terms of its signifi cance, but dynamic. Accordingly, “for Pentecostals, the
Holy Spirit’s role in interpretation cannot be reduced to some vague talk
of illumination, for the Holy Spirit creates the context for interpretation
through his actions and, as a result, guides the church in the determina-
tion of which texts are most relevant in a particular situation and clarifi es
how they might best be approached.” 9 Throughout, Thomas insists that
a Pentecostal hermeneutic prioritizes the authority of Scripture, since the
church’s experience must be judged in relation to the Bible.
The second is Kenneth J. Archer, a theologian who expands on
Thomas’s work in his book, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First
Century. 10 Here, Archer proposes the triadic negotiation of Scripture,
church, and Spirit. Working with well-known categories in philosophi-
cal hermeneutics, Archer posits a text-centered, reader-oriented approach
that prioritizes Scripture, yet leaves the door open for the pneumatological
convictions of the Pentecostal church. It is not diffi cult to sense a cer-
tain tension in this way of construing the interpretive task, since Archer’s
proposal rests on the Spirit’s voice both in community discernment and
in undergirding the clarity of Scripture. The point is that the Spirit is
dynamically present in and through both the Scriptures and the Christian
community. “The Spirit’s voice is not reduced to or simply equated with
the biblical text or the community, but is connected to an[d] interde-
pendent upon these as a necessary means for expressing the past-present-
future concerns of the Social Trinity. The Holy Spirit has more to say than
Scripture, yet it will be scripturally based. The community must read and
discern the signs and the sound of the Spirit amongst the community in
dialogical relationship with the Scriptures.” 11 The term “dialogical” (or
dialectical) is key: experience of the Spirit shapes a community’s reading
of Scripture, yet Scripture provides the lens through which the community
perceives the Spirit’s work.
Although other examples might be given, these two voices—one a bib-
lical scholar and the other a theologian—are important for the way they
exhibit what must be central to a Pentecostal hermeneutic of Christian
Scripture. First, without necessarily saying so explicitly, Thomas and
Archer are participating in the wider work of ecclesially oriented, theo-
logical interpretation of Scripture that has resurfaced in the last twenty
or thirty years. Their common emphasis on the present interpretive com-
munity is central to their proposals, not least on account of their view that
this community is both the site and product of the Spirit’s activity. Second,
their work demonstrates a series of assumptions that actually run counter
PENTECOSTAL HERMENEUTICS: A WESLEYAN PERSPECTIVE 165