Pentecostalism's sketchy origins

Some teachers claim that those gifts are no longer available to the Church. That is not true.

It's not. That's a common misunderstanding. The things that led up to Azusa started long before that. The Assemblies of God considers 1901 the inauguration date. I can't attach an image for some reason so I'll have to post a link.

https://www.themessedupchurch.com/b...e-prophets-con-artists-criminals-and-heretics

Scroll a little less than halfway down and you'll see an image that says "Setting the Stage: The Years Before the Assemblies of God." It's a picture of a plaque that hangs in the Assemblies of God museum in Springfield, Missouri. The first paragraph reads:


By their own standard, the AoG considers 1901 their official start date. The earlier "isolated reports" refer to Frank Sandford's Shiloh community in Main and John A. Dowie's Zion, Illinois community. Both these guys were as shady as they come and Parham was affiliated with them. There were other groups that claimed to have the Spirit baptism going back even further—very well-known groups.

They're available but no one in existence today has any of the miraculous powers; those who say they do are really clever sleight-of-hand artists. And by "sleight-of-hand" I include things like hypnotism. You have to hypnotize someone if you want them to accept something that clear and convincing evidence shows isn't true. And there's no greater delusion than self-imposed delusion.

I posted this on the "Cessationist" thread as well. Amazing imho! Until recently, I had only read of miracles like this. Now, we have it on Video! This comes from Pentecostal Ministry Christ for All Nations - a completely scandal free Ministry - started by Reinhard Bonnke.

The Muslim friend in Africa not only got healed but also, because he was healed by Lord Jesus, got saved from sin and confessed Jesus Christ as the Son of God. That is the Power of Miracles! They are a sign to unbelievers and greatly help them to come to the Faith.

I wasn't born yesterday, so please don't assume that I don't know what I'm talking about. I didn't say it was ONLY the 12 apostles, you assumed that.
Acts 2:4 "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. "
Notice it says "they were all... and began..."
One might safely surmise that there were many more than 15 languages spoken that day. But Luke wrote that years after it happened. He was acting as an investigative journalist. He talked to many people about what happened, and the 15 prominent languages that he listed were ones he heard about. Don't assume exact numbers, or that it's an exhaustive list. It's not exact, and it's not exhaustive. I said "the apostles" because I'm assuming that all 120 people became such, since they all were with Jesus at His ascension. I do understand that "the 12" are prominent because they were His closest disciples. Yet, James was not and still considered an apostle. Mark was not and is still considered an apostle since he wrote his gospel. Perhaps not an apostle of the caliber of Peter, Paul, or James, but his writing was accepted as canon in the churches.


No, I disagree. In the first place, he said "he who speaks in tongues [that is, in the church] is speaking to God, not to men" - and that is prayer. The context of Paul's whole argument is tongues in the church, not out of it. "Church" means assembly, so the Acts 2 event was in church, since it was the assembly of the 120 disciples. It can be safely surmised that during the miraculous event, many of them immediately went out of doors, being driven by the Holy Spirit, to speak (to God) among the crowds, speaking about God's mighty works. This was their prayers, and people heard what they spoke and understood it.

Now in the case of Paul speaking in tongues in the churches, he never spoke anything that wasn't either translated or interpreted. The point is that his tongues was a real language that was miraculously given to him. And in the context of 1 Cor, "interpretation" means that someone (either him or someone else) also miraculously got the translation of the message. Such things came from God, not from the imaginations of people as it is done today. And we should not assume that Paul spoke one and only one tongue for 20 years. Since the Holy Spirit gifted various languages (and Paul was an authority to teach that), we can safely surmise that he spoke various tongues, meaning many different languages, according to how the Holy Spirit moved in whatever assembly he was in.

So, regardless of whether he spoke in tongues inside or outside the church, he spoke real languages which were miraculously given to him by God. It was not the kind of pseudo-language that people commonly speak today. Modern tongues do not fit in the framework of NT tongues. And besides all that, "tongues" is a religious term taken from the KJV and other early English translations. They used that term to distinguish it from the common term "languages." It was to indicate that those languages were actual languages not understood by the speaker, but given to people by God, for the hearing of unbelievers who understood them. But the misuse of it by the Corinthians made it a caricature, and so Paul had to rebuke them about it in his epistle.


I disagree with you. Although Paul admitted that speaking in tongues edified himself, he was rebuking the Corinthians for failing to obtain interpretation. That means Paul never spoke it with other people around without knowing it was going to be interpreted (or translated). It means that in addition to the particular tongue he was given by the Holy Spirit, he was also given the direction to interpret it himself, or the knowledge that someone else was going to interpret it. All of that came from God, not from peoples' imaginations.


Your speculation is not convincing. I don't believe any Christian ever accused him of that. Perhaps unbelievers did who might have said "he's crazy" if there was no interpreter. But that would have been highly unlikely, given that he never spoke it in public without an interpreter.

What are your thoughts on Reinhard Bonnke, Resident Alien?

I posted this on the "Cessationist" thread as well. Amazing imho! Until recently, I had only read of miracles like this. Now, we have it on Video! This comes from Pentecostal Ministry Christ for All Nations - a completely scandal free Ministry - started by Reinhard Bonnke.

The Muslim friend in Africa not only got healed but also, because he was healed by Lord Jesus, got saved from sin and confessed Jesus Christ as the Son of God. That is the Power of Miracles! They are a sign to unbelievers and greatly help them to come to the Faith.

Here we go.

As I have mentioned before. Parham asked the bible students to search the scriptures and decide on their own what was the scriptural evidence that one had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. He went away and when he came back they all had come to the same conclusion that Speaking in tongues was the common sign.

Now Parham having had scandals and been confronted and lost credibility later in his life, did not change the answer to the question.

So the AG does not endorse anything that Parham did that you want to point at. You are using this reference that the beginning of the movement started with the answer to this question as a smoking gun that any erroneous teachings of Parham are the root of the movement and that is not the case.
This sign is referencing the fact that it was when Parham asked his students to answer the question.

It is the answer to the question "what is the scriptural evidence that someone was baptized in the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts?" That was the root of the movement that eventually birthed the AG when they formed later.

The answer to that question can be asked today and you can go through the book of Acts and come up with your own answer. Speaking in Tongues is the common sign that occurred in each of the cases in Acts and therefore it is scriptural to expect it.

Parham wasn't looking for truth, he was looking for an angle. Like all good con artists do.

Were you there?
I feel so sorry for you. You judged the righteous of the past that you do not know, then judge these here you also do not know.
"with the measure you judge it will be measured to you again."

You have said much which I disagree with much I will highlight the areas.


First off to not believe the tongues spoken today is Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not what Jesus said Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is.
As a pentecostal minister, there are many saved brothers & sisters who do not or have spoken in Tongues. They are just as saved as I.

Tongues do not save. Those who are Pentecostals that say that is wrong. Also, your conclusion comes from much human reasoning and opinion as you said, however, your acceptance or disbelief doesn't make the word of God to no effect. The term "Modern Tongues"
Is a created term that is unbiblical. Language has always been modern.

Were you there?
I feel so sorry for you. You judged the righteous of the past that you do not know, then judge these here you also do not know.
"with the measure you judge it will be measured to you again."

And you've deemed only your experience is right. And only your POV is correct.

Sure it is. Pentecostals don't know the Bible like you do. smh

"For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes the partial will pass away."

We know how cessationists came to their "conclusion". You use one single verse of the Bible and determine for yourself that the perfect has come. And you'd swallow your tongue before you'd admit that looking around the world, the perfect hasn't come and maybe, just maybe you're wrong. Maybe there is another way to look at that verse. At the very least you all could admit that there could be another view, since it's only one verse in the entire Bible you've latched on to.

The fact is I don't believe the perfect has come. The fact is I don't believe it's Biblically sound to base a believe or doctrine on one verse in the entire Bible. You have no "proof" that the perfect has come. You're speculating as much as anyone taking the opposite view. If you were the least bit mature you'd admit that.

I would say that my speculation that Paul was talking about praying to himself and to God made up the majority of his "speaking in tongues more than them all," is based on the syntax of his sentence;

18I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. 19But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.

I think my speculation is stronger than yours that he always had an interpreter and never spoke in tongues between himself and God. Why would he give instructions for them to do something he did not do?

28If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.

When people interpret tongues today in the churches I attend the Holy Spirit does gives it to them.

Your opinion that it is only imagined, is an opinion.

As I mentioned a another post, many times I have received the interpretation because I was the leader and responsible to give it if no one else did, for mutual edification and then someone gave it and it was exactly what I was going to give. This builds great faith and demonstrates that we are not just making it up out of our imagination. The specifics of the interpretation made it impossible to be coincidence and this has happened many times.

I do hear in your explanation of what might have happened in the first century that you have a belief in the supernatural element of the gifts and I can imagine you would think that it was all a positive thing at that time. There is a certain building up of our faith and expectation when we read about it that God wants to use us today empowered by the Holy Spirit to reach a lost world. And I think when we agree on that we are all on the same page. Even if you don't agree with what you have witnessed through your past experience with Charismatic churches you seem to still be open to the idea of God using you in a supernatural way if He wanted to.

Many of us charismatics and non charismatics do agree on the concept of the "empowering of the Holy Spirit" to carry out the great commission. I even hear non charismatics talk like charismatics when they start preaching on the empowering of the Holy Spirit and you can tell that they are really open to God using them any way He so chooses. When we believe that God can use us today anyway He so chooses then we are less likely to judge others whom He is using in ways that we are not familiar with.

One of the reasons that I fellowship with Charismatic believers is because that is where I meet the most godly people. That is where I find the majority of sincere, Spirit Filled, holiness living, soul winners, who are living the best examples of what a Christian should be like. That has been my experience these 40 years and I can tell a HUGE difference when I get around non Charismatic believers. They are often indifferent and seem to be faking Christianity.

So we all have our testimonies about being around Pentecostals and Charismatics, some people have a negative report, but everyone I know has a positive report about them. Your testimony does not reveal "a problem" among them. It only reveals that you have a perception that there is a problem among them.