4 Unified Meaning 2: United Pentecostal Church

Our pre-modern example of how individuals and groups create a unified meaning to the biblical texts comes to us from the United Pentecostal Church. As with most small Christian groups with particular ideologies, the UPC has a handfull of biblical texts that serve as the controlling texts for its interpretive paradigm. Acts 2 is probably the most important, but selections from Acts 19 and Titus 2 also serve very important roles.

We start with two very important "definitions" for Acts 2. First, the UPC equates the Spirit filling of Pentecost and all the Spirit fillings of Acts with initial conversion. This is not an unreasonable position to take, given that by far most New Testament scholars would agree. However, the UPC then takes the fact that the early Christians speak in tongues on this occasion and conclude that a person who truly receives the Spirit will speak in tongues (the first major distinguishing mark of the UPC paradigm).

So with this controlling text and controlling idea in hand, the UPC proceeds to assume that tongues are always involved whenever the New Testament speaks of receiving the Holy Spirit, even though it is only in Acts and 1 Corinthians that tongues are mentioned in the New Testament.

The group also notes that baptism in the book of Acts is always "in the name of Jesus Christ." This becomes the controlling idea in the second major distinguishing mark of the UPC paradigm, namely, that one must not be baptized in the name of the Trinity, but in the name of Jesus only. So we turn to Acts 19:1-7 where Paul has a group of "disciples" rebaptized because they have not been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. We note that they speak in tongues when they are baptized in the name of Jesus.

Two other concepts/texts of interest are 1) the fact that God is one and 2) Titus 2:13, which refers to Jesus as "our great God and Savior." They put these concepts together and conclude that there are not three persons in some Trinity, but that there is only one person, God in the Old Testament who becomes Jesus who becomes the Holy Spirit.

These are the controlling ideas and texts in the UPC paradigm. We see immediately that this group has paid a good deal of attention to Scripture to get to this point. No one could accuse this group of a liberal view of Scripture--they have formulated their beliefs on the basis of a close reading of the words of the text. This reading--baptism in the name of Jesus only resulting in speaking in tongues--is the normal science, the controlling ideas in their interpretive paradigm.

But almost any interpretive paradigm will find "naughty data," in this case "naughty verses," that do not fit as easily into the paradigm as others. The UPC, like any church, has developed an ingenious set of coping strategies, "interpretive patches," if you would, that fit the anomalous data into the system.

So take Matthew 28:19: "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Now for the ingenious rejoinder: "But look, the word name is singular here, meaning that these are all the same person in three forms. And beside, this is the only reference in the NT like this, Acts consistently mentions baptism in the name of Jesus only."

OK, so what of 1 Corinthians 12:30: "All don't speak in tongues, do they?" This is a question expecting a negative answer. In other words, Paul's very point is that all Christians do not speak in tongues. Another ingenious rejoinder: "Ah but this passage is dealing with the gift of tongues. Everyone must have faith to be a Christian, but only a smaller number have the gift of faith. So with tongues. Tongues in Acts are the evidence of having the Holy Spirit. But some will have the gift of tongues over and above the basic evidence of the Spirit."

If you have ever dealt with someone from any sect like this one, you will know how well rehearsed their answers are to our common sense arguments. No one can accuse them of not paying the closest of detailed attention to the biblical text. No one can accuse them of having a low view of Scripture. Indeed, it is there so called "high" view of Scripture that keeps them from realizing that a good deal of the problem with their unified meaning is that it does not take into account that these books were not in fact part of a single book originally. Matthew, Acts, 1 Corinthians, and Titus were all written under different circumstances and can't be expected to formulate concepts or use language the same ways.

In any case, the UPC gives us a beautiful example of the way paradigms work with regard to the pre-modern creation of unified meaning in the text. A group or individual comes to have a controlling idea or text, usually as a result of cultural or sociological forces at work at the time of the groups inception. Then other biblical texts are integrated into the paradigm of the controlling concept. Problem verses are then ingeniously reinterpreted to fit. Paradigm revolutions are then the stuff of split offs. The UPC itself is the result of a paradigm shift out of the parent Assemblies of God group. And the Assemblies of God group is a slight paradigm shift from the original Azusa Street Pentecostals, who were a paradigm shift from the holiness revivals of the late 1800's, which were arguably a paradigm shift from Wesley and earlier Methodism, and so on.

Next post, how paradigms work with regard to the original meaning of biblical texts.