Blogs

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter.

This is your chance to receive a new copy of Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination: Volume 1: The Modern Redefinition of Tongues by Philip E. Blosser & Charles A. Sullivan.

“In three carefully researched volumes, this ground-breaking study examines the gift of tongues through 2,000 years of church history. Starting in the present and working back in time, these volumes consider (1) the modern redefinition of ‘tongues’ as a private prayer language…

“In the first volume, the authors establish that modern glossolalia, far from being a supernatural gift enjoyed by certain believers since the time of Pentecost and undergoing a resurgence in modern times, has no precedent in church life prior to the nineteenth century. They discuss why German theologians, responding to the Irvingite revival, coined the term ‘glossolalia’ in the 1830s; why Pentecostals between 1906–8 quietly began redefining ‘tongues’ to mean a heavenly language unintelligible to human beings but pleasing to God, instead of foreign languages useful for evangelism; why Protestant cessationists believed miraculous tongues had ceased; and why interpolated idioms like ‘unknown tongues’ in Protestant Bibles were aimed originally at Rome’s use of Latin.”

One of the authors, Charles Sullivan, has a website where much information about speaking in tongues is posted. I am unsure how much is included in the book.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on November 24 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

You may want to subscribe to the email notifications of new blog posts in order to not miss these. While we try to share about our giveaways on social media, those platforms often do not show the posts to many people.

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I apologize for not getting to our monthly giveaways that I intended to do earlier in the year. We had three so far in 2025, and I’m now trying to make up for not posting these earlier. There are going to be a number of them posted in a short amount of time.

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter.

This is your chance to receive a new copy of Women and Worship at Corinth: Paul’s Rhetorical Arguments in 1 Corinthians by Lucy Peppiatt.

This is a more academic version of Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 by the author and covers additional issues.

“Making sense of Paul’s arguments in 1 Corinthians 11-14 regarding both the role of women in public worship and the value of tongues and prophecy for the unbeliever has long posed challenges for any lay reader or scholar. Despite numerous explanations offered over the years, these passages remain marked by inconsistencies, contradictions, and puzzles. Lucy Peppiatt offers a reading of 1 Corinthians 11-14 in which she proposes that Paul is in conversation with the Corinthian male leadership regarding their domineering, superior, and selfish practices, including coercing the women to wear head coverings, lording it over the ‘have-nots’ at the Lord’s Supper, speaking in tongues all at once, and ordering married women to keep quiet in church. Through careful exegesis and theological comment this reading not only brings internal coherence to the text, but paints a picture of the apostle gripped by a vision for a new humanity ‘in the Lord’ resulting in his refusal to compromise with the traditional views of his own society. Instead, as those who should identify with the crucified Christ, he exhorts the Corinthians to make ‘love’ their aim, and thus to restore dignity and honor to women, the outsider, and the poor.”

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on November 22, 2025 at 6pm eastern time, after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

You may want to subscribe to the email notifications of new blog posts in order to not miss these. While we try to share about our giveaways on social media, those platforms often do not show the posts to many people.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

I apologize for not getting to our monthly giveaways that I intended to do earlier in the year. We had three so far in 2025, and I’m now trying to make up for not posting these earlier. There are going to be a number of them posted in a short amount of time.

This is only open to those with a USA mailing address. There is absolutely no cost to enter.

This is your chance to receive a new copy of Unveiling Paul’s Women: Making Sense of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 by Lucy Peppiatt.

As many of our readers know, this section of 1 Corinthians has been used to teach that women must wear a head covering when in church, as well as that women must never cut their hair (as taught in the United Pentecostal Church). It’s also been used to teach that women are somewhat less than men.

I found it very interesting how Lucy Peppiatt puts forth the thought that in these passages Paul is repeating some things that the Corinthian believers had written to him. In other words, she believes that in verses 4-5 and 7-10, Paul was repeating what the Corinthians had previously shared with him. Verse 16 is then saying that there is no such custom of wearing head coverings.

We do know that Paul was responding to a letter he had received from this group of believers, so this thought is not unreasonable. We also know that the Corinthians were very messed up and carnal, and Paul had to correct them on numerous issues.

The author also covers various aspects and views on this section of scripture. I found her view of the passages to be plausible and that they made more sense that way. I don’t believe Paul was anti-women and have never liked when people attempt to portray Paul in a negative light. There are actually those who hate Paul, I believe due to a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of certain passages. Perhaps this book will help someone who feels this way.

This giveaway is a drawing. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on November 22, 2024 at 6pm eastern time, after which I will draw a winner.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. If I know your Facebook profile, I will message you there.

Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show as it may require approval.

You may want to subscribe to the email notifications of new blog posts in order to not miss these. While we try to share about our giveaways on social media, those platforms often do not show the posts to many people.

********
Shop at our Amazon store! As an Amazon Influencer, this website earns from qualifying purchases.

On September 18, 2025, United Pentecostal Church pastor Steve Waldron made a brief video comparing the size of the 1990 edition of the UPCI’s Manual and the 2024 edition. He shared that the 2024 edition was 309 pages and the 1990 was 136. As an added note, the 2025 edition has 319 pages.

He questioned why there was such a difference in size, wondering if it could be a change in the print size and mentioned there being more position papers and very little changes in the Articles of Faith. He also mentioned that a person doesn’t “ever want to see your walk with the Lord replaced by the rules of men.”

He shared how he preferred a hard copy of the Manual and that the UPCI used to send one every year to their ministers, but stopped that around about 15 years ago. If a minister wants a physical copy, they now must order and pay for one. Waldron mentioned that he is more prone to read it if he has a copy in his hands as compared to a digital copy.

I applaud him for reading all or part of the Manual each year as my guess is that the majority of UPCI ministers do not do this. I’ve known this from conversing with some of them, who were unaware of something mentioned in a Manual. For instance, I’ve heard their ministers erroneously claim that the UPCI is only a ministerial organization, when from their inception their Manuals have clearly stated otherwise at the beginning of their General Constitution.

The last hard copy of the Manual I have is from 2018 and it’s 215 pages. I also have the 1990 edition and it’s 143 pages. (Waldron gave the page number for when it ends, but didn’t include the mostly blank pages after that. If we do the same for 2018, it has 211.)

I recently was able to obtain the first UPCI Manual from when Howard Goss was the General Superintendent and it has 88 pages, though it ends at 86, and the dimensions are noticeably smaller. For awhile they used to combine the Manual and Directories into one publication and in the 1952 edition, which is very close to the dimensions of the first Manual, there were 248/246 pages.

So why is there such a difference between 86 pages in the beginning to 309 in 2024? (Almost 100 more pages from 2018 till 2024.) Part of the reason is because as time went on, more sections were included. They didn’t use to include their position papers and judicial procedure. Then they added the General Board Policies section, which brought more than 30 pages, and later added a section that includes resources for local churches, which added about 30 more pages. These four additions are positive ones.

Besides the above, as the UPCI has grown, they have added departments and positions and this requires changes to the Manual that spell out the purpose, officers and their duties and qualifications, finances and more. In addition to this, every year there are changes to the Manual. Sometimes sections are removed or clarified and others are added. These often come from resolutions which are voted upon at General Conference.

The Manual also underwent a much needed revision in recent years, though I’m unsure how this impacted the size.

If you wish to watch Steve Waldron’s video, go here.