Product Description

Frank Macchia builds a comprehensive pneumatological foundation for theological renewal in the twenty-first century, interacting with many of the key theologians of the twentieth century and showing how contemporary trends in Pentecostal and charismatic thinking can aid the cause of ecumenism and global Christianity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #206638 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780310252368
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
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From the Back Cover
Baptized in the Spirit creatively examines the most recent trends in Pentecostal and charismatic theology, especially with regard to the displacement of Spirit baptism as Pentecostalism’s central distinctive. The author begins by focusing on the significance of the Holy Spirit in reciprocal and mutual work with the Son in fulfilling the will of the Father. He also shows how the pneumatological emphases in Pentecostal and charismatic theology can help to correct the tendency in Western Christianity to subordinate the Spirit to the Word.

About the Author
Frank D. Macchia (ThD, University of Basel, Switzerland) is professor of theology at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California. He has served as president of the Society of Pentecostal Studies and is a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches. Frank is senior editor of Pneuma: The Journal for the Society of Pentecostal Studies.

Frank d. Macchia es doctor en teología de la Universidad de Basel, Suiza. Actualmente es profesor de teología de la Universidad de Vanguard en costa Mesa, California. Fue presidente de la Sociedad de Estudios Pentecostales y es miembro de la Comisión de Fe y Orden del Consejo Nacional de Iglesias. Además, es el editor de Pneuma: El diario de las Sociedad de Estudios Pentecostales.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Baptized in the Spirit Copyright © 2006 by Frank Macchia Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Macchia, Frank D. Baptized in the Spirit : a global Pentecostal theology / Frank D. Macchia. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25236-8 ISBN-10: 0-310-25236-9 1. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. 2. Holy Spirit. 3. Pentecostal churches—Doctrines. I. Title. BT123.M151 2006 230'.994—dc22 2005031945 This edition printed on acid-free paper. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Interior design by Nancy Wilson Printed in the United States of America 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 • 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 I SUPPOSE I WAS A TYPICAL EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD, EXCEPT I WAS PERHAPS more confused than most about the direction in which my life was going. It was the year 1970, so my state of mind seemed to be shared by many I knew at the time. I had spent most of my teen years trying to run from God and was attempting to figure out where I might possibly run without meeting God when I arrived. I experimented with drugs and lived as though God were nothing more than a distant thought. There were moments when I felt drawn away from my illusionary existence toward the ultimate reality. But I resisted. Then came that decisive evening shortly after my high school graduation. I woke my father, an Assemblies of God minister, from a sound sleep at about midnight to let him know that I wanted to leave home to find myself. I had always admired him. He was strict but fair. His downto- earth humility appealed to me. I especially liked the way the church members affectionately called him “Brother Mike.” He seemed to relate to them more as a brother than an authoritative pastor, though many took him without question as a lifelong spiritual father. My mother, Elizabeth, besides her crazy sense of humor, had conveyed her deep faith to me by teaching me church choruses as a child. She persuaded me to sing them in church before the congregation. My tenor voice made me a favored choice for singing solos at our local church, an early experience of ministry that was formative to my early spiritual development. When I woke my father that night, I was far from the faith of my childhood. But telling my father that I wanted to leave home gave him an opportunity to reach out to me. What followed was an all-night conversation that I will never forget. He spoke to me from the Bible and from many stories of faith from my family’s history. I was moved deeply. It made me feel that I could not possibly run from God. To do so would cause me to run from something that was deep inside of me, something I could not deny without denying an essential part of who I was. Hours passed like minutes, but I held out. I would not yet give my heart to Christ, so we both ended up going to bed exhausted. It was near dawn as I entered my bedroom. I knelt next to my bed and wondered what I should pray. I remember telling God that I did not know what to say. I said something simple like, “I only know that I need you, Lord. I give you my life.” With that brief prayer, I lay down to the most peaceful sleep I had enjoyed in a long time. The following day I told my parents what had happened and that I wanted to leave for a Bible college in order to discover my future in God. Yes, I would get my wish to leave home in order to find myself, but in a way that I had not planned. Their joy was tempered by my felt need to leave the neighborhood as soon as possible. There was a network of friends that was sure to tear away at my fledgling faith. I needed time away with God to be grounded in the faith. My father arranged for me to attend Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. My first day on campus contained all of the anxieties of a new experience. I was not sure I wanted to stay. My father persuaded me to give it a month and left me there with high hopes early in the afternoon of the second day. Moments later I purchased a Bible at the bookstore and sat down to read from it in my sparsely-furnished dorm room. The Bible was a large, plain study Bible that I had bought for my classes. I remember turning to the book of Acts. I began reading. Though I was familiar with several of the stories in that book, they seemed to come alive before my eyes as never before. The text drew me in. I was there when the disciples gathered around the risen Christ, and at Pentecost when the Spirit fell on the disciples as they prayed in tongues surrounded by flames of God’s holy presence. I was also there when Peter and John were beaten for their faith but rejoiced at the privilege of suffering for Christ, and when Peter witnessed the Gentiles being filled with the Spirit. I accompanied Paul on his journeys and participated in his numerous adventures. I read the entire book of Acts without moving from my chair. I was awe struck. I opened the shade covering the window next to me and beheld the sun setting. I saw shades of red and yellow across the sky and I could feel the tears roll off of my cheeks. I remember thinking that I could not possibly be the kind of Christian who merely “played church.” That certainly was not how the Christians lived in the book of Acts. God was so real to them. They lived daily in the awareness of God’s presence and guidance. Life was an adventure in the Lord’s service and there were moments when God visited them with undeniable signs of divine favor and power. They had a fire burning in their hearts. I determined in that moment that I wanted to be a Christian like them. I felt a calling from God grip me—God was calling me to lifelong ministry. My presence at that small Bible college in southwest Missouri was no accident. At that very moment, a few of the new students I had met earlier came to my room and invited me to pray with them at the dorm chapel. What timing! The chapel was located on the third floor of the dorm, a small room with benches along the walls and a plain wooden cross at the center of the wall facing the door. No sooner had I entered the room that I fell to my knees and began to pray. I began to cry and to search for words that I could not find. Meanwhile, my schoolmates began to pray for me. I felt a fountain well up within me. It grew stronger and stronger until it burst forth with great strength. I began to pray in tongues. It was not forced, neither from me nor from God. In fact, it seemed at the moment to be the most natural thing to do. By now I lay there on the floor with my eyes fixed on that cross. I felt God’s powerful presence embrace me, and while accepting my calling to the ministry, I made promises to God that have accompanied me throughout my life.

Customer Reviews

Bring Back Spirit-baptism
Theology Professor Frank Macchia's landmark book "Baptized in the Spirit" (2006) will become must-read for global Pentecostalism. With his absorbing discussion the good professor calls for his denomination to reclaim its original unique multi-part Christian theology- beginning with baptism by the Holy Spirit.

Macchia's basic premise assumes that late 20th century Pentecostals were lured from their original life of Spirit-baptism, speaking in tongues, faith healing and the power of witness. He challenges his fellows to reclaim their unique presence within Christendom and suggests that the Assemblies of God have much to offer Christianity. He understands that dialogue is key to Christian awareness and invites non-Pentecostals into conversation about such divergent topics as baptism, Holy Communion, ecclesiology, and the Trinity.

Although not myself a Pentecostal I find Macchia's suggestions interesting and his arguments provocative. His understanding of Jesus Christ as the "Spirit Baptizer" (based on his exegesis of Luke 3:16) is odd. His secondary placement of "water baptism" below the Holy Spirit's promised fiery baptism (reflecting the original Pentecostal theological dictum) remains questionable. Such positions serve only to ignite curiosity.

Macchia poses that Pentecostals continue to relish their Wesleyan roots. Indeed, his recap of the via salutis is very close to the early Wesleyan, Nazarene, and Methodist positions. (The good professor inserts "new life" for Wesley's Scripturally offered "new birth" along the via. It is, also, fascinating to hear a Pentecostal talk about justification and sanctification!)

Macchia tends toward run-on sentences and long chapters- one sentence dragged on for 8 lines with over 40 words in a 101-page chapter! (Someone should remind the professor that droning-on only looses reader from the discussion.) This grammatical hindrance keeps this book from earning all the stars.

This book is interesting and recommended to all with an interest in Pentecostal/Reformation theology.


Remember the Alamo! (March 6, 1836)

An Important Pentecostal Work!
Frank Macchia has set Pentecostal theology in its proper theological context. His approach is ecumenical in that he sees the baptism in the Holy Spirit as being for the entire Church. Macchia is in dialogue throughout this work with other Pentecostal scholars that have gone before like Stephen J. Land, Robert Menzies, Gordon Fee, and Roger Stronstad. Macchia sees the doctrine of Spirit baptism as both Trinitarian and eschatological. He discusses at length the idea of inter-Trinitarian relationship and how Jesus is the Spirit baptizer. More importantly, he deals with the Spirit as the agent of renewal of God's creation. Macchia, rightfully, sees the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the in breaking of God's future into the present in order to make all things new. This means that tongues, divine healings, and miracles are the signs of the future consummation coming to fruition. It is the time when God's good creation will be renewed at the coming of Jesus. Unlike most dispensational eschatology's (made popular by Hal Lindsey and the Left Behind series) who see creation and history in a hopeless situation that the Church will be escaping from soon via the rapture, Macchia sees the outpouring of God's Spirit not as the Church as going from earth to Heaven, but as Heaven coming down to earth and the whole earth becoming the Temple of God. Macchia sees tongues as an eschatological sacramental sign in which the believer groans along with creation for the redemption of all things. Unlike, Menzies and Stronstad (if I have read them correctly who see Luke as having a radically different pneumatology than Paul, Macchia sets them much closer together.

This is an important work for both Pentecostal's and those interested in how the Church can be united through the outpouring of the Spirit of God. This is not an easy and smooth read. This is mainly due to Macchia feeling it necessary to have discussions with Barth, Moltmann and many others besides. Another negative that I found is that Macchia does not properly link the Church with Israel. Macchia disconnects the Church from "the elect people of God in the Old Testament" and states that in Jesus the Church is finding its own election. He states (see pages 200-201 for this discussion) "though the church through Christ reaps the fruit of promises given to Israel and is nourished by their fulfillment, the Church reaps the fruit of promises given to Israel and is nourished by their fulfillment, the church is not simply Israel's replacement" ... "and Paul seems to imply that there is an 'apocalyptic mystery' yet to be revealed through Israel's witness (Rom. 11:25-32)" This is not the right reading of Romans 11:25-32 and the disconnect, in my view hurts his overall argument. I would argue instead that Jesus, as the Messiah is the true representative of Israel. In this way Jesus is the true Israel and they that put their faith in him are the reconstituted Israel. Macchia could have made this point and deepened his view of the Spirit and the Church. Another point of criticism is that the links of the Spirit in Old Testament are not brought out. In, for example Ezekiel 9-10 the glory of God leaves the Temple. At the baptism of Jesus, the fullness of the glory of God comes upon Jesus who receives the Spirit without measure. Jesus is the true Temple of God where the Spirit of God dwells. What happens in Acts 2 is Jesus filling the New Israel as the New Temple with the glory which resided in the Temple. Nevertheless, this is a great work due to its focus on the Pentecostal movement as both global in scope and eschatological in its goal. [....] I am hopeful that Macchia's work will be taken seriously by the entire theological community.