Why I'm not Pentecostal - KingdomCraft

The first song is Psalm 50 from the Genevan Psalter. The rest of the music is written by me.

[satrnarchive]

Your spiritual gift definitely is teaching. Been watching your videos and i’m coming back to christ because of it. Thank you.

[sanqplays]

As a fellow PCUSA zoomer I have to say that your videos have definitely been an inspiration for me to keep with my beliefs through high school. God bless you dude!

[nimnone]

I’m a Pentecostal. It’s a little ironic that my pastors sermon last Sunday was “Faith is not feelings”. He preached about the fruits of the spirit and to not have a faith based on feelings.

But I respect the generalisation!

[Jackoooloop]

Hi brother! 

I have a few notes of my own to add to this discussion (I am a pentecostal, but also GREATLY value strong theology and intellectualism): 

1. I agree, the pentecostal and charismatic movement is VERY dependent on emotions and feelings - "The heart is deceitful above all things" (Jeremiah 17:9). This needs the change, and stronger doctrine needs to be taught .
2. Contemporary worship music can be DANGEROUS - its a strategy that Hillsong, Bethel and Elevation use to lure people into their churches, but I believe that they teach heresy in many different forms (including hyper-grace, and not preaching true repentance and dying to the old self, becoming a new creation).
3. Worship music in its contemporary form is not ALWAYS bad - find theologically sound songs, and focus on the LYRICS, what you are saying whilst worshiping our beautiful perfect God.
4. The pentecostal church really struggles to "make disciples", because our congregations are filled with theologically weak children, still feeding on the "milk", as Paul would put it. There is not enough strong teaching to correctly grow believers.
5. The gospel preached is about "yourself" - it's a self centred gospel, which is about what God can do for YOU. This is not the point - Jesus has already paid the price, let's strengthen the CHURCH and EACH OTHER, and preach the GOSPEL to all creation. Stop worrying about "your dreams" and "your prosperity". 
6. I agree with what you said about universities - let's take back ground in our intellectual spaces to defend the faith and raise apologetical disciples who are ready to "give an account" as Paul writes - not just run away).

7. I believe that the sacraments are NOT Jesus's flesh - they are symbolic and remembrance. Many times, David wrote in the Psalms, and the gospels recall it, that God will not allow his Holy One to rot and decay (Psalm 16:10) - if you leave 'blessed' bread and wine, which undergoes transubstantiation on a window sill, eventually IT WILL STILL ROT.
8. Apostleship has not ceased - they do not have the same authority to write scripture like NT apostles, but they have the authority given by God and the anointing of their church, to lead the church, plant new churches and develop a God-given vision for the future (DIFFERENT TO A PASTOR - who tends to his congregation like sheep with a rod and a staff). It is an apostles main job to ensure Biblical doctrine throughout their church, and that the church is not led astray. This job comes with the five fold ministry (Ephesians 4:11-13) - why would this have been given to churches that had never seen Jesus before, if the apostles were ONLY the people who saw and walked with Jesus?

As an intellectual Pentecostal, I define Pentecostalism as the belief of the spirit working today, meaning many other denominations have pentecostal traits. Here are my doctrinal statements around Pentecostalism:
- To become a believer, a person must repent and believe the Gospel, in their heart, and declare Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
- They should follow Christ's commandments and be baptised, it's not necessary for salvation, but it is still a commandment given to us.
- The Spirit will come on a believer in the "baptist of fire" or "baptism of the Holy Spirit", to equip us for the great commission (in line with Acts 1:8, Matt 3:11, Acts 10:44, Acts 19:6)
- Who do you think you are as a believer to "define" your limitations of gifts? 1 Corinthians 12:6 (6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.) - be open to the spirit working in any way that He shall in your life, whether healing someone, receiving knowledge and wisdom, or speaking in other languages (on a missions trip, etc).
- When you require someone to receive healing, it is a commandment from Jesus that we shall pray and they will be healed in His name, in fact Jesus said that we shall do ALL that He has done and GREATER (in John 14:12) and that is for all those who believe because we have received His Holy Spirit.
- We do not get to decide that God has ceased working His gifts here on earth, that is not our calling to shut off our job as being "salt" and "light".
- For that reason, I believe in the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control - from Galatians), and the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit (other tongues [lingual and unintelligible], interpretation of tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, wisdom, miracles, healing and discernment of spirits - from 1 Corinthians), and that no believer should allow intellectualism to block these things from taking place in one's life, but should use intellectualism and doctrine as a tool to build and inform beliefs with scripture and debate, and understand in your mind why you act these things out.

Feel free to debate below
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[Iffmeister]

I grew up hyper-pentecostal and yeah you had the tongue bullying in my old church. I definitely would be a cessationist if it hadn't been for experiencing the real thing and seeing people with healthy theology (even reformed people) who practiced it.

[umrapazai]

not one but in my country, pentecostals have the most banger songs. Bless them.

[tedcruz]

Dude, I’m so glad to see your frame rate has greatly improved. I much love from a baptist friend and know I’ll be praying for your channel and the reach that is has for our Lords kingdom!

[David-bhhs]

I can't believe how big this channel has grown since I started watching last year. KEEP IT UP.

[Logan]

An important thing to note about Pentecostals is that traditions and interpretations depend *heavily* on the particular church and pastor.

I grew up non-denominational (more so just read The Bible and focused on prayer than actually attending church mostly because the numerous Baptists in my hometown were some of the biggest hypocrites I’ve ever seen), and I later met my wife who is Pentecostal. She had a falling out with her old church (it’s a long story), and so we joined COGIC together. Our particular COGIC church doesn’t do the whole “prosperity” thing that some Pentecostal churches are prone to do, and nearly every member is involved in science and engineering in their careers. But, on the other hand, there are some other COGIC churches that absolutely live up to the criticisms and jokes.

Now sure, there are some people who take the Holy Gifts way too far, and I view that similar to the hypocrite who prays loudly in public in order to get attention from their peers. However, if it was in God’s will to give someone a spiritual gift for one purpose or another, then who am I to say “no?”

[thomasperez]

As an AG Pentecostal, I share many of the same sentiments you have. I’m trying to be more intellectual with my faith, but my home church doesn’t put enough emphasis on it in my opinion. I really would like to see a deeper dive on biblical scholarship, theology and church history. The only point of contention that I have is the music because I’m their drummer😂😂😂

[guibuni]

I'm a Pentecostal born and raised within a AoG church here in Brazil. I agree with pretty much everything you said but one thing: I do believe tongues to be real and to be a gift, i see it as a means for self-edification and should be manifested in low voice so as to not cause scandal to those who doesn't have the gift. I do not have it and nor i care about having it, my mother and both sisters have it as well as a bunch of peeps in church, but we do not pester who doesn't nor even mention it at all, it's a personal thing that should remain that, personal.

There's a Presbyterian pastor here called Hernandes Dias Lopes that is very much loved and cared for by nearly all forms of protestant christians, he teaches with love while also being a bit charismatic himself, he also thinks Pentecostals go overboard but understand that the stereotype is not to be taken as is, things are changing and we are trying to be more intellectual, i for one am trying to change this starting with myself, learning the scriptures as a whole and tying in with historical context.

The church i go to has fully confessed to have manipulated people in the past by use of strong hierarchical authority and punishments, we call these times the "Ignorance period", where people were disciplined by fear and ignorance, we have since changed that and we strongly recommend people to study the Bible as a whole and go further beyond with historical context. We're on our infancy on the intellectual aspect, but don't think we're not trying to change this, we are and all help is welcomed on this journey. God bless you and your family brother.

[joshuajairusporras]

Love the way God teaches people through you! Glory to God 😊 I grew up Pentecostal and I’m glad that I did cause I’m very extroverted person ever since I was a kid so knowing the gospel through Pentecostal vibe helps a lot! And studying the bible in my alone time with God is needed, being surrounded with passionate people is a blessing so adding theology in being passionate makes my Christian journey solid! Combining these traits is a solid duo in my opinion cause right now I’m able to share the gospel with enthusiasm, with energy and not being shy but being adaptable still and with a theology! Glory to God 😊

We might have differences, denomination wise. But I love you all and I believe that we were born in a specific denomination because it would compliment or suit our characters. And God knows everyone since the beginning so as someone who has an energetic personality, I’m glad God put me in a pentacostal church ❤️ God bless everyone! Romans 8:1-2

[jbones]

I just wanted to say that for the longest time I had fallen out of faith. I had a bunch of doubts but you were able to help me find my way back to God. Thank you so much!

[rkruski]

As a evangelical baptist, I can definitely say what you say has merit. I definitely see that my church and friends are very intellectually dead. Listening to these videos really has exposed me to a lot of theology that I didn't even know existed. God bless you man, truly I say this, may God bless you more than he already has. You have definitely helped lots of people to open their minds to the intricacies of God.

[Vokaynroks]

I dated a girl who was pentecostal, she’s a relative of my sister’s in-laws. She broke things off and was generally preoccupied in the relationship because she was terrified of what her mother would think of her marrying a Baptist. Not a critique of any one denomination/movement, just a funny story that sounds like it could’ve been just as true in the early 1900’s.

[krizthecookingbeaner]

That possible prophet was right you have the gift of teaching this channel shows that you've taught and saved many .

[BoondockBrony]

I was baptized as a Pentecostal 11 or so years ago and I am far more emotional and I go by personal experience, for good and for bad. In fact I sought out a Presbyterian church because not just you convinced me, but I also dated a girl who was raised as in OPC and was abused to be short and sweet. She never lost her faith, which really stuck out to me when I was looking at churches near me and I saw a Presbyterian (not Orthodox mind you) church. I genuinely thank God for leading me to you.

[David-bhhs]

My extended family was catholic by tradition until the 90s, but for some reason their faith was really weak and loose. I think they were what you'd call check the box Christians. Sometime in the early 90s, my Grandma, who used to be the biggest atheist who hated religious traditions of any kind and thought mass was terrible had a religious conversion experience in a Pentecostal church. After that, she helped the rest of my family join a calvary chapel church, which seems to have strong connections to the baptist/pentecostal churches. A lot of the people I remember from that church claimed to have strong spiritual gifts, including the speaking in tongues. I definitely think the Spirit was there, even if the theology was based more on feelings than teaching the Truth of who God is.

We moved away from the state we used to live in and stopped going to church for about 10 years. Sometime a few years ago I found my faith again and decided to proclaim Jesus as my savior for the first time. I got baptized as well for the first time. I would say that my early experiences in that church helped protect me in those intervening years, and although I made mistakes and strayed from the path, it kept that spark alive in my spirit. However, even when I did proclaim Jesus as my sole salvation, I had so many misconceptions and just flat out bad information about Christianity, the faith, and who God is that it bordered on straight up heresy. Most of what I know about God I learned in the last two years, and its definitely helped define and strengthen my faith.

Some people don't like putting in intellectual effort or being bookish, and that's okay, because there are so many ways of gleaning theology that don't involve rigorous academic study (like this channel). I would definitely recommend that a Christian learn more though, because it will challenge their misconceptions and help them grow closer to God. Iron sharpens iron.

[thecourierNCR]

Completely agree with you on worship music. When this topic comes up I always think back to Bach, who wrote almost all of his music to glorify God, and is one of the most relevant composers of all time. Kinda set the standard.

[gabsumaria]

I'm a Pentecostal but in our Church, in many gatherings, we still sing solemn worships in acapella and I love it everytime we do:)