The Speaking in Tongues Controversy: A Narrative-Critical Response, Part 2

Differing with Walston, classical Pentecostal Robert Graves writes that the doctrine of initial evidence and the subsequence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit are taught by scripture.

 Editor Introduction  

 Part 1 of A Narrative-Critical Response

Rick Walston, The Speaking in Tongues Controversy: The Initial, Physical Evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Fairfax, VA: Xulon Press, 2003), 235 pages.

Continued from Pneuma Review Fall 2005

Authorial Intent—the Doom of Pentecostal Theology?

For Walston, “Of all the arguments opposing the initial, physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, that of authorial intent is, without a doubt, the most convincing …” (59). His methodology for proving this entails asking what he calls a “Guiding Question” of each incident where Luke describes someone experiencing salvation, “What importance does Luke give to tongues as evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit?” (pp. 61, 71). He then claims that there are twenty-six references in Acts of people being baptized in the Holy Spirit (126).¹⁷ Walston continues, “If Luke mentions the outward manifestation of tongues on only three of twenty-six soteriological occasions, with the number of people demonstrating this outward manifestation to be around 150 out of well over three thousand people, then the obvious question must follow, How important could it have possibly been to Luke?” (110). Thus, he reasons concerning the Jerusalem Pentecost and Acts 2:41, “It cannot be logically nor exegetically argued that all Christians who are baptized in the Holy Spirit should speak in tongues from a small sampling of only 120 out of 3,120 people” (126). “If it were as important an issue as Classical Pentecostals say it is, Luke would have used this three-thousand-person example to develop the concept. But, he does not” (71).

Throughout his chapter on authorial intent, Walston mentions a number of places where Luke, if he had wished to show that speaking in tongues is the initial, physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, could have done so explicitly, and with great effect (e.g., the three thousand in 2:41, the Samaritans, the priests in 6:7, and Paul), but Luke is silent. Even if all of these believers did speak in tongues, the fact that Luke does not mention it is proof that tongues are not that important to Luke; thus, it was not Luke’s “intent to convey tongues as the initial, physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit” (73).

Just as Walston uses Acts 2:38-41 as the locus classicus to prove that to be saved is to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and vice versa, he also uses this passage as the locus classicus to prove that it is not Luke’s intent to teach that tongues are the normative, initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. After repeating his Guiding Question, he writes, “The issue is not, ‘Did the three thousand speak in tongues?’ The issue is, ‘Why does Luke not make a point of saying that they did (or did not) speak in tongues?’ He does not mention it because it is not an issue. What Luke does take the time and space to describe is the soteriological outcome on this unique day” (71). Walston calls the incident with the three thousand a “paradigmatic gold mine” had Luke wanted to establish tongues as the evidence of Spirit-baptism (72).

Let us examine the entire scene that Walston is using and not just a portion. The way Luke presents it to Theophilus, it begins at Acts 2:1 and runs in real time all the way to 2:40. Then, Luke caps it off with the summary statement of v. 41 (the verses that follow in chapter two describe action occurring days afterward). The scene has a dual focus: (1) the coming of the Holy Spirit with its accompanying signs and (2) Peter’s sermon and interaction with the crowd. Luke has already portrayed Jesus as telling the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they are baptized in the Holy Spirit so that they will receive power to be his witnesses (1:5, 8). Since the disciples are already saved, this is a post-conversion empowerment, a pneumatological rather than a soteriological experience. Acts 2:1-13 describes the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise in detail. Luke ends with the question, “Whatever could this mean?” Peter explains what it means by quoting the prophet Joel. Significantly, Peter quotes a primarily pneumatological portion of scripture. To make this point clear, Peter edits Joel’s prophecy, adding “and they shall prophesy” to verse 18. Because he is speaking to non-Christians, Peter includes Joel’s statement that “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (2:21). Next, Peter goes into an explanation of Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Messiah, who has poured out “this which you now see and hear,” speaking of the promise of the Father or, more specifically, the accompanying signs of the promise (v. 33). Cut to the heart, the Jewish listeners ask Peter, “[W]hat shall we do?” (v. 37). Peter replies, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (vv. 38-39). Finally, Luke concludes the scene, “Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them” (v. 41).

Now, back to Walston’s question: “Why does Luke not make a point of saying that they did (or did not) speak in tongues?” The answer to this question relates to Walston’s (under)statement that “Luke is not a substandard communicator” (85). Luke is believed by many scholars to be the most eloquent, articulate, intentional, and educated writer of scripture. For that reason, we should not expect him to write in a sophomoric, garish, coarse, unreflective, or tedious style. Stronstad writes, “Arguably, Luke-Acts is the most carefully designed book in all of biblical literature, certainly in the New Testament” (Prophethood 14). According to Elbert, the writings of Luke exemplify the highly developed, conventional Greco-Roman narrative tradition, as illustrated in the teachings of Theon of Alexandria, a rhetorician and contemporary of Luke:

Luke is in accord with the instruction of Theon on this expected method of narrative persuasion via plausible examples and precedents serving to provide Christian expectation. Clarity, understandability, and vividness of examples and precedents are the narrative tools deemed important by Theon; it is unsurprising then that Luke employs such contemporary narrative technique. Lukan portrayal of interaction with, and of Christian expectation of, the divine is quite harmonious with Theonic characterization and personification.¹⁸

Luke’s refined architectonics in Acts does not require the tedious repetitions that our 21^st-century minds may desire.¹⁹ Even as Luke tells the disciples that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (the Gentiles), rather than laboriously naming all the cities and regions, he deliberately chooses two of the most momentous occurrences of tongues to narrate for Theophilus—the first Jews and the first Gentiles saved calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Would not these be the “paradigmatic gold mines” in Luke’s mind? The third occurrence, the Ephesian disciples, was probably narrated, in part, because of Paul’s involvement (given Luke’s propensity to give Peter and Paul equal time) and because it is the last scene in the Acts narrative with characters who are baptized in the Holy Spirit. For us, it serves the additional purpose of disallowing the Lukan cessationist notion that Spirit-baptism is an apostolic-age or unique experience.²⁰ Of these three occurrences, Donald Johns writes, “It is difficult to deny that speaking in tongues did accompany being baptized in the Spirit in three texts in Acts. It is a common storytelling technique the world over to tell things in groups of threes: three times should be enough to tell anything. The paradigmatic effect of these stories should lead us to expect the same things in our own experience with the Spirit. Actually, as we are drawn into the story, we should experience the Spirit along with Peter, Cornelius, and all the rest. By telling these stories, Luke shows that this is the way his world works” (163; cf. 153-56).²¹

Oss draws this issue closer to the subject at hand, i.e., authorial intent, writing “[Luke] intentionally created the relationship between tongues and Spirit-baptism in his narrative, along with the specific function of tongues as evidence, in order to communicate that relationship to his readership as a prescribed paradigm.”²²

The foregoing Pentecostal scholars mentioned have addressed the issue of Luke’s intention by examining the genre in which Luke wrote and thus discerning a strong intentionality on Luke’s part to present tongues as a signification of Spirit-baptism. Others have questioned elements of the presupposition within the authorial intent argument itself. Robert Menzies responds to Fee, writing, “The question of Luke’s intent, which looms so large in Fee’s argument, is clearly subordinate to the more fundamental question outlined above [i.e., the prophetic-empowerment rather than soteriological character of Spirit-baptism, and its universal character]. For if my description of Luke’s ‘distinctive’ pneumatology is accurate, then Luke’s intent to teach a Spirit-baptism distinct from conversion for empowering is easily demonstrated. One need only establish that Luke’s narrative was designed to encourage every Christian to receive the Pentecostal gift. And, since Luke highlights Pentecost as a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy concerning an outpouring of the Spirit upon ‘all flesh’ (Acts 2.17-21), this appears to be self-evident” (Empowered 239). Later in the same work, he writes the following of Fee’s conclusions regarding intent and the early Pentecostals’ use of “naïve appeals to historical precedent” (239):

[T]he value of a passage for assessing the theological perspective of a given author cannot be reduced to its “primary intent.” A passage must be understood in terms of its original setting and intention, but the theological freight it carries may transcend its “primary intent.”²³

Stronstad echoes Menzies sentiments and develops an understanding of Luke’s intent based on the Greco-Roman culture of which Luke and Theophilus were a part.²⁴

Elbert’s research confirms the 21^st-century reader’s need to understand the Greco-Roman narrative-rhetorical tradition if he is to appreciate the literary artistry of Luke and come to understand what Luke intends to teach Theophilus:

If Theophilus was a literary minded person, as Luke appears to be, a person educated in the Empire where rhetorical training was mandatory in the schools, he would naturally expect Luke to illustrate ongoing prophetic fulfillment by examples and precedents in characters’ lives within the framework of the two scrolls (or papyrus codices) dedicated to him. Such an expectation on Theophilus’ part would be quite consistent with the accepted rhetorical procedure of illustrating main points with examples and precedents in the traditional standards of narrative composition, as set out in the contemporary treatise of Theon. Theon’s instructional effort builds on solid rhetorical tradition concerning the necessity and the quality of the expected examples and precedents. Any real thematic paradigm that fulfilled prophecy beyond narrative time would have to be illustrated by examples and precedents in order to be convincing within Graeco-Roman narrative-rhetorical culture. (“Luke’s Fulfillment” 3-4)

Inasmuch as we are all Theophiluses, it would serve us well to become familiar with the literary medium with which Luke communicates to Theophilus, and not assume that he uses a medium contemporary to ourselves.

So, it would seem that the authorial intent argument posed against the biblical doctrine of initial evidence is not as impervious as Walston believes, having been found to be vulnerable on at least two critical fronts: (1) it is deficient in recognizing rhetorical techniques contemporary to Luke and (2) it is falsely assumed to be imperious to objective critique, thereby neutralizing it by reductio ad absurdum—logically reduced to the absurd.

Conclusion

Concerning his work, Walston writes, “This book argues that the tongues-as-evidence position cannot be biblically supported. In fact, I shall show that the main book, i.e., Acts—from which this Classical Pentecostal peculiarity is derived—does not teach this idea at all” (27). His attempt to show this fails because (1) he does not prove that the passages that explicitly mention Spirit-baptism (or its synonyms) are describing conversion rather than post-conversion experiences, (2) he wrongly extrapolates Spirit-baptism to every incident of repentance/conversion/salvation in Acts, (3) he misunderstands the nuances of the elements that make up pneumatology and, thus, misreads his Pentecostal sources, (4) he uncritically accepts Fee’s unwarranted and, now, outdated conclusions concerning authorial intent, and (5) he shows no knowledge of and thus does not interact with the Greco-Roman rhetorical narrative conventions and their vindication of the Pentecostal understanding of Acts. Furthermore, all of these issues are pervaded by a sense of staleness and amateurism due to Walston’s omission of current scholarship.

The last two decades have seen tremendous strides in Pentecostal scholarship. This is not the time, in the 100-year history of the Pentecostal movement, to take a step backward or call for a compromise on the Pentecostal doctrines of subsequence/separability or initial evidence. In our lifetime, the strength of the evidence for the validity of these doctrines has grown exponentially. Perhaps their acceptance shall develop as have two other Pentecostal issues: First, at the beginning of the twentieth century, no serious NT scholar believed that all of the NT spiritual gifts were for the contemporary church; before the century’s end, few serious scholars believed in the cessation of any of the gifts; second, a mere thirty years ago, a consensus of scholars relegated Acts to the genre of history; today, its didacticism is clear.²⁵ If Pentecostal scholarship continues to develop as it has in the last twenty years, by the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century it may be that no serious NT scholar will deny the Lukan data supporting subsequence/separability and initial evidence. Of all times in the history of the Pentecostal movement and New Testament scholarship, today is not the time to seek a tertium quid (middle ground). I would say to Walston, “You left too early. But you’re welcome to return.”

I conclude with some thoughts for non-Pentecostals to consider while pondering the viability of their position. Concerning the Pentecostal doctrine of initial evidence, the non-Pentecostal view would be more tenable:

1. If only some, instead of all, of those who were specifically baptized in the Holy Spirit spoke in tongues,
2. If Luke’s two major illustrations were not representative of both classes of peoples that made up the whole human race,
3. If Luke had not connected glossolalia with his first and last explicit report of the baptism in the Holy Spirit,
4. If he had not connected glossolalia with every illustration of an explicitly stated “baptism” in the Holy Spirit,
5. If Paul had not said that he desired that all would speak in tongues,
6. If Luke had not said that the gift of the Spirit was for all people and for all times,
7. If Luke had not implied that observers could know immediately from external observation that someone had received the Holy Spirit,
8. If Luke had not described the Jewish Christians as recognizing that God had accepted the Gentiles based solely on the externally perceptible, singular sign of glossolalia,
9. If Paul’s and the Ephesian disciples’ baptisms in the Holy Spirit had been administered by one of the twelve apostles, instead of, in Paul’s case, an unknown, apparently common (normal) disciple.

Concerning the Pentecostal doctrine of subsequence/separability, the non-Pentecostal view would be more tenable

1. If the 120 had not been Christians,
2. If the Samaritans had not been Christians,
3. If Paul had not been a Christian,
4. If the twelve Ephesians had not been Christians,
5. If Luke had not instructed disciple-believers to pray for the Spirit,
6. If Luke had not equated filling=gift=reception=baptism and then reported subsequent fillings of disciples who had already been filled,
7. If Luke had not associated prophetic utterances and empowerment with the baptism in the Holy Spirit,
8. If Luke had not used pneumatological language of the Septuagint (“filling”), relating it to OT believers, to describe the NT baptism in the Holy Spirit,
9. If throughout the OT and NT the activity of the Holy Spirit related to human functionality had not been associated with giftings (usually prophetic) for believers.

PR

Next Issue: Conversations with readers 

Editor’s Note

I regret to inform our readers that as of the time of printing this issue, the Pneuma Review will not be printing a response from Rick Walston as the editorial committee had intended. Reader responses about the topic of initial evidence and the baptism in the Holy Spirit, as well as discussion about Rick Walston’s book, are most welcome.

Raul Mock, Executive Editor

Update: As well as responses from readers to appear in the Spring 2006 issue, we will also include a link to Rick Walston’s rebuttal to Robert Graves’ review.

Notes from Part 2 of A Narrative-Critical Response

¹⁷ He can say this because he assumes he has proven that anytime someone is saved, he or she is baptized in the Holy Spirit; ergo, to be saved = to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. So, he writes, “[E]ven though Luke does not specifically mention the words ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit,’ this baptism nonetheless transpires when one becomes a Christian,” 125.

¹⁸ Paul Elbert, “Paul of the Miletus Speech and 1 Thessalonians: Critique and Considerations,” ZNW 95/3-4 (2004): 258-268: 265, footnote 34. For information about Aelius Theon of Alexandria and his potential narrative-rhetorical influence on the composition of narratives, see the “Introduction” in James R. Butts, The ‘Progymnasmata’ of Theon: A New Text with Translation and Commentary (Ph.D. Diss, Claremont Graduate School; Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilm International, 1987), 1-95.

¹⁹ Note that Fee believes that in the early church, “Glossolalia … has all the earmarks of being commonplace,” (“Toward a Pauline Theology of Glossolalia,” in Pentecostalism in Context: Essays in Honor of William W. Menzies 30), and concludes that “Precisely because it was ‘normal’ in this sense [i.e., expected and recurring], it was the presupposition of life in the Spirit for them; thus they felt no compulsion to talk about it at every turn,” Gospel and Spirit 102 (italics added); J. Rodman Williams notes that “If both the reception of the Spirit and tongues were common knowledge and experience to Luke’s readers (as I believe they were), he scarcely needs to say so each time. Incidentally, this same point may be made about belief in Christ and baptism in water. Often Luke specifically mentions water baptism in connection with faith in Jesus Christ … ; on other occasions he describes people coming to faith without reference to water baptism. … However, it is very likely that Luke would have the reader assume the occurrence of water baptism when it is not mentioned. Such baptism was doubtless common experience and practice in the early church,” (Renewal Theology: Salvation, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990] 210, footnote 7, italics added); cf. Palma 157.

Although the conventional narrative style of Luke’s day deemed repetitious accounts unnecessary, there is yet an additional reason why Luke does not associate tongues with many of the occurrences of salvation in Acts (other than the quite plausible explanation that the subjects were saved but not immediately filled, per the Samaritan precedent). In many cases where Luke notes soteriological activity in Acts, it is with great brevity (as Williams notes, even repentance and water baptism are seldom mentioned). The brief soteriological conclusion comes about as a result of the narrative’s clear emphasis—pneumatological activity, e.g., 2:1-41, where only a couple of verses can be considered soteriological. But not all pneumatic activity is related to tongues; in fact, tongues may be a result of previous pneumatic activity just as salvation may come as a result of previous pneumatic activity. For Luke, then, the issue of disciples speaking in tongues when baptized in the Spirit is akin to the issue of salvation—both usually occur as a result of prior Spirit-inspired witness. Both are extremely important to Luke, but they are simply not his central focus, a focus which is, in fact, the efficient cause of the spreading of the gospel, i.e., the Spirit-inspired witness of each individual disciple. And, as I have said, this is just as we should expect since Luke has laid out the prophetic missionary program from chapter one: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (v. 8).

²⁰ Cf. Ronald Kydd, “I’m Still There! A Reaffirmation of Tongues as the Initial Evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit,” (Toronto: The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, 1977), 13.

²¹ W. and R. Menzies approach the issue of tongues as evidence through a synthesis of biblical and systematic theology; through the contributions of each they conclude that “1. Paul affirms that the private manifestation of tongues is edifying, desirable, and universally available. … 2. Luke affirms that the Pentecostal gift is intimately connected to inspired speech, of which tongues-speech is a prominent form, possessing a uniquely evidential character. 3. Therefore, when one receives the Pentecostal gift, one should expect to manifest tongues, and this manifestation of tongues is a uniquely demonstrative sign (evidence) that one has received the gift” (Spirit 130). Using this methodology, the Menzies eschew Pentecostal hermeneutics based on “biblical analogy or historical precedent. … Rather, drawing from the full scope of Luke’s two-volume work, it [their argument] focuses on the nature of Luke’s pneumatology and, from this framework, seeks to understand the character of the Pentecostal gift. The judgment that the gift is distinct from conversion is rooted in the gift’s function: It provides power for witness, not justification before God or personal cleansing. The universal character of the gift established in Luke’s narrative rather than historical precedent is the basis for its normative character,” (Spirit 115). It is unfortunate that R. Menzies seems unaware of the Greco-Roman narrative rhetorical convention that Luke uses (cf. Empowered 237, 245-246), for it pushes the historical occurrences of Spirit-baptism and tongues beyond the “naïve historical precedent” argument. Of course, the two methodologies are not mutually exclusive but, rather, corroborative; they each answer questions that the other does not address. It will be interesting to watch their symbiotic development in the field of Pentecostal scholarship. Walston seems unaware of both methodologies, focusing only on the older argument based on the repetition of glossolalia in conjunction with Spirit-baptism (113-118).

²² “Beyond the traditional Pentecostal interpretation of Acts, two specific insights from narratology have proven helpful in more recent years in determining Luke [sic] intent: the idea of narrative as ‘narrative world’ and narrative analogy. Both of these aspects of narratological analysis are ways of looking at ‘patterns’ as evidence of an author’s intent in creating a narrative.

“(i) Regarding the notion of ‘narrative world’ in any historical narrative, the manner of retelling has a purpose: to inform a community about its heritage, identity, common experience, and essential qualities. The narrator at the same time is informing the community about the nature of its own world, how it ought to be structured, and in some instances how it ought not to be structured. Thus, in the case of biblical narrative, the accounts provide order to our ‘world’ and are intended to tell how to live our lives, how we experience the Spirit’s presence, etc. The author uses biblical ‘narrative world’ to shape the believing community’s world.

“(ii) The second useful perspective on authorial intent is provided by what Meir Sternberg calls ‘narrative analogy.’ This refers to a specific relationship among events in a narrative, inviting readers to read one story in terms of other similar stories. Thus one event provides ‘oblique commentary’ on another. The narrator accomplishes this particular phenomenon through carefully developed patterns or ‘echoes.’ His repetition of similar or contrasting events establishes the points of comparison for the reader. Repeating themes, details, phrases, behaviors, etc., call the reader’s attention to the analogy. The ‘echo effect’ thus serves to control interpretation, adding emphasis and specifying communication of central meanings.

“The composition of Luke-Acts was surely not a haphazard process. The analogies, or echo effects, in the narrative are evident because of the careful crafting of the narrative by the author. He included details because they were central to his agenda. In the case of tongues and Spirit-baptism in Acts, it seems improbable that Luke was unaware of the echo he was creating. Rather, he intentionally created the relationship between tongues and Spirit-baptism in his narrative, along with the specific function of tongues as evidence, in order to communicate that relationship to his readership as a prescribed paradigm [italics added].

“(iii) A redemptive-historical approach to the IPE [Initial Physical Evidence] doctrine is a third more recent development in Pentecostal hermeneutics. Simply stated, in the Old Testament when the Spirit came upon the prophets, prophetic speech always accompanied the Spirit’s anointing. Likewise in Acts, when the Spirit comes upon an individual for the first time, Spirit-prompted speech occurs, except that in Acts the utterance is in tongues. Another dimension of this redemptive-historical development pertains specifically to Acts 10:44-46, where tongues is more than evidence of an individual experience (although it is that). There glossolalia functions as evidence of the inclusion of Gentiles in the Spirit’s anointing. Stated in principle, it is evidence that the Spirit’s power is for all who come into the kingdom.” Douglas A. Oss, “A Pentecostal/Charismatic View,” in Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views, ed. Wayne A. Grudem (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 261-63.

²³ “[W]e should be careful not to jump to the unwarranted conclusion that this judgment necessarily invalidates the doctrine of evidential tongues. Nevertheless, this is precisely the conclusion that is usually drawn. The reason is clearly articulated by Fee, who suggests that normative theology at this point must be grounded in Luke’s ‘primary intent’ or ‘intention to teach’. But surely this is overly restrictive. Not all questions of normative teaching are rooted directly in the intention of the author. [Larry] Hurtado [in Initial Evidence 191-192] notes the oft-cited illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity, which is not taught explicitly in the New Testament but developed on the basis of inferences from biblical teaching. Is it not valid to inquire about the character of Luke’s pneumatology, and then to wrestle with the implications which emerge from his pneumatology for our contemporary questions? Only ‘the most severe form of biblicism’ would deny the validity of this sort of exercise.

“An exclusive focus on an author’s ‘primary intent’ or ‘intention to teach’ too often leads to a form of tunnel vision which ignores the implications of an individual text for the theological perspective of the author. … [T]he value of a passage for assessing the theological perspective of a given author cannot be reduced to its ‘primary intent’. A passage must be understood in terms of its original setting and intention, but the theological freight it carries may transcend its ‘primary intent’. Each piece of evidence must be taken seriously as we seek to reconstruct the theological perspective of the biblical author. … This task of reconstruction cannot be limited to a survey of the ‘primary intent’ of isolated passages; rather, it calls for a careful analysis of the theological significance of the author’s entire work.” Robert P. Menzies, Empowered for Witness: The Spirit in Luke-Acts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 246-248, italics added.

²⁴ “It was once commonplace among interpreters to affirm that authorial intentionality, that is, the author’s purpose for writing a document, is the essential criterion which governs the reader’s understanding of the text. But the question of authorial intentionality is complicated by a variety of factors. These include whether the purpose is explicit or implicit and whether it is simple or complex—that is, whether there is one primary purpose, or a combination of primary, secondary and even tertiary purposes. Consequently, several dangers attend the search to determine authorial intention. One danger is the all-too-common tendency toward reductionism, putting forward the claims of one purpose to the exclusion of all others. Another danger is to confuse the use to which the document, in whole or in part, might be put with the purpose of the document. The most insidious danger is to identify the interests and agenda of the interpreter as those of the author.

“Though the question of Luke’s purpose has proven to be problematic it is not a matter for despair. The most satisfactory answer to the question of Luke’s purpose lies in the recognition that it is multiplex. This multiplex purpose not only has a historical dimension, as the reader would expect since the genre of Luke-Acts is historical narrative, but it also has both a didactic or instructional dimension and a theological dimension. Luke himself identifies this multiplex purpose, beginning with his prologue (Lk. 1.1-4). . . .

“Using the genre, or medium of historical narrative, Luke teaches Theophilus and his extended audience in a variety of ways. These include … (1) proof of prophecy; (2) precedents and patterns. …

“For example, Peter’s witness to Cornelius and his household (Acts 10.1-48) is the historical precedent which justifies the salvation of the Gentiles by grace apart from the works of the Law (Acts 15.6-11). This same episode also makes explicit the pattern for Spirit-baptism which Luke has earlier implied in his programmatic Pentecost narrative. … And so, by reporting the pouring out of the Spirit, first upon the disciples, and, subsequently, upon Cornelius and his household, and also by reporting Peter’s statements which connect the latter gift of the Spirit to the former, Luke teaches that here is a pattern of Spirit-baptism. It is an inaugural reception of the Spirit of prophecy attested to by the sign of speaking in tongues.” (Prophethood 22-25)

²⁵ Cf. W. and R. Menzies, Spirit and Power 37-45; Kydd 7-11, 14-15; Elbert writes to the point, relating the didactic view of Luke-Acts to its contemporary genre, “Pentecostals’ view of narrative and their application of its didactic intentions is entirely consistent with, and essentially the same as, how it was regarded in the Graeco-Roman world at the time Luke-Acts was written, where the narrative-rhetorical tradition was regarded as a means to persuade with clarity and plausibility, to set forth vivid examples and precedents, and to provide the reasons for why such actions occurred. Therefore, one may appropriately mention that the criticism or condemnation of using Luke’s narrative to establish what Luke expects believers to pray for and what Luke expects God to do in answer to prayer—because Lukan characters who bear witness to Jesus also pray and receive the Lukan gift of the Holy Spirit—is, from the perspective of Pentecostal tradition, negative criticism that misunderstands Luke as having only strictly historical motives, not theological motives,” (“The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Review Article,” Trinity Journal 23NS, No. 1 [Spring 2002] 81-101: 83-84).