THE HOLY SPIRIT, TONGUES, AND PROPHECY IN ACTS AND CHARISMATIC CHRISTIANITY IN GHANA

Abstract

 The activities of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts have motivated some scholars to name it the Book of the Holy Spirit. There have been discourses on the evidence of what constitutes the reception of the Holy Spirit in early Christianity. Propositions advanced indicate that in the Early Church, one needed to speak in tongues or prophesy to show the reception and residence of the Holy Spirit in the life of a neophyte believer. It has been argued that Charismatic Christianity in Ghana seeks to perpetuate pneumatic
activities in the Book of Acts. This study seeks responses to the questions: What is the nexus between tongues and prophecy in the reception of the Holy Spirit in the Early Church? Does it reflect pneumatological activities in primal religions in which the Early Church stemmed? Does speaking in tongues and prophecy in Charismatic Christianity in Ghana echo the experiences in the Book of Acts? Although there were many instances in the Early Church (the Book of Acts) where there was proximity between the reception of the Holy Spirit, tongues, and prophecy, the concept has a resemblance with the phenomenon in the Hebrew Bible, Judaism, and Greco-Roman primal religio-cultural norms in which the Early Church was birthed. The reception of the Holy Spirit may not always be accompanied by speaking in tongues or prophecy. Charismatic Christianity partly reflects the pneumatic phenomenon in the Book of Acts.