What Are Pentecostal Beliefs?
What Are Pentecostal Beliefs?
Pentecostal Christianity is one of the least understood Christian denomination. Most of what people know about “Pentecostals” (as they are called) is surface — the women wear very modest clothing, never cut their hair, etc.
Pentecostals get a bad wrap probably because the faith started (and flourishes in) low income parts of the country. Besides that obvious obstacle, they have a very strict view of Christianity which requires them to dress and act a certain way.
Though there are half a billion Pentecostals around the world, this faith is basically looked over by most Christians.
Pentecostals tend to “stick together”, most likely due to the rigorous nature of their spiritual system. But what do Pentecostals believe?
Basic Pentecostal Beliefs
The word Pentecost refers to a kind of spiritual “baptism” by a figure known as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is Christianity’s vision of the spiritual aspect of God — whereas there is God the Father and God the Son (Jesus Christ of Nazareth), the spiritual embodiment of the Christian deity is called the Holy Spirit. “Pentecostal Baptism” refers to a spiritual change that takes place internally, and is seen as a gift from God.
A big part of Pentecostal worship is speaking in tongues. The Christian Bible makes a few references to this practice (in which a believer is briefly given the gift of speaking in God’s own language) but most Christian denominations do not consider it an active part of their worship. Pentecostal Christians speak in tongues quite often, and consider it as much a part of their worship as any other. Speaking in tongues can be quite a sight for the uninitiated — there is often much weeping and moaning and there can even be physical changes to a person while they are in their tongue trance.
Pentecostal Sacred Texts
The Bible is pretty much the only text needed for the Pentecostal Christian church. Pentecostals take a different view of the Bible than do most other Christians, reading it literally and believing it is the holy word of God himself. Some Christians are happy to think of the Bible as literature or as a kind of guidance, but pretty much a flawed book. Pentecostals believe that every word of the Bible is true, and they act on this belief.
Because of their belief that the Bible is literally true, the Pentecostal church is full of foot-washing, public repentance of sins, speaking in tongues, and many other activities that most Christians don’t perform.
Pentecostal Christianity is a growing faith — the church holds massive “revivals” or prayer meetings all over the world with the intention of bringing more people into their fold, spreading the teaching of Holy Spirit baptism, and increasing their numbers on a global scale. While many people don’t understand Pentecostalism, the faith itself seems to not care one bit what the world thinks. For more info on Pentecostalism, check out this page from SpiritualAbuse.org.
This post is part of a series of articles about Religious Beliefs. The other posts in this series are:
- Where Are Buddhism Beliefs?
- What Are Hinduism Beliefs?
- What Are Catholic Beliefs?
- What Are Christian Beliefs?
- What Are Jewish Beliefs?
- What Are Muslim Beliefs?
- What Are Confucianism Beliefs?
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 5:59 am and is filed under Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Actually Some Pentecostal Are Like That, But Not In My Church, The People Who Are That Strict Are The Ones Who Always Look In The Old Testiment ! But Times Change .
Times may have CHANGED BUT GOD HAS NOT
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
This is a load of rubbish
I go to a Pentacostal church but our pastor is not strict out clothing or how you look. its our view that God dosent care what you have on your back when you enter his house. and yes they do speak in tongues ive only seen it a couple of times and usally when someone is worshipping with all they have does the holy spirit cause them to speak in tongues. and its true we dont really care what everyone thinks of us we keep our eyes on God and Jesus at all times however our paster will ask everyone including other chuch leaders to pray for us and with us. so we dont just stick to ourselfs like some cult we actually love it when other churchs come to praise God with us. if you have a Pentacostal church where you live you should go give it a try you really feel the holy spirit!
God is very creative indeed, but when he thought of Pentecost, he was definitely showing his HOLY wild side!!! Praise Jesus!
Definently a helpful site! I am trying to convince my dad to let me bacome pentecostal
your Dad can not determine your faith, only you can decide that
i use to be a pentecostal christian, but left it! i’ve discovered something disturbing in there doctrine! a few years ago i found out that im hebrew (jewish) and learned that our messiah is not christian, he is hebrew and he kept the commandments and jewish holidays! and studying the scriptures for 4 years now i discovered that he did not did away the Yahweh’s(G-D) commandments or his holy convocations! The christian churhes are still under the Roman Empire church! Yahshua the real name of our messiah died and resurrected on a jewish feast! the holy spirit came on a jewish feast! the messiah’s return will be on a jewish feast!
shalom!
Grace + Faith . Jesus did all that was needed for my salvation. I didn’t earn it, if it had a price it’s not grace. I didn’t deserve grace, if your worthy you wouldn’t need salvation,. Grace of Jesus is to Believe that He died, And is the first born of the resurrected. Faith is taking God at his Word. Many believe “in” God But few believe God.
I have been in an out of a lot of different religions. I am currently attending a UPC church. I want to be saved and receive the Holy Ghost but I am not sure that I understand.
I read the clothes part and that’s kind of the opposite. I’m pentacostal and we don’t really spend a lot of time at all on clothes. A lot of wear jeans to Sunday service. We do believe in speaking in tongues. I’ve met some of the best people in my church and the people who speak in tongues are no different. I love my pentacostal church and I find nothing weird about it
It is most unfortunate, if not downright deliberate and misleading, that the link your cite (SpiritualAbuse.org) takes one to a website that gives information only on a tiny splinter group of the Pentecostal movement (the so-called “oneness Pentecostals”, or “Jesus Only” group). This is an aberrant group that broke off from mainline Pentecostalism many years ago, and does not represent the vast majority of us. Most of us mainliners, Assemblies of God and some Church of God groups, highly question their “Christianity.” We don’t consider them true Christians, much less true Pentecostals.
grew up i a penecostal church,then parents switched to catholic church.Thianking of going back to penticcostal church.
It is not a trance but rather the receiving of a gift and instead of criticizing one should try and receive it.
This is not accurate.The way you make us seem is as if we’re snobs. We are not all strict and we don’t have to dress or act a certain way. It is some human nature to act and dress appropriate which we do and not only Pentecostals. Also we do cut our hair. I don’t know where you got that information from.
I’ve been speaking in tongues since I was a child. Speaking in tongues is the perfect prayer from your soul to our heavenly father. Your thoughts may not know what you truely need but your soul does. Our purpose in life is to be of service to others, “help each other” there is no greater happiness.
Why don’t pentacostals celebrate easter and christmas