“Now Concerning Spiritual Gifts…” (Part 6 of 6)

The subject of spiritual gifts can be controversial, especially when you get to the topic of speaking in tongues.

That's a subject that often raises a lot of questions. Today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg addresses this issue by examining what the Bible has to say. Our study continues in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 7. The authority of the prophetic message is not in its form, it's in its content. Now let me explain to you. If you come to me for a word of counsel, right, and you come and you share your life with me and tell me what you're involved in, it would be possible for me, having listened to you, to say, Dear friend, I want to give you a prophetic word just for you before you go.

So let's bow in prayer and let me give it to you. And then in the first person singular, I can speak to you and tell you that I believe that this is what God has to say to you at this moment in your circumstances, a present word from God for your present situation. I could take my knowledge of the scriptures and frame it in such a way as to make you feel or believe that I am speaking in some kind of ex cathedra fashion as a result of being on the receiving end of a previously unknowable truth that is coming directly to me and through me for you. And I could say something like this.

I say to you, my sister, that if you will only find your joy and your delight in following after me and in listening to my word, I will give to you all that your heart desires. You could go out the door and say it's unbelievable. The guy's got a red telephone up there. It really freaked me out. He had a thing he said, and it just came right through. I don't know what happened. It came right through and it came right to me.

What was it? It was Psalm 37 verse four. Delight yourself also in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. That is why for many of my dear friends who are involved in this kind of prophetic ministry and charismatic circles, I don't get upset with them and they'd go and get upset with me because I tell them, I say, Frank, if you want to turn Romans 12 into a kind of divine transactional statement for me, that's okay. But I know what you're doing, Frank. You're just quoting Romans 12 because I know Romans 12 too. And Frank, if you ever pull one of these stunts in my house where you don't quote something from the Bible, I'm going to throw you out the door so fast, you won't even imagine it. Because if there is something that is supplemental to the Bible, we know to throw it out in any case. And if what it is is simply a restatement of the Bible, what in the world are we going through it for in the first place?

The gift of New Testament prophecy is the application of God's given word to God's given people in a given moment in time. Search the scriptures to see if these things are so. Let's go on.

Let's try one or two more. Distinguishing between spirits. The gift of distinguishing between spirits.

This is simply the gift of discernment. John writes of it in 1 John 4, 1, dear friends do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they're from God. And we find in apostolic times that there were some specific instances where this became particularly apparent. For example, in Acts chapter 16, we have the record of one who was speaking true words, but Paul detects in this girl something that is actually evil. Once they were going to the place of prayer, Acts 16, 16, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which he predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling. And the girl follows Paul around and she's shouting, these men are the servants of the most high God.

And she keeps it up day after day. And finally, Paul became so troubled that he turned round and said to the spirit in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her. And at that moment, the spirit left her. Paul was given a unique gift in that moment to discriminate between what was going on in that individual. To some, he's given a unique ability to recognize lying spirits.

If you think about it, it was a particularly important gift before the New Testament canon was completed. One commentator says the Holy Spirit's discerners were the church's protectors. John Owen writing of this said that God gave a special gift of discerning spirits to contend against, quotes, the mischief done in the church. Because at that time, with an abundance of spiritual gifts in operation and the ease with which they could be counterfeited, it was absolutely necessary that they would know what was true and what was false. And while all are given a measure of discrimination between the spirits, it would appear that to some there is given special insight into its meaning and to its application and to the manner of it in a way that is definitely similar and kind to what is mentioned here and expressed in Acts 16, if not so immediate in terms of degree.

Now, loved ones, I want to say to you again that you're going to have to think these things out for yourselves. I don't believe that my purpose in going through this is to browbeat you into some kind of position on spiritual gifts. I will teach you as best as I understand the Bible.

But you're sensible people. You need to examine the Scriptures. You need to test your life, your experience, your encounters against the Word of God. Okay?

From discriminating between the spirits to speaking in tongues, distinguishing being the spirits to another speaking in different kinds of tongues and to another the interpretation of tongues. Now, I'm tempted to go right by this because we come to it in its fullness in chapter 14. But I don't think that I should because I sense in these early weeks a great interest in this.

Let me make one or two general observations for now which will have to suffice. At the end of chapter 12, verse 29 and 30, we're surely going to agree together that the expected answer to each of these questions is no. Okay? Are all apostles? No. Are all prophets? No.

Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles? No.

Do all of gifts of healing? No. Do all speak in tongues? No. Do all interpret? No.

So we're going to assume, I hope, that the answer to that is realistically no. Traditional Pentecostalism, for those of you who've come out of that background or understand it, traditional Pentecostalism wrestling with this distinguishes between the Acts 2 experience of God's Spirit where they were all baptized and all spoke in tongues. Traditional Pentecostalism says this, every believer must be baptized in the Holy Spirit as a post-conversion experience. And as a result of their baptism in the Holy Spirit, they will involuntarily speak in tongues. Having done so, traditional Pentecostalism says, they may not, however, continue to have a gift of tongues as per 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. Now, as cogent as that appears to be, it seems to me to be touched with more than a little sophistry. Second general statement or question, can we equate what Paul describes here and in chapter 14, that is this public expression of truth in these other languages with the largely private unstructured language which our charismatic brothers and sisters give testimony to?

In other words, is what they're talking about and what the New Testament here is talking about one and the same thing? We're going to examine this in detail in chapter 14, but it seems to me that what Paul is talking about is something very different than the expression of someone who with all sincerity may claim to possess a, quote, private prayer language. Now, some of you have wondered because I answered a question out there in the open air during the summer, someone said, do you believe that the gift of tongues is still present in the church? May I answer that?

Yes, I do. The real question is, what is it? What is it that is present in the church? And here we're at the question. It's what people give testimony to, what Paul is addressing here in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14.

I actually don't think so. It's once again, an area of study where undue dogmatism is really unhelpful and where spiritual sensitivity is vital. And you can take some of your favorite theologians and lay them end to end, they won't reach a conclusion. For example, Charles Hodge regarded both the Pentecostal, i.e. the Acts 2 tongues and the Corinthian tongues as the same, a gift of other languages. Abram Kuyper regarded both as the uttering of unintelligible sounds. He said that it was probably the language that we're going to speak in heaven, so that the gift, in that case the miracle, was one of both hearing and speaking. And people spoke what they didn't know, and people heard what they couldn't understand. That's far out.

Calvin and many who followed Calvin think that the Pentecostal tongues were languages and the Corinthian tongues were not. So how are you doing? You feeling real clear on this? Huh? Here we've got Charles Hodge.

I carry systematic theology around like this. This guy is bright. He says they're both languages. Here comes Kuyper. He says they're both unintelligible sounds.

Here comes Calvin. He says, hey, I think one's one. I think one's the other. What do you think?

Hoikima, that's quite a name, says it seems difficult, if not impossible, to make a final judgment on the matter. Oh, thank you. Good. But what has your experience been? Your experience has been, because of a great desire for black and white and no grays in life, your experience has been, you've got to come down on one side or the other here, and as soon as you do, somewhere or another, you go into a defensive shell to fight off anybody who doesn't believe what you believe.

Or you go on the antagonistic route to try and bring everybody who hasn't got what you've got into the experience that you have. Remember this, loved ones, the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. This doesn't seem real plain, does it? What should that tell us? It should tell us that anytime we exalt something that there isn't amazing clarity on in the Bible to a position of undue significance, we're probably getting really out of line. Let me give you the wisdom of J. I. Packer on this, if I may, for a moment. He gives six areas of agreement among present-day investigators into this phenomenon.

And here he says are the areas of agreement, in terms of honest research on the part of people both involved and observing. Number one, tongues speaking, as expressed today, is not language in the ordinary sense. It is not language in the ordinary sense. Forget for a minute the stories that you heard about Mr. So-and-so in the missionary thing, and he was trying to explain John's gospel, and all of a sudden he found himself speaking, and the people started to listen to him because he was speaking in their language. That is a separate issue for now.

We're talking about going to the average charismatic church where when you finish singing the song, everybody keeps singing, and then they start singing in glossolalia or in tongues. Okay? That is not intelligible language.

What is it? This is what Packer says, and he doesn't mean this in any pejorative way. It is a willed and welcomed vocal event in which, in a context of attention to religious realities, the tongue operates with one's mood, but apart from one's mind, in a way comparable to the fantasy languages of children, the scat singing of the late Louis Armstrong, yodeling in the Alps, and warbling under the shower or in the bath. Now, for those of you who believe that God has given you a private prayer language, don't let that unsettle you in any way. That is an explanation. That's almost like a medical explanation, a physiological explanation of what is happening when you do what you do, no matter what the religious overtone or connotation we may put on it. Because after all, we know that this same phenomenon is present in cults, it is present in other countries, it is present in other environments, and it is present in other religions.

Okay? Secondly, though this sometimes starts spontaneously in a person's life, that is with or without some kind of attendant emotional excitement, tongue speaking is regularly taught. And some of us were told how we could do it with instructions like this, loosen your jaw and your tongue, speak nonsense syllables, utter it as praise to God, the first sounds that come into your head and so forth. And as a result of that, before you know where you are, you will be able to do what other people around you are doing. It's not that difficult.

It can be learned, it is not something hard if you want to do it. Thirdly, many if not most people who speak in tongues are folks of unlike what people have said that the only people who would engage in this are folks who, you know, fell off buildings or are emotionally unstable or there's something wrong with them. No, he says many if not most tongue speakers are persons of at least average psychological health who have found that glossolalia, tongue speaking, is for them a kind of exalted fun before the Lord. It's fun.

They like it. It's spiritually in tune. Fourthly, glossolalia or tongue speaking is sought and used as part of a quest for closer communion with God and regularly proves beneficial at a conscious level. Those of us who have sought to speak in tongues or have spoken in tongues know that this is actually true. It has been part of our spiritual quest for a closer walk with God. Someone has said, do you know that you can go know God better than you know Him now?

If you are only able to do this and you've said to yourself, I want to know Him so badly, if that's what you have to do, that's what I will do. And however, I end up doing it, I am going to do it. And in the doing of it, there is a relief of tension. There is a certain inner exhilaration. There is a strengthening sense of the presence of God and of His blessing without doubt. Fifthly, tongue speaking represents and focuses and intensifies such awareness of divine reality as is brought to it.

In other words, the context is very important. Thus, it becomes a natural means of giving voice to adoration. A natural means of giving voice to adoration. Hence, many people say it is my private prayer language. Question, what is this private prayer language in relationship to what we're dealing with here and about to deal with in 1 Corinthians 14? You're not talking about private prayer languages. He's talking about something that was happening in the church, was being spoken out in the church and people were interpreting in the church.

We're not talking about the same thing, my friends. Sixthly, usually tongue speaking is sought and found and used by people who see it or see the tongue speaking community as spiritually special and who want to be fully involved in its total group experience. And since they see their tongue speaking as mainly if not wholly for private use and by their own testimony do not claim to know what they're saying, okay? And Paul speaks only of tongues that are for utterance and for interpretation in public. And it would seem, and we'll get to this, that he has some notion that the speaker has some idea of his own meaning.

It is virtually impossible for us to square the two things. So whatever we're talking about over here, we're not talking about what Paul is talking about over here. Now, when we come to the interpretation, it's much along the same lines. It's very perplexing to be in a context, and with this I will conclude tonight, it's very perplexing to be in a context where people speak in tongues, supposedly prophetic words.

I've been there many, many times ever since the age of about 16. And once a person has given an utterance in an unintelligible language in a way that they themselves do not know what they're talking about, then it is open, it is up for grabs for somebody then to interpret that in the immediate aftermath of the utterance. Now here's the problem. So long as what is said by way of interpretation is biblical, it stands unchallengeable, because it is uncheckable.

Okay? So if somebody says something that nobody knows what they're talking about, and I immediately give you an interpretation which is true to the Bible, you can't challenge it because it's true to the Bible, and you can't check it. And empathy with the speaker, the mood, the need, plus a mind well-stopped in Scripture will be sufficient to produce interpretations.

Now here's the thing, loved ones. When somebody does this and somebody interprets, it may well bring blessing, irrespective of the question of reality or not, for this reason. That let's suppose we've got a well-meaning person who has been led to the conviction that here is the way to really know God, and this is the real expression of true spirituality. And when you're able to do this by divine gifting, then you're really close to God. And if you do it in our little prayer meeting and you're quiet for a moment or two, there'll be somebody else who will stand up and will interpret it for you.

When they stand up and interpret it, and they give a word of God-given spiritual encouragement, which is essentially from the Bible, you see, without it necessarily being a God-given rendering of a God-given language, it's still going to be encouraging because it's a God-given Bible out of which it came. Now to go beyond that and say that all of my charismatic brothers and sisters are led of the devil, are involved in spurious and counterfeit satanic antagonism, is a leap that I for one am unprepared to take. And one day my brother and my sister and I are going to get to heaven and one of us is going to have a redder face than the other, because they're going to turn around and say, hey, you thought it was just out of the Bible? You're wrong. Or I'm going to say, hey, you thought you had a red telephone?

It was in here all the time. Our time is gone. I can tell by the perplexity on your faces that you just can't wait for chapter 14. If it's this confusing in 12, you can see the great wisdom of the Spirit of God to put chapter 13 in the middle of 12 and 14, can't you?

To stop us all from fighting with one another. And if there is any sense, I want to say a word here to any of my brothers and sisters who come from a charismatic background. If there is any sense in which anything that I have said tonight appears to be either condescending or antagonistic or bombastic in any way, then the problem is all mine, the sin is all mine, and I intend none of it. We are all learners from the one who knows the answers, and together we need to seek the mind of Christ. Each one of us needs to exercise spiritual sensitivity. That's from today's final message on spiritual gifts.

You're listening to Alistair Begg, and this is Truth for Life Weekend. If you're a regular Truth for Life listener, you know that our mission here is singular and straightforward. We believe the Bible is the true word of God.

Our passion is to teach it with clarity and relevance on this program. We know that when God's word is taught, unbelievers will be converted, believers will be established, and local churches will be strengthened. We also love recommending books that will help you grow firmly in your faith. That's why our book selection today is focused on God. It's written to help you learn more about the qualities or attributes He possesses. It's a devotional titled None Else 31 Meditations on God's Character and Attributes.

The Bible tells us a lot about God's character, but have we ever really thought about who God is? Well, the book None Else contains 31 daily readings that allow us to spend an entire month getting to know Him better and to reflect on His attributes. These daily readings include a scripture meditation, there's a prayer, a short biblical study, a few reflection questions, and each chapter is packed with scripture references. There's also a digging deeper section if there's a particular topic you'd like to think about further. We invite you to learn more about the devotional book None Else when you visit us online at truthforlife.org. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us today. Be sure to listen next weekend as Alistair explains why we shouldn't let our differences bring unnecessary division to Christ's church. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.