Featured 1 Cor. 12-14

Some people's gifts are described as wisdom, administration, evangelism, teaching, or even prophesy (known tongues)...and Paul seems to say these are more desirable than tongues...

I believe it is a mistake to say that every believer must speak in tongues. There are obviosly many Godly peope who don't...and who do...and there are just as obviously there are just as obviously those who speak in tongues but who are very immature in the faith, and use it in unhelpful ways...some even who teach heresy...

So tongues cannot be a test of the Spirit's work...They can be present in churches led by false teachers...and they can be absent among godly, faithful Christians.

 

Yes. They lacked faith.

Are you suggesting that if one has enough faith, he can raise the dead?

My take is that if one has one or more of those gifts, such as healing, he does not need faith. He can just do it.

 

You are speculating on the Word of God here, you are not exegeting. Nowhere in the Bible does it say the speaker will not know what he is saing.

Once again you are speculating. Where does it say the interpreter could be an unbeliever. Friend, it is not good to speculate on God's Word. Let's just take it for what it says.

 

Yes, he spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin. He was a linguistic scholar of the first order. But he never said he spoke in a language unknown to himself, and he never claimed to speak in tongues miraculously. Please stop speculating on the Word of God.

 

As I said before, the fullness/baptism of the Holy Spirit is to serve God and win souls. It is never, ever for the private joy of the believer. We get our joy separately from the gifts of the Spirit.

And since you've quoted another Pauline epistle, let me ask you: why are tongues spoken of only in Acts and 1 Cor.? NO other NT book mentions them. Why is that? If tongues are so important, it seems like John and James and Jude would be talking about them. And they would appear all through Acts, not just in the first half. And Paul would teach about them in 2 Cor. too, not just 1 Cor.

 

Have you ever spoken in tongues and won a soul to Christ like they did in Acts 2? If not, you don't have the same gift the Bible teaches.

 

"The intellect gets no benefit" (A. T. Robertson). The text does not say the speaker does not understand what he is saying. That is your interpretation.

Actually, no, I did not say that those in Acts 2 interpreted. I believe that they understood what they were saying, because the Bible says, "We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God." (v. 11). God is not the author of confusion, which is what it would be if they spoke without understanding.

 

It's not a miracle. It is simply special wisdom from God. The mistake most people make is assuming the spiritual gifts are all miracles, but the Bible does not say that.

 

Yes he did. So? I have the gift of interpretation of tongues, which allows me to translate Japanese easily, so I'm leading a new translation of the Japanese NT. God gave it to me in my DNA. Why can't He do that? Where does the Bible say God can't gift lost people? Why do you limit the Holy Spirit?

I often look at gifted lost people and wonder what God would have done with them if they had only believed and committed their lives to God.

 

I've seen this over and over. As a missionary I am careful not to speak English around Japanese who can't understand it. They are not edified by that. And in America if I'm the only one who understands Japanese, no one is edified by it but me if I pray in Japanese.

Let me ask again. Have you ever won a soul to Christ with your tongues? Please answer.

 

Really???? They didn't give/proclaim the Gospel? Then what kind of "wonderful works of God" (v. 11) did they talk about? Do you seriously believe they were not witnessing of Christ?? Wow, I've never heard that interpretation before, even from Charismatics.

Then you have misunderstood what original Pentecostalism and the Azuza Street Revival was all about. Headline from a New York Newspaper in 1906: "Faith Gives Quaint Sect to Convert Africa" (McClung, op cit, p. 13). You then have no right to claim them as your spiritual forbears.

Tongues as practiced by modern Charismatics is selfish and divisive. They don't use it to win souls, but for their own glory and selfish happiness. Furthermore it is divisive. Three times Japanese Charismatics have caused trouble in my churches in Japan. One time I have had a Japanese woman try to make me talk in tongues (didn't even know where a Bible command was to do so, because there are no such commands). Did they help the Japanese to be better believers? No. Did they help the Japanese believers to witness for Christ? No. They only caused trouble. If modern tongues were Biblical, they would edify, not divide.