One of the early leaders in the Charismatic Movement was Father Bennett. We highlight a little bit of his experience concerning his quest concerning the Holy Ghost baptism in this recent post at Focus Bible College.

Dr. Patrick Vossen



Early in 1959, Bennett finally began to seek the “baptism” with the aid of a fellow Episcopal priest and a young couple in the church who had already received the experience. In an early morning home prayer meeting, hands were laid on Father Bennett as his friends prayed over him. His “nine o’clock in the morning” experience could be considered typical of the thousands that have occurred among the clergy in recent years:

I suppose I must have prayed out loud for about twenty minutes—at least it seemed to be a long time—and was about to give up when a very strange thing happened. My tongue tripped, just as it might when you are trying to say a tongue twister, and I began to speak in a new language!

Right away I recognized several things: first, it wasn’t some kind of psychological trick or compulsion. There was nothing compulsive about it.… It was a new language, not some kind of “baby talk.” It had grammar and syntax; it had inflection and expression—and it was rather beautiful.

In a short time, several members of St. Mark’s parish received the same experience. In their joy and exhilaration they began to use such typical Pentecostal expressions as “praise the Lord” and “hallelujah” in the church office and parish house. As word spread among the church members about the pastor’s strange new experience, some members of the vestry began to accuse him of fanaticism.

In order to quell false rumors and to answer questions circulating in the congregation, Bennett soon felt it necessary to tell his church about his experience of speaking with other tongues. Thus, on April 3, 1960, he shared his testimony in the three morning services of his church.

The reaction in the early morning service was “open and tender,” according to Bennett, but in the second service the “lid blew off.” In outrage, Bennett’s curate “snatched off his vestments, threw them on the altar, and stalked out of church crying: ‘I can no longer work with this man.’ ”

After the service concluded, outside on the patio, those who had set themselves to get rid of the movement of the Holy Spirit began to harangue the arriving and departing parishioners. One man stood on a chair shouting, “Throw out the damn tongue speakers.” After some members complained that “we’re Episcopalians, not a bunch of wild-eyed hillbillies,” the treasurer of the vestry called on Bennett to resign. Rather than cause disharmony in the congregation, the mild-mannered rector promptly resigned his parish, partly because he lacked enough understanding of the Pentecostal experience to defend himself. Thereupon the bishop sent a temporary priest to St. Mark’s armed with a firm letter to the parish officers forbidding any further tongues-speaking under church auspices.

Synan, Vinson. 1997. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. Second Edition. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

We now have the last audio portion of our study on The Ten Parables Of Jesus available for all our students, and friends of FBC. In this final installment you will hear a wonderful message of Grace that will leap of the pages of the Word.
​Enjoy and be blest.

Our next to last audio in our series on the Ten Parables Of Jesus is now available for your study. We trust it will minister to you in a special way.

Reverend Jorge Canepa and his wife are in Instanbul, Turkey and passed along to me a variety of pictures on there journey. Jorge has just finished his Master's in Theology here at Focus Bible College. Two of the pictures he sent were of the old Sophie Church which used to be just about the oldest church in Christendom. However, it has now become a Mosque as Turkey is now 90% Muslim. What a turnaround from what was a vibrant Eastern Roman Church and enclave of the Orthodox faith.

Here is a brief history of the church.

​ONCE A CHURCH, LATER A MOSQUE.Masterpiece Of The History Of Architecture:The Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque / Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi, with its innovative architecture, rich history, religious significance and extraordinary characteristics has been fighting against time for centuries, was the largest Eastern Roman Church in Istanbul. Constructed three times in the same location, it is the world’s oldest and fastest-completed cathedral. With its breathtaking domes that look like hanging in the air, monolithic marble columns and unparalleled mosaics, is one of the wonders of world’s architecture history. The sheer dazzling beauty of mosque with its magnificent play on space, light, and color provokes worship in the believer! Hagia Sophia pose on the ground of the first hill of Istanbul, precisely at the tip of the historic peninsula, surrounded by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn on three sides.
Today's Hagia Sophia (Turkish:Ayasofya, Latin: Sancta Sophia, Spanish: Santa Sofia, Russian:Собор Святой Софии, literally:Holy Wisdom or Divine Wisdom) is the third building constructed in the same place with a different architectural understanding than its predecessors. Hagia Sophia considered the embodiment of Byzantine Architecture and also said changed the history of architecture. By the order of Emperor Justinianos, it was built by Anthemios (mathematician) from Tralles (today's Aydin) and Isidoros (geometrician and engineer) from Miletos (today's Balat). The construction started in 532 and was completed in a period of five years and opened for worship in 537 with great ceremony. An earthquake swarm which hit the Constantinople from May 7,558 to following the years 546 and 557 were destructive. The dome of the Hagia Sophia collapsed and thousands of houses couldn't resist magnitude of quakes.
The Hagia Sophia and Byzantine city of Constantinople sacked and looted in April 1204 by the Venetians and the Crusaders on the Fourth Crusade which regarded as shocking betrayal amongst Christians. The crusader nobleman Baldwin of Flanders was crowned as emperor in Hagia Sophia, but most Byzantines refused to recognize him, and the empire fragmented into four small independent states.

Here is lesson 8 audio of our short courses series on " The Parable Of The Rich Fool. " We learn a lot from Luke on how to handle the subject of money, with the right attitude and heart.

GLAD TIDINGS HALL

(Evangelist Aimee Simple McPherson from her book " This is That: Personal Experiences Sermons And Writings " )

From the first meeting to the last the glory of God rested upon the people. The manifestations of the Spirit’s power increased daily, hungry souls came from far and near and were filled with good things from Father’s table. Crowds increased daily, and even though an extra gallery was built, the last meeting found the crowds standing clear out onto the sidewalk.

The way in which sinners rose to their feet in response to the altar call and came from the galleries and from various parts of the hall to the altar was a sight to warm the heart of any soul-winner. At the close of each preaching service the long prayer room would quickly fill from one end to the other with earnest seekers for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The prayers of seekers and workers went up with such unison and in such accord that their voices sounded like the rushing of many waters. Many were prostrated on the floor under the power of God while they received their baptism, others were filled with the Spirit while kneeling or standing upright on their feet, with hands and face upturned to heaven.

These after meetings ofttimes continued until five and six in the morning. Among the many baptized with the Holy Spirit during these meetings were two ministers, church members and a number from a nearby Salvation Army corps.

The Five Systems of Ethics

#1. Cultural ethics Morals are determined by popular opinion.
#2. Situation ethics Morals are determined by what appears to be most loving.
#3. Emotive ethics Morals do not exist; judgments of right or wrong are not valid because feelings are neither right nor wrong.
#4. Behavioral ethics Morals do not exist; all human conduct is the result of genetic makeup or environment.
#5. Biblical ethics Morals are determined by the Bible, the unchanging Word of God.
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“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”
(Colossians 2:8)

​The Focus Bible College Bible Conference scheduled for the 19th to the 21st has been postponed. We have had a variety of logistical prohibitions and difficulties we could not have foreseen. Our leadership is looking to find a date in October which would be deemed more suitable for the meetings in future.

​Pentecostalism arose as an identifiable movement in the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles in 1906. But there had been earlier rumblings. Most notable was the experience at Charles Fox Parham’s Bible college in Topeka, Kansas, in January 1901, where first Agnes Ozman and then others in the college experienced “spirit baptism with the evidence of tongues.” In the Azusa Street mission from 1906 to 1909, under the guidance of William Seymour, thousands came to have the experience of tongues, and many others were converted to the Christian faith. Large numbers were from other parts of the United States and from foreign countries. They took their testimony back to their home churches, and in many cases the new experience broke out in these new places, so spreading the movement internationally in a few short years.

As time passed and leaders such as Frank Bartleman, William Durham, E. N. Bell, Gaston Cashwell, and A. H. Argue began to reflect and eventually to write on the new movement, the conviction settled in that tongues was both an initial evidence of Spirit baptism and a spiritual gift. All Christians would not have the gift of tongues, but all Spirit-baptized Christians would definitely speak in tongues as initial evidence. In the early days there were divergent opinions among Wesleyan Pentecostals as to the place of sanctification as an identifiable experience in light of the new perspective on Spirit baptism with tongues. Some held to a three-stage process of salvation, sanctification, and then Spirit baptism. Methodist Asbury Lowery contended that since Christ was holy and yet sought and received an anointing from the Spirit, so Christians today must also be saved, sanctified (as an identifiable second experience of grace), and only then can they be Spirit baptized for empowerment.

Eventually, though, most Pentecostals would drop sanctification as an identifiable encounter, and opt for a two-stage understanding of salvation and Spirit baptism with the evidence of tongues as the biblical model. Stanley Horton ably defends the traditional Pentecostal interpretation of tongues as initial evidence of Spirit baptism in this book. That is not, though, the end of the story. Pentecostals today are embroiled in a debate over whether Paul’s theology of Spirit baptism is the same as Luke’s. Roger Stronstad raised this question a few years ago, and William and Robert Menzies have recently offered their opinion that Luke and Paul are not in full accord.

Dennis Bennett was pastor of a large Episcopalian congregation in Los Angeles in 1960. He began to meet for Bible study with some young couples in his church. Their studies eventually brought them to a Pentecostal experience, and Dennis Bennett began to speak in tongues. Pastor Bennett informed his congregation in April 1960 and was subsequently fired from his position, though he was called to pastor a congregation in Seattle shortly thereafter. Within months many people from mainline denominations were experiencing neo-Pentecostal renewal. At first their experiences followed the pattern of traditional Pentecostalism—Spirit baptism with the evidence of tongues. Two things happened. First, most of these people did not leave their denominations but stayed, often sharing their new perspective with others in their churches. Second, over time the new “Charismatics” began to shed some of the Pentecostal trappings, including the iron-clad necessity of speaking in tongues as initial evidence. Further, as the Charismatic movement further developed, many of its leaders called into question the whole issue of Spirit baptism as subsequent to conversion. It is safe to say today that Charismatics do not have a unified set of convictions of the timing of Spirit baptism, nor on the evidence for its having occurred. Larry Hart’s essay in this volume will make clear that there are various ways to formulate this position in the current discussion.
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The final approach is one that goes back, in some ways, to Augustine and his notion that Christians receive the full benefits of salvation at regeneration. This insight was not applied to the question of the timing of Spirit baptism until that issue came under dispute in the last 200 years. In response to the rise of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, Reformed scholars have addressed this question intensely, especially in the last half-century. John Stott, Richard Gaffin, Frederick Dale Bruner, and James D. G. Dunn have written works that are considered by many Evangelicals to be standard responses to the claims of both sacramentalists and advocates of a two-stage process of salvation. Though they differ with one another in some respects (Gaffin argues that the experience of Spirit baptism is not identifiable by the recipient, while Dunn claims it is), they hold in common that Spirit baptism happens at conversion-initiation, and that Paul’s theology of Spirit baptism is the same as that of Luke. This position is represented by Walter Kaiser’s essay in the present book.

( From Perspectives On Spirit Baptism: Five Views. By ​Colle, Ralph, Dunning, H. Ray, Hart, Larry, Horton, Stanley M., Kaiser, Walter C., Jr., Brand, Chad )