Romans 4:25 states that Christ was “delivered over to death for our transgressions but raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Christ was raised to life for our justification? Earlier in Romans 1:4, Christ is said to have been declared to be the Son of God at his resurrection “through the Spirit of holiness.” Christ’s resurrection occurs in the Spirit, at which point he is declared the favored Son. Was Christ justified in the Spirit? Indeed, he was, which is what 1 Timothy 3:15 tells us. This description of justification in Romans might sound strange to evangelical ears. Is not justification a legal declaration based solely on the righteousness won for us at the cross? How is justification then won for us “in the Spirit” at Christ’s resurrection to new life? Yet, this is precisely what Romans 1:4 and 4:25 require us to think. As Christ was “justified in the Spirit” as the Son of God at the resurrection (1 Tim. 3:15), so are we (Rom. 8:23). However, we can hear this word of justification in advance in the Spirit at the moment we are united with Christ by faith. Justified already in advance, we feel God’s acceptance in the embrace of the Spirit in union with Christ and communion in the Triune God. Paul thus argues in Galatians 3 that receiving the Spirit by grace through faith alone is proof positive that we are justified by grace through faith alone (Gal. 3:2, 3:14). Those who are justified are therefore also regenerated receiving by grace through faith “justification and life” (Rom. 5:18). Justification “by grace through faith” is also to be described as “by the Spirit through faith,” for the grace of God comes to us through the cross and also in the Spirit. That grace, according to Paul is “lavished on us,” a clear reference to the gift of the Spirit (Eph. 1:7-8).
Robert Mulholland’s foundational definition of spiritual formation as being, “The process of being formed in the Image of Christ for the sake of others,” hints at what Dallas Willard’s definition makes clear when he writes that it is “…the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.” The framing question is, “How is this focus on the inner life possible in a busy, driven, success-oriented culture?” This paper will argue that it is not only possible but that intentional partnership with the Holy Spirit in the institutional and individual formation of the inner life is essential if the people who are the Church are to be missionally effective in such a culture, transforming it from the inside out, having been enabled to resist conforming to its ways.
The book of Revelation calls the Church to patient endurance and ethical living while waiting for the return of Jesus Christ. The Church is not called to passive waiting but to active, ethical resistance against both spiritual and earthly powers. Revelation 17-18 uses the symbol of Babylon the Whore to represent Empire/worldly systems that are oppressive, exploitative, corrupt, and opposed to God and God’s people. The practices of Babylon are not ethical and are opposed to the ethics that God’s people should adhere to as members of the kingdom of God. In looking closely at the text of Revelation 17-18, we can see that the Church is called to separation and non-conformity, to prophetic witness and critique, to maintaining her purity and identity as the Bride of the Lamb, and, finally, to be fervent in eschatological hope and patience.
The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is having considerable influence on Christianity globally. The breadth of topics for researching NAR is too vast for this paper’s length. For delimitation purposes, this paper will survey the origins of NAR, selecting key historical moments and their significance to the emergence of NAR on the global scene. It will then seek to explain why this movement has had such influence over Global Pentecostalism, particularly in the Global South. Finally, it will offer several areas in which biblical and theological critique of NAR is necessary to sustain Global Pentecostalism’s continuing vitality.
This essay attempts to offer a theological explanation for the challenges surrounding prophecy in the Pentecostal tradition. The goal is to provide a grounding proposal for prophetic activity that can then be used to address prevailing problems and to offer guidelines for spiritual discernment and accountability. Existing attempts to resolve the various problems of prophetic ministry today often deal with either individual failures without assessing the underlying condition or reject prophecy prima facie without accounting for the conditions of prophetic performance. The former leads to selective attempts that assume a general responsibility of the prophet, while the latter rejects prophetic activity on the whole as unacceptable or restricted to the ancient world. In this essay, I argue that the day of Pentecost offers an important but often overlooked or misinterpreted understanding of prophecy: we assess the prophet initially through an aesthetic experience, that is, a behavioral evaluation of the conventional references surrounding the prophetic act that engages a range of affective, cognitive, emotional, perceptual, and psychophysiological processes. The kind of empirical aesthetics we can employ for a theology of prophecy is rooted not only in the perception of the conventional properties of the prophetic behavior but also in the aesthetic response evoked by those properties. More precisely, rather than the beautiful and sublime states typically measured as the norm in philosophical and theological aesthetics, Pentecost directs us to the inappropriate aesthetic state surrounding prophetic behavior. The essay is particularly interested in the physiology of attention and affection that emerges from the accusation of the crowd that the disciples are filled with new wine. In response, the presentation outlines an aesthetic reading of prophecy that takes seriously how intoxicated behavior both conveys and conceals God and the content of divine revelation.
The presentation begins with an account of the aesthetics of drunkenness operative in the ancient world that is indicative of the boundaries of prophetic behavior. This part outlines the social and cultural perceptions of drunkenness, especially intoxicated speech, and identifies the Christian response to the accusation. The second part offers a contrasting account of the disciples’ response and the proposal of an alternative aesthetics of prophecy. Important in this portrayal is the redemptive hermeneutic applied to the aesthetic judgment of the crowd: rather than rejecting the accusation of drunkenness, the apostle overaccepts the charge and reinterprets the prophetic behavior as a form of intoxication with the Holy Spirit. The concluding part of the presentation shows how the similarity of properties between drunkenness with wine and the intoxication with the Spirit provide the common ground for prophetic behavior and therefore the possibility for assessing and correcting its potential problems.
When the church ignores harmful spirits, the spirits do not disappear—they continue their work. Most people throughout history have believed that spiritual beings, some harmful, act in the material world. Yet much Western Christian theology dismisses such beliefs as superstitious, or asserts that Christians filled with the Holy Spirit enjoy unqualified protection. Experience teaches otherwise. This paper builds on the call of Rev. Dr. Hwa Yung for a recovery of the supernatural that restores deliverance from demons to its biblical place at the center of Christian practice. The paper offers historical context, identifies fears that constrain biblical understanding and practice, and explains exemplary approaches to ministering freedom. Historically, the Western church absorbed material-spiritual dualism from intellectual elites. Desiring respectability, church leaders ignored spirits because they feared disruptive physical manifestations by provoked spirits, challenges to institutional authority by maverick exorcists, injurious effects of abusive or sensationalist practices, and dangerous neglect of medical and psychological therapies. Although grounds for caution exist, there are proven models—indebted to experiences of Christians in the Global South—of loving, effective ministry. Rather than aspire to respectability, the church in Asia has an opportunity to lead the global church in ministering freedom with compassion, authority, and power.
Given the many competing and confusing claims today concerning grace, such as the so-called hyper-grace movements, I will propose a renewed Wesleyan-influenced Pentecostal theology of grace. The grace of God always prompts a response from those who receive it; therefore, God alone initiates a grace-filled relationship and calls us to respond positively by faithfully cooperating with God’s grace. A Wesleyan view of grace as synergistic will be compared with a Calvinistic Reformed monergistic perspective to provide further clarity. A Wesleyan Pentecostal would affirm that Grace has two aspects: it is unmerited favor and the Holy Spirit’s powerful presence at work in creation, especially within redeemed humanity. God’s grace enables persons to cooperate with God, but our works do not save us—God’s divine grace does. Additionally, I will highlight the importance of sacramental ordinances and how they shape us as Christ-followers, affirming that they are exceptional mediated opportunities to experience God’s grace directly. It is the Holy Spirit that sustains us throughout our journey.
Pentecostal Christianity has now emerged as the second largest Christian tradition in the world, if we include charismatic and independent Pentecostal Christians, now constituting two-thirds of a billion people around the world. Christian humanism is a movement of Christian benevolence and intelligence, with human flourishing that aligns with God’s transcendence as its end goal, that is sourced in Scripture and the entire history of the Christian tradition. Today, it can take on new forms, new wineskins among Pentecostal Christians in the late modern, globalized world. While the concept of a Christian humanism is especially rooted in early modern Western movements associated with the Protestant Reformation, especially the movement led by Erasmus of Rotterdam, it has been exemplified by figures throughout Christian history from many figures in the ancient church to Francis of Assisi in the medieval period to Mark and Huldah Buntain in modern times. The core ideas of a Pentecostal Christian humanism are already present in Pentecostal theology today, exemplified by the work of theologians such as Daniela Augustine, Ivan Satyavrata, Frank Macchia, and Amos Yong. Most of all, I interpret Jesus of Nazareth as modeling this way for us, through his wisdom and his compassion, his teachings and actions. This way, the way of Pentecostal Christian humanism, provides Pentecostals with a way forward that embodies a spiritual personalism that values human lives, each in their God-given holiness and eschews instrumentalizing, dehumanizing, and even violent ideas and ways in our world today. Pentecostal Christian humanism can rise up in Asia and around the world as a Christian social ethic of loving action that participates in God’s healing work in the world.
This paper deals with Spirit-empowerment and the transformation of Christianity in Africa. Spirit-empowered Christianity is now the representative face of Christianity on the continent, and this has global implications. The enchanted African Pentecostal/charismatic formular “in the power of the Holy Ghost” is commonly used in situations needing divine interventions. Not only is the growth and dynamism of contemporary Pentecostalism explained in terms of “the power of the Holy Ghost”, but also it is in that power that Pentecostalism could be said to have spread and impacted the world. This paper explores the explosion of African Pentecostal Christianity and how it is reshaping spirituality beyond the continent today.
How might a global Pentecostal conversation on theological education emanating from the Southeast Asian cultural milieu of Singapore unfold? Perhaps through a comparative theological dialogue between the apostolic teaching as recorded by St Luke and the “Great Learning,” a classic Neo-Confucian text. Here, West Asian first-century ecclesial educational endeavors are brought into cursory consideration with East Asian thinking developed over the last two millennia to ask what theological formation in the Spirit of Pentecost might look for the 21st-century global context.
At Pentecost, Jesus poured out the Spirit to lift eyes and hearts to him. Pentecostals are people who want to meet with Jesus; we don’t just want his gifts, we want the Giver. Yet there are two ways in the Pentecostal and Charismatic world that we can miss the Giver in the gift of his Supper. On the one hand, we can focus on the memorial and treat the Supper as only an historical reminder of an absent Lord; on the other hand, we can focus on the blessings and treat Communion as a quasi-magical mechanism for healing or some other gift. But the recovery of a Pentecostal sacramental theology helps guard us from either turning the Table into a mere object lesson or a superstition. We can remember Jesus in his presence and receive his blessings because we’re meeting with the one in whom all blessing is found, for we’re eating of a Supper that’s baptised in the Spirit and filled with the Saviour.
There is a resurgence of interest in classical Christian spirituality that is expressed in expanding readership across denominational streams, scholarly writing, academic degree programs, and parachurch organizations. In my first paper at the Asia Pentecostal Summit in November 2025, I explored the theological/metaphorical frameworks used by Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross who, among others in mystical theology, described the soul’s interior journey in what has come to be known as the Threefold Path—the Way of Purgation (Purification), the Way of Illumination, and the Way of Union. Though most Pentecostals do not self-identify within the mystical streams of Christianity, the origins of Pentecostalism at the turn of the twentieth century and subsequent renewal movements have demonstrated “mystical” accounts of fresh encounters with the Spirit. My aim in this paper is to explore contemporary writers who, having been influenced by mystical forbearers, integrate theology with psychological accents that help to explain more fully the believer’s inner, transformational journey toward Christlikeness. I will also explore contemplative, spiritual practices that have historically accompanied Christian spirituality, and are now being employed outside the traditional walls of monasteries.
The study of youth within Christian and Pentecostal scholarship has remained “data-rich but theory-poor,” trapped within a functionalist cage that treats adolescents primarily as objects of institutional retention or instruments for church growth. While we possess exhaustive social-scientific data on patterns of engagement and attrition, we lack a robust, systematic inquiry into adolescence as a unique site of Spirit-activity. This paper addresses that theological deficit by shifting the focus from a praxis of youth ministry (how to lead them) toward an ontology of youth after Pentecost (who they are in the Spirit). Drawing on the “all flesh” mandate of Pentecost in Acts 2 and situated within the conditions of liquid modernity, I propose the ontological category of the liminal prophet. This framework reframes the biological and social instability of adolescence not as a developmental deficit to be managed, but as a “perpetual Upper Room” – a sacred third space that mirrors the groaning of the Spirit (Romans 8). Arguing for a trialectic approach, the paper contends that a genuinely pneumatological theology of youth must interpret the “what” of social science and the “how” of pastoral praxis through the normative “why” of the Spirit’s work. Ultimately, this research calls the Pentecostal academy and church to move beyond “retention management” toward a spiritual partnership that recognises the liminality of youth as a vital gift, one that resists the church’s ossification into a static monument and helps sustain it as a living, breathing movement.
This presentation engages with the problems of prophetic ministry among Pentecostals today, including misleading prophetic declarations, syncretistic occult practices, and the abuse of prophetic authority and leadership. In response, this paper offers a theological critique of the prominent idea of the “prophethood of all believers” that stands at the root of prophetic ministry among Pentecostals. The paper aims at identifying a theological characterization of the prophet that explores the consistency of public expectations with the prophetic identity of Jesus and the material, physical, and social dimensions of the prophetic image at Pentecost. I begin by outlining the normative expectations of the prophet invested in the history of interpretation of Moses, then proceed with Jesus’ response to these expectations and his counter-portrayal of the prophet and conclude with a case study of prophetic behaviour in the church following the day of Pentecost. The results offer a model of prophecy that yields neither a triumphalist image of glorified human nature nor a surrender to human sinfulness, depravity, and failure. It challenges the dominant image of prophecy as “power from on high” with Jesus’ portrayal of prophetic weakness and failure.
The normative expectations associated with Jesus concentrate on his identification as one of the great prophets of Israel. The heart of these expectations – exemplified by Moses – views the prophets as exceptional human beings, if not by nature, then by their unrivaled possession of divine power. In contrast, Jesus resists this normative view and highlights the weakness of the prophet. Although Jesus accepts his public association with Moses, he draws a radically different image of his prophetic identity and directs attention to the failure of Moses’ prophetic power. Without denying the efficacy of the power operative in the prophet, Jesus reveals the prophet’s own weakness and suffering, and the human struggle with the exercise of divine power. It is this view of ‘power from below’ that allows Jesus to show evidence of divine power while maintaining the weakness of his own body culminating, ultimately in Jesus’ own suffering and death.
The presentation concludes with the question: what then is the form of prophetic power among Jesus’ followers? If the ‘prophethood of all believers’ follows the image of Moses, then it must be patterned after the prophetic character of Jesus, that is, in human weakness. The gift of the prophet is not the glorified ownership of power but the human agency as a “gift,” not a self-serving and deceptive exercise of magic, but the self-giving and sacrificial exercise of power, demonstrated in service to the sick and the poor, meals with social outcasts, healing the stigmatized, exorcism of the demon-possessed, and liberation of the powerless. Like Jesus, without denying the efficacy of divine power, prophetic ministry today is not found in the enviable possession of extraordinary and supernatural gifts but in human weakness and failure, which paradoxically is the empowerment to become the salvation of others.
This paper argues that simultaneous glossolalia—many believers praying or singing in tongues together—belongs at the heart of Pentecostal piety and mission. From Azusa Street onwards, such Spirit-empowered, united prayer sparked renewal, encounters with God, and evangelistic zeal. What ignited the movement should also sustain it. Yet as Pentecostalism has become more socially respectable, especially in urban megachurches, leaders have often muted this practice to appear seeker-friendly and to avoid controversy with fundamentalist critics.
The study answers five common objections: (1) against cessationism, it contends that the gifts have appeared across church history and will endure until Christ’s return; (2) against “xenolalia only,” it shows that Scripture presents tongues primarily as God-directed praise and prayer—sometimes interpreted, not merely missionary speech; (3) pastorally, it notes that tongues can draw unbelievers and edify the church when properly taught and exercised; (4) exegetically, it distinguishes ministry tongues (one-by-one with interpretation) from devotional tongues (corporate prayer and worship), both affirmed in Scripture; and (5) against claims that tongues is the “least” gift, it highlights Paul’s gratitude for tongues and their distinctive sign-character.
Contemporary Asian case studies from South Korea, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and China show congregational tongues fostering unity, courage, church growth, and resilience under pressure. The paper calls Pentecostal churches to recover wise, ordered simultaneous glossolalia as a biblical, historic, and missional practice.
