incompatible with faith in Jesus Christ, that is, the idolatrous practices of
the Greco-Roman religious context. As the narrative unfolds, the crowd
turned violent (incited by Jews from Antioch and Iconium), and Paul and
Barnabas were stoned, left for dead. The local disciples cared for them
and saw them off to Derbe. It was this experience that Paul and Barnabas
shared, testifying to the new work of the Spirit, as they travelled from
Antioch to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles and elders. It was this
experience of the Spirit working in new contexts and cultures and the
subsequent dispute of how to incorporate these new gentile believers into
the faith community that sparked the need for the Council of Jerusalem.
In refl ecting upon his earlier article almost twenty years later, Thomas
emphasizes the role of experience in the life of the Pentecostal commu-
nity. The narrative of Scripture is read, eaten and lived by the Pentecostal
community in what Thomas describes as an “experiential narrative jour-
ney.” 7 He suggests that “experience is a dynamic and thick source capable
of transforming other sources utilized in the theological task.” 8 Within
the Pentecostal reading tradition, experience transforms the reading and
interpretation of texts. This is perhaps a bitter moment of realization for
the (mostly conservative) tradition of Pentecostalism that affi rms fi delity
to Scripture. As Martin notes, “Pentecostals for the most part, practiced
the common populist ‘common sense approach’ that took the Bible at face
value. They read the Bible literally, collapsing the distance between the
original context of scripture and the context of the reader.” 9 Pentecostals
claim to be faithful to the text, yet their very act of reading transforms the
text.
The Pentecostal community upholds the universality of the “truth”
found in the Bible. Yet, that “truth” is not a fl at understanding of Scripture
but its utilization as the authoritative witness to the character and activity
of God in the meta-narrative of Scripture. 10 The Pentecostal community
understands Scripture as providing the authoritative description of reality
through which readers can understand their own experience. In this sense,
Scripture becomes normative for the experience of the Pentecostal com-
munity. 11 This also means that their interpretations are dynamic, refl ect-
ing the movement of a narrative, so they are not an end in themselves
but a footstep in the journey. 12 However, in the process of reading, what
often occurs in actuality is that the experience of the reader becomes the
authoritative description of reality through which the reader approaches
Scripture. While Pentecostals treasure Scripture and claim to “read it and
believe it,” they are actually doing something to the text in the process
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