Toward a Pentecostal Theology of Preaching by Lee Martin

Author:Lee Martin [Martin, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: azw
Publisher: CPT Press
Published: 2015-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

Hispanic Pentecostal Preaching Seeking for Wholeness

In the traditional understanding of salvation, sin is internalized. The human problem is a result based on the sin committed in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve. Because of their actions the whole human race is guilty before God. As everybody is a sinner, existing as a victim of original sin, humans are under God’s judgment. The solution to the human predicament is God’s free gift of grace through the justifying work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The human response to this predicament is to accept in faith God’s free gift of justifying grace and forgiveness. Those who received the gift of God offered their lives to this God as a response of gratitude and loyalty. Thus, humans were justified and ready to enter into a new relationship with God and neighbor.[546] In the Hispanic Pentecostal interpretation, sin and evil are not internalized. It understands the human problem to be not their guilt before God, but their poverty, impotence, and exclusion from every aspect of society, a society governed by evil forces which oppressed and enslaved them. They were not sinners looking for redemption, but poor and impotent people searching for survival. In this sense, evil and sin are not internalized, but are conceived as something external to their condition. The poor are sinned against, not sinners.

The solution to this human predicament is an encounter with the power of the Spirit. The Spirit as the power of the resurrected One on earth gives poor people the hope and power to continue in the struggle to reorganize their broken lives: ‘Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, God’s saving work is manifest as an immediate response to suffering, pain, and brokenness, which makes possible a journey toward the fullness of life as health, material well-being, and happiness’.[547]

Centering the message of salvation not in people’s sinfulness but in God’s desire to help them to overcome their predicament – such as poverty and oppression – this new paradigm of redemption offers a new journey towards the fullness of life. The entrance of poor people into the realm of the Spirit provids them with a new sense of victory in the midst of defeat. Therefore, what the poor encounter in Hispanic Pentecostalism is an experience of God that brings solutions to their day-to-day struggles. As this experience of the Spirit gives new life to Pentecostals, they are called to participate in the extension of the Kingdom of God through their testimonies and proclamation as new evangelists. This is clearly seen in the orthopathic love of God for human beings as witnessed by Hispanic women preachers.

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