76 Sermon Illustrations on Spiritual Gifts

Let me tell you a story I once heard speaker Les Brown relate.

A particular man played piano in a bar. He was a good piano player. People came out just to hear him play. But one night, a patron told him he didn't want to hear him just play anymore. He wanted him to sing a song.

The man said, “I don't sing.”

But the customer was persistent. He told the bartender, “I'm tired of listening to the piano. I want that guy to sing!”

The bartender shouted across the room, “Hey buddy! If you want to get paid, sing a song. The patrons are asking you to sing!”

So he did. He sang a song. A piano player who had never sung in public did so for the very first time. And nobody had ever heard the song, “Mona Lisa” sung the way it was sung that night by Nat King Cole!

He had talent he was sitting on! He may have lived the rest of his life as a no-name piano player in a no-name bar, but because he HAD to sing, he went on to become one of the best-known entertainers in America.

You, too, have skills and abilities. You may not feel as if your “talent” is particularly great, but it may be better than you think! And with persistence, most skills can be improved. Besides, you may as well have no ability at all if you sit on whatever talent you possess!

The better question is not, “What ability do I have that is useful?”

It is rather, “How will I use whatever ability I have?”

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© 2000 Steve Goodier

Sermon in "Boundaries" series. Matthew 15:21-28

JESUS DIDN'T DO IT ALL

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I. How many hats do you wear?

II. Jesus had a well-defined ministry.

A. It was finite and limited.

B. His boundaries were always being pushed. Matthew 15:21-28

C. Some boundaries can be stretched.

III. What is your mission from God?

A. We all have a gift - a task - to accomplish.

B. Luther and Reformation on secular callings.

C. Maybe you can do more than you suppose.

IV. Be realistic about your limits.

A. Assess your impact.

B. Delegate what you don't do well. Exodus 18:14-18

V. Problems with personal boundary issues in the church.

VI. What our boundaries reveal about us.

A. Jesus' boundaries reflected his deep love for the outcast.

B. We each have unique boundaries.

Once I went backstage at the Metropolitan Opera to interview Jerome Hines, the internationally famous singer, who is also an active Christian layman. While he applied makeup and got ready for his role in that night’s production of Aida, I asked him questions about his life and faith. One of the most fascinating things he told me was that he wasn’t a good enough singer to make his high school glee club. He auditioned for the choir, but failed to impress the director. Did that detour his career? I wanted to know.

“No, I kept on singing,” Hines said, “because I loved to sing. I never considered it anything more than an avocation.” So he went off to college, studied math and sang as a hobby- which led to some amateur roles, which led to his discovery by people who had a different opinion of his talent from his high school teacher. Later that night, as I stood in the wings and listened to his rich bass voice sweep over that famous hall, I wondered how there could have ever been any question.

I am always uplifted by such stories because they tell me that God has a place in mind for each of us and a plan for our getting there. It may not always be clear and we may get sidetracked, but if we trust Him and obey Him, nothing will thwart His will. He will prevail. Teach us to trust You, Lord, even when the results are discouraging at first.

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Fred Bauer; Daily Guideposts, 1986, Copyright Guideposts Associates, Inc.

In addition to the historical claims on which Dwight McKissic rests his call for “latitude” among Southern Baptists on tongues and private prayer language, the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, also has cited scholarly affirmation for his interpretation of key biblical passages, especially the Apostle Paul’s treatment of tongues in 1 Corinthians 14.

In several letters posted on his church’s website, McKissic disagreed with what he views as forbidding the practice of a private prayer language at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Seminary officials, meanwhile, have insisted they are not forbidding tongues, but instead discouraging the promotion or advocacy of the charismatic gifts by faculty and administration through a statement the school’s trustees passed in their October meeting.

To make his case, McKissic appealed to the writings of several Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professors and its former president, as well as its current president.

The two Southwestern professors whose writings are quoted extensively, James Leo Garrett and Siegfried Schatzmann, along with former seminary president Kenneth Hemphill whom McKissic described as having endorsed the practice of private prayer language, varied in their reactions to McKissic’s citations.

One said he thought his treatment in a systematic theology text had been misrepresented as an endorsement of the practice, another preferred not to comment further and the last agreed that the practice should not be a test of fellowship.

McKissic made clear that he distinguishes his “continualist” viewpoint from a classical Pentecostal theology, favoring the word “ecstatic” to describe the use of a private prayer language.

Serving as a new trustee on Southwestern’s board, which in October issued a statement against promoting charismatic practices at the school, McKissic, convinced that the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 allows freedom for both views, pressed board officers to explain how their interpretation of private prayer language is more valid than his own.

“If my interpretation is unbiblical and harmful to the churches, how are you going to label the interpretations of current faculty members that are similar to mine as I will reference and document later?” McKissic asked.

Without responding to McKissic’s citation of his April 4, 2006, chapel sermon at Southwestern Seminary, in an interview with the Florida Baptist Witness, Patterson rejected suggestions by McKissic and others that 1 Corinthians 14 requires acceptance of private prayer language.

“I don’t find anywhere in the Bible where a private prayer language is ever endorsed, and certainly if it is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14 — - which is an interpretative question — - it is clearly not being recommended by Paul and clearly not being called a ‘charismata,’ spiritual gift. That is, the Acts 2 form of tongues,” Patterson said.

In contrast to the experience at Pentecost recorded in Acts 2 in which tongues were a public, known language given by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of providing the Gospel to those who would not otherwise understand the message, “what’s going on at Corinth is not Acts 2 and is a poor effort in the power of the flesh to imitate [the tongues] of Acts 2 -- and Paul’s limiting it” in every way possible, Patterson said, adding later, “Whatever it is, it’s so carefully hedged by Paul and so clearly not in his favor that he has virtually eliminated it.”

Still, Paul does not forbid the tongues entirely in 1 Corinthians 14 in order to leave open the possibility that the legitimate gift referenced in Acts 2 can be operable, according to Patterson.

Patterson also asserted that whatever is being described in 1 Corinthians 14 it is not included in any of the four New Testament passages listing spiritual gifts.

“My position remains that one cannot regulate much of anything that goes on in private. But neither should we advocate such unhelpful and harmful behavior or choose our leaders from among its advocates,” he added.

Contrary to what some may expect, Patterson told the Witness he is not a cessationist -- rejecting the idea that some spiritual gifts, like tongues, may have ended with the era of the apostles. “I believe that God can do this any time He wants to, but if He does, it will be Acts 2” type of tongues -- known languages used to make the Gospel understandable to those who would not otherwise understand.

Concerning claims by McKissic and others that because they affirm the inerrancy of Scripture there should be latitude where inerrantists interpret passages differently, as in the case of 1 Corinthians 14, Patterson cited the case of a Church of Christ minister who argues for baptismal regeneration, citing Acts 2:38.

“Now, he believes in the inerrancy of God’s Word, and he also is citing Scripture for his viewpoint, but Baptists say you are dead wrong. You have misread the Scriptures. I would say that same thing” regarding private prayer language.

Patterson also told the Witness, “One of the interesting things about private tongues is that they never stay private. They always become public so it’s a misnomer to begin with. And, it also becomes divisive invariably, as Paul warned that it would.”

Although it’s “not a logical necessity” that acceptance of tongues and private prayer language will lead to acceptance of other planks of the charismatic agenda, Patterson added, “Historically, is that the way it almost always happens? Yes. And that’s the problem.”

Hemphill, Patterson’s predecessor at Southwestern, does not see the matter entirely the same.

Responding to a request from Baptist Press to clarify his view, Hemphill noted he had been referenced on the topic in both the recent discussion at Southwestern as well as in a document IMB trustees used a year ago. Both trustee boards used his 1992 book “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Discovering Your True Self Through Spiritual Gifts,” as a source. Hemphill’s workbook on spiritual gifts was released a few years later.

“Since a brief quotation from a much larger context has been used, additional information might prove helpful,” he told BP. “I do believe that Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 prohibits the public display of tongues in worship. He declares that they can be confusing to the ungifted,” citing 1 Corinthians 14:16, “and detrimental to evangelism,” referring to verse 23.

“I do not, however, believe that 1 Corinthians 14 provides sufficient scriptural warrant to prohibit the practice of a personal prayer language. I do not believe the Bible clearly teaches the cessation of such gifts,” Hemphill said.

“There are legitimate issues of interpretative difference on this matter among scholars with a commitment to biblical inerrancy. While I do not personally practice a prayer language nor advocate such practice, I do not think we should make this a test of one’s commitment to the conservative resurgence, the principles of biblical inerrancy, or loyalty to Southern Baptist life and work. I think we should be guided by Paul’s preference for intelligible speech in the gathered assembly and his caution that we should not prohibit a private prayer language,” he added, referring to 1 Corinthians 14:39.

Offering a further warning, Hemphill told BP, “We must be careful not to allow issues of personal interpretation and preference to deter us in our passion to expand God’s kingdom through our Baptist family of faith.”

Southwestern’s Schatzmann declined an opportunity to further clarify his position based on his book, “A Pauline Theology of Charismata,” and an article in Southwestern’s Fall 2002 Journal of Theology. Schatzmann received his masters and doctoral degrees from Southwestern, and served on the staff of an Assemblies of God church as a seminary student and later served 10 years on the faculty of Oral Roberts University.

While much of the focus of the excerpts McKissic cited from Schatzmann’s writings focus on spiritual gifts that equip the church for service, included is allowance for the possibility that Paul affirmed a place for speaking in tongues to oneself, in the believer’s own devotional practice.

Asked to elaborate on his view regarding private prayer language, Schatzmann told Baptist Press, “After careful and prayerful consideration, I have decided that the wiser course of action on my part is not to enter into the discussion or debate at this point” regarding the passages quoted.

In the section quoted, Schatzmann noted the importance of the affirmation in 1 Corinthians 14:5 is followed by “the contrasting ‘but rather’ (mallon de) and the testimonial in V. 18 gives way to the superordinate ‘but in the church’ (alla en ekklesia) of V. 19, thereby indicating this his own personal practice, however beneficial, is not the criterion for the gift’s public use.”

When Garrett first read of McKissic’s use of his multi-volume systematic theology text as support for advocating private prayer language, the emeritus theology professor said he chose to remain quiet, not wanting to add to the disagreement. He described his interpretation of spiritual gifts as one section of a chapter he wrote 12 years ago.

The date of release for his book is relevant since the term private prayer language only recently gained wide attention in Southern Baptist circles. Garrett said the reference McKissic made to the 12-year-old book was “done without clarifying my position.”

He explained, “While I have an open attitude toward the whole matter of spiritual gifts, it would be wrong to say that passage which has been quoted indicates I am promoting a certain kind of prayer language.”

Putting it more bluntly, Garrett said, “I haven’t promoted anything in that passage so much as I reported and indicated the scope of tongues, prophecy and healing. A lot of it is simply trying to interpret Paul’s teaching on 1 Corinthians,” he added, calling it “largely a descriptive statement.”

Garrett said the purpose of a systematic theology is different than a commentary. “Systematic theology is supposed to bring together the whole doctrinal beliefs system -- the body of beliefs, drawing from Scripture and secondary sources such as Christian history and all of that to address the situation today in a language that, hopefully, can be understood.”

Reflecting on what he was attempting when he wrote the book, Garrett set the stage for the chapter on spiritual gifts.

“We’ve all been called upon to look at spiritual gifts in a way we haven’t before the 20th century,” he said, adding that much of the discussion is far more recent.

“When I was writing that in the last decade of the 20th century, I was simply trying to reflect the vast change that has come and how spiritual gifts is now a major subject for theology.” Certain he could not avoid the subject, Garrett said, “I tried to give it my best shot to develop the chapter.”

Noting many books had been written on spiritual gifts such as the one by Hemphill, Garrett said he felt it was time to make that a part of the system of theology.

“If we had not faced up to spiritual gifts in writing systematic theology in the 1990s, we would have been out of sync with not just Pentecostals, but non-Pentecostal authors.”

Similarly, the doctrine of missions previously had not been included. “We were trying to be inclusive in the topics to make systematic theology as adequate and comprehensive as possible.”

As for any suggestion that the BF&M be revised to clarify the view of Southern Baptists regarding private prayer language, Garrett doubts there would be unanimity.

“We should adopt what we agree on, not what we disagree on,” he said of such statements of faith that are approved by messengers to annual SBC meetings. “If you begin to put in things you disagree on, you begin to turn the statement in a different way. I don’t believe there is now unanimity. It might be wise to wait on that,” he added.

Garrett recalled such consensus as a key element in the first Southern Baptist statement known as the Abstract of Principles. The consensus stemmed from the decision to exclude anything on which Southern Baptists were divided. Consequently, he said, some of the Landmark theology considered divisive at that time did not get included.

“By analogy, maybe things on which we disagree should not be included,” Garrett said. He said he would like to see Baptists pay more attention to spiritual gifts “for the sake of those gifts that are not thought to be extraordinary.” When the 17th century Baptist confessions referred to gifts, it was usually the list found in Ephesians 4, Garrett said.

“They wanted to make sure that their elders or pastors had received some gifts. Today Mr. or Mrs. Average Baptist needs to find and exercise his or her gift through the local church for the upbuilding of the body, whatever their leaders may be saying about prayer language.”

Challenged by board chairman Van McClain to examine his experience in light of the teaching of Scripture, McKissic said he had done that in 1981 while a student at Southwestern. He told trustee officers that he had concluded that private prayer language is a gift for some but not for others, referring to 1 Corinthians 12:28 and 14:5, and the teachings of some Southwestern professors.

McKissic wrote to McClain: “I cannot and will not allow your lack of experience to interpret and define my experience particularly when I have biblical support, as well as the published works of Southern Baptist professors, leaders, and other prominent conservative theologians who share my viewpoint.”

Armed with “a legitimate biblical experience,” McKissic said he is never at the mercy of a man with only an intellectual argument based on his biblical reasoning. “On this issue we simply have to agree to disagree.”

On a wave of emotion, the man at the front of the church broke into a language only he and his God could understand.

“Ah le ah ne al la ne,” said Bill Siordia, a worshiper at The Pentecostals of Pleasanton, a small congregation in the San Francisco Bay Area. With closed eyes and palms raised skyward, he continued in a whispered rush. “Ma ne ah ne ta la ah ka wa.”

Siordia, 44, a warehouse worker, was speaking in tongues, a form of verbal prayer scholars call glossolalia. For him — and a growing numbers of Christians worldwide — the experience is a direct means of communication with God that is a transcendent and crucial part of his faith.

“It is kind of a high,” Siordia said later, describing the most common form of speaking in tongues as an indecipherable expression of personal prayer and praise. “It is like being with the Lord. I feel that sense that everything is OK.”

This Sunday, Christians will celebrate Pentecost, when the Bible says God sent a “mighty wind” among Jesus’ disciples and they prayed in unknown languages. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,” the Book of Acts says, “and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Though all Christians mark the day, only some speak in tongues. Those who do describe an immediate, ecstatic and personal experience of God. Those who do not have called it phony, weird and even dangerous.

“There is tension between people who emphasize gifts of the spirit and the people who emphasize church authority,” says David Roebuck, director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center in Cleveland, Tennessee.

“It’s a range of issues, from whether you are interpreting the Bible correctly to people having an experience that the institution cannot control to a personal dynamic of one group claiming to be more authentic than another.”

At the conflict’s heart are differing interpretations of the purpose of tongues. Some believe tongues and other “gifts of the Spirit,” such as prophecy and divine healing, died with Jesus’ disciples. The primacy of the Bible, they say, cancels the need for such gifts. Other Christians — known as Pentecostals, charismatics or, more generally, renewalists — believe those gifts remain available.

“We see it as evidence of the spirit of God within us,” says Terry Baughman, pastor of The Pentecostals of Pleasanton. “We see it as filling a God-shaped hole in the heart of man.”

According to a recent Pew Forum poll, renewalists are the fastest-growing religious group, approximately one-fourth of the world’s 2 billion Christians. In the USA, 23% of Christians say they are renewalists.

The largest American renewalist denominations are the Assemblies of God, the United Pentecostal Church and the Church of God, which together account for more than 12 million members worldwide. Since the 1960s, the renewalist movement has leapt from these traditionally Pentecostal denominations to mainline Protestant and Catholic congregations. There are tongue-speaking Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Catholics.

Unity or division?

“The gift of tongues unites us,” says Walter Matthews, executive director for the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Matthews estimates that half a million U.S. Catholics now speak in tongues, and 10 million have been renewalists at some point. “It is meant to bring unity in the body of Christ and, by extension, in humanity.”

But it can also bring suspicion. In one form of tongues, one person “translates” the tongues uttered by another, deciphering it as prophecy — a practice that, in the past, has sometimes split congregations that disagree on the prophecy’s meaning or accuracy. Some can put too much emphasis on the gift of tongues, critics say, holding it up as evidence that they are more blessed than those who do not engage in the practice.

“If I say ‘If you don’t have this experience, your Christianity is inferior,’ that gets very personal,” says Roebuck, who, as a member of North Cleveland Church of God, a Pentecostal congregation near Chattanooga, Tenn., speaks in tongues during prayer. “That is a very judgmental statement.”

A BAPTIST DISPUT

A major battle over tongues has roiled the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest group of American Protestants. The SBC’s International Mission Board does not accept international missionaries who speak in tongues in public worship because it is not recognized as a part of Baptist identity, says spokesperson Wendy Norvelle. Next month, at the SBC’s annual convention, a group of pastors will ask the SBC to officially determine whether tongue-speaking adheres to Baptist principles.

“Many in the SBC do not want to accept the inerrant word of God when it comes to praying in tongues,” says Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, and a leader of the tongue-speaking Baptists. “They see it as irrational, but faith is irrational. I think they have chosen to reject it rather than teach it as God’s word.”

Will Hall, spokesman for the SBC, says the denomination has no official policy on speaking in tongues for its churches or individual members. But there are other signs the practice is gaining acceptance. Dallas Theological Seminary and Campus Crusade for Christ, two strongholds of independent Christianity, have done away with restrictions on tongue-speaking for students and staff.

“I see much more acceptance of it today in America than ever,” says J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, which covers the renewalist movement. “I see groups that had a hard line against teaching it now do not. There is a relaxing of old tensions.”

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STUDY: ‘BIOLOGICAL REALITY’ BEHIND THE EXPERIENCE

Critics deride it as fake, but new research shows that something authentic happens in the brain when someone speaks in tongues.

In 2006, a University of Pennsylvania team headed by Andrew B. Newberg found that the frontal lobe area of the brain usually associated with language skills and willful control of the body slips into low gear when someone engages in this form of ecstatic prayer.

“Our findings are very consistent with what people say they are feeling,” Newberg says. “That they are not in charge of what is happening and are experiencing an intense sense of themselves in relation to God.”

Newberg, a neuroscientist and co-author of WHY WE BELIEVE WHAT WE BELIEVE, a book on the biology behind belief, used neuroimaging to track blood flow to the brain. The study’s subjects were five women from the same Pentecostal church. They were measured twice: as they sang a gospel song and as they spoke in tongues.

The scans found that when the subjects spoke, the frontal lobe showed less blood flow and lower activity than it did during the singing.

Newberg previously examined Buddhist monks in meditation and Catholic nuns in prayer. Their brain scans showed that the frontal lobe lit up with more activity, the exact opposite of the tongue-speakers.

Still, Newberg cautions against using the study as proof that God speaks to people through tongues.

“It talks about the biological reality of the experience. It does not address whether there is a supernatural reality,” he says. “That question is still left open.”

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Kimberly Winston, Special for USA TODAY

Sermon in series "We Are Gifted," #7. 1 Corinthians 12:9-10

THE WEIRD GIFTS

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I. When you find yourself in a very strange church.

A. You may have attended one. You've probably seen one on TV.

B. For many people, this is what "spiritual gifts" is really about.

II. The miraculous spiritual gifts.

A. The gift of faith and the gift of miracles.

B. Gifts of healing.

C. Tongues and interpretation of tongues.

III. What should we do with these gifts?

A. There have been widely different appraisals.

B. A balanced assessment.

IV. Christianity is a supernatural faith.

A. The God who did miracles in the past can do them now.

B. We are also a rational faith.

V. God gives whatever he wants.

Sermon in series, "We Are Gifted," #1. Romans 12:4-6a

YOU ARE SO GIFTED!

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I. When the rest of the world opens Christmas presents.

A. This last week was Epiphany.

B. God's gifts are not limited to Christmas, either.

C. A new sermon series on spiritual gifts.

II. We are not a building but a body.

A. The metaphor of the body of Christ. Rom 12:4

B. Lots of pieces, one unit. 1 Cor 12:12

C. Every time the church has revived, it has rediscovered this.

III. Spiritual gifts cover a wide range.

A. Some passages emphasize leadership positions. Eph 4:11

B. Other passages emphasize interpersonal relationships. Rom 12

C. The most interesting involve supernatural abilities. 1 Cor 14

IV. Spiritual gifts are not limited to natural abilities.

A. They are given by God. "according to the grace given us." 12:6

B. Spiritual gifts only come after conversion.

C. Every Christian has at least one gift.

V. Our church has some amazing people.

A. Recent examples.

B. You are gifted, too.

The first occurrence of speaking in tongues occurred on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4. The apostles went out and shared the gospel with the crowds, speaking to them in their own languages: “We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:11). The Greek word translated tongues literally means “languages.” Therefore, the gift of tongues is speaking in a language a person does not know in order to minister to someone who does speak that language. In 1 Corinthians chapters 12–14, Paul discusses miraculous gifts, saying, “Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction?” (1 Corinthians 14:6). According to the apostle Paul, and in agreement with the tongues described in Acts, speaking in tongues is valuable to the one hearing God’s message in his or her own language, but it is useless to everyone else unless it is interpreted/translated.

A person with the gift of interpreting tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30) could understand what a tongues-speaker was saying even though he did not know the language that was being spoken. The tongues interpreter would then communicate the message of the tongues speaker to everyone else, so all could understand. “For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says” (1 Corinthians 14:13). Paul’s conclusion regarding tongues that were not interpreted is powerful: “But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Corinthians 14:19).

Is the gift of tongues for today? First Corinthians 13:8 mentions the gift of tongues ceasing, although it connects the ceasing with the arrival of the “perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10. Some point to a difference in the tense of the Greek verbs referring to prophecy and knowledge “ceasing” and that of tongues “being ceased” as evidence for tongues ceasing before the arrival of the “perfect.” While possible, this is not explicitly clear from the text. Some also point to passages such as Isaiah 28:11 and Joel 2:28-29 as evidence that speaking in tongues was a sign of God’s oncoming judgment. First Corinthians 14:22 describes tongues as a “sign to unbelievers.” According to this argument, the gift of tongues was a warning to the Jews that God was going to judge Israel for rejecting Jesus Christ as Messiah. Therefore, when God did in fact judge Israel (with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70), the gift of tongues would no longer serve its intended purpose. While this view is possible, the primary purpose of tongues being fulfilled does not necessarily demand its cessation. Scripture does not conclusively assert that the gift of speaking in tongues has ceased.

At the same time, if the gift of speaking in tongues were active in the church today, it would be performed in agreement with Scripture. It would be a real and intelligible language (1 Corinthians 14:10). It would be for the purpose of communicating God’s Word with a person of another language (Acts 2:6-12). It would be in agreement with the command God gave through the apostle Paul, “If anyone speaks in a tongue, two — or at the most three — should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God” (1 Corinthians 14:27-28). It would also be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 14:33, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”

God most definitely can give a person the gift of speaking in tongues to enable him or her to communicate with a person who speaks another language. The Holy Spirit is sovereign in the dispersion of the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:11). Just imagine how much more productive missionaries could be if they did not have to go to language school, and were instantly able to speak to people in their own language. However, God does not seem to be doing this. Tongues does not seem to occur today in the manner it did in the New Testament, despite the fact that it would be immensely useful. The vast majority of believers who claim to practice the gift of speaking in tongues do not do so in agreement with the Scriptures mentioned above. These facts lead to the conclusion that the gift of tongues has ceased or is at least a rarity in God’s plan for the church today.

I was walking down life’s highway a long time ago.

One day I saw a sign that read, “Heavens Grocery Store.”

As I got a little closer the door came open wide,

and when I came to myself I was standing inside.

I saw a host of ANGELS. They were standing everywhere.

One handed me a basket and said, “my child, shop with care.”

Everything “ONE” needed was in the grocery store.

And all you couldn’t carry, you could come back the next day for more.

First, I got some PATIENCE: LOVE was in the same row and you could have the latter if you have the former.

Further down was UNDERSTANDING: you need that everywhere you go.

I got a box or two of WISDOM, a bag or two of FAITH.

I just couldn’t miss the HOLY GHOST, for it was all over the place.

I stopped to get some STRENGTH and COURAGE to help me run this race.

By then my basket was getting full, but I remembered I needed some GRACE.

I didn’t forget SALVATION, for SALVATION was free, so I tried to get enough of that to save both you and me.

Then I started up to the counter to pay my grocery bill, for I thought I had everything to do the MASTER’s will.

As I went up the aisle, I saw PRAYER: and I just had to put that in, for I knew when I stepped outside, I would run into sin.

PEACE and JOY were plentiful; they were last on the shelf.

SONG and PRAISE were hanging near, so I just helped myself.

Then I said to the angel, “Now how much do I owe?”

He smiled and said, “Just take them everywhere you go.”

Again I smiled and said, “How much do I really owe?”

He smiled again and said, “MY CHILD, GOD PAID YOUR BILL A LONG, LONG TIME AGO.”

“ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER YOU SHALL ASK IN PRAYER, BELIEVING, YOU SHALL RECEIVE.”

And remember there weren’t any things like POVERTY, HUNGER ‘cause these are being created by US and so we should remove them if we want to make EARTH a HEAVENLY place …

The name of the extinct dodo bird has long been used to speak of someone who is foolish, stupid, and worthless. Larger than a turkey, this ash-gray bird had a 50-pound body that was fat and lumpy. Its tail was a ridiculous tuft of curly feathers, and its stubby wings sported no more than three or four black feathers. It had a hooked beak, large legs, and heavy feet. The dodo lived in obscurity on three islands in the Indian Ocean until settlers came along and wiped out the defenseless birds. Even in death they seemed destined for ridicule. Their discoverer wrote of them in his journal -- "We called these birds walghvogels (disgusting birds) for the reason that the more and longer they cooked, the less soft and more unpalatable their flesh becomes."

But then came a surprising development. In 1977 it was discovered that the beautiful calvaria tree that grows on the dodo's native island was dependent on the bird for its survival. The tree's seeds had such thick hulls that they could sprout only after being run through the rigors of the dodo's digestive system. Just in the nick of time, some turkeys were imported to take the dodo's place and perpetuate the 13 dying calvaria trees that remained.

In the church, as in nature, the Lord doesn't make worthless things. Every one of us is an important part of the body. Some of us might not look like much, but God has placed us "just as he pleased." Each has a purpose, and in Christ that purpose is eternal.

Imagine that we are TV sportscasters standing on the sidelines of a football game to give the play-by-play. Scene #1: The team nearest us is standing together, heads bowed in prayer, with the coach in the center. Suddenly they give a great cheer, and the coach trots out onto the field by himself. The players go sit on the bench. "What's going on?" we ask as we stick a microphone in front of a 250 pound guard. "What's the coach doing out there?" "Oh, he's going to play today." "All by himself?" "Sure, why not? He's had a lot more experience and training than the rest of us. We've got a lot of rookies on this team, and we might make mistakes. Anyway, they pay the coach well.

We're all here to cheer and support him -- and look at the huge crowd that's come to watch him play!" Bewildered, we watch as the opposing team kicks off. The coach catches the ball. He valiantly charges upfield, but is buried under eleven opposing tacklers. He's carried off half-conscious... You think that's ridiculous? But isn't it the picture many of us have of the church? The members expect the minister to do the preaching, praying, witnessing, and visiting because he's paid to do the Lord's work and he's better trained.

But listen to God's Game Plan. According to Ephesians 4:11-12, Christ has given the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers "to prepare God's people for works of service." God gives leaders to the church, not to do all the work, but to help all of God's people to do it! Lay people are not there simply to pay pastors and evangelists to do the Lord's work. Rather, pastors, evangelists, and teachers are to equip the so-called lay people to be ministers! Your pastor is meant to be a kind of playing coach. His main function is to help you as a Christian discover your spiritual gifts, develop them, and use them to build up the Body of Christ.

Now look at Scene #2: The team realizes they've all got to play, so they're on the field in a huddle. They huddle...and huddle...and huddle. The referee calls a penalty for delaying the game and moves the ball back five yards. Still the team huddles, huddles, and huddles. The referee calls penalty after penalty, until finally the ball is moved all the way back to their own goal line. "Hey coach!" shouts the quarterback to the sidelines. "This is the greatest huddle I've ever been in. What a group of guys! We have the best fellowship...and some of these guys are amazing students of the play book. Some have memorized over a hundred plays and can analyze them precisely. We learn so much in this huddle!" "But why don't you get up on the line and play?" "Why should we? What we want are bigger and better huddles! Besides, we might get hurt. No one ever got hurt in a huddle!"

Your church and mine are in big trouble if they become a "holy huddle" a band of saints gathered Sunday after Sunday, singing, praising, enjoying each other -- but never setting out on the line to apply what they learn. The church is supposed to be Christ's body -- his hands, his feet, his voice -- by which he carries out his plans in the world. God intends that "through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known" Ephesians 3:10. The church is to be God's light in a dark, corrupt society. The Christian life was never meant to be lived only in church for a couple of hours on Sunday. It's meant to be lived in the public arena -- on the firing line at school, the office, and in the neighborhood, seven days a week. Of course, we need worship and training and fellowship with other Christians -- a football team needs the huddle. But it's what happens after the huddle that the game is all about.

Here's scene #3: the team breaks out of the huddle. But instead of lining up against the opposing squad, they break into groups of two or three, arguing with each other. Soon they start shoving, and two of them actually get into a fight. "What's wrong now?" we ask as one of them walks off the field in disgust. "That bunch of malcontents can't agree on anything," he says. "Those two over there are arguing over the color of the uniforms. A couple of others are quarreling over the right way to kneel in the huddle. Those two guys are arguing because one believes in what he calls 'personal' football, and the other believes in 'social' football. They can't agree whether the individual or the team is more important. Some of the white players say the blacks should go play on their own field, and some of the black guys don't like the band music. A couple are fighting over whether women should be allowed to play. And I'm quitting because I can pass a lot better than that other guy, and they won't let me be the quarterback."

The Game Plan says that Christ "is our peace...His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two [Jew and Gentile], thus making peace...to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility" (Ephesians 2:14-16). Christians talk a lot about the peace of Christ. Can the world see that peace in our church relationships? Within the Body of Christ there is plenty of room for diversity of gifts, but underlying that diversity is unity. "Be completely humble and gentle," writes Paul, "Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit...one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all..." (Ephesians 4:2-6).

Isn't it time to show our oneness in truth and love to a watching world? So the first half ends. The team drags off to the locker room defeated, demoralized, beaten. But when the second half begins, we see a different team. Suddenly they're playing together with a new spirit. They huddle, slap each other on the back, and take the line. They're off the ball with split-second timing, there is no hesitation, they know where they're going. Each player carries out his assignment, and soon they score a touchdown, then another, and another. When the game ends, they've won! Afterwards in the locker room the players are exhausted, cut and bruised, but happy. "What happened at halftime to change this team?" we ask, the coach. "We were sitting here beaten," he says, "and suddenly a kind of presence seemed to come over us.

I started talking to the players, pointing out my mistakes, and theirs, and they started talking. Everyone was honest. Nobody blamed the others. We took a good look at ourselves. Then someone recalled that the Great Coach, the one who invented the game, also wrote the Master Game Plan. Wouldn't it make sense to see what he said? "We remembered how he literally gave himself to get the game started and to teach that first team everything he knew. So we got out the original Game Plan and read about basics such as each player knowing his place and dedicating himself to it, about pulling together, being willing to sacrifice, knowing the aim of the game, and using the proper equipment he designed. "Well, we were quiet. It felt as if the Great Coach was with us, as if somehow his Spirit got inside us. Suddenly, we were up! Motivated! Ready to go! We can't take the credit. It goes to Him!"

Lisa Najavits was a Vanderbilt graduate student who visited New York City in the Summer of 1987. A man who had just had an argument with his wife and too much to drink took a razor and picked Lisa out at random and put a gash in her face that required more than 100 stitches to close. The next day Lisa was visited by Marla Hanson. Is that name familiar? She was the model who the previous year had had her face slashed in retaliation by two men. She was the perfect comforter!

The first occurrence of speaking in tongues occurred on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4. The apostles went out and shared the gospel with the crowds, speaking to them in their own languages: “We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:11). The Greek word translated tongues literally means “languages.” Therefore, the gift of tongues is speaking in a language a person does not know in order to minister to someone who does speak that language. In 1 Corinthians chapters 12–14, Paul discusses miraculous gifts, saying, “Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction?” (1 Corinthians 14:6). According to the apostle Paul, and in agreement with the tongues described in Acts, speaking in tongues is valuable to the one hearing God’s message in his or her own language, but it is useless to everyone else unless it is interpreted/translated.

A person with the gift of interpreting tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30) could understand what a tongues-speaker was saying even though he did not know the language that was being spoken. The tongues interpreter would then communicate the message of the tongues speaker to everyone else, so all could understand. “For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says” (1 Corinthians 14:13). Paul’s conclusion regarding tongues that were not interpreted is powerful: “But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Corinthians 14:19).

Is the gift of tongues for today? First Corinthians 13:8 mentions the gift of tongues ceasing, although it connects the ceasing with the arrival of the “perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10. Some point to a difference in the tense of the Greek verbs referring to prophecy and knowledge “ceasing” and that of tongues “being ceased” as evidence for tongues ceasing before the arrival of the “perfect.” While possible, this is not explicitly clear from the text. Some also point to passages such as Isaiah 28:11 and Joel 2:28-29 as evidence that speaking in tongues was a sign of God’s oncoming judgment. First Corinthians 14:22 describes tongues as a “sign to unbelievers.” According to this argument, the gift of tongues was a warning to the Jews that God was going to judge Israel for rejecting Jesus Christ as Messiah. Therefore, when God did in fact judge Israel (with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70), the gift of tongues would no longer serve its intended purpose. While this view is possible, the primary purpose of tongues being fulfilled does not necessarily demand its cessation. Scripture does not conclusively assert that the gift of speaking in tongues has ceased.

At the same time, if the gift of speaking in tongues were active in the church today, it would be performed in agreement with Scripture. It would be a real and intelligible language (1 Corinthians 14:10). It would be for the purpose of communicating God’s Word with a person of another language (Acts 2:6-12). It would be in agreement with the command God gave through the apostle Paul, “If anyone speaks in a tongue, two — or at the most three — should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God” (1 Corinthians 14:27-28). It would also be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 14:33, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”

God most definitely can give a person the gift of speaking in tongues to enable him or her to communicate with a person who speaks another language. The Holy Spirit is sovereign in the dispersion of the spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:11). Just imagine how much more productive missionaries could be if they did not have to go to language school, and were instantly able to speak to people in their own language. However, God does not seem to be doing this. Tongues does not seem to occur today in the manner it did in the New Testament, despite the fact that it would be immensely useful. The vast majority of believers who claim to practice the gift of speaking in tongues do not do so in agreement with the Scriptures mentioned above. These facts lead to the conclusion that the gift of tongues has ceased or is at least a rarity in God’s plan for the church today.