As it is Written. About the Pentecostal Use of the Bible in the Light of Paul's Interpretation Methodology

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the early Pentecostal movements use of the Bible. A bearing theory for this study is that, since the early Pentecostals rejected the academy and contemporary theology and “only” read the bible an interpretation methodology was formed that was close to Jewish textual understanding. Previous research has shown that the Pentecostal movements predominant role model of Bible usage was Luke. In particular, the Acts became the book of the Bible that served as a model for the early Pentecostal movement. But, the Acts are narrative by nature and it is difficult to shape theology from that kind of text. Therefore, I have investigated to what extent Paul has been a role model for the Bible-use of the early Pentecostal movement. My question is: Has Paul served as a model for the Bible use of the early Pentecostal movement and, if so, in what way? My method has been the comparative study. I have compared Paul’s use of the Bible with how the early Pentecostals used and understood the Bible. To get a clearer picture of Paul, I first studied some examples of the Jewish exegetics that were contemporary with him and then I have chosen five Bible texts in which Paul interprets or references Old Testament scriptures. The next step has been to make a comparison of how Paul handles the Scripture in these examples with how the early Pentecostals used the Bible. The study has shown that both the early Pentecostal movement and Paul... 1: ... had their obvious starting point in its respective sacred Scriptures. 2: ... had confidence in both the immediate and the hidden meaning of the text. The text contained several meanings that could be revealed to the reader. By believing so, old texts were given new content. 3: ... were restorational in the sense that something new was created with models found in their respective holy texts. 4: ... were trans-historical in the sense that they considered themselves standing in direct coherence with the Biblical texts and the story in it. 5: ... did theological reassessments because of experiences they had made. My conclusion is that when we study how early Pentecostals used their Bible we can detect traces of Paul. Therefore, we can assume that Paul has, to a certain extent, served as a role model for the Bible interpretation methodology of the early Pentecostal movement