Contact: Robert Graves, The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship (TFFPS), 770-516-7300

CLEVELAND, Tenn., Mar. 25 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship (TFFPS) conferred its 2007 Awards of Excellence for Pentecostal scholarship. TFFPS president, Robert W. Graves, announced the awards during the 2007 Conference of the Society for Pentecostal Studies at Lee University. Two book awards and one article award were given.

This year's book award voting resulted in a tie between Pentecostal Healing: Models in Theology and Practice by Kimberly Ervin Alexander, an Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at the Church of God Theological Seminary, and Spirit and Kingdom in the Writings of Luke and Paul: An Attempt to Reconcile These Concepts, by Youngmo Cho, an Assemblies of God pastor and assistant professor of New Testament studies at Asia LIFE University (Daejeon, Korea).

The short work award went to Paul Elbert, adjunct Professor of Theology and Science at the Church of God Theological Seminary and of New Testament Theology at Lee University for "Possible Literary Links Between Luke-Acts and Pauline Letters Regarding Spirit-Language."

Alexander's Pentecostal Healing (Deo Publishing) is believed by many to be the most comprehensive study of the 19th-century healing movement and divine healing as a central belief in the early Pentecostal movement. Cho's Spirit and Kingdom (Paternoster) interacts effectively with works by New Testament scholars James Dunn and Max Turner, exposing the weaknesses in their anti-Pentecostal positions.

Elbert's essay, published in The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory and Practice, eds. Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis R. MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter (New Testament Monographs 16; Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006), postulates that Luke's writing of his double work follows the expected Greco-Roman narrative-rhetorical tradition of the day with respect to earlier revered literature, like the Pauline letters. Accordingly, he seeks "to initiate and stimulate a fresh reading of Paul and extend Paul's proper influence" by persuasively clarifying Paul's Spirit language through vivid and plausible examples of receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Other nominated books were Kenneth J. Archer's A Pentecostal Hermeneutic for the Twenty-First Century: Spirit, Scripture and Community (T&T Clark), and Frank D. Macchia's Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Zondervan).

TFFPS was formed in 2005 with the goal of advancing biblical scholarship within the global Pentecostal family. More information about the Foundation is available at its Web site: www.tffps.org.