Dead Men Walking

Someone said that my great-grandfather when he was a missionary in China once prayed over a dead man who came back to life. My great-grandfather was a very early Pentecostal missionary who was not highly educated in terms of theology being that he was a butcher by trade, but he had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit at Azusa Street and had felt called to ministry. In those days early Pentecostals were much disdained and maligned by the intelligentsia as lowly boors and ignoramuses. These negative stereotypes of Pentecostals are very common even if unfair and prejudiced, not that I know very much about this. Interesting how even today people can be so scrupulous about being fair to Indians and Latins and yet show such contempt for Pentecostals who believe in signs and wonders, as if there were something unbearably naive about believing in the Virgin Birth. If God can do anything, then why doesn't he? We just don't know. God says to us, "My thoughts are not your thoughts." Thus we have these Southern Baptists sneering and looking down their noses at us for believing in miracles. And yet God often does honor the faith of those who sincerely pray in faith believing. Still, these prejudices against us make us want to avoid the word "Pentecostal" like the plague because, well, lots of people don't seem to know what it really means and, well, sometimes the word gets attached to things that don't really represent what we actually believe or should believe. But even for all the "mistakes," perhaps, of those early years, although I don't know a lot about this, the Pentecostals did have a profound impact on religion in America and all over the world. All the Greek and Latin skills and knowledge of centuries could not provide the power that came down from heaven. Not that there is anything wrong with education necessarily. Education is good. Education has its place but it doesn't make up for a lack of anointing.