I had only made a decision to follow Christ and
learn as much about Him as I could about two or three years before. Deep down,
I knew I would experience it one day. But that still had not prepared me for
the shock I would endure.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the 8th and
9th of November, 2005, a Christian club at school held a
performance. Having been invited, I attended; I had a handful of friends who
were going to perform and was sure it would be entertaining. It was! There was
a little skit and, interspersed throughout, dancing, sign language, even dub
poetry. Very talented, they were!
During the first dance performance, though, a
young lady did something that surprised me. She started screaming, no, wailing.
While on the floor, knelt and curled into a little ball, she called out to her
Lord. When the dance was over I’d thought that would be the end of such
displays, but I was mistaken. It escalated from there, even to the point that
the performers started convulsing on the floor.
It didn’t even stop there. Even around me,
in the audience, there was screaming. A lady near to me was rocking back and
forth, shrieking nothing intelligible. I actually was scared. Never had
I experienced something like this before! Could anything like this be
Scriptural? When expressing my feelings about this experience to friends, two
questioned whether or not I have received the Spirit.
One good friend of mine suggested that she does
not see me as ‘open’ to having the Spirit work in my life. She can
see it manifest in the (wailing and convulsing) performers, but not me. She
said to me “If you really felt Him (the Spirit), you wouldn’t
be able to stand.” Another good friend said she wished I would open my
eyes to the truth and accept that I need to receive the Spirit “as
evidenced by speaking in tongues.” They were not questioning my
sincerity, my love for Christ or His father. But somehow, they don’t see
the Spirit’s power manifest in me.
I, of course, was a bit hurt by such words. I
decided to turn to Scripture to see what God really thinks about all this. The
first passage I turned to is Acts 2, so quickly used to defend their teaching:
“And there appeared unto them cloven
tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave
them utterance.” (Acts 2:3-4)
‘Tongues’ or glossa in the
Greek, can mean the literal tongue in the body or the language used by a
particular people in distinction from that of other nations. In the
aforementioned verse, both forms of the word are used. The fire that descended
upon them somehow resembled the literal tongue, and the ‘tongues’
spoken by those present were, of course, distinct languages.
Search all of this chapter and all others and
you will not find of example of someone falling and convulsing upon receiving
the Spirit. And the Scriptures are clear that they were not doing the same
thing I heard at the performance. All those present at that Pentecost in
Jerusalem heard, in their own language, what was being said (verse 8). What I
saw and heard was different; it was nothing intelligible.
The word for unintelligible speech is lalia,
which is not used in Acts 2 and shows up instead in 1 Corinthians 14:34, when
the apostle Paul says that women should not speak (lalia) in church. He
was telling them not to make undue noise in the church, not to jabber
excessively. This same Paul seems to express a very different view about
speaking in tongues than my friend:
“Now there are diversities of gifts, but
the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same
Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which
worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man
to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to
another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same
Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the
working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another
divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all
these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally
as he will.” (1 Cor 12: 4-11 KJV, emphasis is mine)
Did he say all would have ‘divers
[various] kinds of tongues [languages]’? He asks the following:
“Are all apostles? are all prophets? are
all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do
all speak with tongues? do all interpret?” (verses 29-31)
Just as not all are prophets, healers and
miracle-workers, not all will speak in tongues. Paul, once again, does not seem
to place speaking in tongues as highly as he should:
“And God hath set some in the church,
first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles,
then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.”
(verse 28)
This is clear as day. Paul says that speaking in
tongues should not be as much a priority, shouldn’t be stressed as much
as many of our fellow Christians think:
“Follow after charity, and desire
spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy. For he that speaketh
in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man
understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries…. I would that ye all spake with tongues but rather that
ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with
tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.” (1
Cor 14:1-2, 5, emphasis is mine)
Speaking in tongues is speaking to God only
because he understands every language ever created and that will be created;
not because it has some special properties. But what exactly is the purpose of
speaking in different languages? Paul tells us:
“Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not
to them that believe, but to them that believe not” (verse 22,
emphasis is mine)
It is to be a sign to unbelievers, not to those
who believe. It is for evangelizing, not for showing people “look at
me, I have the Spirit.”
Paul is the very person that tells us God is not
a God of chaos (1 Cor
“If therefore the whole church be come
together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those
that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?
... If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most
by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. But if there be no
interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself,
and to God.” (verses 23, 27-28, emphasis mine)
It saddens me, but far too many churches and
individuals disregard these words. Nearly whole congregations speak in
‘divers tongues’, revelling in the chaos that Paul was trying to
stop the Corinthians from continuing. That is not how the gift of speaking in
different languages should be used.
I had seen a few examples of ‘slaying in
the Spirit’ on television, but never had I experienced it face-to-face.
Based on my knowledge of God, I don’t see how the fear of the Lord would
lead anyone to act so chaotically. That is not the work of the Spirit of my
God. That seems more to me to be the work of other spirits altogether; and it
saddens me that people rely on these things to prove the Spirit’s
presence within someone.
Of course, I heard the argument that the Holy
Spirit is, well, a spirit, and should work in a similar fashion. But can you
honestly, as a Bible-believing Christian, believe that God would cause his
people to fall and convulse? There is not one Biblical example of
slaying in the Spirit.
In response to this, a friend (the same one who
said she doesn’t see me as open to the Spirit) spoke this analogy:
Imagine someone with a mother and one without (me, of course). One with a
mother will be able to know her through communicating directly with her, while
the other would only be able to know his mother through the writings she left
behind. The one with a mother would be able to understand through personal
experience what she is about and would find it hard to explain what it is like
to have her as part of his life and the effect her influence has on him.
This is true; it may be difficult to understand
how God’s Spirit works in your life and its effect on our lives by just
reading the Scriptures. The question is, of course, which do we obey if they
appear to contradict, the ‘mother’ or her writings? My answer: her
writings. The Bible is to be our guide and all convictions we receive from our
Lord’s Spirit should be compared and contrasted with these writings.
Satan is clever and will deceive those who are not familiar with the
Scriptures. And so it is through the Scriptures that we get to know our
God. God, of course, speaks to us throughout daily lives, but the Bible’s
teachings are the way to discern truth from error. Any conviction we receive
that is against this Word is simply not from God.
So what does the Bible say? How do we know who
has the Holy Spirit? By speaking in tongues? By falling to the floor whenever
we feel the Spirit’s presence?
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:
against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the
flesh with the affections and lusts.” (Galatians 5:22-24)
Reading this verse, we see that the fruit of the
Spirit is what all Christians need to show. Paul refers to everything
else as spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1) and these are listed
(verses 9 and 10). The Spirit, throughout Scripture, never incapacitates anyone
when it is given the way I have seen people fall and shake; so to claim that that
is the work of the Spirit is not founded in the Bible.
We should all work to have the fruit of
God’s Spirit manifest in us. Should He choose to bestow his gifts upon
us, we should be grateful and honoured. But let no one put doubt in your heart
about having received the Spirit because you do not show one of His gifts.
ש
© Copyright 2006,
2008 Keneil Thomas
· Didn’t Jesus Speak in Tongues?
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