Reading different theological perspectives. Historical readings express their authors' perspectives, including Arminian and Reformed or Calvinist traditions. Inclusion does not make an author's position settled CTS doctrine. Read with Scripture and the assigned material. A supported answer from another evangelical perspective should be assessed on its reasoning, not penalized simply for differing from the author. If an automated score rejects such an answer, ask CTS for review.

Master’s Assigned Readings (all five)

M.Div. and Th.M. students read all five assigned selections and take their separate exam after activation. The test page states the current rule; valid earlier completions remain valid.

Optional Honors (choose three)

Honors is optional on every track. Certificate and Associate students may read three honors selections without a required-reading exam. Honors does not replace either master’s exam.

The Master's textbook test: read The Apostolic Faith, 1906–1907: Selections on the Spirit and His Gifts, then take its test: twenty fill-in-the-blank questions, drawn from forty; eighteen right passes. Each answer is marked right or wrong at once. Correct answers and explanations are available after the attempt passes. It is separate from the reading test on the five digests below: passing one does not pass the other. On the M.Div. and Th.M. tracks both tests are being introduced; each test's page says whether it is in force yet. Until then any student may take them, and a pass is kept in your record.

The Master's reading test: separate from the honors invitation below. Honors asks you to read any three of these digests; the Master's test covers all five. It has twenty fill-in-the-blank questions, four from each reading, drawn from forty; eighteen right passes. Each answer is marked right or wrong at once; correct answers and explanations are available after the attempt passes. You may try again after a short wait. The test is being introduced: its page says whether it is in force yet. Until then any student may take it, and a pass is kept in your record.

Honors option: Complete any three of the five readings below. These readings supplement the course and do not replace its units or examinations.

On this site: Each of the five readings is a Chapala Theological Seminary digest, written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French here on the site — every one opens directly from this page, with nothing to download. Each card names the work its digest is made from.

Selected: 0 of 3

Reading 1 · Seeking the Promise

The Baptism with the Holy Ghost

A CTS digest of The Apostolic Faith, Los Angeles, Vol. I No. 6, February–March 1907, p. 7 — “The Baptism with the Holy Ghost” (W.J.S.), with “Messages in Tongues Interpreted,” “Preserved and Sealed” and a closing editorial note (unsigned)

William J. Seymour answers the seekers who wrote to Azusa: pursue the promise of the Father, not tongues, and God will add the sign. He ties Spirit baptism to repentance, restitution and a clean heart, reads Acts 2 as immersion, and stands beside interpreted messages that exalt Christ and a closing hope of all races made one.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

Seek the Promise, Not the Sign: Seymour on the Baptism with the Holy Ghost

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — William J. Seymour’s own counsel to seekers, with the unsigned teaching and interpreted messages printed beside it on page 7 of the Azusa paper

A CTS digest of a primary source: “The Baptism with the Holy Ghost” (signed W.J.S.), with the unsigned items “Messages in Tongues Interpreted” and “Preserved and Sealed” and a closing editorial note, The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), Vol. I No. 6, February–March 1907, page 7. CTS quotes it here only briefly, for study and commentary.

Spirit baptism
Primary source
W. J. Seymour
1907

A word before you read. By early 1907 hundreds of letters were reaching the Azusa Street mission asking one question: how do I receive the baptism with the Holy Ghost? On an inner page of the double February–March issue, the mission’s pastor, William J. Seymour (1870–1922), answered in his own name. This reading walks through his answer and the short unsigned pieces printed with it. It presents his teaching as historical testimony: what one founding Pentecostal pastor believed and taught. The same page also carried testimonies by other writers, which CTS leaves out under its contributor-rights rule.

1.A Pastor Answers the Seekers

Seymour was the son of formerly enslaved parents in Louisiana, a holiness preacher who had come to Los Angeles from Houston in February 1906. A year later the mission he led was known across the world, and its paper was mailed free to tens of thousands of readers. The article on page 7 is signed simply “W.J.S.,” the initials the paper used for him. It is written as a pastoral letter to “one in Christ” who is seeking. That tone matters. Seymour is not arguing with critics here. He is coaching hungry believers, many of whom had read about Azusa but could not travel there, and who were waiting for the Spirit in small prayer meetings far from Los Angeles. His first sentence sets the direction for everything that follows: do not seek for tongues, he says, but for “the promise of the Father.” The phrase comes from Acts 1:4, where the risen Jesus tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem. For Seymour, the goal of the seeker is not an experience but a promise made by God, received by faith.

2.“God Will Throw in the Tongues”

Seymour’s most memorable phrase is homely and confident: pray for the baptism, “and God will throw in the tongues.” He did believe that speaking in tongues accompanied the baptism. Later in the article he writes that when believers receive it, they “surely will speak in tongues.” But he refuses to make tongues the object of seeking. Tongues, in his picture, come the way a merchant adds something extra to a fair purchase: they are given along with the gift, not chased for their own sake. He also warns against strain. Do not be “too concerned” about speaking, he writes; let the Spirit give the words, and they will come as freely as breathing. Then a short, important line: “It is nothing worked up.” Seymour knew that in crowded meetings people could imitate what they saw. His counsel was a guard against that. What the Spirit gives comes “from the heart,” he says, linking it to Romans 10:10: the heart believes and the mouth confesses. The seeker’s task is surrender and faith, not technique.

3.Repentance, Restitution and a Clean Heart

Seymour does not begin with Pentecost. He begins with John the Baptist, who warned against sin and hypocrisy before he spoke of One who would baptize with the Holy Ghost (Matthew 3:11). God is sending ministers, Seymour writes, to preach repentance, to turn people from sin, and to have them make restitution “according to their ability.” Only after that does he speak of sanctification, quoting Jesus’ prayer in John 17: “Sanctify them through Thy truth.” This order reflects the holiness tradition Seymour came from. He taught three steps: conversion (justification), a second work of grace that cleanses the heart (sanctification), and then the baptism with the Holy Ghost as a gift of power for witness. Readers today need not accept every part of that scheme to see its moral seriousness. In Seymour’s teaching there is no shortcut to spiritual power that goes around honesty. A person who has stolen must pay back what they can. A person who has wronged a neighbor must make it right. Only then does he say, with Jesus, “tarry.”

4.Wind, Fire and Immersion

Seymour then reads Acts 2:1–4 slowly, phrase by phrase. Wind, he says, is “always typical” of the Spirit or of life. When the sound filled “all the house,” the disciples were, in his words, “immersed or baptized in the Holy Spirit.” That is a careful choice of words. For Seymour, to be baptized is to be plunged into something larger than oneself, the way water covers the one who is baptized. Elsewhere the paper made the same point by contrasting a glass that is filled with water with one that is hidden under it. He also notices the crowd in Acts 2:5–8, devout Jews from every nation who heard the disciples speak in their own languages. Early Pentecostals hoped that tongues would often be real human languages given for missionary preaching. Seymour shares that hope, but he adds a pastoral caution that proved wise: if you do not know what language you are speaking, “do not puzzle yourself about it.” The Lord, he says, did not promise to name the language. He promised interpretation.

5.What the Interpreted Messages Said

Directly beneath Seymour’s article the paper printed two short “Messages in Tongues Interpreted.” They are unsigned, and the speakers are not named. Their content is worth noticing. They do not predict dates, reveal private secrets or promote any leader. They point to Christ: “Look up unto Jesus now,” the first one urges, calling him “altogether lovely.” The second gathers familiar Scripture, the light that dawns on those in darkness (Isaiah 9:2; Matthew 4:16), and Jesus who came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). It speaks of healing, cleansing and the Spirit, and ends with redemption by Christ’s blood. Whatever one concludes about the experience behind them, these messages show the test the mission itself applied. A message was welcomed when it exalted Jesus and agreed with the written Word. That standard matches Paul’s rule that no one speaking by the Spirit calls Jesus accursed, and that every confession of “Jesus is Lord” comes by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). Later readings in this course return to how that testing worked in practice.

6.“Preserved and Sealed”

A second unsigned piece on the page, “Preserved and Sealed,” turns from receiving the Spirit to living with him. Its opening is simple and searching: “The Blood of Jesus Christ sweetens a person.” Then comes a test that every congregation can apply: “We cannot have much confidence in a religion that does not keep a person sweet.” If jealousy or other works of the flesh appear (Galatians 5:19–21), the writer says, something has gone wrong. The illustration comes from the kitchen. Before milk is poured into a vessel, the vessel is washed and set in the sun; only a clean vessel keeps milk sweet. So the Lord cleanses the heart, fills it with love and oil, and then sends the believer out to proclaim the Word. The Spirit also “seals” the believer until the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30), keeping out what would sour or embitter. This is an important balance to Seymour’s article. The evidence that matters most over time is not an experience on one night but a character that stays loving, honest and kind.

7.One Body, Many Nations, and What Came After

The page closes with an unsigned note that reads Pentecost as a gift for all peoples. One token of the Lord’s coming, it says, is that he is “melting all races and nations together.” In 1907 this was a startling claim. Azusa Street was led by a Black pastor, and Black, white, Latino and immigrant believers prayed at one altar while segregation was hardening across the United States. The same page also printed the testimony of C. H. Mason, the Black founder of the Church of God in Christ, who received the baptism at Azusa in 1907; CTS leaves his words out under its rights rule. The unity did not last. Within a generation most Pentecostal bodies divided along racial lines, and repair began formally only in 1994. Teaching changed too. Many groups made tongues the required “initial evidence,” while Seymour himself, in his 1915 church manual, warned that tongues without love were not proof. Leadership also varied: at Azusa women such as Lucy Farrow and Florence Crawford preached and laid hands on seekers, and churches today read that history in complementarian, egalitarian and team-ministry ways.

8.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. Seymour told seekers to pursue the promise of the Father rather than a sign. What do believers in your setting most often seek when they pray for the Spirit, and why? He tied spiritual power to repentance and restitution. Is there anything you need to make right before you ask God for more? The paper said a true religion keeps a person “sweet.” Where would people around you look to see whether that is true of your church? And how can your congregation welcome every race and nation as the Azusa page hoped?

Select

Reading 2 · Gifts and Order

The True Pentecost

A CTS digest of The Apostolic Faith, Los Angeles, Vol. I No. 4, December 1906, p. 2 — “Signs Shall Follow” and “The True Pentecost” (unsigned)

The Azusa teaching page explains spiritual gifts from Mark 16, Acts and 1 Corinthians 12–14. It sets out the “Bible standard” of Pentecost, insists that the justified, the sanctified and the Spirit-baptized all make up one body, ranks interpreted tongues with prophecy, and warns believers to seek the Giver rather than the gift.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

Setting the Church in Order: Gifts, Tongues and the Body of Christ

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — how the Azusa paper read Mark 16, Acts and 1 Corinthians 12–14 to explain spiritual gifts and keep a Spirit-filled congregation united

A CTS digest of a primary source: the unsigned teaching articles “Signs Shall Follow” and “The True Pentecost,” The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), Vol. I No. 4, December 1906, page 2. CTS quotes it here only briefly, for study and commentary.

Spiritual gifts
1 Corinthians 12–14
Primary source
1906

A word before you read. Page 2 of each Azusa issue was the teaching page, where the mission explained what it believed. In December 1906 two unsigned articles on that page dealt with a practical problem. If the baptism with the Spirit brings tongues, what about believers who do not speak in tongues? Are they second-class? How should a church full of new gifts keep its unity and order? This reading follows the paper’s answers, which come largely from Paul’s letter to Corinth. It presents them as historical teaching, and it notes where later Pentecostals and other Christians have read the same passages differently.

1.“Signs Shall Follow”

The first article begins with Mark 16:17–18, the promise that signs “shall follow them that believe”: casting out devils, new tongues, protection from serpents and poison, and healing of the sick through the laying on of hands. The writer’s argument is simple. Jesus told his followers to teach “all things” he had commanded (Matthew 28:20). If the church preaches only part of the Gospel, can it expect the signs? The answer comes in one sentence: “a return to the full Gospel brings a return of the signs.” For early Pentecostals, “full Gospel” meant salvation, sanctification, Spirit baptism, divine healing and the coming of Christ, all preached together. Two notes of care are needed. First, most modern Bible translations print Mark 16:9–20 with a note that the oldest manuscripts end at verse 8; Christians who accept the passage as Scripture and those who doubt its origin both need to read it humbly. Second, the paper did not urge anyone to handle snakes. A few groups later did so in worship, and some believers died. Jesus himself refused to put God to the test (Matthew 4:7).

2.Seekers from Other Traditions

The same short article reports two visitors who had come to Los Angeles to seek the baptism. One was “Mother Wheaton,” Elizabeth Wheaton, a holiness evangelist who had spent years preaching in prisons in the United States and Europe. The other was A. S. Worrell, a Baptist scholar, editor of the Gospel Witness and translator of the New Testament. Their presence is a small but telling detail. Azusa was not only a gathering of the poor and unknown. Within months it drew experienced ministers and educated believers from other traditions, who came to test what they had heard. That fact sets up the question the next article tries to answer. When people from many churches, with many different experiences of God, join one Spirit-filled fellowship, how do they live together without division? The paper’s answer will be that gifts are given to build up one body, not to rank believers. To reach that answer, the writer first sets out what he calls the biblical pattern of Pentecost.

3.The “Bible Standard” in Acts

“The True Pentecost” opens by calling Acts 2:4 the “Bible standard and sample” of Pentecost: they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke with other tongues. The writer then gives two more examples. At the house of Cornelius, Peter’s first sermon to Gentiles was interrupted when the Spirit fell and the Jewish believers “heard them speak with tongues” (Acts 10:44–46). At Ephesus, when Paul laid hands on about twelve disciples, they spoke with tongues and prophesied (Acts 19:6). In all three cases, the writer concludes, “the same evidence” appeared. This is the root of what Pentecostals later called the doctrine of “initial evidence.” It rests on reading the narratives of Acts as a pattern for every believer. Other Christians answer that Acts describes what happened without always prescribing what must happen, and they point to passages such as Acts 8, where no tongues are mentioned. Within Pentecostalism itself the doctrine later became official in some bodies and was softened in others. Students should understand the argument fairly before judging it.

4.“That There Should Be No Schism”

Next the writer raises the obvious objection himself: why did not everyone in the Corinthian church speak with tongues? His answer is pastoral more than technical. In 1 Corinthians 12, he says, Paul was “setting the church in order, that there should be no schism in the body.” In the Azusa congregation, some had just been saved, some had been sanctified, and some had received the baptism with the Spirit. None of them was to be despised. The writer puts it plainly: “it takes the justified, the sanctified and the Pentecost brother all to make up the body of Christ.” This is one of the most important sentences in the early paper. It means that a Spirit-filled church must not divide into first- and second-class members. Paul’s picture of the body says the same: the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of thee” (1 Corinthians 12:21). Whatever one believes about tongues as evidence, this pastoral rule protects the weakest member. It also guards against the pride that spiritual experience can easily produce.

5.Prophecy, Tongues and Interpretation

The writer then turns to 1 Corinthians 14:5: “Greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret.” He stresses the last three words. A brother who speaks in tongues and also interprets, he says, is not less than one who prophesies, because the church is built up either way. He reports that the mission had “a good many” who interpreted as they spoke, and that this was “edifying to the body.” His concern is the same as Paul’s: what helps the gathered church understand and grow. He adds a confident line that readers should weigh carefully: “You can have all the gifts if you will only ask the Lord for them.” Paul also urges believers to desire spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14:1). But he says the Spirit gives them “to every man severally as he will” (12:11), and he asks, expecting the answer no, “do all speak with tongues?” (12:30). Many Pentecostals have kept both truths together by distinguishing tongues as a sign of Spirit baptism from tongues as a continuing gift for the church.

6.The Gift and the Giver

In 1 Corinthians 14, the writer says, Paul was setting in order those who already had the baptism and the tongues, so that they would not get “puffed up” and look down on others. He gives a frank warning: “these precious gifts can easily puff us up, if we do not keep under the blood.” He then offers a reading of the Corinthian problem. These believers had once been carried away by “dumb idols” (12:2). When the Spirit was poured out, the experience was so sweet that they “almost commenced worshipping the gift instead of the Giver.” The cure is a change of focus: “seek the Giver and the Blesser instead of the gift and the blessing.” This is wise counsel for any revival. When a church begins to measure people by their manifestations, it has quietly put the gift in the place of God. Paul’s answer was not to forbid the gifts but to place them under love (1 Corinthians 13) and under the goal of building up the whole church (14:12, 26).

7.Singing in the Spirit, and Order Today

The article ends with joy. When believers receive the baptism, the writer says, they may sing in tongues, and then the Spirit gives the interpretation in English. Azusa in 1906 often worshiped without hymnbooks or instruments. In a striking picture, the paper says that “the Holy Ghost plays the piano in all our hearts.” Many Pentecostal churches later embraced instruments gladly; the point was dependence on God, not a rule against music. The same chapters raise another question about order that churches answer differently: the role of women. At Azusa, women prayed, prophesied, interpreted and led seekers at the altar, under Joel’s promise that “your daughters shall prophesy.” Yet 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 also speaks of women keeping silence. Complementarian churches read these verses as limiting certain teaching or governing roles to men. Egalitarian churches see them as addressed to a local disorder and open every ministry to women. Team-ministry churches stress shared leadership under Christ. CTS presents all three views fairly and asks students to read Paul’s whole argument for order, love and edification.

8.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. The paper insisted that the justified, the sanctified and the Spirit-baptized all belong to the body of Christ. Who in your church might feel like a second-class member, and why? Where have you seen spiritual gifts “puff up” instead of build up? How does your congregation make sure that tongues and prophecy are understood and help the whole church? And what would it look like, in your next service, to seek the Giver more than the gift?

Select

Reading 3 · Prophecy and Interpretation

Gifts of the Spirit

A CTS digest of The Apostolic Faith, Los Angeles, Vol. I No. 5, January 1907, p. 2 — “Gifts of the Spirit” (W.J.S.), with “Bearing His Reproach” and “God Is His Own Interpreter” (unsigned)

Seymour answers critics who asked what good tongues could do. He puts divine love before every gift, defines prophecy as Spirit-filled speech that builds up the church, explains tongues and interpretation from 1 Corinthians 14, and admits the mission had learned to be quieter. An unsigned article on interpretation shows how messages were weighed and confirmed.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

“God Is His Own Interpreter”: Prophecy, Tongues and Interpretation at Azusa

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — Seymour’s teaching on 1 Corinthians 14, the mission’s lessons in congregational order, and how interpretation was weighed and tested

A CTS digest of a primary source: “Gifts of the Spirit” (signed W.J.S.), with the unsigned articles “Bearing His Reproach” and “God Is His Own Interpreter,” The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), Vol. I No. 5, January 1907, page 2. CTS quotes it here only briefly, for study and commentary.

Prophecy
Interpretation
Discernment
1907

A word before you read. By January 1907 critics were asking the Azusa mission a sharp question about tongues: what good is it? If no one understands, how does it help anyone? On the teaching page of the fifth issue, William J. Seymour answered with a careful reading of 1 Corinthians 14, and two unsigned articles followed. This reading presents their teaching as historical testimony. It also places it beside the New Testament’s own instructions on weighing prophecy and testing the spirits, and beside the practice of Pentecostal churches since.

1.“I Would Not Have You Ignorant”

Seymour begins where Paul does, with 1 Corinthians 12:1: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.” The Corinthians, he says, were like Christ’s people everywhere: many do not know their privileges in the Gospel. His remedy is not first an experience but Scripture. Believers must “forever abide in the Word of God,” he writes, so that they may have the fruits of the Spirit and also the gifts. He asks his readers to “search the Scriptures and see for ourselves” whether they measure up to every word of God. He then quotes Paul’s great prayer in Ephesians 3:16–20, that believers may be strengthened by the Spirit, rooted and grounded in love, and filled with all the fullness of God. That starting point matters for the rest of the article. For Seymour, gifts are not a separate department of the Christian life. They belong inside a life rooted in the Word, in love and in the fullness of God. Discernment, as we will see, grows from the same soil.

2.Love Before Gifts

Seymour then faces the critics directly. Many people say, he writes, that tongues are “the least gift” and ask what good it is to them. He answers from 1 Corinthians 14:1, where Paul tells the church to “follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts.” Before he defends tongues, he defines love. “Charity means Divine love,” he says, and without it no one will enter heaven. Then comes a sentence that summarizes 1 Corinthians 13: “Gifts all will fail, but Divine love will last through all eternity.” It is remarkable that the leader of the most famous tongues-speaking mission in the world put love first in his teaching on gifts. It explains why the paper so often measured spiritual life by sweetness, humility and kindness rather than by manifestations alone. Paul himself placed his chapter on love between his two chapters on gifts, as if to say that every gift must pass through love to be of any use. A church that keeps that order will use its gifts very differently from a church that forgets it.

3.What Prophecy Means

Paul continues, “but rather that ye may prophesy.” Seymour explains what he takes prophecy to mean: to “preach in your own tongue,” in words that build up the saints and the church. Prophecy, he writes later, “is the best gift to the church,” because it edifies the saints and lifts them to higher things in Christ. His definition follows 1 Corinthians 14:3, where the one who prophesies speaks to people for “edification, and exhortation, and comfort.” Christians define prophecy in more than one way. Some, like Seymour here, stress Spirit-anointed speech that strengthens and encourages the church, close to inspired preaching. Others stress spontaneous words of revelation given in a meeting. Most Pentecostal churches allow both, but insist that no prophecy adds to Scripture or stands above it. Seymour’s emphasis has a practical benefit. It keeps prophecy tied to the church’s growth, not to curiosity about the future or to private guidance for individuals. In his account, prophecy serves the congregation; it does not make the prophet important.

4.Tongues, Mysteries and Interpretation

Next Seymour quotes 1 Corinthians 14:2–4. The one who speaks in an unknown tongue speaks “not unto men, but unto God,” uttering mysteries in the Spirit. Such a person, he says, edifies himself, while the church is not edified unless the Lord gives someone the interpretation. Here, he admits, is where many stumble. They ask what good it is when the speaker does not know what he is saying. Seymour’s reply is first a confession of faith: “every gift He gives is a good gift.” Prayer in tongues is real communion with God, even when no one else understands. But in the gathered church the rule is understanding. A person who preaches entirely in tongues without interpretation, he writes, is less useful than one who prophesies; with interpretation, the two are equal. He closes this part with a warning that the paper repeated often: “not worship the gift.” Believers should use their gift for God’s glory and honor, not for display, and should read 1 Corinthians 14 for themselves.

5.“We Have Learned to Be Quieter”

The most revealing lines of the article come at its end. In the first days of the revival, Seymour writes, “we all used to break out in tongues.” But, he continues, “we have learned to be quieter with the gift.” When a wave of blessing comes, many may still speak in tongues for a while, but they will not continue while the preaching service is going on. The reason is obedience to Scripture, so that everything may be done “decently and in order and without confusion.” These words echo 1 Corinthians 14:33 and 40. They show a congregation learning. The Azusa mission was often mocked in the newspapers as disorderly, and its critics included Charles Parham, who had visited in October 1906. Seymour did not answer by abandoning the gifts. He answered by teaching restraint and order. This is an important historical point. From the beginning, Pentecostal pastors had to shepherd spiritual gifts, not merely release them, and the movement’s own founder taught that the Spirit and order are friends.

6.“God Is His Own Interpreter”

The unsigned article “God Is His Own Interpreter” takes up the same question with an Old Testament story. When the hand wrote on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, the king’s wise men were silent; it took Daniel, who walked with God, to interpret (Daniel 5). So today, the writer says, God gives the interpretation, and “the natural man” cannot understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14). Some of its claims need care. It says the interpreter does not have to strain: “You do not use your mind at all.” Paul, however, says that he will pray and sing “with the understanding also” (14:15). The article also uses a mocking phrase, “thimble-brained,” in reporting critics, and it treats Spiritualists and hypnotists as the devil’s workers. But one sentence points toward a sound practice: “Often the Lord sends someone that understands the tongue to verify the interpretation.” The mission did not claim that every interpretation was beyond question. It welcomed confirmation. The same page’s “Bearing His Reproach” reminded readers that following Christ outside the gate (Hebrews 13:12–13) brings reproach and calls for humility.

7.Weighing Prophecy: Scripture and Practice

The New Testament gives clear instructions for weighing spiritual speech. Paul says that two or three prophets should speak and “let the other judge” (1 Corinthians 14:29). The spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets, “for God is not the author of confusion” (14:32–33). Believers must not quench the Spirit or despise prophecy, but must “prove all things” and hold fast what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:19–21). John adds, “try the spirits whether they are of God,” and gives a test: the Spirit of God confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (1 John 4:1–3). Pentecostal churches have turned these texts into practice. Leaders weigh messages in tongues, interpretations and prophecies by Scripture, by their fruit and by whether they exalt Christ. Many churches ask that directive words about marriage, money or ministry be tested privately with pastors rather than announced publicly. At Azusa, women as well as men interpreted and prophesied, under Joel’s promise; churches today differ on women’s leadership, but agree that every speaker’s words must be weighed by the same Word.

8.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. Seymour put love before gifts and the Word before experience. What would change in your church if it did the same? He admitted that the mission had “learned to be quieter” with tongues. What have you or your congregation had to learn about using spiritual gifts in order? How does your church weigh prophecy and interpretation, and who is responsible for doing it? And how can you test the spirits without quenching the Spirit?

Select

Reading 4 · Holiness and Accountability

In Money Matters

A CTS digest of The Apostolic Faith, Los Angeles, Vol. I No. 3, November 1906, pp. 2–4 — editorial notes (unsigned, p. 2); “Papers to Distribute,” “The Faith Way” and “Under the Blood” (unsigned) and “In Money Matters” (W. J. Seymour) (p. 3); “Bible Salvation,” “Sanctification and Power” and “The Character of Love” (unsigned, p. 4)

Short unsigned teachings in the November 1906 issue say Scripture aims at a changed heart, not mere theory, and define holiness as the loving character of Christ. Notes warn the Spirit-baptized against pride, the paper explains its trust-based finances, and Seymour’s “In Money Matters” confronts fanatical teaching that left families unprovided and debts unpaid.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

Holiness, the Word and Honest Money: Accountability in the Azusa Paper

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — the mission’s teaching on Scripture, sanctification and love, its warnings against pride, and Seymour’s counsel on money, families and calling

A CTS digest of a primary source: unsigned editorial notes on page 2; the unsigned “Papers to Distribute,” “The Faith Way” and “Under the Blood” and the article “In Money Matters” (signed W. J. Seymour) on page 3; and the unsigned “Bible Salvation,” “Sanctification and Power” and “The Character of Love” on page 4; The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), Vol. I No. 3, November 1906, pages 2–4. CTS quotes it here only briefly, for study and commentary.

Holiness
Scripture
Stewardship
1906

A word before you read. Revivals are often remembered for their high moments. This reading looks at something less dramatic and just as important: how the Azusa mission tried to keep its people honest, humble and faithful to Scripture. Scattered across the inner pages of the November 1906 issue are short unsigned teachings on the purpose of Scripture, on sanctification and on love, several warnings against spiritual pride, notes on how the paper handled money, and an article by William J. Seymour on giving, families and work. Together they show early Pentecostal holiness as practical accountability, and they also raise questions that the movement would have to face later.

1.“Not a Mere Theory”

A brief unsigned article on page 4, “Bible Salvation,” states the purpose of Scripture in one sentence. Its aim, the writer says, is “that a definite work may be wrought out in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.” God’s design through all the ages, the article continues, has been to implant his own nature, which is love, in a fallen race. Then comes the line that gives the article its edge: real Bible salvation is “not a mere theory or contention over different passages of scripture.” This is a striking thing for a revival paper to say. Early Pentecostals argued constantly over texts, as later readings show, and they quoted Scripture on nearly every line. Yet here the paper warns that the Bible can be used wrongly, as a field for argument rather than a means of transformation. That warning fits Jesus’ words to the scholars of his day: they searched the Scriptures but would not come to him for life (John 5:39–40). For the Azusa writers, the test of good Bible teaching was a changed heart filled with the love of God.

2.Sanctification and Power

“Sanctification and Power,” also unsigned, presses the same point toward holiness. It asks the reader directly, “Have you accepted Him as your sanctifier?” and quotes Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and Paul’s words, “this is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Only then does it speak of the baptism with the Spirit as power to witness to the ends of the earth. The paper’s order is typical of the Wesleyan holiness tradition: conversion, then a second work of sanctification, then Spirit baptism. That order did not survive unchanged. From 1910 William Durham of Chicago taught that sanctification is complete in Christ’s “finished work” on the cross, and many later bodies followed him, while holiness Pentecostal churches kept the older pattern. Between 1913 and 1916 another dispute, over baptism in Jesus’ name and the Trinity, divided Oneness from Trinitarian Pentecostals. Yet one sentence in the article speaks across all these divisions. The writer thanks God for the human instruments who brought light, but honors above all “the great Teacher of teachers that never makes a mistake.” No human leader, however used by God, is beyond correction.

3.“His Character Is Love”

The same article turns holiness into something people could see. When believers are persecuted for the Word, it asks, can they pray as Jesus did on the cross, “Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do”? It points to Stephen, who prayed for those who stoned him (Acts 7:59–60). Nearby, “The Character of Love” describes the goal of sanctification in the plainest terms: “His character is love.” Jesus, it says, was “a man of love,” and crowds of ordinary people, mothers carrying babies in the heat and men crossing the lake by boat, followed him to hear him. The love the article calls for is “love that is willing to suffer loss,” not puffed up, not easily provoked, but gentle, meek and humble, the love of 1 Corinthians 13. This matters for how the paper defined holiness. It was not mainly a list of rules about dress or food, though some holiness groups did stress those. It was the character of Christ formed in a believer by the Blood and the Spirit. A church can measure its holiness by that standard more honestly than by any outward sign.

4.“Die Daily”: Warnings Against Pride

Between the news items on page 2 are short unsigned warnings. “You who are baptized with the Holy Ghost must die daily,” one says, echoing 1 Corinthians 15:31. Another is blunter: “If we begin to get puffed up, God will set us aside.” A third speaks of purity of heart: as long as a seeker keeps saying, in effect, “I don’t like this or that,” the self-will has not yet been surrendered. A fourth answers people who were afraid that seeking the Spirit might bring the power of the devil; those who walk in the light, it says, can see that this is of God. These sentences show that the mission did not treat spiritual experience as a reward or a rank. It treated it as a responsibility. On page 3 the brief article “Under the Blood” adds a sober warning that every Pentecostal church should hear: “We may retain the gifts for a time but not the life.” A person may still speak in tongues or prophesy after love and holiness have drained away. The same article ties life to Scripture: “We live in the Word, then the blood flows.”

5.A Free Paper and No Account Books

“Papers to Distribute” answers a reader who asked what bundles of the paper cost. The reply describes the mission’s way of handling money. The paper was free; it cost about a dollar to print and mail a hundred copies; no collection had ever been taken for it. Then: “We keep no account books here, the Lord keeps the records.” Donors’ names were not published, following Jesus’ teaching on giving in secret (Matthew 6:4). “The Faith Way” tells how Florence Crawford prayed for travel money and received it, and concludes that “The Pentecostal way is to make your requests known to God and to God alone.” There is real beauty in this trust. Yet a seminary must also ask hard questions. Paul took care with the collection for Jerusalem, “providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men” (2 Corinthians 8:20–21). Informal arrangements left Azusa vulnerable. In 1908 the paper’s editor, Clara Lum, moved to Portland, Oregon, and the national mailing lists went with her, cutting Seymour off from most of his readers. Faith and good records are not opposites. Clear accounts and shared oversight protect both the work and the workers.

6.Seymour on Money and Families

In “In Money Matters,” signed by Seymour, the pastor confronts a real problem. Some teachers, he writes, had told everyone to “sell out,” and many had gone into fanaticism. His answer is balanced. When believers are filled with the Spirit, he says, “their pocket books are converted,” and God makes them stewards. If God tells someone to sell, they will. But God does not tell anyone to forsake his family, and Seymour quotes 1 Timothy 5:8: one who does not provide for his own is worse than an unbeliever. He describes the damage false teaching had done: children left poorly clothed, spouses abandoned to support the household alone, and debts borrowed and never repaid. His verdict is direct: “That person ought to go to work.” He cites Ephesians 4:28, that a believer should labor with his hands in order to have something to give. He also cites 1 Corinthians 16:2, giving “as God hath prospered him.” Ananias, he explains, did not sin by keeping property; “the sin was in lying to the Holy Ghost.” God wants a free giver, not a pressured one.

7.Knowing Our Calling

Seymour ends his article with counsel about ministry: “We must know our calling.” Some, he observes, think they must preach; but believers already preach when they testify. Others think they must leave home and travel simply because they have received tongues. That is not a call, he says; tongues are as useful in Los Angeles as anywhere else. Instead, “The Lord will lead you by His small voice,” a reference to the still small voice that Elijah heard (1 Kings 19:12). This is pastoral wisdom for any church that sees a fresh move of God. Spiritual experience does not, by itself, decide where a person should serve, whether to quit a job or whether to leave a family. Those decisions call for prayer, Scripture, patience and the counsel of mature believers. The same issue reports women such as Florence Crawford and Sister Hutchins traveling as workers, and churches today differ on how such callings are recognized; in every view, Seymour’s test of a sober, Spirit-led calling applies to all who serve.

8.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. The paper warned against treating the Bible as “a mere theory or contention” over texts. How does your church make sure that Bible study leads to changed lives? Where might your congregation measure holiness by outward signs rather than by the character of love? How does it handle money so that it is honest before God and before people? And how do you help believers test a sense of calling before they act on it?

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Reading 5 · Testing the Spirits

Counterfeits

A CTS digest of The Apostolic Faith, Los Angeles, Vol. I No. 4, December 1906, pp. 2 and 4 — “Counterfeits” (W. J. Seymour) (p. 2); “Question of Meats,” “The Sin Against the Holy Ghost” and two editorial notes (unsigned, p. 4)

Facing imitation within and criticism without, Seymour warns that wherever the real appears, the counterfeit follows. The paper tests interpreted messages by Scripture and reverence, counsels freedom and charity on disputed questions such as food, and pairs a stern warning about the sin against the Holy Ghost with comfort for anxious believers.

CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here

The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.

The Real and the Counterfeit: Testing the Spirits and Handling Disagreement

A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — Seymour’s warning about counterfeits, the paper’s test for interpreted messages, its counsel on disputed questions, and its teaching on the sin against the Holy Ghost

A CTS digest of a primary source: “Counterfeits” (signed W. J. Seymour), page 2, with the unsigned “Question of Meats,” “The Sin Against the Holy Ghost” and two short editorial notes, page 4, The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), Vol. I No. 4, December 1906. CTS quotes it here only briefly, for study and commentary.

Discernment
1 John 4
Disagreement
1906

A word before you read. By December 1906 the Azusa mission had critics on every side. Newspapers mocked it. Holiness churches closed their doors to its teaching. Charles Parham, whom the paper had once praised, visited in October, condemned the meetings as fanaticism and opened rival services. Inside the mission, too, some people imitated what they saw. This reading follows how the paper answered both problems: false manifestations within, and disagreement without. It presents the paper’s claims as historical testimony and sets them beside the biblical teaching on discernment in 1 Corinthians 12–14 and 1 John 4.

1.“Wherever We Find the Real”

Seymour’s article “Counterfeits” opens with a principle from Jesus: we should “know a tree by its fruit” (Matthew 7:16–20; 12:33). Then he states the problem honestly: “Wherever we find the real, we find the counterfeit also.” He does not pretend that everything at Azusa was genuine. His first example comes from the early church itself. When men and women were receiving the power of the Holy Ghost, the counterfeit appeared in Ananias and Sapphira, who lied about their gift (Acts 5:1–11). God’s power, Seymour writes, was mightier than hell, so “their sin found them out.” He turns the story into a pastoral warning, “Be careful, dear loved ones,” and points his readers to 1 John 1:7: if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. This starting point is important. For Seymour, discernment begins with personal honesty before God, not with suspicion of others. The first question is not whether someone else is false, but whether I am walking in the light.

2.Testing Claims Inside the Meeting

Seymour then describes what happened at the mission. Some people had come and claimed the baptism with the Spirit, but “when they were put to the test by the Holy Spirit, they were found wanting.” He reports that they then sought God again and received the experience. Others had imitated the gift of tongues. In those cases, he says, the Spirit quickly revealed it to those who had the baptism and put “a heavy rebuke upon the counterfeit,” in tongues, until the imitators were silenced. Two things stand out. First, the mission accepted that imitation was real and needed to be faced. That is healthy; a church that pretends nothing false ever happens will be easily deceived. Second, the method described is one that later pastors have handled more carefully. Public rebuke in tongues can wound people and can itself be mistaken. Scripture also teaches gentle correction: go to a brother privately first (Matthew 18:15) and restore the one who falls “in the spirit of meekness” (Galatians 6:1). Discernment and kindness belong together.

3.Aaron’s Rod and the Religions of the Day

Seymour’s main image comes from Exodus 7. When Aaron’s rod became a serpent, Pharaoh’s magicians did the same with their enchantments, “but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” So, he writes, the power of the Holy Ghost “condemns and swallows up the counterfeit.” He then names three movements: Christian Science, Theosophy and Spiritualism. Each was active in Los Angeles in 1906. Christian Science taught healing through right understanding of spiritual reality; Theosophy blended Eastern and Western esoteric ideas; Spiritualism sought contact with the dead. Seymour reports that Spiritualists and Christian Scientists had come to the meetings, been delivered from demons, and been saved and sanctified. CTS presents these as the mission’s testimony, not as verified findings. Christians may hold serious doctrinal disagreements with other religious movements, and the Bible does forbid seeking the dead (Deuteronomy 18:10–12). But a seminary must also teach respect for people. It is wiser to disagree with teachings clearly than to label individuals as demonized, and wise pastors ask whether a person in distress also needs medical or mental-health care.

4.A Test for Interpreted Messages

On page 4 of the same issue a short unsigned note describes the mission’s own standard for messages in tongues. As far as they had been interpreted, it says, they “have always been spiritual and according to the Word”: Scripture passages, praise to God, exaltation of Christ and warning. It adds: “Never anything of a foolish or irreverent character.” Many messages, it says, were intensely practical, especially for the individual for whom they were meant. Here, in plain terms, are the tests the mission used: agreement with Scripture, the honor of Christ, reverence and usefulness. They match the New Testament. No one speaking by the Spirit curses Jesus, and the Spirit leads people to confess him as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). Prophecies are to be weighed by others (14:29). The Bereans checked even Paul against the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). Another brief note on the page adds a word of confidence: “We do not have to try to convince the people that this work is of God.” Just preach Christ crucified, it says, and God will do the convincing. Truth does not need pressure.

5.“We Are a Free People”: Disputed Questions

Not every disagreement is about true and false spirits. Some are about practice. “Question of Meats” answers readers who asked whether the Pentecostal people at Azusa ate pork. The reply is warm and biblical: “We are a free people.” Salvation, it says, is not in food, drink or clothing, but in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 14:17). It recalls Peter’s vision of the sheet let down from heaven (Acts 10), and draws a striking lesson: we should not call “any man common or unclean.” In Acts 10 that vision led Peter across the line between Jew and Gentile to the house of Cornelius. In a mission where Black, white, Latino and immigrant believers prayed together, the phrase carried weight. The article then counsels temperance, since the body is the temple of God. Finally it applies Romans 14: if eating brings condemnation on you, do not eat; but if the Lord does not condemn another, “do not condemn him.” This is a model for many disputes that divide churches over customs, dress, food or holy days. Conscience is respected, and judgment is left to the Lord.

6.The Sin Against the Holy Ghost

The longest unsigned article on page 4 deals with a fearful subject. Jesus warned that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost will not be forgiven, “because they said, He hath an unclean spirit” (Mark 3:28–30). The paper applies this warning to people who know the Spirit’s work and then say that the work at Azusa, and the tongues spoken there, are of the devil. Students should notice how sharp that is. Many critics in 1906 were sincere believers trying to obey 1 John 4:1, and later Pentecostals have generally been slower to warn opponents of an unforgivable sin. Yet the same article contains tender pastoral care. It says: “The devil may tell people that they have sinned against the Holy Ghost when they have not sinned willfully.” Those who were overpowered by temptation and fell, it says, can still repent, because “we still have an advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1). Pastors still meet anxious believers who fear they have committed this sin. The paper’s answer remains good counsel: a heart that grieves over sin and longs for God has not been abandoned by him.

7.Testing the Spirits Today

John wrote, “try the spirits whether they are of God,” because many false prophets had gone out (1 John 4:1). His first test is about Christ: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God (4:2–3). His next tests are about truth and love: those who know God listen to the apostolic teaching (4:6), and “every one that loveth” is born of God (4:7). Paul adds the tests of edification, order and love (1 Corinthians 13–14), and Jesus the test of fruit. Pentecostal churches have practiced this by letting leaders weigh prophecies, by checking every message against Scripture, by watching the character of those who minister, and by refusing to let any manifestation stand above the Word. The Azusa story also shows why churches need fair ways to disagree. Seymour and Parham parted in 1906; William Durham’s “finished work” teaching divided the mission in 1911; the Oneness dispute split the young Assemblies of God in 1916. Testing the spirits protects a church from deception. Charity in disputed questions protects it from needless division.

8.Taking It to Heart

For reflection. Seymour said that wherever the real is found, the counterfeit appears too. How does your church test spiritual claims without becoming suspicious of everyone? When imitation or error appears, how can leaders correct it gently? Which disputes in your setting are about essentials, and which are about questions where believers should “not condemn” one another? And how would you counsel a believer who fears they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost?

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Further Study: Eight Public-Domain Works

These eight works are for further study, for the student who wants to go on reading. They are not part of the honors reading above: that stays as it is — the five CTS digests, any three read in full and recorded on your honor. All eight are in the public domain; each link opens the work online, and most can also be found in the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg. Most are in English: the Chrome browser can translate a page (right-click, “Translate to…”; on a phone, the browser menu).

The Original Pages · Archive

1. The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), 1906–1908

William J. Seymour, ed. · Apostolic Faith Mission, 312 Azusa Street, Los Angeles; archive at apostolicfaith.org

The archive of the Los Angeles paper, with a picture of every original page. The textbook and the readings come from Nos. 3–7; look up an article there to see it as it was first printed, before you cite it.

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The Whole Issue · No. 1

2. The Apostolic Faith (Los Angeles), Vol. I, No. 1, September 1906