Why Study the Movement?

Why This Course?

Welcome to the study of the Pentecostal and charismatic movement. It is one of the largest and fastest-growing streams of Christianity in the world today, and it is especially strong in Latin America, where many who read this course live and serve. Its congregations fill our cities and villages; its worship, its emphases, and its questions touch nearly every church around it. Whether you belong to this movement, minister alongside it, or simply meet its influence on every side, you have good reason to understand it — its beliefs, its history, the gifts it prizes, and the distortions that have grown up within it — and to weigh all of it, carefully and honestly, by the Word of God.

This opening unit sets the stage for everything that follows. It will explain why the movement is worth our attention and how large it has become. It will define the terms we will use throughout, some of which are themselves debated. And, most importantly, it will lay out the posture this course takes toward its subject — a posture that is at once biblical, fair-minded, and charitable. Before we can weigh the movement well, we must be clear about what we are studying and how we mean to study it.

A Movement Worth Understanding

Consider first the sheer scale of what we are studying. By careful estimate, the Pentecostal and charismatic family now numbers near six hundred and forty-four million people — roughly a quarter of all the Christians in the world. In little more than a single century it has grown from a mere handful of believers to this vast multitude, spread across every inhabited continent. Few movements in the whole history of the church have grown so fast or reached so far.

Nor has this growth been idle. For a hundred years the movement has stood near the forefront of world evangelism, carrying the gospel of Christ to the poor, the remote, and the unreached across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Especially in the lands where this course is read — in Mexico, in Cuba, throughout Latin America — its churches are everywhere, and its influence reaches far beyond its own membership. A movement this large, this active, and this near cannot responsibly be ignored. It must be understood — and understood not by rumor or caricature, but by Scripture.

For the pastor and the lay leader especially, this is not a distant academic matter. Many in your own congregation may have come out of a Pentecostal church, or have relatives who worship in one; some may bring its questions and expectations with them into your services. To shepherd such people wisely — to affirm what is good, gently correct what is not, and guard the peace of the church — you must first understand what they have been taught and why. A shepherd who does not know the ground his sheep graze on cannot lead them well.

Defining the Terms

Before going further, we should define the words this course will use, for clear terms prevent much confusion. The word Pentecostal names the movement that arose in the early twentieth century, which we will trace in a later unit; it emphasized the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the exercise of spiritual gifts, classically pointing to speaking in tongues as the sign of that baptism, and it formed its own new denominations. The word charismatic comes from the Greek charisma, meaning a gift of grace; broadly it describes Christians within the historic Protestant and Catholic churches, and beyond, who came to embrace the same gifts and experience without necessarily leaving their own traditions. When this course speaks simply of the movement, it means the whole family together — classical Pentecostals, charismatics in the historic churches, later evangelical currents, and the great host of independent churches that fit none of the older labels.

A few more terms will recur. Spiritual gifts, or charismata, are the abilities the Holy Spirit distributes to believers for the building up of the church:

"But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all."1 Corinthians 12:7 (NKJV)

The phrase the baptism in the Holy Spirit is used in different ways by different Christians, and its very meaning is one of the questions this course will weigh; so too is the nature of tongues — speaking in a language one has not learned, whether a known human language or otherwise. Finally, the words cessationism and continuationism name the two positions on whether the miraculous sign-gifts have ceased with the age of the apostles or continue in the church today. Where a term is itself contested, we will say so plainly and take up the question in the unit devoted to it, rather than settling it quietly by a definition.

Two Questions Kept Apart

There is one distinction so important to this whole study that we must introduce it at the very outset, for we will return to it again and again. A great deal of the confusion and heat around this subject comes from running together two questions that are really quite different. The first is whether a gift is real — whether the Holy Spirit still gives it to the church. The second is whether a particular experience is required of every believer — whether every Christian must, for example, speak in tongues to prove that he has received the Spirit.

These two questions are not the same, and the answer to one does not decide the other. A person may believe that the gift of tongues is entirely real and still deny that every believer must speak in tongues; the two convictions sit together without contradiction. Much needless division has arisen from treating them as a single question. Throughout this course we will keep them carefully apart, and you will find that many disputes grow smaller, and much clearer, once they are separated.

How This Course Approaches the Subject

How, then, will this course weigh so large and so disputed a subject? First and above all, we measure everything by Scripture, which is our final authority. We come to this study as the noble Bereans came to Paul's preaching — not with closed minds, and not with credulous ones, but receiving the word readily and then searching the Scriptures to see whether these things are so. No experience, however powerful, and no teacher, however admired, stands above the written Word of God.

Second, on the questions that faithful Christians genuinely dispute — whether the sign-gifts continue, what the baptism in the Spirit is, what Paul means by "that which is perfect" — we will do what this seminary does with the millennium. We will set out each faithful position at its strongest, presenting the best case its defenders would make, and we will impose no verdict of our own, leaving you to weigh the Scriptures and come to your own settled conviction. This is not weakness or indecision; it is the fairness that truth requires when godly people who love the same Bible read it differently.

Third, we will judge a teaching on its own terms, by the Word, and we will judge a movement by its Scriptures and its faithful — never by its worst and most visible preachers, nor by its distortions. And through all of it we will keep Christ at the center, remembering the Lord's own words that the Spirit was given to glorify Him. These four commitments — Scripture as the measure, fairness on the open questions, judgment by the faithful rather than the worst, and Christ at the center — will guide every unit that follows.

A Charitable Posture

It follows from all this that we must approach the movement, and the people in it, with charity. The hundreds of millions who belong to this family are, in the great majority, our brothers and sisters in Christ — fellow members of His body, many of them prayerful, faithful, and zealous for the gospel, some of them poorer and more persecuted than we are, and no less dear to their Savior. We come to them not as enemies to be refuted but as family to be understood.

"but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ."Ephesians 4:15 (NKJV)

This does not mean pretending that all is well where it is not. We will be honest about real errors — the prosperity gospel, certain excesses that dishonor the Spirit's name — and where Scripture requires it, we will lovingly decline what is taught. But we will not slander the many for the faults of a few, nor allow honest disagreement to curdle into contempt. Truth and love are not rivals; Scripture binds them together, and so must we, speaking the truth in love toward those with whom we share one Lord.

What We Will and Will Not Settle

It may help to say clearly what to expect from this course, so that no one is disappointed for the wrong reasons. Some things it will settle plainly, because Scripture settles them plainly: that the Holy Spirit is God and truly at work, that the prosperity gospel is a distortion of the gospel, that the suffering must never be blamed for their suffering. Where the Bible speaks with one clear voice, we will not pretend to hesitate.

Other things it will deliberately leave open, because Scripture itself leaves them open: whether the miraculous sign-gifts continue today, and what precisely the baptism in the Spirit is. On these, do not expect the course to hand you a verdict. Expect instead a fair hearing of the strongest arguments on each side, and the tools to weigh them yourself before God. To force a certainty where Scripture is quiet would be to add to the Word, not to honor it.

You may fairly ask where the writer of this course himself stands. Like any teacher, he holds his own settled convictions, reached over years of study; but on the open questions he will not press them upon you as though they were the plain command of Scripture. His task here is not to make you agree with him, but to set the Scriptures and the strongest arguments before you clearly, and to trust the Spirit and the Word to do their work in your own conscience. Where the Bible binds, he will bind; where it leaves liberty, he will leave you free.

The Journey Ahead

With the terms defined and the posture set, we can sketch the path before us. We will begin by considering the Holy Spirit as the whole of Scripture presents Him, and then the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out and the church was born. We will study the gift of tongues in the book of Acts and in Paul's letters, and the much-debated baptism in the Holy Spirit. We will trace the movement's history — its birth in the early twentieth century, and its later spread into the historic churches through the charismatic renewal.

From there we will take up the exercise of the gifts today — healing, miracles, prophecy, and tongues — and the reality of spiritual warfare. We will face honestly the distortions that have grown up alongside the movement, chief among them the prosperity gospel. And we will end with a whole biblical assessment, drawing every thread together. Along the way you will meet the great questions and the strongest cases on each side. Come to them, then, as the Bereans did — ready to receive, and diligent to search the Scriptures.

A Word Before We Begin

One last word before we begin. Whatever you come to conclude on the questions this course leaves open, let the study itself do a deeper work in you than the settling of any single argument. Let it drive you nearer to Christ, deepen your love for His Word, sharpen your discernment, and enlarge your charity toward His people in all their variety. These are worth more than winning a debate.

"He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you."John 16:14 (NKJV)

For that, in the end, is the measure of everything we will study: whether it lifts up Jesus Christ and makes His people more like Him. The Spirit was given to glorify the Son; may this course, in its own small way, do the same. So let us begin — with open Bibles, humble hearts, and our eyes on the Savior.

Discussion Questions

• Why might it matter for a pastor or lay leader in Latin America to understand the Pentecostal and charismatic movement well?
• In your own words, what are the two questions this course keeps apart, and why does confusing them cause trouble?
• What does it look like to hold truth and love together when we disagree with fellow believers?
• Why is it wise to leave some questions open rather than forcing a verdict Scripture does not give?

Ministry Application

Write two or three sentences describing how you would explain to a friend the difference between honoring a genuine work of God and testing every teaching by Scripture.