Category: Power of the Holy Spirit

THE DUAL PURPOSE OF TONGUES

What Is The Baptism Of The Holy Spirit

In this final blog on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I want to explain the two different types of speaking in tongues. Even among some bona fide Pentecostals there is some confusion on this. The first type is for prophecy, tongues that need to be interpreted. If there is no interpretation, the speaker should be silent or pray that he could interpret the message himself. The second is for a personal prayer language, not to be used in the church assembly but should only be exercised in one’s private prayer closet.

Paul differentiated between these two functions in his first letter to the Corinthians. It needs to be said that the church at Corinth was the most fleshly, carnal of all first-century churches, even more carnal than your average evangelical church in America today. In one instance, a young man was sleeping with his stepmother. Even the Methodists don’t allow for that. Though this violated the Old Testament and Roman laws of the day, apparently no one thought it a big deal. In fact, they were rather proud of it, perhaps a chance to prove their wokeness. And when Paul chastised them for their depravity, they thought he was a little over the top about it. And when it came to the Lord’s Table, instead of using it to remember Christ’s death and resurrection, some were celebrating the wine far more than others and treated the sacrament with all the reverence of a bachelor party at Buffalo Wild Wings.

These fleshly, carnal Corinthians were also abusing the gift of tongues, disrupting the church services by randomly blabbering away, possibly after having guzzled too much of that Communion wine. They are not unlike the present-day hypercharismatics and their “out-of-control” manifestations, that serve to violate Paul’s command to “let all things be done decently and in order.” So Paul admonished the tongue-talkers for their foolishness and told them to keep quiet in the church unless there was someone there who could interpret them for the benefit of all.

So, the first function of tongues is prophetic and requires an interpreter. The second function is that of a prayer language. Paul contrasted these two uses when he wrote, “The one who prays in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.” In writing of his personal prayer life, Paul wrote, “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful … so, I will pray in the Spirit and also with my understanding.” This kind of prayer tongues are for those times when mere words are inadequate to express our deepest needs and desires. Paul explains this in Romans 8: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words,,, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Praying in tongues is also a powerful means of personal edification. As Jude put it, “… but you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.” This is not a selfish exercise, but a gift God wants every believer to have so they can have more of his presence and for additional power to carry out the work he has given us to do. It’s like salvation on espresso.

Those who want to criticize the gift of tongues like to emphasize the texts that say, “The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues.” And that speaking in tongues is “the least of the gifts,” as if this gift had little worth at all. But is any gift from God not of supreme value? Paul left no doubt about his personal dependence on tongues when he wrote, “I speak in tongues more than you all.” I would encourage those who have built a wall of defense around tongues through their own various interpretations to lower their guard and ask God to reveal this gift to them.

Paul is writing this not to lessen the importance of this personal prayer language, but to amplify the importance of building up the whole church, which is the primary aim of all spiritual gifts. He said, “Each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” But there is also an important place for the God-given praise and prayer language so that Spirit-filled believers can “build themselves up in their most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.”

I hope this helps you to better understand this complex subject. It’s not actually that complex—it’s quite straightforward. Unfortunately, those who want to relegate all Spiritual gifts to the distant past have muddied the waters for those who have followed their teachings.

RELIGHTING THE FIRES OF PENTECOST

Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthian church, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.” One of Paul’s greatest fears, besides his fear that his fellow Jews would fail to come to Christ, is that the power of the spiritual gifts, especially the sign gifts, would eventually be lost to the Church. But then, less than three hundred years after Paul’s letter, most churches have become just that.

The other day I did an internet search for churches in my city that claim to be “Spirit-filled” or “Full Gospel.” Unfortunately, over time, these terms have been so compromised that today they can mean anything from being jacked up on caffeine in the church bistro, to having a sugar rush from the glazed donuts, to having an ultra-animated church greeting committee, or even having an electric guitar in the worship service.

According to my research, the Unitarians and the Presbyterians are considered “Spirit-filled.” Regrettably, this term has lost most of its original punch, unless these groups have suddenly had an Azuza Street-type revival that I wasn’t aware of. Out of over one hundred churches in my city, there were only two that actually believed in the “baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire” that Jesus promised to every believer in Luke 3:16. This is exactly what Paul feared for his Corinthian believers.

In his book, Charismatic Gifts in the Early Church, Ronald N. Kydd exposes one of the most common myths about why some believe the sign gifts have ceased. He writes that as the Christian community in the 3rd Century grew in size, wealth, and social acceptance, the gifts of the Spirit just quietly slipped away. This started in 313 A.D. with the passing of the Edict of Milan, an agreement between Emperor Constantine of the Western Roman Empire and Emperor Licinius of the Eastern Roman Empire, resulting in them changing their policy towards Christians, essentially ending persecution and giving the Church legal status. If the fires of Pentecost had not been extinguished in the 3rd century, we could have likely avoided the 1000 years known as the “Dark Ages.”

In other words, as the believers were no longer enduring the fires of persecution, their spiritual temperatures cooled, and their hearts and minds shut down to their need for the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. So, it wasn’t that the gifts ceased, as many have claimed, limiting them to the Apostolic Age only, but because the Church at large didn’t think they needed them anymore.

So, the sign gifts didn’t just fade away or cease to exist, but they were simply written off by most of the Church world because they had grown self-sufficient, and so like many churches still today, they reflect another one of Paul’s letters when he said they would have “an appearance of godliness, but they would deny its power.”

My hope is that these sign gifts of the Spirit be returned to the Church, where Paul intended them to be. In this present-day Laodicean Church Age, any talk of having a last day’s revival is improbable. But any talk about having such a revival without relighting the fires of Pentecost is absurd.

In a world that is experiencing a foretaste of the Apocalypse, maintaining one’s personal walk with Christ is a unique challenge. Witnessing firsthand the absolute End Time’s Evil, long-hidden but now rising out of the shadows, we need to breathe in the power of Pentecost as never before.