Once the outcasts of religious society, Pentecostals now represent the fastest-growing form of Christianity in the entire world. And based on recent statistics, a renewed emphasis on church planting among many of the largest charismatic denominations may explain why.
According to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Life, Pentecostals make up more than 25 percent of all Christians. This group also accounts for more than 8 percent of the world’s total population. And the numbers continue to grow as charismatic church planters forge into new territory.
“The healing crusades with Oral Roberts and Reinhard Bonnke have been a major part of the growth of Pentecostalism,” explains Vinson Synan, dean of the School of Divinity at Regent University. “And the Pentecostals have strong leadership, planting churches everywhere in the world.”...
R. K. Borill wrote: 1 hour ago Michael Hranek from Endicott, New York writes:
R. K. Borill Hi! R.K.
Thanks for the post back. The point I was attempting to make is that it is fairly easy to paint all Pentecostals with such a wide brush that we might might fail to be thankful for those God uses in the Salvation of the Lost (like David Cloud)
And ignore the reality we so need to watch that we twist the gospel up to those we love and care about and long to see saved, as some non-Pentecostals have done.
Please don't take offense with me that I don't join in on (in my words) condemning all Pentecostals because of the errors and heresies of many in that movement, because right now I am more concerned with us Baptists getting the plank out of our own eye first (for example a hearbreaking move towards Rome, as just one)
1 hour ago Michael Hranek from Endicott, New York writes:
Somethings that can be very clear despite areas of controvesy.
Now the way some Calvinists/Reformed twist things up it is sometimes amazing that anybody comes to Salvation with heavy handed 5 pointers discouraging people from crying out to God to save them because that might be DIY Salvation.
R. K. Borill, writes: Interesting that you come close to but incomplete definition of the gospel and then launch into an attack of Calvinism when I didn't even mention it. Isn't this a fallacious argument?
R. K. Borill, 4 wrote: That's precisely the point Mike; how can we say men are "being saved" under false doctrine or lies when to be saved is to believe the truth. This by definition makes truth absolutely essential for the salvation of anyone.
R. K. Borill The Bible is the Word of God, Truth Jesus Died for our sins according to the Scripture Repent and Believe in Him to save you from your sins.
Somethings that can be very clear despite areas of controvesy.
Now the way some Calvinists/Reformed twist things up it is sometimes amazing that anybody comes to Salvation with heavy handed 5 pointers discouraging people from crying out to God to save them because that might be DIY Salvation.
Michael Hranek wrote: Poppy5 Thanks, but I am still more concerned with the drift, downgrade, error and false teaching or whatever you might want to call it among (quote) Baptists in our day than I am about how wrong or not Pentecostals might be. Where they by the grace of God are seeing men saved, praise God. For example David Cloud here on SermonAudio a precious Independent Fundamentalist Baptist testifies he was saved through the ministry of an old timey Pentecostal man. After all when all is said and done. Ye must be born again.
That's precisely the point Mike; how can we say men are "being saved" under false doctrine or lies when to be saved is to believe the truth. This by definition makes truth absolutely essential for the salvation of anyone.
Michael Hranek wrote: For example David Cloud here on SermonAudio a precious Independent Fundamentalist Baptist testifies he was saved through the ministry of an old timey Pentecostal man.
I was very blessed to listen to David's conversion through the ministry of a Pentecostal. I wonder how many electioneers would have given the hitching hobo several days transport across states, and witnessed to him of Jesus Christ and his power to save. Just sayin'.
Poppy5 wrote: Mike, Here is a website essay which may help you to see what I am talking about. http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=30
Poppy5 Thanks, but I am still more concerned with the drift, downgrade, error and false teaching or whatever you might want to call it among (quote) Baptists in our day than I am about how wrong or not Pentecostals might be.
Where they by the grace of God are seeing men saved, praise God.
For example David Cloud here on SermonAudio a precious Independent Fundamentalist Baptist testifies he was saved through the ministry of an old timey Pentecostal man.
After all when all is said and done. Ye must be born again.
Michael Hranek wrote: R. K. Borill Seeing you are from Louisiana the stomping grounds of Jimmy Swaggart I can feel a bit where you might be coming from. Yet when you mention the RCC Pope etc. in our present time pretty much all evangelical denominations, even Presbyterian ones have a sickening leaning to Rome. BUT all this is not the point, Jesus Christ as He really is, as God Himself reveals Him to us in Scripture is. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, mighty to save and we who are born again of the Spirit of God have come to known Him in the new birth and can indeed growing in a real solid Biblical and experiencial knowledge of Him as we grow in Holiness and the obedience of faith. And I will thank God for my brothers and sister in Christ who are so doing. adding IMHO as believers we have a real danger if we imagine we've got Biblical Christianity all figured out and become prideful and unloving to others, instead of desiring their salvation as more important than our opinion of things, even if we are right.
Mike, Here is a website essay which may help you to see what I am talking about. http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=30
R. K. Borill wrote: The Pentecostals are no more than the left handed court jesters and magicians of the Pope. Like him they walk by sight and not by faith; it won't be long before they worship the image of the beast.
R. K. Borill Seeing you are from Louisiana the stomping grounds of Jimmy Swaggart I can feel a bit where you might be coming from.
Yet when you mention the RCC Pope etc. in our present time pretty much all evangelical denominations, even Presbyterian ones have a sickening leaning to Rome.
BUT all this is not the point, Jesus Christ as He really is, as God Himself reveals Him to us in Scripture is. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, mighty to save and we who are born again of the Spirit of God have come to known Him in the new birth and can indeed growing in a real solid Biblical and experiencial knowledge of Him as we grow in Holiness and the obedience of faith.
And I will thank God for my brothers and sister in Christ who are so doing.
adding
IMHO as believers we have a real danger if we imagine we've got Biblical Christianity all figured out and become prideful and unloving to others, instead of desiring their salvation as more important than our opinion of things, even if we are right.
The Pentecostals are no more than the left handed court jesters and magicians of the Pope. Like him they walk by sight and not by faith; it won't be long before they worship the image of the beast.
Jim Lincoln wrote: Michael Hranek, if you read some of John MacArthur's writings
Jim Lincoln, I don't care to follow John MacArthur. Having read some of this very scholarly gentleman, and it was his (in my words) belittling of the immeasurable importance of the blood of Christ along with an interview where he gives his 'testimony' and other things that seemed out of step with Scripture (even though much of what he says is in step with the Bible) that did this.
Now as to Pentecostals they often exalt the immeasurable importance of the shed blood of Christ. And often have a passionate love for people, even the rejects of society knowing of the desperate need of all people (sinners) have of being saved and born again of the Spirit of God that I simply wanted to comment on.
And wherever this has contributed to people genuinely saved, repenting of their sins and coming to love Jesus Christ for dying for their sins on the Cross, willingly shedding His own Blood there for their salvation I have to thank God.
BTW we baptist-type believers ought to demonstrate a like passionate love for the Savior and the people all around us who will perish in hell, unloved and unwarned unless someone cares about them as Christ does.
Jim Lincoln wrote: You can say that Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses have an interest in some of the downtrodden, but what they are introducing these people to isn't Christianity.
It's a very sobering thought, that the sinner, no matter whether he is lying in the gutter or managing a local bank, is in a very perilous state, being surrounded by a multifaceted christendom, most of which will deceive him. What is even more sobering is that genuine Christianity seems to have lost heart for the conversion of precious souls. If WE have the message by which souls can be brought from death into life, and from enslavement to Satan into the glorious liberty of the children of God, it behoves us to make the proclamation of this message the very first priority. And I don't mean preaching the gospel at every Sunday Evening Service, good though that is (for the saints), I mean doing what the Lord Jesus said, to take the gospel out to the sinner, no matter where he is found.
And let not the doctrine of election lull you off to sleep; it was never designed to have that effect.
Michael Hranek, if you read some of John MacArthur's writings you'll see that he stated that while some charismatics are Christians, the movement isn't. You can say that Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses have an interest in some of the downtrodden, but what they are introducing these people to isn't Christianity. There is so much to the Pentecostal/charismatic movement that is anti-Christian, q.v., Are Experiences a Valid Source of Truth? that creates a charismatic chaos.
One cannot fault many Catholics on carrying out good social work, and aimed at the poverty-stricken classes. But does it hold any weight with God? No.
jpw wrote: interesting contrast from "spiritual gifts were only given to the Apostles" to "But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." 1Cor12:7, KJV
#1. The author in the first quote was speaking of the "revelatory" and "sign" gifts. The 1 Cor 12.7 reference is to all spiritual gifts.
Of course comparing apples and pears produces an apparent contradiction.
#2. 1 Cor 12.7 does not actually say that "revelatory"/"sign" gifts were given to all. You would be reading that in.
#3. In fact 1 Cor 12.7 does not even imply that supernatural gifts were possessed by every person. In context the verse would simply mean that every person has some gift/function given by the Spirit. But even in this one would be missing the main thrust of the verse viz. "to profit withal"!! Not for show, or impressing someone!
Among some Pentecostals there is often a wonderful love for the riff raff and outcasts of society and a yearning to see them saved, born again of the Spirit of God that is all too often grieveously missing among the more 'dignified' denominations, who don't want those kinds of people spoiling their churches.
I think so far we are all basically in agreement about the fact that there are some Some Gifts Not Present Today.
the writer of the article was wrong in calling it, "another form of Christianity," but is rather another form of heresy. There are many anti-Christian ideas in the charismatic chaos that has been created, e.g., such as a lack of Proper Biblical Interpretation that the Pentecostal suffers from.
San Jose John wrote: There really hasn't been any need for tongues or apostles since the church was established and the Bible was completed back in the 1st century. I tend to see miracles, sign-gifts, and apostolic leadership as scaffolding on a building under construction. Once the building is complete the scaffolding is no longer needed, and greatly interferes with the beauty of the completed building until it is removed.
If we are to be scriptural, they were the foundation of the church Eph 2.20
There really hasn't been any need for tongues or apostles since the church was established and the Bible was completed back in the 1st century.
I tend to see miracles, sign-gifts, and apostolic leadership as scaffolding on a building under construction. Once the building is complete the scaffolding is no longer needed, and greatly interferes with the beauty of the completed building until it is removed.
COMMENTS | 
lisa from wales: "the only person i know who used the book of enoch without being..."
