What Makes Us Pentecostal?

What marks us as a Pentecostal church? Is it that we clap our hands to up tempo songs? It it that we lift our hands when we sing worship songs? Is it our song service that makes us Pentecostal?

Are we Pentecostal because we stand on a busy street corner and preach? Is it street preaching that makes us Pentecostal?

Is it that we focus on evangelism and soul winning that we are Pentecostal? It it because we make disciples, and we plant churches, that we are Pentecostal?

There is one thing that makes us Pentecostal and that is what happened on the day of Pentecost.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. We still need to all be filled with the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. Speaking in tongues for prayer or for worship is what defines a Pentecostal church. Everything else comes after that singular event. It was important to them, it ought to be important to us.

"Jesus answered and said to them, go and tell John the things which you hear and see. The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them." Mat.11:4-5.  

We put at the top of our list what Jesus put 6th (or last) on His list. Those are things that Jesus did, not different aspects of a sinner's life. Healing is still needed today.

If evangelism is the most important thing, then we are an Evangelical church, not a Pentecostal church. Evangelicals do not believe in anything supernatural except the saving of a soul. They do not speak in tongues. They do not heal the sick. They do not deliver the oppressed. They are more Sadducees than Christians.

There are many things printed in red in my Bible.  We do well to follow all of those important things. Not just the exciting ones.

In Acts, the tongues of fire come before the eager feet and multitudes saved. We need to tarry until we are filled. Then we can go ye.