These transitional events are not a repetition of Pentecost, but, “Extensions
of Pentecost…They describe an expansion or a spreading of the scope of
the Holy Spirit baptism…It was ‘epoch-crossing, and consequently atypical
and non-paradigmatic in nature,’ bound up with the once-for-all
redemptive-historical developments of that time, the inception of what the
New Testament calls ‘the fullness of time’ (Galatians 4:4).’”
-Richard Gaffin, In the Fullness of Time, 134

Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a
packaged tour of the Absolute?...Does anyone have the foggiest idea what
sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a
word of it?...It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to
church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life
preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.
-Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, 48-49