Аннотация

This book is about that treasured doctrine of Pentecostalism: baptism in the Holy Spirit, understood as a work subsequent to conversion to Christ. Since James Dunn's publication of Baptism in the Holy Spirit, there has been heated response from Pentecostals in defense of the doctrine. Key players are Roger Stronstad, Howard Ervin, David Petts, James Shelton, Robert Menzies, and ex-Pentecostal Max Turner. This book reviews Pentecostal criticisms of Dunn with respect to Luke-Acts, concluding that Pentecostals are right: for Luke, receiving the Spirit was not the inception of new covenant life. It was a powerful enabling for prophecy and miracles; for the church's outward mission and its internal life. After placing Luke-Acts in a wider canonical context, the book closes with some practical lessons from Luke-Acts for today's Pentecostal churches.

Аннотация

Jesus before Pentecost studies the history of Jesus' ministry from William P. Atkinson's Pentecostal perspective. This perspective affects both his method and the book's content. In terms of method, Atkinson puts forward a strong argument for looking carefully at John's Gospel, as well as the synoptic gospels, as a reliable historical source for Jesus' life. And in terms of content, his main areas of study follow key Pentecostal interests, summed up in the «foursquare» Pentecostal rubric of Jesus as savior, healer, baptizer in the Spirit, and soon-coming king. The picture that emerges offers fresh insights into Jesus' life: notably, the symbolic meaning Jesus invested in the feeding of the five thousand; the personal cost to Jesus of his approach to healing the sick; the involvement of God's Spirit in his life and in the lives of those around him; and, lastly, his enigmatic predictions of his future coming. Overall, the study is both academically rigorous and warmly engaging. It will appeal to anyone who is seriously interested in Jesus, whether or not they are Pentecostal.

Аннотация

This book views the triune God from a Pentecostal viewpoint. In so doing, it offers a fresh articulation of the theology of the Trinity that starts with Pentecost and with the Spirit. It concludes that the Trinity cannot be adequately appreciated using any single model–whether social, modal, or psychological. Instead, it presents three models–relational, instrumental, and substantial–that need to be held in paradoxical tension with one another. Of these, the relational is the foremost. Pentecost offers rich potential for seeing these relations between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as a dynamic reciprocal «dance» in which each person empties self in order to exalt the other.