co-Director for Baylor's Program on Historical Studies of Religion, he has studied the Bible and the Quran. The main religion being Christianity, as it flows South to other countries such as Central America and southern Asia and Africa. Jenkins also covers “The Rise of Christianity” where he predicts that it will increase in the coming years. The world would be moving from secularism to non-secular as the Northern states and countries are urbanized. The Southern countries are not urbanized, they believe in the practice of spirituality. In the Next Christendom, Jenkins also predicted that there will be a big population growth in the next coming years as Christianity spreads. Christianity as a whole can be adapted to many different cultures, as it is not as strict as many other religions such as Muslims. In other religions you would have to be
The Temple of Freedom Under God, Church of God, is one of the oldest religious organizations located in the District of Colombia, whose congregation is currently being led under the supervision of Elder Walter D. Roman, Sr. Like many of the Pentecostal churches in this day and age, the Temple of Freedom Under God’s practices and beliefs coincide with the traditional practices of the earlier Pentecostal African American churches, holding tightly onto the doctrines that were instilled in The Gospel Spreading Church during the 1900s.
"The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles." Letter. Salt Lake City: Intellectual Reserve, 2000. Lds.org. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1 Jan. 2000. Web. 15 Feb. 2012.
Pentecostalism is arguably the most important mass religious movement of the twentieth century. Today, this association is the second largest sub-group of global Christianity. It has over 30 million American adherents and a worldwide following of more than 430 million (Anderson, 1992). Pentecostalism’s gloomy beginnings at the turn of the twentieth century make the movement’s growth all the more
There, Christ gave specific instructions to his disciples as to how to eat and drink in the futures as a remembrance to him. This was the first celebration of the Eucharist. "The Last Supper" precisely illustrates the seconds after Christ informs everyone that one disciple would betray him before sunrise. The twelve disciples all responded to this information with different levels of horror, anger and shock.
Throughout the Western culture, Christianity has played a crucial role in the spiritual life of many people. In fact, it is a one of the largest religion in the world with an estimating range from 2 to 3 billion Christians (Religions of the World: Numbers of Adherents; Growth Rates). Spreading with this worldwide religion, the idea that God is at the centre of daily life has a high importance to many people. In the early 20th Century, one of the significant developments of Christianity was the Pentecostal Movement (A Brief History of Christianity). More specifically, Pentecostalism is “the principles and practices of Pentecostal religious groups, characterized by religious excitement and talking in tongues”; its most remarkable detail is its emphasis of the Holy Spirit and the value of prayer (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). It has outspread around the world by the people who believed that they had experienced the marvelous moves of God.
Jesus had 12 disciples, disciple means follower or pupil, even long after the death of Jesus these disciples would continue teaching about Jesus. The first four books of the bible were written by the Disciple these books are called apostles they are as follows Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Jesus became famous, because he appealed to the rich and poor alike, he had few or no possessions and he traveled all over what was then considered to be the world. Jesus attracted attention from both Jewish and Roman leaders.
When mentioned to the general public, the word “Pentecostalism” generates three diverse responses: confusion, mockery, and tolerance; some people never heard of the word, some people view it as being infamous, and the rest accept it. According to the Oxford dictionary, Pentecostalism “relates to any number of Christian sects emphasizing baptism in the Holy Spirit.” Misconceptions originated from the misunderstanding of the history of Pentecostalism, along with the notion that Pentecostalism is one sect when, in fact, there are many divisions. The largest of these is the teachings of Charismatic’s, which make up the most prevalent part of the denomination and have been the driving force for the assumptions and reputation that Pentecostalism has garnered. To truly understand Pentecostalism, one needs to learn the religions history, the standard beliefs of the various sects, and the contemporary changes that some followers have made in the recent years that have fueled the current fallacy about the belief system.
Pentecost, J Dwight. Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology. Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1964.
“The ancient unitive Pascha day which commemorated all the events of the last days of Jesus, including the crucifixion and resurrection, was divided into distinct commemorations.” One of the major liturgical advances of the fourth century was the development of the Christian calendar. Significantly, the travel diary of Egeria on her pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the A.D. 383, bears witness to the celebration and practice of Holy Week. For example, Egeria describes her worship experience on Holy Thursday as
If these men were not telling the truth, would they have suffered in the way they did? “Their letters do not suggest delusion or deceit, but clear thinking and burning integrity (Barnett 116)”. They lived the way they did based on a verifiable historical event, the resurrection of Jesus. The two traditions of when Jesus rose from the dead combine powerfully to reinforce the reality of the resurrection. They came from separate sources. From the women we learn that Jesus rose on the first day of the week. From the other disciples we learn that Jesus rose on the third day. If the resurrection of Jesus was nothing but a hoax or urban legend, there would not be an identifiable starting point. This is not the case for the resurrection. We know the location he was buried and the time span in which it happened. There are several objections, other hypotheses about the resurrection. Some believe that another man was crucified, but Jesus was crucified in public. Officials wanted him to die specifically, so it would have been noticed if the wrong man was on that cross. Others say that Jesus only fainted, he did not actually die. Romans were very cruel in their punishment and execution of
After the civil war, protestant churches began to ignore the significance of emotional expression in worship. According to historian Thomas Nicole, American churches transformed into ‘dignified, rational, middle class congregations’ which limited emotional expression. In contrast, various fringe groups fought the cold formalism that had developed in American Christianity as they believed that the power of the Holy Spirit would soon move in charismatic power as prophesied in Joel 2:28-32. By 1906, great anticipation had built up in such groups located in Los Angeles as Menzies explains that several congregations held prayer meetings which cried for ‘a Pentecost’ in Los Angeles’. It appears that ministers began to represent Los Angeles as the centre, out of which a charismatic outpouring would inevitably occur. Frank Bartleman for example reported that the people of Los Angeles would soon find themselves ‘in the throes of a mighty...
The Apostolic Era (33-100 A.D.) began when the Holy Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost, its job was to fill the followers of Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit. These people who were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit were known as The Apostles. Throughout this Era the community that existed was sort of like a connected family. But later on when the Patristic Era (100-500 A.D.) began this community began to slowly fall apart. In this paper I'll tell you how about the Apostolic Era, the Patristic Era, and how the Apostolic Era eventually turned into the Patristic Era.
Green, Chris E. "'The Body of Christ, the Spirit of Communion': Re-Visioning Pentecostal Ecclesiology in Conversation with Robert Jenson." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 20, no. 1 (2011): 15-26.