| Gifts tongues | by A. Wood | ||||||
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This series looks at the gifts that each believer has been given to use in service for Christ. Whilst my initial plan was to cover the gifts in the order they appear in Romans 12, I have a burden this month to write about the often misunderstood gift of tongues.
The gift in action (Acts 2v4-11)Here we see the gift of tongues in action. Jesus' disciples could suddenly speak the languages of the people. In verse 7 the people recognising that these were Galileans, who would not be versed in many languages, are amazed as they here the disciples speaking in their own language with which they were born with. There is no question of this being some unintelligible tongue, but a human language.
Why was the gift given? (1 Corinthians 14v2-6,v22) (Acts 10v46,19v6)So for what purpose was this gift? Was it so men with this gift might be glorified? No! Verses 2-6 tell us how that on its own it is of no use in the church, as it only edifies the man speaking not those listening, and as we saw in the first article in this series, the gifts were given not for the one gifted but for his (or indeed her) fellow believer. Furthermore we learn in verse 22 that it was given as a sign to the unbeliever. We saw it used above in Acts 2, it enabled the Gospel to be preached to many a nation by Galileans not versed in languages. This gift seems to have been given as a "kick start" to the spreading of the Gospel overcoming the obvious langauge barriers.In the two verses on Acts, new believers are given this gift, I would suggest as a sign to others that they have received the Holy Spirit, however, if we look throughout the book of Acts, not ll new believers were given this gift, only these two groups why? Well the first group were the first group of Gentiles to be saved and a sign of their Salvation was needed to show the former Jews that Gentiles could be saved as well. The group in chapter 19 meanwhile had only heard of John's baptism until Paul came and preached unto them Christ. This group was again a new group in Ephesus, a city under the firm grip of idolatry, and a sign gift was perhaps needed to show the power of God there.
For how long is it given? (1 Corinthians 13v8-13)I know many who would say that the gift of tongues has already ceased, and likewise many who would disagree. Likewise I know some who would say verse 10 refers to the Holy Scriptures and some who say it is Christ. What do I think? Well, verse 10 I would say refers to Christ, due to the reference of seeing face to face. As for whether the gift of tongues has ceased? Well it was given as a sign gift to reach out to non-believers. In the early days of the church, it as a small group of people knew few languages so God gave them this gift to preach the Gospel to all the world as commanded in the great commandment. (Mark 16v15) Today, the church is a large group of people who between them know many languages, therefore this sign gift is no longer required, as people can learn the languages. One can think of many a missionary who has gone out having first learnt the language, and I have yet to hear of any recent missionary who was suddenly able to speak in a foreign tongue.To conclude, the gift of tongues was given as a sign to unbelievers. It was never meant for worship meetings, or for the edification of the speaker but rather for the listeners, as a sign of God's power and a means of communication. In this day and age, I have yet to hear of it being used in the way it was meant. That is not to say I would fundamently say it does not exist today, but I have seen no evidence of its proper use today.
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