Conclusion
Read from a Christian standpoint, the biblical story moves toward our savior’s coming and the ultimate consummation. The current period between Jesus’s comings is an eschatological time in which we should expect the Spirit to act decisively in the church. Although the first Pentecostals typically read Scripture through the narrative grid of a “Latter Rain” rather than the more biblically accurate already/not yet kingdom eschatology, their reading was unquestionably eschatological. 3 They and other revival movements of the period can thus provide one helpful model of reading Scripture experientially and eschatologically, recognizing the significance of present experience. This way of reading is invited by our location in biblical history.
Early Pentecostalism’s Missiological Reading of Acts 2
Late-nineteenth-century radical evangelicals emphasized the importance of the Great Commission, the mission of reaching all peoples with the gospel of Christ. Eschatologically, their frequent postmillenialism played a role in this expectation, but it was one that proponents of other eschatological schemes also shared. Many radical evangelicals, especially in circles emphasizing holiness, were praying for a special experience of empowerment.
Those in Keswick and some other circles rightly gathered that the focus of the Spirit’s activity recounted in Acts is divine empowerment for mission (see esp. Acts 1:8), and they were praying accordingly. Some, believing that the global task was too great without miraculous help, believed that it could be accomplished only if missionaries could evangelize directly without having to learn all languages first (many languages had never yet even been mapped). They were praying for missionary tongues—that is, that God would supernaturally empower them to speak languages without the need to learn them first.
When some Christians in holiness circles began speaking in tongues as part of their dramatic experience of the Spirit, they first believed that they were experiencing missionary tongues. 4 Although in most cases they subsequently discovered otherwise, 5 their interest in power for mission remained, and in its first modern century pentecostal forms of Christianity have expanded far faster than any other Christian movement, much of it globally by conversion growth. 6 The connection between tongues and missions, however, was often forgotten. 7
Although Pentecostals did not always recognize the connection, Luke’s narrative use of tongues was also mission-connected. Because Luke focuses on the Spirit’s power for mission (Acts 1:8), he naturally emphasized the most conspicuous intersection between the prophetic dimension of the Spirit’s activity and the cross-cultural element. What greater sign of cross-cultural prophetic empowerment could Luke emphasize than God’s agents, inspired by the Spirit, worshiping him in other peoples’ languages? 8
Looking to Biblical Narratives for Models
When early Pentecostals read Acts looking for clues to the narratives’ signs of Spirit baptism, some critics retorted that one cannot get theology from narrative. Of course, today scholars recognize that narratives do indeed often communicate perspectives, which can be theological, political, moral, or a combination of various emphases. 9 Against the dichotomy between history and theology that sometimes prevailed in mid-twentieth century biblical criticism, ancient historians often explicitly noted this purpose in their writing. 10 Biblical writers themselves affirmed this practice (e.g., Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:11; 2 Tim 3:16–17).
Scholars may debate whether early Pentecostals always noted the correct patterns in Acts (many argue, for example, that signs of Spirit baptism there may be more diverse than they anticipated). Their narrative hermeneutic, however, was more sensitive to the text than that of most of their critics. Biblical scholars in general grew more sensitive to the theological value of narratives after the rise of redaction criticism and especially narrative criticism and narrative theology. 11 Today many mainstream evangelical scholars, for example, recognize that consistent patterns in Acts are instructive, including Luke’s connection between the Spirit and power for ministry. 12
Critics also often responded to Pentecostal readings of Acts by citing clear statements from Pauline theology, which Pentecostals rightly often regarded as beside the point. James D. G. Dunn was one of the first scholars to take Pentecostalism seriously enough to write a major scholarly critique of its usual understanding of baptism in the Spirit. 13 (It should be noted that Dunn himself, while engaging in rigorous dialogue on exegetical points, has always been conciliatory and friendly toward Pentecostals and their practices. Indeed, although not charismatic by some popular definitions, he is a “Pauline charismatic”—affirming the continuance of all the charismata and excelling especially in his charism of teaching.) 14 Many Pentecostal exegetes responded that Dunn was reading Luke in light of Paul, instead of allowing their voices to be distinct but complementary. They also argued that this approach was ironic in view of Dunn’s own emphasis on the diversity as well as unity of theology in the NT. 15
Various renewal movements have looked to the early church in Acts as a model and sought to live out Acts in various ways. 16 Late-nineteenth-century missions movements and early Pentecostals rightly drew from Acts a model for mission. More importantly, Acts teaches us patterns of God’s activity—even if part of the pattern is that God often pours out his Spirit in ways unexpected by his people.
Interestingly, although many of the debates about outpourings of the Spirit in Acts understandably focus on individual Christian experience, Luke’s narratives focus on corporate outpourings—perhaps something like what American church historians call revivals. Elements of the “revivals” in Acts sometimes varied in particular characteristics, such as economic sacrifice (Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–35) or joy (13:52). Given Luke’s focus, it is not surprising that he especially emphasizes the element of prophetic empowerment (2:17–18; Luke 1:67), including bold inspired speech for God (Acts 4:8, 31; 19:6), proclamation of a vision (7:55), and worship in tongues (2:4; 10:46; 19:6). But we also should not be surprised if various outpourings of the Spirit include various specific characteristics, whether sorrow for sin, joy in Christ (as in Acts 13:52), or the like. 17 (Ideally all believers should always express all the fruit of the Spirit, but in practice particular expressions sometimes come to the fore when God draws our attention to them in special ways.)
Some critics today believe that biblical narratives teach us only about God’s actions but do not provide models for our responses to God. They argue that these texts teach us salvation history but not examples for our faith. But that is not how Paul reads Scripture. He sees Abram’s faith (Gen 15:6) as a model for all believers (Rom 4); in a different way, so does James (Jas 2:21–23). That is not to say that every aspect of Abram’s behavior is a positive model, but Abram’s behavior that God reckoned as righteousness certainly was. Likewise, James uses the experiences of the prophets and Job as models for endurance (5:10–11). He not only recognizes Elijah’s common humanity with us but for this very reason also treats his faith for divine action as a model for us (Jas 5:17–18).
I return to the application of narrative models more fully later in chapters 10 and 15. My point here is simply that this way of reading has characterized Pentecostal interpretation from the beginning.
The Value in Reading Devotionally
Critiques of charismatic hermeneutics, like critiques of revivals, often come from academicians or seminary-trained ministers criticizing popular charismatic interpretation. Some of these critiques may be as much a critique of popular approaches as of charismatic theology in particular. One wonders whether popular noncharismatic interpretations would fare significantly better if critiqued by charismatic academicians. Popular interpreters often take Scripture out of context, and as our culture moves increasingly further toward communicating in sound bites and concise tweets the ability to follow an entire argument, relevant to some genres in Scripture, will become increasingly scarce.
Having said that, popular, devotional interpretation does contribute an insight that many of us academicians, for all our methodological precision, have missed. That is, we need to hear Scripture with faith, embracing it in our personal lives. A reader may embrace a false idea when taking Scripture out of context, but a reader who understands it in context yet does not embrace its demands on one’s trust also misses its function as Scripture. Hermeneutical distance has advantages at one level of interpretation, 18 but places the interpreter at a severe disadvantage when it comes to living the text’s message.
This approach to hermeneutical proximity is not limited to Pentecostals, 19 but Pentecostals are among those who conventionally read this way. 20 As Christians, we read the Bible with personal faith— not only to understand it but to embrace its message and theological worldview as true for the world in which we live. One can still do scholarship for the academy that follows its rules, but such readings, while legitimate for their purposes, differ from the deliberately Christian reading emphasized here, which is also legitimate for its purpose. 21
Wesley urged readers who found some biblical passages hard to understand to seek God in prayer. 22 Praying for understanding is certainly a biblical concept (e.g., 1 Kgs 3:9–10; Ps 25:4–5; Dan 2:18–19; Eph 1:17–18; Phil 1:9–10; Col 1:9–10; Phlm 6; Jas 1:5), and this principle certainly applies to understanding Scripture (Dan 9:2–3, 23); prayer for understanding of the law is a frequent refrain in Psalm 119 (119:27, 34, 73, 125, 144, 169). We do not need to wait until there is a passage that we do not understand cognitively, however. When reading Scripture devotionally, we can pray while reading, taking time to praise God for, and prayerfully ponder, what we find there. This approach need not require lingering over every point, but we can pray about the points that offer challenges or special insights to us. The prayer might be a brief whisper before moving on, or wrestling deeply with a matter particularly challenging to us.
Reading Biblically Is Reading Experientially
Purely subjective “experiential” readings are common on a popular level—seeking a particular “feeling” about a text or some “deep” meaning unrelated to the less “spiritual” surface meaning. Unfortunately, such subjective readings and purely “rational” readings often react against, and thus feed off of, one another. A purely rational way of reading is one that analyzes grammar and contextual sense, yet never engages with the text in terms of considering the demands or invitations or encouragements of its message. Such a rational reading can often address one side of the text, but it does not approach the message as God’s word. 23 A persistent refusal to embrace the message in faith, conditioning one’s habitual way of reading the text, can ultimately produce a hardness against it.
Experiential reading in a responsible way does not endorse pure subjectivity in interpretation. Nor do I refer to looking for a personal application or “takeaway” for each verse or even paragraph, although (as argued later in the book) application by responsible analogy helps us to hear and engage the text more sympathetically and concretely. Rather, by experiential reading I mean believing to the depths of our being what we find in the text. For example, it is one thing to affirm academically that God loves us. It is another to welcome that truth into our hearts that have felt wounded and untrusting. I myself have experienced both merely rational affirmation and subsequently the warm embrace of the Father’s love. Although feelings are part of human experience and therefore an element in our spiritual life, the sort of experience I address here has more to do with faith and the action that it demands than with feeling.
Pentecostal spirituality has always read Scripture experientially. 24 By this I do not mean that pentecostal Christians simply read Scripture in light of their experience, although that has sometimes been the case (and not only for Pentecostals). Rather, I mean that we especially read and develop our experience in light of Scripture. 25
Of course, experience, like our culture and tradition, also shapes how we read Scripture, for good or for ill. No one comes to texts without presuppositions, usually shaped by past experiences or instruction. 26 We may do our best to suspend judgment, and honestly engaging texts may adjust our presuppositions. 27 But we should not pretend that we do not have any presuppositions. 28 Even basic reflection requires “mental categories” and some frameworks for interpreting reality. 29 As Anthony Thiselton points out, “historical conditioning is two-sided: the modern interpreter, no less than the text, stands in a given historical context and tradition. ” 30
Contemporary experiences, however, can help us hear the biblical text in ways that resonate with its values. Just as dialogue with other cultures and vantage points or learning new information enables us to adjust our starting assumptions, so does engagement with the voice of Scripture. Thus Thiselton also notes that “the biblical text comes alive as a ‘speech-act’ . . . when some kind of correspondence or inter-relation occurs between the situation addressed by the biblical writer and the situation of the modern reader or hearer.” 31 Scripture already holds authority and is true, but it is experienced as authoritative, for example on matters of forgiveness, when one personally embraces its truth. 32
Experiences similar to those in Scripture often make Scripture more believable or close to us than it feels to those who do not have such experiences. I noted earlier that Messianic Jews or members of house congregations may hear emphases or resonate with experiences or emphases in Scripture that some others miss; likewise, those who have experienced miracles often find them more plausible than those who have not. 33 Further, an experience of spiritual power can also embolden us to stand for our convictions about truth in the face of a different prevailing consensus, an experience that can also have hermeneutical implications for both scholars and other readers.
The most distinctive contribution of classical Pentecostalism to the global church has been the restoration of the full slate of spiritual gifts as an experiential preunderstanding from which we read Scripture. This is no small contribution, but a full-fledged Spirit hermeneutic should emphasize not only elements that are distinctive to the early Pentecostal movement, but also those biblical experiences that have long been shared by the church movements from which it was birthed.
Valuable as some experiential preunderstanding is, however, my primary focus here is on how we read our experiences in light of analogous experiences in Scripture. To some degree, experiential reading of Scripture is inevitable. Yet it is not only inevitable; it is desirable and biblical, provided such devotional reading is also shaped by the careful discipline of how Scripture itself invites us to read it. Jesus, his followers, and earlier prophets all illustrate ways of reading Scripture experientially.
Experience has long influenced interpretation. For example, Whitefield’s and Wesley’s experience of preaching in the fields gave them a fuller appreciation for Jesus’s open-air preaching of which they already were aware from the Gospels. Wesley’s experience of lay ministers and women accurately communicating Scripture opened him up to genuine dimensions of Scripture that he had initially resisted. 34 (Since for this book I have a friendly audience I would love to repeat my biblical case supporting women in ministry here, but given the other topics that I need to cover here, I simply refer readers to my earlier work on the subject, and that of others.) 35
Late-nineteenth-century radical evangelicals, like many other readers of Scripture throughout history, wanted to live according to Scripture and expected God to meet them as they studied it. Their piety formed the intuitive backdrop of early Pentecostal practices, practices also attested widely today among global charismatics and other Christians. Early Pentecostal emphasis on the Spirit and experience actually does reflect a pervasive theme of Scripture and particularly the life of early Christianity exemplified in Acts and Paul’s letters. Some Protestant interpreters had played down these biblical emphases, presumably because they seemed foreign to their own experience.
Pentecostalism was, like many of its precursors and (to a lesser extent) the Reformation and some Catholic monastic movements, a restorationist movement. 36 They wanted to go back behind inadequate church traditions to Scripture. Restorationism itself, of course, became a tradition, and like many traditions various forms of restorationism sometimes ossified into legalistic codes or a means of exalting one’s group above others. Its original, fundamental interest, however, was valuable. The impetus of many medieval reformers and monastic movements was protest against corruption in the church; the Renaissance emphasis on recovering the early sources also helped fuel the Reformation. 37
Although the fundamentalist-modernist controversy eventually forced more of a focus on doctrinal propositions, many restorationists (including again everything from monastic movements to the radical evangelicals) emphasized a return to the highest ideal lifestyle or spiritual experience depicted in the New Testament. This approach may idealize the earliest church, but it rightly calls us back to what Jesus, and virtually all Christian tradition, affirms is God’s Word, and to what we therefore ought to value more than any other source of teaching in our tradition. 38
In the global Pentecostal approach to Scripture, the supernatural God of the Bible is the God of the present, real world. The line between salvation history in the biblical narrative and continuing salvation history today is thin, so that readers approach the text as a model for life and ideally expect God to continue to act as he acted in Scripture. Like experiencing God’s presence, experiencing his apparent absence is biblical, as some of the psalms show us. Thus the psalmist pleads to God, “Don’t be far from me!” (Pss 22:11; 35:22; 38:21; 71:12), or questions, “How long won’t you hear, Lord?” (e.g., Pss 13:1; 79:5; 89:46; also Hab 1:2). Far from being used exclusively for the psalmist’s benefit, the biblical psalms spoke also to situations of those who joined in corporate worship in the temple (1 Chr 16:42; 2 Chr 20:21; Ezra 3:11; Neh 12:8, 27, 46) and after the temple’s destruction (e.g., Ps 89:38); the Chronicler explicitly notes that earlier songs were reused for praise (2 Chr 29:30). 39
Yet far from making excuses for a God who sometimes in fact seems absent, spirituality characterized by the experience of Pentecost typically starts with the premise that God is present and active. Even when he seems far off, that we have experienced the Spirit reminds us that God is with us, among us, and within us. Admittedly, the emphasis can err if not balanced with other biblical expectations; biblically, God’s presence often brings suffering as well as restoration to wholeness. Sometimes starting with the expectation that God is active has led Pentecostals to a sort of reductionism that mirrors naturalistic reductionism. Pure naturalism allows no miracles; some supernaturalists have reduced God to a formula that treats miracles as automatic if given conditions are met. Conversely, one may view the world as an enchanted place, but this becomes a childish fantasy if not submitted to the biblical God’s will; indeed, Jesus regards desiring only what mortals desire, while eschewing suffering for Christ, as Satanic (Mark 8:33–35). Provided that we recognize biblical themes of facing opposition and endurance, however, it is biblical to see the entire world as reflecting God’s activity, and to recognize and expect God’s activity in the course of fulfilling his will.
Some of those who are now reported as seeing significant miracles started by recognizing God at work even in smaller details of their daily lives—an attitude of trust. 40 Such people may sometimes assume more knowledge of God’s working than they have and may wrongly construe the details of how God is working. Nevertheless, as Christians, we should never fault them for trusting God to be at work—often more than we do. That is a Pentecostal way of approaching reality, but it is not limited to Pentecostal tradition (Calvinists, for example, typically and rightly recognize God at work in everything in their lives).
This is not the approach to reality that we professors generally learn in our rigorous academic training, which focuses on predictable natural explanations and challenges all premises critically. 41 Some sources are more reliable than others, however, and the habit of critical evaluation applied to claims in texts is not always profitable when applied to relationships with persons deserving our trust. At the height of my historical Jesus research, for example, when my wife would inform me of something, for instance remind me about what she wrote her dissertation on, I would respond out of habit, “Can you provide me evidence for that assertion?” I did learn quickly that such an approach has its limitations and dangers, and that there is a place for healthy trust. This should be true most of all in our relationship with God.
At its best, Pentecostal spirituality is about living out a dynamic relationship with God. Such a spirituality reads Scripture dynamically, as stories of how the God with whom one has a relationship has worked with his people throughout history. 42 One who reads Scripture this way will naturally receive the narrative differently than someone for whom it is simply information or stories or myths. In some cases, our exegesis might be the same, but the ways we appropriate the narrative in our lives is completely different. Those who read with faith read with hope, and read according to the purpose some early Christians found in Scripture: “The matters written before (in Scripture) were written to teach us, so that through endurance and through the encouragement offered by the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom 15:4).
Some consider such readings as naïve, setting one up for disappointment; but early Christians were confident that those who put their trust in God would not be disappointed or made ashamed of their hope (Isa 28:16, cited in Rom 9:33; 10:11; 1 Pet 2:6; cf. Ps 22:5; Rom 5:5). In practice, one might suffer yet not be abandoned; even in despair, God’s presence provides help (2 Cor 4:8–9; 6:4–10). Indeed, medical studies suggest that not only does faith of some sort correlate with reduced mortality, 43 but it also apparently can give greater strength to face mortality (cf. Prov 17:22). 44
Experiential Reading in Other Charismatic Hermeneutics
Various scholars have independently suggested many of the same distinctive characteristics of Pentecostal or charismatic exegesis that I identify and develop in this book. For example, one Anglican charismatic writer identifies as distinctive elements of a charismatic hermeneutic many of the same features I emphasize here as part of a Spirit hermeneutic, although I address these features at various points in this book rather than all in one place. 45 He finds and illustrates these features in Peter’s Pentecost sermon. 46 I draw on some complementary aspects of the Pentecost experience later in this book.
Virtually all of these elements are biblical features of a Spirit-led hermeneutic, although interpreters do differ, sometimes substantially, in precisely how they implement them. My immediate focus in this section is experiential reading.
Experiential Reading Is Inevitable
People read texts with interests and agendas. Historians, for example, may have personal interests, specializing in church history, women’s history, military history, and so forth, without thereby being any less historians. 54 It is likewise natural to read the Bible with pastoral and theological questions in mind, and also with the personal issues on each of our hearts. Many biblical principles will speak legitimately to those issues. Ancient Christians often heard Scripture as relevant to their communities; some, like Anthony or Augustine, also heard it personally and therefore abandoned wealth or sexual immorality.
Personal experience inevitably shapes how texts or communications affect us. The same report of a sports event will affect differently those who were rooting for different teams. A report about the rise in racism may feel more personally threatening to some people (including myself, since my family is interracial) than to others. Reports about violence in many parts of the world affect me, but when I learn of them in places where I have lived and have close friends, such as in northern Nigeria, they affect me most deeply. I am neither able nor willing to forego my experiential encounter with such texts or oral reports. This does not mean that I am privy to secret meanings of words used in such sources; it does mean that I cannot but read them in sometimes larger and sometimes more personal contexts.
This is what some scholars mean when they speak of texts’ “fuller meaning,” though others prefer the language of “application.” 55 I personally prefer (and usually here use) the latter designation, not least for logistical reasons, since it is helpful to somehow distinguish present reception of the text’s message from the likely experiences of its ideal receptors. But even those evangelical homiletical approaches most insistent on employing the label “application” would exclude this activity no more than would those who include it under the rubric of “meaning.” Although many contemporary debates over meaning are more substantive, some of our differences might be better resolved by defining how we are using our key terms.
Studying Scripture inductively, like trying to hear other reports honestly, remains the ideal; by learning what biblical texts say in their own setting, we are most likely to catch accurately the principles that they are genuinely addressing. In science, applied research is likelier to find a particular, targeted cure faster than basic research would, but basic research (such as investigation of the human genome) cumulatively yields more cures in the long run. Preparing for sermons on Saturday night or speaking in the inspiration of a moment cannot substitute for extensive and diligent labor in the Scriptures. Inductive study of the Bible on its own terms thus uncovers more information in the long run than coming to the Bible with our questions (especially if a pastor is starting to prepare a sermon the night before he or she will be preaching it!). 56 It is by such faithful working through biblical books in disciplined ways that we open ourselves up to the Spirit’s teaching on a wider range of topics than those we already were interested in.
Nevertheless, we do need to learn what the Bible says to our present situations. The only alternative to bringing our questions and struggles is to leave such issues untouched by Scripture. We must be open to biblical principles speaking to our situations. In fact, while anyone with a sound exegetical approach may discover exegetical insights for biblical (or other) texts, it is disciples who will hear the text’s demands on their lives.
Ideally, a Christian reader should have both sound understanding of the original message and consequent insight into how it speaks to our settings. This is ideal because it is when we hear the original message of the text most carefully that we can be assured that our experience of the text is something relevant beyond us. The Spirit can spark our conscience through anything that reminds of us a biblical (or other) principle, even if that reminder does not arise from sound exegesis of the text. But the reason God gives us Scripture as well as the Spirit is to provide a more objective guide and framework for our personal experience of God; it defeats the purpose of having a Bible if it simply becomes a mine for what we hope to find there anyway, whether theologically or experientially.
I return to this discussion of a more objective resource in Part III of the book. But for now, I should note that listening to the Bible personally and experientially is not only inevitable; it is not in necessary conflict with reading Scripture in a way that respects the original message. Reading personally and experientially is desirable, provided it is shaped and instructed by the discipline of careful and consistent reading such as this book will discuss later.
Experiential Reading Is Desirable
Many parts of Scripture overtly invite experiential reading. For example, the psalms are meant to be prayed and sung more than exegeted in light of their specific settings (which are often unknown to us). 57 Psalms evoke feeling, employing a range of rhetorical devices, including some complex forms of parallelism (such as an aesthetically pleasing acrostic in Ps 119) or building to a cresendo (as in Ps 150). 58 We can try to reconstruct their historical situation (fairly difficult for many of the psalms), or compare them with liturgical forms from surrounding cultures (such as Canaanite psalms or Egyptian hymns to their deities). But once we have done all possible research, psalms by their very genre invite us to do more than study them: they invite us to pray them, sing them, or use them as models to jumpstart our own prayers. They provide us a historic vocabulary of prayer.
Certainly one way to “experience” Scripture is to use it, once it is rightly understood, in dynamic worship and prayer; these are traditionally characteristic expressions of a pneumatic approach. 59 These elements bring to the fore Scripture’s affective impact as well as its cognitive challenges. 60 One of my predecessors in biblical interpretation at Asbury Seminary, Bob Mulholland, urged readers to consider how God’s Spirit speaks to us when we engage the reasons for our emotive responses to the biblical text. 61
Most readers would agree that psalms are meant to be prayed, as the Puritans prayed them. But does historical narrative invite experiential reading? What about biography? Even here, however, narratives are meant to draw us into their world, to facilitate reader identification, 62 to invite us to imbibe something of their worldview. We may take for an example John’s Gospel. When we read that Jesus taught his disciples to love one another, do we genuinely fulfill the intention of either the Fourth Gospel’s author or the Jesus who spoke in the narrative to merely study the Greek terms used? Do we fulfill it by merely comparing ancient opinions about love and showing how the opinion expressed here is different? Such studies have supportive value, but presumably John wants us to respond to the text faithfully by actually loving one another.
Even those who read biblical narratives as matters of almost solely historical interest, without personal application, might make exceptions for teaching contained in those narratives. Nevertheless, someone could argue that these sayings address only Jesus’s first disciples. Such an approach, however, is unsatisfactory. Within the narrative, Jesus addresses disciples present on that occasion, but why does John report these words? Presumably John also has his own audience in mind, probably including a potential audience larger than his immediate circle; soon after this Jesus himself applies his message not only to his immediate hearers but to all his followers (John 17:20).
Presumably we should approach in the same manner Jesus’s sayings about the coming of the Spirit, sent to continue to reveal Jesus to us (14:16–17, 26; 15:26; 16:7–15). Some apply these promises specifically to the disciples who were with Jesus on that occasion, as authors of the New Testament message. Although such an application is appropriate, it does not exhaust all legitimate applications of these words; John himself was apparently not interested in that application exclusively. Granted, the Spirit comes specifically to the first disciples in John 20:22, but we also know that all who believe in Jesus would receive the Spirit (7:39). The indwelling of the Spirit and the greater works that Jesus promised (e.g., 14:12–13, 17, 23) thus as surely apply to all believers as the possibility of coming to Jesus through the Father because Jesus is the way (14:6). 63
That this is the correct way to understand John’s Gospel is clear from 1 John, which probably addresses the same circles as the Fourth Gospel and draws on its portrait of Jesus. Plainly the “new commandment” addresses not only Jesus’s first disciples, as in John 13:34–35, but all of John’s audience (1 John 2:7–10; 2 John 5). To “love one another” is what Jesus commanded “us” (1 John 3:23), in an immediate context in which “us” would seem to refer to all believers in Jesus Christ (3:14, 16, 18–24). In the same way, true believers have the Spirit living in them (3:24; 4:13), and just as Jesus said the Spirit would teach his followers all things (John 14:26), here the anointing teaches them concerning all things (1 John 2:20, 27). 64 John’s Gospel is meant to be more than exegeted intellectually; it summons those who attend to it to feed on Jesus, the bread of life, to crave him as our very source of life. 65
Someone may again object that such features are well and good for Jesus’s teachings, but they do not apply to the narratives about Jesus. John’s Gospel, however, uses Jesus’s relationship with the Father as a model for believers’ relationship with God (John 10:14–15). Although referring less explicitly to the Gospel, 1 John also invites its audience to use Jesus’s behavior as a model: if we claim to abide in him, we should walk just as he walked (1 John 2:6).
Such observations cannot be limited to the Fourth Gospel. Most Lukan scholars believe that Luke, the one evangelist who includes a full sequel to his Gospel by a story about early Christian mission, deliberately parallels members of the church in the second volume, Acts, with Jesus in the first; the parallels appear quite extensive. 66 Moreover, the second volume’s opening description of the first volume as narrating “all that Jesus began to do and teach” may indicate his continued working among his followers in the second volume. 67 The Spirit given to empower the first witnesses (Acts 1:8) is given to all believers (2:38–39), for the assigned work is not finished. The second volume’s mission is open-ended, so that the mission to the nations continues. 68 Luke presents Jesus as a model (Luke 22:27); Acts also presents Paul as one (Acts 20:35). As noted above, ancient audiences expected to learn from narratives. Scholars may read biblical texts purely for information, but Christians (whether they are scholars or not) also read them for edification. Again, as Paul said, the Scriptures were “written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement given by the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom 15:4).
Association plays a major role in human memory. While undisciplined free association often makes inappropriate links, association is inevitable and sometimes helpful. When we have encountered God in various ways through studying different texts, those associations will be triggered when we think of such texts. That is, a disciplined life of spiritual formation in connection with Scripture can yield cumulative insights by evoking a range of past spiritual experiences as we travel through Scripture again. (Bible training often separates us from those earlier experiences when those experiences built on misunderstanding of biblical texts, so it is ideal to learn to read texts in a way faithful to their message early in our spiritual development.) In this way, Scripture becomes a contact point for our relationship with God and useful for spiritual formation. Trusting God’s sovereignty and/or the Spirit’s leading can also invite us to particularly profitable associations, including analogies for our lives and ministries.
Experiential Reading Is Biblical
Those of us who seek to hear and translate the biblical message for the church recognize both its historical character and how we can learn from it by appropriate analogy.
Today we look back and understand, even with some OT support, that Jesus was a peaceful Messiah at his first coming. Sometimes we even criticize his contemporaries for not recognizing it in the OT (Isa 11:6–10 [but cf. 11:4]; Zech 9:9–10 [but cf. 9:1–8]). Yet there were a range of prophecies about the Messianic age and the work of the Messiah, and there was little way to discern securely what was literal from what was figurative, what pertained to a first coming as opposed to a second coming, and so forth. A reader before the first coming would not readily discern even that there would be two comings.
Early Christians learned the right texts from Jesus (see Luke 24:25–27, 44–45), and from what they found fulfilled in Jesus. In other words, they read the text in light of their experience of Jesus, which fit too well and was too divine to be an accident or a fabrication. Their experience helped them sort through a range of prophecies to understand how they fit together. Subsequent discussion in this book will turn to this issue in greater detail (see Part V, especially chapter 16).
When those schooled in Scripture criticized the faith of a man who based his faith on his experience, he could respond only, “Once I was blind, but now I see,” and deconstruct the inconsistency of their arguments (John 9:25, 31–33). Such responses did not move the arrogant, but the man’s experience with Jesus was undeniably genuine. Granted, others will sometimes challenge our experience by citing counterexperience (e.g., Exod 7:11–12; 2 Kgs 18:33–35). Providing answers to strengthen faith and refute objections is a valid ministry (Luke 21:15; Acts 18:28; Titus 1:9). Nevertheless, God does reveal truth to people in encounters such as happened repeatedly in Jesus’s ministry; to fail to heed such experiences, which do fit a larger biblical context, is to miss God visiting his people.
Those concerned about the dangers of leaving such an experiential approach unfettered are of course right to be concerned. 69 But when experience is incontrovertibly divine and remains consistent with Scripture and with the character of experience in Scripture, it equips the experiencer with fresh, legitimate questions with which to search the Scriptures. As is often pointed out, Peter’s vision in Acts 10 overturns centuries of practice already based on Scripture. 70 This experience did have external evidence that guaranteed that it transcended more than personal belief: it was confirmed through Cornelius’s independent vision and through God sovereignly imparting his Spirit to these Gentiles. That is, Peter’s revelation cannot readily be explained as purely subjective. Of course, other factors also supported this change in the church’s theology and practice, but most of these had to do with the new experience of Jesus. Between the first and second comings, we are not having the same kind of new experience of Jesus (the incarnation is once for all), but we do continue to have experiences that help us understand our life with Christ.
Moreover, not only our subjective but also our objective resources are limited. There are many problems we cannot resolve exegetically, as any honest exegete will tell you. We often can discern enough to refute some subjective claims to revelatory interpretations of texts. Scripture is already revelation and offers us an objective grid through which we can evaluate other interpretive claims. Personal experiences of texts, where the Spirit may apply the wording or message in some ways, may be unique to the individual and do not determine or necessarily reveal the canonical meaning of the text. Nevertheless, there is clearly much meaning that has been lost to exegesis because we no longer understand particular aspects of the language, culture, or experience of the biblical writers. If we are to live in Christ as they were, we need what we can understand from Scripture, but we also need to be willing to live in and depend on Christ as they did.
The fruit of the Spirit, expected for all believers, is experiential, emotive and behavioral: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, and the rest. As already noted, one cannot read the psalms the way they were meant to be heard without embracing the emotion in them. Emotion, then, is not foreign to Scripture (which attributes emotions in some sense even to God), even if it is so to what some of us would consider the ideal, detached researcher. In contrast to some reading strategies considered more sophisticated and respectable, early Pentecostals, many of whom were not from the same social classes as respected academicians of the era, were not ashamed to embrace emotion. 71 They could enter texts with feeling, not just by cerebral dissection of grammar. (My binary contrast here is meant to underline the point graphically, though it may overstate the actual dichotomy, especially on the academic side.)
Of course, we are not meant to replicate today every kind of experience in Scripture. Clearly some events were once-for-all: obviously the angelic promise that Mary will conceive a child by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:31–35) cannot double as a promise to any reader that they will also have a virgin birth. Nevertheless, we can learn from Mary’s example; she receives God’s message and submits to the Spirit and God’s call as a “female servant” (δούλη ) of the Lord (1:38; cf. 1:48). The next time we hear this same Greek term—its only other use in the NT—is toward the beginning of Luke’s second volume, where all God’s people are male and female servants empowered by the Spirit (Acts 2:18). Mary’s submission to the Spirit offers a model of discipleship for all of us as we also submit to the reign of God’s Spirit in our lives.
Likewise, some scholars emphasize that the lengthy narratives about David appear in the Bible only because he would become king over Israel, and eventually, in God’s larger purpose, progenitor of our eternal king, the Messiah Jesus. These scholars are surely correct; we do not get such detailed accounts concerning most prophets in Scripture, even if some may have walked closer to God than David did. David served a special role that commanded ancient Israelites’ special interest. His past kingdom and God’s promises to him offered a hope for the future kingdom.
But this approach does not exclude us from discovering personal lessons from David’s life. Of course, we must do this in a disciplined way; someone who tries to be a hero like David without David’s call may face surprising defeat. His nephew Asahel tried to be a hero, perhaps like his uncle David or his brother Joab. In so doing, however, he simply brought about his own death, despite his athletic prowess (2 Sam 2:18–23). We must remember that when David confronted Goliath, he did so trusting that God would defend his honor (1 Sam 17:26), and also because David had just received a specific promise from God about his destiny (16:1, 13). David would face his own testing soon enough, learning, as did Sarah, and Joseph, and others, that God fulfills his promises, but not always as quickly as we might expect. The lessons we learn about God’s faithfulness, however, apply to any calling; so also the lessons that God’s calling is often costly, that his blessing matters more than what others count as strength (17:33), and so forth.
Yet we also learn even from David’s actions as a character. Obviously David is not always a positive example (cf. 2 Sam 11:1–27), but his positive acts of faith are. They fit a pattern of positive examples in biblical narratives, and are explicitly hailed by the ancient collector of the material in Samuel-Kings (all a single, though multivolume, work) as a positive role model for his successors (e.g., 1 Kgs 11:33, 38; 15:3, 5, 11; 2 Kgs 14:3; 16:2; 18:3; 22:2). Other writers agreed (2 Chr 28:1; 29:2; 34:2). Likewise, the writer of Hebrews explicitly cites David as an example of faith from whom we can (selectively) learn (Heb 11:32; cf. Mark 2:25; Rom 4:7–8).
Early Pentecostals, like many readers in times of spiritual renewal, understood themselves as part of the continuing biblical narrative. They looked to biblical narratives not simply for information about the past, interesting as that may have been, but for truths about how God continues to work with human agents. They read devotionally, seeking to experience God in the text.
Reading our experiences in light of the Bible, and taking them into account when we read the Bible, is not a practice limited to early Pentecostals. Provided that our reading flows from the authentic message given in Scripture (see Part III), experiential reading is inevitable, desirable, and biblical.