Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Hank Walker | Pastor at Peach City Fellowship

Last week’s article hit a nerve! Rather than merely appealing to individual feelings, personal experiences, or church traditions, one gentleman posted a helpful list of Scriptures with which to interact. Since Scripture is the only INFALLIBLE source to which Christians are to appeal, I will address each passage with as much exegetical clarity as possible, given my 400-word limitation. If you read this and have questions or objections, the Clanton Advertiser Facebook page is an excellent place to post them—with two caveats: (1) be respectful; (2) restrict your comments or objections to what the Scriptures say (chapter and verse).

I will list and address each proposition/objection posited by my brother on Facebook (they will be in quotes with the verse(s) to which he appeals:

(1) 1 Cor. 12:7-10—”Given by the Spirit to the Church—Tongues are part of the Spirit’s gift to believers.” At the church’s infancy, the Spirit sovereignly distributed gifts, including “glossa” (human languages), as confirmation of the apostles’ authority, and included Hellenistic Jews (16 different languages) who were partakers of the New Covenant as they acknowledged Jesus was the promised Messiah and savior. Approximately ten years after Pentecost, when Paul took the Gospel to the Gentiles, there was another “outbreak” of tongues that Paul used to verify with the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) that Christianity was not just for Jews but for the pagans as well. After Paul’s rebuke to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 12-14) and the issuing of new restrictions on tongues, prophecy, and decorum inside the church, there is a conspicuous absence of ANY references to tongues in the rest of the New Testament.

(2.) 1 Corinthians 14:4—”Edifies the Individual Believer—Builds up the speaker spiritually.” Paul does say that the tongue-speaker “edifies himself,” but this was a REBUKE, not a commendation. His concern was that tongues without interpretation do not edify the body (v. 5, 12, 19). Paul’s overall argument in 1 Corinthians 14 is that uninterpreted tongues are inferior to intelligible prophecy because they fail to build up the church. Furthermore, the self-edification that comes from speaking unintelligibly is not described as virtuous but as contrary to the Spirit’s purpose for public worship: corporate edification (v. 26).

(Is the Gift of Tongues for Today? Part 3—Next Time)

Grace and Peace, y’all. Soli Deo Gloria