Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals

Host (Male): Welcome to Hear the Word of God, the online and broadcast teaching ministry of the Reverend Eric Alexander.

Reverend Eric Alexander: I think you'd find it helpful to have your Bible open at 1 Corinthians 12 and thereabouts this evening. When Sinclair Ferguson heard that I was to be speaking this evening on the subject of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he said to me just this afternoon that he thought I needed to be reminded of the conversation between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert about the soup. You do, of course, know the story of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the soup, I'm sure. But just in case you don't, I'll remind you of it.

Queen Victoria was sitting with Prince Albert at supper one evening, and as she took some of the soup that was before her, she raised her eyebrows and said to him, "My dear, this soup does not agree with me." And Prince Albert raised his eyebrows and said, "My dear, I admire its courage."

Sinclair was suggesting that he would voice Prince Albert's sentiment to me, as we turn to such a theme as this. I'm sure, because it is an an area that is reputed to contain a great many spiritual minefields for us. An area where many Christians find themselves sadly in controversy with other Christians.

Quite without doubt, some of the things that I shall say this evening will be controversial to you, and many of you may want very much to see me afterwards. But I do want to say to you that what I say is in no sense in a spirit of controversy, but rather a desire, I believe, an honest and humble desire to seek the truth of God from his word on this very important area.

I do think that it's an important thing to say by way of introduction that here, in so many ways, it is impossible for us to be dogmatic. But it is important for us honestly to seek to examine holy scripture and to discover what it teaches about this whole theme of spiritual gifts.

Let me say, too, that it would be important to see what we are thinking about this evening within the general context of the three occasions when we are touching upon the theme of the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Last Sunday evening, we sought to understand something of the Bible's teaching on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. This evening, our theme is the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and two weeks from tonight, we shall be thinking about the fruit of the Holy Spirit. So, this evening has to be seen within that general context.

Let me begin by saying that there's an obvious but important distinction between the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There are different Greek words used in the New Testament for the gift and the gifts. The distinction really is that the gift of the Spirit, as we were discovering last time, is once and for all, whether we speak of Pentecost as the time when the Spirit was given, or of ourselves to whom the Spirit is given in a personal sense.

The gift of the Spirit to the individual believer is given so that the fruit of the Spirit, in terms of Christ-likeness, may appear in our lives. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to individual believers, but for the healthy growth of the whole church. When the New Testament writer speak about the church, they frequently refer to its unity and to its diversity. We saw an example of that this evening in 1 Corinthians 12 from verse 4, where the apostle speaks of varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, varieties of service, but the same Lord, there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.

Now, both unity and diversity in the church are the result of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The church is one because the one Spirit indwells every believer, giving us one mind, one aim, one Lord, one faith, one hope, and so on. But the church is diverse because the same Holy Spirit distributes severally to believers different gifts. And there is, therefore, a unity and a diversity in the life of God's church, both of which are the result of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Now, the word for the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the word in the Greek New Testament charisma, from which the plural is charismata. And so the common word charismatic has been derived from that Greek word for gifts. And therefore, so often in our present Christian situation, in the world everywhere today, charismatic is a word that is frequently thought of as a movement, but it really ought to apply to the general ministry of the Holy Spirit in distributing different gifts amongst God's people.

It really derives from the word for grace, which is the word charis. And that means you will see that the gift of God's grace is to provide gifts within his church, charismata, so that his church may be established and grow.

Now, the width of charismatic gifts, therefore, in the Bible is enormous, and really should not be restricted, as we do tend to restrict the charismatic gifts in our thinking so often. That leads me to the first issue to which I specially want to call your attention, and I really mean that. Preachers often speak about calling your attention to something when they don't really mean that we need your attention, but I do need all your attention at this particular point, especially your mathematical facilities. And let me ask you to think with me about it in this way, because I want to think with you about the number of these gifts of the Spirit which we find in the New Testament.

There are three main passages in the New Testament where the gifts of the Spirit are listed. The most obvious one is in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and again in 14, which we read from this evening. Romans chapter 12 is the second, from verse 3 to verse 8. And Ephesians chapter 4 is the third, from verse 7 to verse 12. And I think it's a very important thing for us to see these three lists as one whole, because these are the places where God has described to us the gifts that the ascended Christ sends to his church by his Holy Spirit.

It's a pity that many Christians have isolated two or three of these gifts, some of them, as I shall be saying in a moment, the more exciting, dramatic gifts, like the gift of tongue speaking, gifts of healing, gifts of working miracles, and so on. And they have isolated these from a very large list of gifts of the Holy Spirit, given by God for the upbuilding of the church. You will perhaps know that there is a book which is available in this country, I think, which originated from the United States, entitled The Nine Gifts of the Spirit.

That's a very interesting title. It comes quite clearly from the passage we read in 1 Corinthians 12, 8 to 10, where there is a list of nine gifts of the Spirit. The list gives the, let me get it clearly, the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, the gift of tongues, and the gift of interpretation. That's nine gifts of the Spirit.

But it's significant that in 1 Corinthians 12, 28 to 30, there is another list of nine, but five are the same as in the earlier list. Now you'll see where the mathematics are going to come in. So, in 1 Corinthians 12 alone, there are 13 different gifts mentioned. Nine in the first list, five in the second that aren't in the first, so 9 and 5 make 13. Then in Romans 12. I'm grateful for your zeal on my mathematics.

And I have specially installed a lecturer in mathematics down in the choir just in case there's any problems. In Romans 12, there is a list of seven of these gifts of the Spirit, five of which are not in 1 Corinthians 12 at all. So, if you will remember that we have 13 gifts of the Spirit all together, new ones in 1 Corinthians 12, five others in Romans 12, that makes, you are quite right, 18.

Then in Ephesians 4, there is a list of five, two of which are neither in Romans nor 1 Corinthians. So, that adds up altogether to 20. And it does seem as if these three lists, from which there are 20 gifts of the Spirit that are distinct and not repeated elsewhere, it does seem as if they are not intended to be exhaustive. That is, that we probably have a list of gifts of the Spirit which is representative of many gifts of the Holy Spirit, which God gave in the church. My own feeling is that we have limited and systematized the subject of spiritual gifts in a way that does not reflect the way that God has given these gifts within his church.

Let me just add a word at this point about the nature of these gifts, and first of all, the relation between spiritual gifts and natural endowments. Now, you will see there is a distinction, obviously, between spiritual gifts, that is a direct gift of the Holy Spirit, and natural endowments. Some people would want to say, "There is no distinction." That is, natural endowments become spiritual gifts when they are taken up by God the Holy Spirit.

Now, other people will say, "There is absolutely no connection whatsoever." All spiritual gifts have nothing whatsoever to do with natural endowments. My own conviction is that the truth lies between these two extremes. When God, for example, gives to someone the gift of a teacher in the church, he frequently takes up what in his creative goodness is a gift of a natural endowment, and in a special sense, uses that gift, giving a spiritual anointing to the person concerned, so that a natural endowment becomes a spiritual gift. And it would probably be false to divorce the two from each other. As you will know, we sometimes speak about people as being born teachers. Do you know? Teachers among you will think that that is quite an extraordinary, if not an insulting thing to say.

But there are people who are described as born teachers. He's a born teacher. Now God takes up that gift, that natural endowment, and frequently may use it in that particular way. I think that that may well be what John Owen was meaning when he said that we needed to distinguish between gifts which exceed the natural faculties of man, and these gifts which are an extension of natural faculties.

Let me say on this question of the nature of spiritual gifts that only a very small minority of them are miraculous gifts. A basic misunderstanding in all our thinking about spiritual gifts is that they are all miraculous gifts. Probably only three are. That is, the working of miracles, the gift of healing, and the gift of tongues coupled with interpretation.

But you see, there is nothing miraculous about some of these other gifts in the list of in Romans 12 and here in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, and in Ephesians 4, like the gift of acts of mercy. The gift of giving money. The gift of being a good administrator. The gift of teaching. None of these gifts is a miraculous gift in that sense, and two questions arise.

Question number one, which is a very important question, I believe, is this. Why is it that so many Christians are exclusively interested in the miraculous gifts? And ignore all the other gifts of the Spirit. Why is it that so many Christians believe that the only gift worth having is some dramatic, exciting, remarkable, miraculous gift?

Is it really because these edify and build up the church, which is what spiritual gifts are for? Or could it be for some lesser reason than that? Some reason that consumes the gift in our own self-interest? There is a very important question to be asked here. And it is significant, you know, that you will never, well, I haven't ever found anybody crying to the Lord, "Lord, make me a help to somebody! How I long for that gift of being a help! And I'm earnestly seeking it from God!"

But you see, that gift is unostentatious, self-effacing, frequently involving self-denial, and certainly not a bit of self-display. And I think that here is an important thing for us to have clarity in our thinking about. The second question that arises out of this whole issue is, do these miraculous gifts still appear in the church today? And I think that's an important issue for us to deal with.

Before we answer the question, we need to understand what the biblical view of a miracle is. Because a miracle in scripture is a very specific act of God. Someone has described it as a creative deviation from God's normal and natural way of working. A creative deviation from God's normal and natural way of working. And it's important for us to be able to distinguish between God's miraculous acts, and the acts of his providence, which he is engaging in every day of our lives and every minute of our day.

God is a God of providence, who deals with his people graciously every area of their lives and every moment of their day. But many of us, you see, are under the delusion that God is only working when he is working miraculously. That is with creative deviations from his natural and normal working.

Now, that means you see that it would be very foolish and even blasphemous to detect the activity of God only in the miraculous. It would make God some kind of magician. That is something that is applicable, for example, to this whole realm of miraculous healing. It's an extraordinary distortion to imagine that the only occasion God heals is when he suspends natural processes and natural methods. Because the God of providence and grace is a God who is in all healing.

And it's a vitally important thing for us not to try to distort the biblical picture of God and make him into some kind of magician. The God of the Bible is the living God who works primarily through nature, not through supernature, in history, rather than primarily through miracles. It's important, I think, for us to grasp that in the biblical revelation, we have the revelation of a God who is very economic in his use of miracle.

John the Baptist, than whom Jesus said there was none born of woman who was greater, is specifically said in John 10:41 to have performed no miracle. There are, in fact, four eras in the revelation of God's purposes in history around which the miraculous clusters, as it were. These eras are these: First, the Exodus and the ministry of Moses, when you get these miraculous events like the plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, and so on.

Secondly, the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. Thirdly, the ministry of Jesus. And fourthly, the ministry of the apostles. Now, if you look through the whole of scripture, and here again, we want to be utterly biblical. You will discover that all the miracles of scripture, with few exceptions, cluster around these four areas of revelation: the law, the prophets, the Savior, and the apostles. And they are used in close association with the idea of attesting the ministry.

Moses' ministry was attested by the miraculous. Elijah and Elisha, in a day when the prophetic ministry was at its height, were attested in the pagan, bail-worshipping world by the miraculous. The ministry of Jesus was attested by many signs and wonders. The apostles' ministry was attested by many signs and wonders. And it seems to be, and this, I think, is a general conclusion to which one is driven from scripture, that the miraculous is given at specific eras of revelation by God for the purpose of attesting ministry.

So our response to the miraculous, in that strict sense of a creative deviation from the normal and natural processes that God in his providence has decreed, should neither be incredulity, that is miracles do not or cannot happen, nor should it be gullibility, believing any claim to the miraculous, but a biblically controlled inquiry.

May I say to you that I think this is of specific importance in the realm, if I may take one of these gifts of healing. It's a vitally important thing for us to be clear what we are claiming when we claim miraculous healing. Because, you see, there are so many people who have claimed miraculous healing from God. And then you will discover that there are doctors who can present you with precisely the same clinical history of a patient, totally divorced from the question of miraculous healing.

And it seems to me that we need to grasp this definition of a miracle as being a creative deviation from God's normal and natural processes of working in the world. And it would be a very vital thing, I think it's pastorally a very important thing for us not to claim such things unless we have this whole area clarified in our thinking.

Now that leads me to the wider question about the duration of spiritual gifts, particularly in relation to the gifts which head the list that Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 12:28. Some of these gifts of ministry, the gifts of apostles and prophets, for example, we need to ask, "Are these gifts permanent in the church today?" I want to come later also to the question of the gift of tongues. But let me deal first of all with this question of the gift of apostles and prophets. God has given or appointed, 1 Corinthians 12:28, in the church, first apostles, and then he gives this list, you will notice. Second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues.

The question that arises is, are these gifts that God gave, gifts that are still being given in the church today? Are they in that sense permanently, repeatedly, continuously given? Let me say a word to you about apostles. There are basically two ways in which the word is used in the New Testament. First, it's used of apostles of the churches, in 2 Corinthians 8:23 and Philippians 2:25, you get people like Epaphroditus referred to in this way. They are messengers, the NIV translates the word sometimes representatives, but frequently translations use the word apostles of the churches because, as you know, the word apostle is just the word for one who is sent.

Now, these were messengers sent from one church to another. They may well take on exactly the characteristic of the modern missionary, who is sent from one church to another, from one area to another. And in that sense, there are many missionaries, like George Hunter, who is frequently called the Apostle of Turkestan, or other people who are called the Apostle of China, and so on. And what is meant is that they are sent by one church to another. But the classic case of the use of the word apostle in the New Testament is not of apostles of the churches, but apostles of Christ.

Now, it's very obvious that in the second sense, apostles are described in this list of the gifts. It is given precedence, you notice, above all others, and refers to one very specific group of men who were eyewitnesses of the historical Jesus, especially of his resurrection. They were specially appointed by Christ, sent by him, and specially inspired by the Holy Spirit for this teaching ministry. Now we saw something of that last Sunday evening, as we looked at John chapter 14, and into chapter 16, where quite specifically, Jesus promises the ministry of the Holy Spirit as the teacher to these apostles.

"You," he says, "whom I have been with, you the Holy Spirit will teach all things." By definition, therefore, these apostles have no successors. They are those who are quite specifically chosen and appointed by Jesus himself, in order that they might have this ministry of the Holy Spirit who will complete the work of their edification in order that they might complete the writing of Holy Scripture.

So, in that sense, there are no more apostles after the original apostles of Christ. And when we seek the word or authority or wisdom of apostles today, the place we look for it is in the apostolic writings. That is, in Holy Scripture. I was saying last week, the Holy Spirit inspires the apostles in a different way from the way he inspires us. He inspires the apostles to write scripture. He inspires us to understand scripture.

Now, that's a vitally important issue, when you are dealing with that promise of the Lord Jesus in John 14. He will lead you into all the truth. He will tell you the things that I have not been able to say to you, he says. Now, that is not a promise which is given universally to all believers. It is primarily given to the apostles, and they received that teaching of Jesus. It is now written for us in the apostolic writings. That is, in the Gospels and Epistles.

When we come to the second group of people, that is, the apostles and the gift of prophecy in scripture, it's very important for us to realize that the prophet is an organ of divine revelation. He spoke the very words of God, so the characteristic introduction of the prophet was, "Thus saith the Lord." He came and confronted people and said, "Thus saith the Lord." Now, two things persuade me that in this strict sense of the apostle of the prophet as a mouthpiece of God, the prophetic ministry reached the end of its duration with the completion of the New Testament.

First, and this is the first reason I believe that, God's self-revelation was completed in Christ, and in the apostolic witness to Christ. Whereas previously to that, we would have heard from a prophet, "God says" directly. What we will now hear from a true prophet of God is, "Scripture says." Never directly and in the first person, "I say, saith the Lord," cut off from the experience of reading and understanding Holy Scripture. Because the prophetic way in which God declares himself and reveals himself now, since scripture is completed and his revelation is full and complete in Christ, is in Holy Scripture.

So, I would want to say to you that it's an enormously important thing that we should not believe that anyone may stand up, speaking in the first person, and say, "I, the Lord, say unto you." For the simple reason that Holy Scripture is complete. Everything God has to say to us he has said in Holy Scripture, and therefore the formula for the modern day prophet is, "Scripture says." Because that from the lips of Jesus is precisely equivalent to, "God says." What God says today, he says in scripture.

Now, I emphasize that for the simple reason that I have found so many people being led astray and seriously astray into a sea of subjectivism because they have believed that God speaks extrabiblically today to his people. And clearly, the place where God does speak to us today is in Holy Scripture. Here is the second reason that I'm persuaded that the prophetic ministry ceased with the completion of the New Testament. In Ephesians 2:20, apostles and prophets are bracketed together as the foundation, because of their teaching, on which the church is built. "Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets," says Paul. That is the picture of the church.

Now, the principle is that once a foundation is laid, you do not lay it again. The most elementary architecture will teach us that. So, in the primary sense, the prophet and the apostle are the foundation on which the church is built, and we do not go on laying that foundation again. And in that sense, we would not expect prophets to say, "I, the Lord, say to you." Now, in the secondary sense, of preaching with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, there is prophecy.

But I think it is true to say, as J.I. Packer has said, that the true prophet today is a Spirit-anointed expositor of Holy Scripture. And indeed, there is a considerable case to be made out into which we can't go this evening, for the truth that the prophets in the Old Testament were really expounding the implications of the law of God, as God had already given it to them. And I think that can be argued cogently.

But the prophet today will be a Spirit-anointed expositor of Holy Scripture, who applies that truth contemporarily to the hearts and minds and lives of modern men. Now, that means that all who engage in this ministry, in leading Bible study and cell groups and other forms of the study of scripture, may exercise this same ministry. And what must matter is the content rather than the manner of the utterance.

Now, another word about tongue speaking, because here again, we come to the same question: Is this phenomenon of the New Testament continued into the modern world and into the modern church? Because, as you will know, in the charismatic renewal, this is one of the primary evidences of charismatic blessing. Let me first of all face up to the whole issue, because I think it's of great importance, and I wonder if you have ever really faced it. The whole issue of every Christian, who is baptized with the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues as a sign and evidence of that baptism.

Because you will know that that is a position that many people hold. If you have been truly baptized in the Holy Spirit, the sign and evidence of that baptism will be speaking in tongues. Now, I don't know if you're aware of this, but that is certainly very widely held. I repeat it, not either to criticize it or depart from it, but simply to face the fact that here is an area where people will say to you, "The evidence of being baptized in the Holy Spirit is that you will speak in tongues."

Now, I was trying to show last Sunday evening from 1 Corinthians 12:13 that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that initial experience by which the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12:13, Paul says, "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and were all made to drink of one Spirit." So, here is that initial experience of all Christians at conversion, whereby we are united to the Lord Jesus. All the riches of God are to be found in Jesus Christ. All that we need for salvation is to be found in Jesus Christ. So, the primary blessing of the gospel is to unite us to Christ, as branches to a vine. From him we derive all our life as believers. So, the vital thing for any man or woman is that he should be found in Christ. That's how Paul describes himself. How do you come to be in Christ? Paul's own answer is, "Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, by which he joins you to Christ." So, that baptism of the Holy Spirit is an initial experience of all Christians at conversion, not a subsequent experience of some Christians after conversion.

And that's an absolutely fundamental principle, if we are going to be biblical, to which we need to hold. So, we are all baptized by the one Spirit into the one body. But now look with me in the same chapter, 1 Corinthians 12, at verse 30, where Paul is asking questions. From verse 29, he has described this list of teachers and apostles and so on. Verse 29, he says, "Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?" Now, what answer do you think he expects to that question, or certainly wants to his question? He is asking the question in order to obtain the answer, "No."

"Are all apostles?" Manifestly not. "Are all prophets?" Manifestly not. "Are all teachers?" Certainly not. "Do all work miracles?" They do not. "Do all possess gifts of healing?" They do not possess them. "Do all speak with tongues?" What answer is Paul expecting to that question? Clearly, he expects the answer, "No." We do not all speak with tongues. So let me put two questions to you: Are all baptized by the Holy Spirit? Answer from 1 Corinthians 12:13, undoubtedly yes, or they are not Christians. Question two: Do all speak with tongues? Answer an indisputably no. So the connection will not stand the test of scripture.

The point being that we are all baptized in the Spirit, but we do not all speak in tongues, any more than we are all apostles or prophets or all healers or whatever. The very diversity of these gifts explodes the idea. And it really is very important for us to explode it. But I would want to go on to confront another very serious question, and it is this. It is the question as to whether modern tongue speaking is the same phenomenon as that described in the book of Acts chapter 2, for example, and 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. I have no doubt, have you? Well, if you do, turn back to Acts 2 with me, and I hope that they may be dispelled.

I have no doubt that what the apostle is speaking about in Acts 2 is the speaking of foreign languages. Chapter 2 of Acts, verse 6. This is on the day of Pentecost. "At this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered." I'm reading in verse 6, "because each one heard them speaking in his own language, and they were amazed and wondered, saying, 'Are not all those who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, dwellers in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans, and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.'"

Now, the point is, you see, they were hearing foreign languages. They could understand them. Some of you speak Malay. Some of you speak a language from Africa. Some of you speak other kinds of languages. And what would have happened, you see, if you had been there, instead of battling with English, you would say, "They're speaking my language." You should see the faces of people from Indonesia when David Ellison encounters them, for example, you know. And he rattles out that glorious language, and tells me that he's speaking Indonesian. But the people themselves say immediately, "He's speaking our language like a native," they say. Well, that's exactly what they were saying on the day of Pentecost. "They're speaking our language. We understand precisely what they are saying."

Well, now the question is, is Paul speaking about this same tongue phenomenon in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14? Well, turn over to 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, and particularly to chapter 14. I think one can show that the same is true here. In verses 10 to 12, for example, where Paul is speaking about tongues. "There are doubtless many different languages," verse 10. "There are doubtless many different languages in the world and none is without meaning. But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker a foreigner to me." So he's speaking about different languages, that is known languages. Look again at chapter 14, verse 20. "Brethren, do not be children in your thinking. Be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature. In the law it is written, 'By men of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.'"

What is it that these tongues are? These tongues are a sign not for the believers, but for the unbelievers. But he is saying, "They are the lips of foreigners." Now, the whole idea of that is clearly that of foreign languages. Now, modern tongue speaking is almost certainly not that. Dennis Bennett, the pioneer of the charismatic renewal in the Episcopal Church in the United States, identifies modern gifts of tongues with what he calls childish pseudo-languages, the tongues operate within one's own mood, but apart from one's mind, in a way comparable to the fantasy languages of children. And many of the leaders of the modern charismatic movement would not claim that it was foreign languages that were being used. Now, the other side to this, of course, is the gift of interpretation. As you will know, tongues are forbidden in public, except where there is interpretation, and interpretation clearly seems to imply, here in 1 Corinthians, translation.

Let me read you some words of Dr. Packer in this. In this excellent book, entitled, "Keep In Step With The Spirit." Do you have it? Dr. Packer is bound to be owing me a lot of money in royalties, I should think, already. But here he speaks what I think is something of great significance in terms of the interpretation of tongues. Interpretations, he says, "prove to be as stereotyped, vague, and uninformative as they are spontaneous, fluent, and confident." Weird mistakes are made. Kildall tells how the Lord's Prayer in an African dialect was interpreted as a word on the second coming. An Ethiopian priest, whom I tutored, went to a glossolalic, that is, a tongue-speaking gathering, which he took to be an informal multilingual praise service, and he made his congregation by his contribution by standing and reciting Psalm 23 in Geez, the archaic tongue of his native Coptic worship. At once, it was publicly interpreted. But, as he said to me next day in sad bewilderment, "It was all wrong."

Kildall also reports that of two interpreters who heard the same tape-recorded glossolalia, tongue-speaking, one took it as a prayer for guidance about a new job offer, and the other as thanksgiving for one's recent return to health after a serious illness. Now, the point of that is not to dismiss tongue speaking as a real phenomenon, as I hope to say in a moment. But it is to say that the translation or interpretation of it is not the same thing that appears here in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. And that, I think, is something that we really do need to face. It seems to me important.

Now, what about this gift of tongues then, and its presence today? Let me say first of all, that it surprises many people that the gift of tongues appears at the bottom of the list in 1 Corinthians 12 and not at all in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4. Paul does say that he speaks with tongues, and thanks God that he does so more than all of them. I think that he is saying that because he is then in a position to talk to them about an over-interest in tongues in Corinth. He says also, "I would that you all spoke in tongues." Now, that can be understood in terms of permission, rather than desire. Clearly, Paul is not forbidding the phenomenon. Clearly, he is not forbidding it, nor may we. But it seems to me that it is a different phenomenon that we experience today, and many people have experienced this phenomenon of tongue speaking. But it seems a different phenomenon from the one that is here described in 1 Corinthians.

Our time is fast running out, but let me say to you that there are one or two things in 1 Corinthians 14 that I think are important for us to grasp in Paul's commentary upon the phenomenon of tongue speaking. In verse 2, he argues that tongues are a speaking to God and not understood by men, whereas prophecy speaks to men. Thus tongues edify oneself, he says, prophecy edifies the church. Now, let me say at this point, I do not for a moment doubt that there are many sincere Christian people who have found that the exercise of tongues, whatever it may be, has been a release in their own soul, and has brought them blessing as they have prayed and worshipped. I have no doubt that that is true, and I certainly accept what they say. But I think we do need to grasp the place that tongue speaking has in scripture. And in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says that it is different from prophecy, in that prophecy edifies the church. Now, that's what Paul is speaking about when he says in verse 3, "On the other hand, he who prophesies speaks to men for their upbuilding, and encouragement, and consolation. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church."

Host (Male): You're listening to Hear the Word of God, with the Reverend Eric Alexander, a minister in the Church of Scotland for over 50 years. To access more Bible teaching from Reverend Alexander, visit hearthewordofgod.org, where your generous contribution will help us sustain and grow this ministry. That's hearthewordofgod.org. You could choose instead to mail a check to this address: 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. Or call 1-800-488-1888. This program is a presentation of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. I'm Mark Daniels. Thank you for listening. Please join us again next time for Eric Alexander and Hear the Word of God.