The trend of Pentecostals to produce scholarly works which do not compromise our Pentecostal distinctiveness must continue. By being good stewards of our minds we can regain much of the ground which was lost as a result of the intellectual abdication by conservative Christians during the 19th century. (Pentecostalism, as an outgrowth of conservative Christianity, inherited this legacy.) Granted, conservative Biblical scholarship has improved, especially in the last half-century.1 But the usefulness of non-Pentecostal Evangelical works is somewhat tempered by views which are diametrically opposed to what makes us distinctive, i.e. the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the emphasis on the miraculous. This leads to an important reason why Pentecostal scholarship must continue: we need works which are defined by our agenda in order to further define our agenda. This, in turn, will help ensure the survival of the movement.2

It is in this vein that I would like to propose a particular type of work: a Pentecostal Old Testament theology.3

The task of Old Testament theology is to examine and organize the Old Testament around theological themes. The tendency has been to focus on one organizing principle to which all themes are connected. For instance, Walther Eichrodt's theology used covenant as its central concept,4 while Gerhard von Rad's used Israel's central confessions as its center.5 Whether or not an absolute center of the Old Testament can be determined (which is not the purpose of this essay),6 the idea of using a particular theme as the organizing principle of the theology can be quite useful. What would that theme be for the Pentecostal? One possibility would be to do a theology based on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. While this approach has some appeal, the result would be a theology of one member of the Trinity, not a theology of the Scriptures.7 Another possibility, suggested by Mark McLean, is to see the distinctive aspect of Pentecostalism as the confession that God speaks and acts today as He did as recorded in the Bible. It is this confession which opens us up to the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and other aspects of the miraculous. The choice, then, is to focus on the idea of God as an acting agent.8

A Pentecostal Old Testament theology would not be completely different than other Old Testament theologies. As with others, it would consider the nature of God and humanity while including numerous related theological and ethical topics. It would consider the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament, for Old Testament theology is a Christian undertaking. Finally, it would go beyond a description of what the ancients believed and ask what we believe today.9

In what way, then, would an emphasis on God acting make the work distinctly Pentecostal? We cannot claim to be the only ones who emphasize God's activity. The so-called biblical theology movement (i.e. neo-orthodox Old Testament scholarship) emphasized God's activity. Likewise Gerhard Hasel, whose summaries of Old Testament theologies are most instructive, encourages using God as an acting agent as the center for an Old Testament theology.10 But what perspective can hold to this and remain philosophically consistent?

It is here where Pentecostals differ from most theologians. As for God's past actions, we have not bought into the world-view of "moderns," whose constant dilemma is confessing belief in a God who is not believed to have done anything.11 As for God's present actions, we have not bought into the world-view of non- Pentecostal Evangelicals who believe that the miraculous is a thing of the past. Our belief that the God who revealed Himself to the ancients is also the God who reveals Himself to us today overcomes tendencies to present a history of the religion of Israel or to apply inadequately what we find in the Bible. In other words, the Pentecostal can most easily appropriate a theology of the God who acts without being self-contradictory.

Using God as an acting agent as the central theme of a theology can generate a large number of categories which are relevant to Pentecostalism in particular and Christianity in general. The nature of God can be inferred by an examination of His activity. The nature of humanity and what God expects of them can be inferred by an examination of the relationship of humanity to the acting God.

The following analysis, while not exhaustive, highlights some major themes concerning God's activity as recorded in the Old Testament: (a) creation and maintenance of the universe; (b) direct (and out of the ordinary) intervention in said universe; (c) the use of human agents to carry out God's will; and (d) various forms of communication to reveal His will.

The Old Testament begins with God's creation of all aspects of the universe, a universe which He described as "good." But His activity did not stop there; from the beginning He was intimately involved with the people He created.

God's direct intervention in history is described on both a macro and a micro scale, affecting the nation as a whole12 or the individual.13 Types of actions include manipulation of the universe,14 destruction of wicked cities by fire,15 deliverance from enemies,16 and wrath upon the rebellious17 or the irreverent18 within the community. God also personally appears,19 raises the dead,20 heals infertility,21 and performs other types of miracles.22 An unpleasant aspect of God's activity as depicted in the Old Testament is His inactivity. God does not always act; sometimes He allows suffering, death, pain, or abandons His people in other ways (e.g. Job).

God's indirect action is likewise multifaceted. He uses foreign nations (unwittingly) to bring wrath upon rebellious Israelites23 and upon the enemies of Israel.24 He employs foreign leaders to aid Israel,25 and He communicates His instructions to prophets in order to influence political situations.26

Both direct and indirect acts of God also involve different levels of verifiability as acts of God.27 These range from being publicly verifiable, to interpretative, to subjectively verifiable. For instance, fire consuming Elijah's sacrifice on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18.16-40) was a public, observable occurrence of the miraculous which, by the nature of the contest, can easily be attributed to God. A second type is less verifiable as an act of God: when God spoke through a prophet and said that foreign king "X" was going to do "A" as God's instrument, -- and "A" did occur-- the credibility of the event as an act of God is dependent upon the fulfillment of the prediction. A third example is provided by the numerous events of God healing infertility (e.g. Hannah, 1 Sam 1-2); the situation changed in a way which was understood to be miraculous, but the ability to demonstrate it as an act of God to the skeptic could be rather difficult.28 However, in all three types of divine activities something observable did occur: fire fell, a king invaded, a woman became pregnant. It must be emphasized that the problem comes in the form of the attribution of an event, not in the event itself.

God as an acting agent includes God as a communicator. One aspect involves the variety of means He used to communicate with people without using a human intermediary. These include personal appearances (Gen 17), dreams (Zech 1:7f), visions (Ezek 8), private direct speech (1 Sam 3:4-14), Urim and Thummim (Num 27), a burning bush (Exod 3:2f), and public direct speech (Deut 5:22-27). In a preliminary study which I conducted (using a methodology known as content analysis)29 no less than twenty different modes of revelation were found.30 The content of these messages included encouragement, rebuke, direction to personal action, direction for others to act, and interpretation of events. These modes of revelation were often the first step in God using human intermediaries: the prophets.

In contrast to the verification of God's non-communicative actions, the problem of communication is not only one of attribution, but of verification of the phenomenon altogether. The content analysis showed that less than 10% of the occurrences of God's direct communication could be termed "public."31 The difficulty in proving the existence and origin of a purportedly prophetic revelation is one of the chief reasons why false prophecy was (and is) often difficult to prove, and why true prophecy was (and is) often unheeded.32

An Old Testament theology should include a discussion of God as a thinking, emotional, valuing being. This notion ties strongly into the creation of humanity. It is not that God is in the image of humanity, but that humanity is in the image of God. Part of this image includes being psychological beings. It would seem to follow, then, that if humans--as the image of God--are psychological beings, then God is a psychological being.

This view is confirmed by the Old Testament, for it presents a description of God as One who thinks, feels, and acts in ways similar to humans. Yet the different thoughts, feelings, and activities of God show a personality different from that of humans. The difference from humans is in how often God is engaged in particular types of activity, not in the particular types of these activities. God is thus presented more like a human with a different emphasis than a being who is wholly other.

Humans are the crown and glory of God's creation (Gen 1:26-31). As such, an Old Testament theology should consider how God designed humans, including their physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects. The One Who Created humanity also placed demands upon humanity which are twofold in focus: how to relate to God, and how to relate to humans.

God's activities are motivated by what He values. In this respect humans are to be imitators of God. Emphases include righteousness, justice, a high value on human life, and harmony among humans. One particular theme which is neglected by Pentecostals is that God is a defender of the helpless and needy. This neglect is due in part to a reaction against abuses by liberals who focus on helping the poor apart from the proclamation of the Gospel. However, our responsibility is not abrogated by the distortions of others; humans are expected to have the same values as God.

An examination of the human responses to God's activity can likewise be instructive. Once again, the Old Testament presents a complex picture. Praise, thanksgiving and amazement were often positive responses to God's actions.33 However, horror was often the response to the idea that God would bring wrath, and dismay was expressed when His inactivity allowed the wicked to prosper (Psalm 73), oppressors to act,34 and personal suffering to continue (Psalm 88).

God's activity is described in a variety of types of literature in the Old Testament. One way to examine His activity is to consider the different genres in concert, as the above summaries did. Another beneficial way is to examine the aforementioned themes in light of the characteristics of the various genres of Old Testament literature.

Narrative is an extremely valuable source of information concerning God's activity, for in narrative the interplay between the divine and the human comes to life. It is here where God's activity might even be most prominent.35 The theologically oriented historical works which describe God's activities and attitudes over a long period of time tell us much about God. In narrative God creates, communicates, delivers, punishes, provides, guides, states likes and dislikes, describes His nature, appears personally, promotes, and humbles. People also respond to God with either obedience or disobedience.36 Old Testament narrative opens one up to the riches of the historical God, the God who is not wholly other, the God who revealed Himself in history, the passionate God-- in sum, the God who acts.37

Prophetic literature, as the voice of God which frequently describes His past, present, and future actions, is a rich resource. It gives us a high concentration of quotations of God; God's motives for action are often stated; and a wide variety of modes of communication by God to humans can be found. These can serve to illuminate the nature and purpose of prophetic gifts and prophetic ministry. The prophets can also act as a corrective when Pentecostals are blinded to aspects of wickedness due to the preference of certain types of messages over others. For instance, statements in the prophets which condemn idolatry, syncretism, drunkenness, and sexual immorality are frequently appealed to for doctrine, while elements which address politics or economic oppression are suppressed.38

The Psalms provide a guide for approaching the God who acts. Some Psalms demonstrate how to praise God for what He has done, while others show us how to ask God for help. The Psalms can also complete a missing dimension in Pentecostalism by providing models of how to complain to God (Pss 10, 22, 88), whether it be because of His unpleasant activity or His inactivity.39

Wisdom literature tends to provide the most difficulty for Old Testament theologies, and will probably be no exception for the Pentecostal. One application would be to function as a corrective to the rampant irrationality in Pentecostal circles.

In sum, the various genres of the Old Testament provide insights into the God who acts in ways which are useful to Pentecostals.

To do an Old Testament theology, by definition, entails a separation of the Testaments.40 However, as Hasel rightly points out, an Old Testament theology must consider the relation between these.41 A Pentecostal approach can look at it from a few angles.

To do a Pentecostal theology, or any kind of Christian theology for that matter, must involve the use of the entire Bible.42 It is unfortunate that the Old Testament is frequently devalued in Pentecostal circles, a view which is incongruous with the common Pentecostal confession that the Bible is our infallible rule of faith and conduct. This confession of infallibility is meaningless if someone has the attitude, "but that's the Old Testament." A separate treatment of the Testaments can partially overcome this neglect.43 Ultimately, though, they must be seen together as the whole witness of the Scriptures as to who God is and what God expects humans to do. An Old Testament theology, then, supplies one piece of the puzzle.

As a Pentecostal I understand the relationship between the two Testaments to be as follows. First, the main difference is the clarity of revelation through Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Hebrews 1:1-2). This involves the fulfillment of the sacrificial law along with an abandonment of the dietary laws, and a few other minor modifications. By and large, though, the Old Testament stands (see Matt 5:17-20.) Second, according to Peter's sermon in Acts 2, the spiritual gifts of the New Testament are God's outpouring of the Holy Spirit as depicted in Joel. This demonstrates continuity with the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. The difference is not so much in the nature of the gifts as in the widespread distribution of the gifts. The two Testaments, then, have similar emphases, clarify each other, and have a common God who wants to be in relationship with whosoever will.

A Pentecostal Old Testament theology would provide a critical tool which is not only conservative in perspective, but distinctively Pentecostal. It would provide models of God's activity and communication, along with appropriate responses to the God who acts. These models would be both informative and corrective, especially to clarify spiritual gifts and the miraculous. Finally, it could once again help to demonstrate that Pentecostal scholarship is not an oxymoron.

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1. One approach often taken by Evangelicals is the appeal to neo-orthodoxy. However, taking this avenue is neither necessary nor wise. See Mark D. McLean, "Toward a Pentecostal Hermeneutic," Pneuma 6 (1984) 35-56.

2. As William Menzies has noted (Lecture, Evangel College, Fall 1983), what killed the numerous small-scale Pentecostal movements through church history was their acceptance of new revelation at the expense of Scripture.

3. Much of the impetus of this essay comes from Mark D. McLean, who encouraged me to practice Pentecostal hermeneutics, and Paul D. Hanson, who urged me to integrate critical scholarship with Pentecostalism.

4. Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961, 1967).

5. Gerhardrd von Rad, Old Testament Theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).

6. In more recent times debate has ensued as to whether either testament has any particular unifying theme. See Gerhard Hasel, Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate, 4th edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991) 139-171.

7. There is a place for a theology of the Holy Spirit; see Stanley Horton, What The Bible Says about the Holy Spirit (Springfield: Gospel Publishing House, 1976).

8. Following Gordon Kaufman, "On the Meaning of `Act of God'," God the Problem (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972) 125-6, I am defining act in the ordinary sense of the word: a specific deed performed by an agent. While this essay accepts Kaufman's definition of act, it rejects definitions of history which axiomatically exclude God as a valid participant in history (cf. Kaufmann 123; Frank M. Cross [Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973) Preface viii], who terms the mixing of history with the divine "epic").

9. Gilkey, Langdon B., "Cosmology, Ontology, and the Travail of Biblical Language," Journal of Religion 41 (1961) 198, 204; Hasel 194.

10. Hasel 168.

11. Gilkey (197-198) diagnosed the Biblical Theology movement as having a terminal illness: the inability to be able to confess, when push came to shove, that God had actually done anything. James Barr followed up with theological euthanasia; see James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford Univ. Press, 1961); and Barr, "Biblical Theology," IDBSupp 104-111.

12. The deliverance at the Reed Sea (Exod 14:13-15:21).

13. The sunken axhead floating (2 Kings 6:3-7).

14. The sun standing still (Josh 10:13); the earth being flooded (Gen 7-9).

15. Sodom, Gomorrah, et. al. (Gen 19).

16. The Assyrian army being killed by an angel (Isa 37:36).

17. Korah and company (Num 26:10); Miriam getting temporary leprosy (Num 12).

18. Uzzah being killed when he grabbed the Ark (2 Sam 6:6-7).

19. Yahweh having dinner with Abraham (Genesis 18).

20. The Shunammite's son (2 Kings 4:18-37).

21. Sarah (Gen 21:1); Hannah (1 Sam 1).

22. The oil not running out (2 Kings 4:1-7).

23. Nebuchadnezzar destroying Jerusalem (Jer 22:24f).

24. The destruction of Nineveh (Nahum).

25. Cyrus helping rebuild the Temple (Isa 44:28-45:7).

26. Samuel anointed two kings; Jehu is encouraged to have a coup d'etat (2 Kings 9-10).

27. This is not an appeal to positivism. By "verifiability" I do not mean our ability to verify Biblical accounts, but the ancients' ability to verify contemporary events. However, the application of the principles to our particular circumstances would be the same.

28. With modern medicine this particular miracle might be of the first order.

29. The study considered a sampling of 193 passages from the Old Testament. For a description of the basic idea of content analysis, see J. Arthur Baird, "Content Analysis and the Computer: A Case-Study in the Application of the Scientific Method to Biblical Research," JBL 95 (1976) 255-276. For a detailed introduction to content analysis, see Klaus Krippendorff, Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980).

30. An interesting note is that God's personal name, Yahweh, is more often associated with direct communication than the generic term Elohim (a 19:1 ratio).

31. "Public" or not was based on whether or not the Scriptures actually recorded more than one person seeing or hearing the message.

32. A treatment on prophecy should also include a discussion of false prophets. James Crenshaw explores some difficulties in Prophetic Conflict: Its Effect upon Israelite Religion (BZAW 124; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1971).

33. For deliverance (e.g. from the Egyptians [Exod 15;1-21]), provision, etc.

34. Gideon (Judges 6:13).

35. The content analysis showed a high number of instances of God's direct communication in Genesis-2 Chronicles.

36. It is also my hope that a treatment on narrative could help to overcome the propensity to treat Old Testament narrative allegorically or typologically.

37. It is generally acknowledged by Biblical scholars from a wide variety of perspectives that Old Testament narrative is intentionally theological (ergo didactic). The limitations which Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart (How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982] 78, 84, 97) place on the use of narrative for normative theology are of a type which "border on the arbitrary" (to use William Menzies' terminology ["The Methodology of Pentecostal Theology: An Essay on Hermeneutics," Essays on Apostolic Themes (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1985) 10]) and are to be rejected. To see narrative as "purely descriptive" and demand that doctrines be taught in other genres represents a narrow view of the nature and richness of Biblical narrative. Further, there is no such thing as generic history; all history is selective and written to make particular points. Old Testament narrative is no exception, and the burden of proof is on those who would posit otherwise. To follow an approach such as Fee's and Stuart's does more than curb hermeneutical excesses; it hamstrings theology.

38. In Malachi 3.5, those who practice sorcery, adultery, and oppression of wage earners, widows, fatherless children, and resident aliens, are all classed as those who do not fear God.

39. This problem is not unique to Pentecostalism. See Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981) 264-65.

40. Granted, this definition assumes the legitimacy of the enterprise.

41. Hasel 172-193.

42. Hasel 172.

43. An added benefit is that the New Testament can look different after looking at its foundation, the Old, independently.