Quizzes
Pentecost After the Apostolic Era
Holy Spirit at Work
God's Spirit is still at work in our world
There has been evidence of the Holy Spirit poured out in all ages and times, at least somewhere in the body of Christ, since the time of the Apostles!
Healings, exorcisms, and validating signs and wonders continue to be experienced in the church. Just as miracles and wonders added to the credibility of the first-century apostles, so they continue to draw unbelievers into the Christian fold
After the Apostolic era, does it seem other Christians witnessed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit?
Even Augustine, who died a full 400 years after Christ and even today remains the most highly regarded Christian theologian of the early church, talked about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the reality of the spiritual gifts. Through the middle ages, many well-respected Christian monks and mystics lived their Christian lives with this assumption as well. Even in the more recent centuries, just before the rise of “Pentecostalism” in the 20th century, history records many revivals that were a result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and included the use of spiritual gifts and speaking in tongues.
Test Yourself
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Talk it Through
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1.3 Pentecost After the Apostolic Era
In this brief overview of the evidence that the Holy Spirit has been poured out all throughout history, what stands out to you the most? What does it make you think about God’s providence? What does it suggest to you about how God’s mission in the world?
Reflect in a paragraph.
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36 Replies
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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!
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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.
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During the ages, whenver there was a need for a revival, God always manifest his Holy Spirit in a tangible way, more recently, Asbury University in February 2023
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It is so evident to me through this brief overview that God desires to meet with his children and impart his spirit. In every age across the world God met people where they were at and filled them with his spirit. He is a gracious and loving God who so desires relationship that he tangibly meets us rather than demanding blind faith in a distant god.
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