1.3 Pentecost After the Apostolic Era

[Melissa Smyth]

God is always at work and is continuing to move and meet and work through people! It is encouraging to see that, even though our culture changes we do things differently in different times, God is still the same and that the Holy Spirit continues to meet each of us and each group of people where they are at and point us towards Jesus and the redemption and new creation He is bringing!

[Aidan]

What stands out to me is that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a “Pentecostal” distinctive, it is a Christian distinctive. While we as Pentecostals champion the work of the Spirit in our theology and spirituality, we are only the latest in a long tradition of believers who have discovered the joyful and ecstatic experience of being filled with and empowered by the Spirit of God. The Baptism of the Spirit is for the whole church – past, present, and future!

[Zach]

What stands out to me is that although the revivals of the early 1900’s (Azusa Street, Wales etc.) brought back or kicked off a modern movement into the restoration of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit into what would be mainstream again (and many paid a steep price to bring it into mainstream Christianity again), this restoration so to speak was not from nothing. There was always a place for the Baptism and renewing work of the Spirit, and God always had this testimony and experience in his church, even if it was costly, fringe, and on what many consider the periphery of most of the church age. God is faithful, and as Jesus said, the gates of hell that tried to deny and stop the Spirit’s presence and power by substituting His fullness for ritual, tradition, and political appointments, did not prevail over the whole church and never will!

[Anna]

What stands out to me the most is that God never stopped pouring His Spirit out on a hungry world. His plans and purposes, set in motion on the day of Pentecost, to empower His people to do His work have prevailed throughout history. Signs and wonders are still God’s ways of speaking to the lost and He provides a way to meet the needs of His children through all the manifestations of the Spirit. God’s mission has always been to seek and save the lost. In order to fulfill this mission, God pours out His Spirit on His servants – those who diligently seek Him – and gives them supernatural powers which draw people’s attention toward the God of the universe. He did it at Pentecost, He does it today, and He will continue to pour out His Spirit on His servants till Jesus comes back.