Abstract

Shared experiences of the Spirit shape Pentecostal understandings of the Bible and remain essential to any articulation of their doctrine of Scripture as Pentecostals identify their own story with those recorded in the biblical texts. This grounding in shared experience results in being at home with a narrative rather than an exclusively propositional or rational articulation of theology. The dynamic conversation between the hearer and the biblical text, facilitated by the revelatory participation of the same Spirit, minimizes the hermeneutical distance between the two, so that an ongoing debate among Pentecostal scholars is the relative contribution of past (scripture) and present (prophecy) revelation. Negatively, Evangelicalism and Word of Faith teaching have shifted Pentecostal focus away from the Spirit’s ongoing revelation, while postmodern readings deny a unifying metanarrative. Positively, Pentecostalism’s globalization offers a diversity of Spirit experiences requiring Pentecostals to rethink the place of scripture as a source of their theology.