To Speak in Tongues or Not to Speak in Tongues? That is the Question!

I suppose every truly worthy blog will have at least one article concerning the gift of tongues, so here is mine. Keep in mind that I’m dealing with the issue of speaking of tongues in the church meeting, not in a person’s private life.

So then, to speak in tongues or not to speak in tongues-that is the question! Why it bothers so many people and why it remains unclear to so many people I do not know, but I do know that to this day it remains a very volatile issue among Christians.

Consider the following scenario…

Joe Christian has just received the Lord. He steps into his first meeting with the church and takes a seat. After the first song a brother two couch cushions down starts to speak in a language that Joe has never heard before. Is he talking to everyone, or just praying? Joe doesn’t know. All he knows is that he is confused. After the brother is finished speaking no one explains what he has said, and the meeting continues.

Fortunately, Paul made mention of this very situation to a church many years ago. “If there is no one to interpret what you are saying,” Paul said, “then don’t speak in tongues in the meeting. Otherwise, when an unbeliever or someone who is unaware of what is going on comes in, he will hear you talking in your foreign language and quickly come to the conclusion that you are crazy.” (This is from the NLT – New Lawson Translation. :))

Simply put, Joe Christian has not been built up and made strong by his brother’s speaking in tongues. He has been confused and brought low instead. And simple logic fairly screams out in reply – what good is that?

Allow me to relate a little of my own personal history with speaking in tongues. When I first began to follow the Lord I was attending a Southern Baptist church. Such things as speaking in tongues were heavily frowned upon in that congregation, so I stayed away. However, I had a friend who went to a Pentecostal church, and we often got together for fellowship. Over the years his influence won me over and I became what his pastor called a “bapti-costal” (a Baptist who had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues). And I loved it.

It didn’t take long for me to realize, however, that I wore my tongue-talking abilities like a spiritual badge of honor. In church services and prayer meetings, whenever I could, I felt like I needed to speak in tongues in order to “get God’s mind” or “enter His presence” or whatever. Mostly, though, it was just the fact that I enjoyed looking spiritual to those who heard me exercising my little gift.

Nowadays I look a whole lot less charismatic than I did back then. Many of my old Pentecostal friends wouldn’t enjoy a prayer meeting with me at all, I’m afraid. Even still, there is still a lot of experience from that season in my life that I do not discount. And yes, even today I will sometimes pray to the Lord with words that better express the deep desire of my heart when my own expression seems inadequate. And I am able to touch the Lord in that way.

But this whole business of speaking in tongues in a church meeting is simply crazy to me. Paul makes the matter very clear in my opinion. He goes to great lengths to show that he himself is not against people who pray/speak in tongues, noting how he does so probably more than anyone else. (He even wishes that all believers would speak in tongues!) “But in the meeting,” he declares, “I would rather speak five intelligible words that reveal Christ and build everyone up than ten thousand unintelligible words that serve for nothing more than to make me look spiritual at best and crazy at worst.” The key phrase here is “in the meeting…” The highlight is on what works best in the corporate setting.

I have been in meetings where a person spoke in tongues and then an interpretation was given. That seems to be fine from what Paul has to say. However, in every one of those meetings I was left wondering, what is the point? Why not just give the message without the tongues? Unless, that is, someone is here who doesn’t speak English and who needs to hear the message in his own language. Could it really be so simple and practical as that?

Now I meet mostly in homes with believers who seek to gather around Christ in an “organic” fashion. And to be honest, I have no idea how the gift of speaking in tongues could or ever would fit into such a context. Not that I’m not open to it, or wouldn’t welcome such a manifestation of the Spirit, but from my own limited experience, I just don’t know. What I do know is that too many people make an issue of their own personal tongue-speaking which I strongly suspect bears little resemblance to the actual gift which the Spirit gives for corporate use. And this is not good for the church; rather, it only serves to distract God’s people from Christ.

Again, though, Paul is very liberal. “Don’t forbid speaking in tongues” is his final word on the matter. But only after making himself very clear. Unless it is for a practical purpose, there is no reason anyone should be speaking in tongues in the meeting of the church. The rule of thumb is quite simple: Everything I say in the meeting my brother must be able to say “amen” to. And if my brother can’t understand what I’m saying then he can’t say amen to it, can he? To me it doesn’t get any clearer than that. Your thoughts?

Moving Towards a Christ-Centered Hermeneutic

If you’ve ever really paid attention to the way the apostles handled the Old Testament, it may very well drive you crazy. At least, I think it would most modern-day seminarians. For there was nothing systematic about their interpretation of scripture; it was all a revelation of Jesus Christ, plain and simple. At the moment I’m thinking specifically of the quotations we find in the book of Acts. It’s like after the Spirit came on Pentecost there was an explosion of illumination, and suddenly these men saw Christ everywhere and in all things.

See Peter before the multitudes: “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.” This is Christ.

Or the apostles when they prayed to the Lord upon being released from their arrest: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Anointed.” This too is speaking of Christ.

Then you have Stephen before the council, on trial for his life. With one sweeping motion he shows the entire OT drama to be a prefigure and a pointer to Jesus Christ. All of it was speaking of Him and leading up to Him.

And Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.” Again, Christ!

It just impresses me how much the apostles were centered upon Jesus Christ. For them, Christ was everything. He was all. And He was the key to understanding the scriptures, for the scriptures were to them an embodiment of Him. In the words of T. Austin Sparks, “God has not first of all written a book, He has written a Person.” That Person is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the scriptures, both Old Testament and New, have been given to us to show forth Him.

Nothing sets this forth as clearly as Luke 24: When the two disciples on the road to Emmaus encountered the risen Christ (though at first they didn’t know who he was), He opened their understanding of the scriptures by showing them how all of it pointed to Him. In essence, the Lord Jesus held His own personal Bible study, and the only subject He spoke on was the subject of Himself! In doing so He took them beyond their limited understanding of the Old Testament as merely a collection of writings, histories, poems, and prophecies, to the point at which it became a revelation of Himself. And let me tell you, when they saw the scripture for the first time in the light of Jesus Christ, their hearts burned within them! For the first time they saw the meaning behind it all, and in that moment their sorrow was transformed into joy, their despair into hope, and their sadness into great expectation!

The Lord, I believe, would do the same for us. He would lead us out of our limited apprehension of the scripture as a mere religous textbook into a place of beholding Himself behind every word and every story. As He did with the apostles, the Holy Spirit would move us towards a Christ-centered hermeneutic, where our hearts are opened to the true meaning of the letter we so very little know.

So brother, that leather-bound book you hold in your hand it not a manual on how you are to live the Christian life. Nor is it a collection of doctrines and practices you’re supposed to learn how to believe and follow. It is the written record of the revelation God has given of His Son, and the story of a people who first knew Him when He came into this world. That story is continuing to this day, and you and I are invited to play our part.

Here’s a little exercise for you to try. When you come before the Lord today, open your Bible to Colossians 1:15-20. Read the scripture out loud, then be silent as you consider it. Set your heart upon Christ who lives and moves within you. Behold Him. Then take those verses and turn them into prayer to God. “Lord Jesus, You are the image of the invisible God. Him who I cannot see I see when I look at you.” And with every word you pray, touch the Lord in your spirit. Allow Him to set your heart aflame with a vision of this great Christ of whom the scirpture speaks. Feel Him as He burns within you! And come away from your time with Him ready to tell someone about it. If you really touch Him then you won’t be able to do any less.

In doing so you will have experienced more of the intended purpose of scripture than if you were to spend hours cross-referencing verses and studying systematic theology. This I guarantee you.

knowing the first-century story

Woven all throughout your New Testament and mine, buried somewhere beneath the jumbled mess of books, chapters, and verses that is our present arrangement of scripture, is the story of the first century of church. Unearth that story and you have unlocked buried treasure.

Here are some sample questions to see if you are familiar with that story:

1)How many of Paul’s letters were written within the timeframe covered in the book of Acts?
2)Where were Priscilla and Aquila living in the year A.D. 58?
3)How many shipwrecks did Paul endure during his lifetime?
4)When and how did the church in Colosse begin?
5)Why did Paul come to Corinth determined to know “nothing but Christ and the cross”?
6)When did Paul and Apollos meet?

Chances are you’re much better at offering proof texts for certain doctrines than you are at answering these questions. If so, don’t feel bad. You’re not alone. The vast majority of Christians are reared, not on the first century story, but on systematic theology. So many beliefs and practices drawn from a virtual “cut-and-paste” approach to the scripture rather than from a thorough reading of the whole Divine drama which played itself out between the years A.D. 30-70. Again I say, unearth that story and you have unlocked buried treasure.

About three years ago I heard a message from a man who was saying precisely the same thing. Whether it was the way he said it, the particular insights he shared concerning things I’d personally never considered before (he was telling the story behind Paul’s letter to the Galatians), or simply the Holy Spirit’s revelation to my own heart, my eyes were opened as I sat listening to that message. I saw a dimension to the New Testament that I never even knew existed. Since then I have read my Bible with an eye to chronology and historical context, and I must say the scriptures have opened to me in a way unlike ever before.

So I began my own project to re-arrange the order of my New Testament and reconstruct the first century story. My first steps in this direction were faltering, at best. After a while, though, I began to notice there were a few other people out there also breaking ground in this field (far more ground than I had even dreamed-like this brother, for instance). I also realize that scholars, some scholars at least, have been paying attention to these kinds of things (chronology, dates, places, ect.) for quite some time now. But why had I never heard anyone talk about the importance of viewing the scripture in this light? Why had no one taken the time to point out to me the tremendous benefit such a reconstruction could lead to in my own faith, resulting in such a simple, yet startling, discovery of what the Bible, the New Testament in particular, is really saying?

Well, over time the passion for my own project began to wane, though I have continued to read the New Testament in this way ever since. And I must say that many of my own false mindsets have been broken along the way. For instance, it is all too common for a person viewing the Bible to look at the scriptures through a particular doctrinal lens, reading into the text certain beliefs and practices which in fact are not really there, and learning the first century story has helped free me from such shackles. Recently, though, my passion to reconstruct the story of our brothers and sisters in century one has been renewed, and I have decided to go public with my intention of doing just that (public, at least, to the four or five of you who read this blog 🙂 ). Perhaps I might even enlist one or two of you to go along for the ride and help in the research.

So what do you say? Anyone interested? Allow this post to serve as an introduction. More will follow on this subject from time to time. Take those sample questions and see if you can find the answers to them, if you didn’t know them already, that is. See if they awaken the slightest bit of interest in you to know the New Testament, not as a jumbled mess of chapters, verses, and out-of-order books which men cut and paste to form doctrines out of, but as one beautiful, sweeping drama-the story of Christ and His church.

The Challenge of 1 Corinthians 14

Have you ever been in a meeting of the church that was anything at all like the one described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 14?

A meeting where every believer present is free to share, and most do…
Where ministry is carried on, not by one or two people, but by all the members…
Where the “body” of Christ is alive and functioning, in the full meaning of the word?

How about a meeting where brothers and sisters are constantly interrupting one another, and such behavior is not seen as being rude! A meeting where you are free to open up your mouth and share at any given moment, depending on the revelation of Christ that is burning in your heart to do so. A meeting where, when an unbeliever comes in and sees the holy ones assembled prophesying to one another, Christ is revealed before his very eyes, to the extent that he falls down and confesses, “God is living in you people!”

Ever wonder why we evangelicals spend so much time trying to perfect our church doctrine according to the scriptures, yet care so little to hold up our church practice in the light of the same?

The kind of church meetings that prevail in the Christian world today can for the most part be carried on with or without the presence of much spiritual life; it is all essentially a matter of “conducting a service.” But a meeting like the one described in 1 Corinthians 14 cannot be manufactured, for it requires a certain spiritual dynamic to be in operation in order to “make it happen.”

In most assemblies it is the pastor who is the acting head of the body when the church comes together for ministry (meaning the members take their direction from the pastor). There is a prescribed order of service and that is how it goes. Ministry is confined to a few. This is true even in Charismatic congregations where there is supposed to exist a greater freedom for such things. The body thus assembled fosters an unhealthy passivity in its members as each week the believers file in and out of the building only to listen to a sermon while failing to get any of the spiritual exercise that comes from mutual encouragment and ministry to one another.

This is not to come down on anyone or anything. It is only to point out what is necessary in order to say that there can be even today an expression of the body of Christ which is both free and alive – showing forth her Lord – in meetings where the direct headship of Jesus Christ over His body is a practical, working reality.

But such a thing is only possible where there is an awesome presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is only present where there is a relentless pursuit of Jesus Christ.

And that is the challenge of 1 Corinthians 14. 🙂

How to understand the Old Testament

It’s not uncommon to hear people say they have a hard time understanding the scriptures.  This is especially true of the Old Testament, which is practically out of reach for most people.  Personally I have found that the only way to really understand the Old Testament is to view it in the light of Jesus Christ.

When the Lord appeared incognito and walked with two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus, he began with Moses and the prophets and went through the entire Old Testament and showed them how it all spoke of Him.  He told them the story they already knew, but He cast it in the light of Himself.  And as He did their hearts were opened and they understood the Old Testament for the first time.  It was such a powerful experience that it caused their hearts to burn within them.

Think about it!  While He was here on earth the Lord gave His own personal Bible study.  And the only subject He spoke on was the subject of Himself!  And as He spoke, suddenly all those histories, prophecies, and laws began to make sense.  It was like a whole new book to those two disciples.  Only now it was no longer a book to them.  Now it was the revelation of a Person, the revelation of Jesus Christ!

And as they saw the Lord in the scripture, or rather, as they came to see for the first time the true meaning of scripture in the light of the Lord, their sorrow over the cross was turned into great joy.

How many people are there today, even Christians, whose apprehension of the cross is a very sad thing?  It’s like they have only half a gospel.  They know that Jesus died for them, but they don’t see that Jesus rose for them!  That He is alive, that He is the living Christ, and that His death only has meaning in light of His resurrection. 

I’m getting off on a bit of a tangent here, but I think it serves to demonstrate my point.  Somewhere in Acts it says that the religious rulers in Jerusalem never saw the true meaning of the scriptures they heard proclaimed every week in the synagogue, and because of this they eventually fulfilled them by condemning Jesus.  All they had was a letter, you see.  They had no revelation and no living encounter with Him of whom the letter spoke.   Thus they never understood what the scriptures were really saying, because that is the only way to understand your Bible, to have a living encounter with Christ.  The voices of Moses, the prophets, and the psalmists are clear, and they speak very plainly of Jesus Christ. 

Try this.  The next time you open the scripture to read, approach it with this prayer in your heart: “O Father, show me Your Son.”  And as you read, view everything in the light of Christ.  Make Christ your point of reference.  The Holy Spirit will lead you in a Bible study on the only subject He majors in-Christ (John 16:14)!  And your testimony will be like the testimony of those two disciples:

“Did not our heart burn within us while he talked to us on the way and opened to us the scriptures?”