Wednesday 30 June 2010

Must Tongues Always Be a Tongue of Men?

Jesus said believers will speak in "new" tongues - not just "other" tongues.

Paul implied the possibility that believers could speak in "the tongues of men and of angels".

Paul mentioned the gift of "divers kinds" of tongues.

A tongue was to be "interpreted" - not "judged" as in the case of prophecy.

If a tongue was always a tongue of man, you would think the Holy Spirit would usually give believers utterance in a tongue that was known, rather than unknown, by visitors in the congregation. But instead it was often the case that tongues were unknown by anyone in a congregation and therefore needed interpretation.

If a tongue was always a tongue of man, you wouldn't think the supernatural gift of "the interpretation of tongues" would be needed by the church. If that were the case, it would have been more of a sign to unbelievers if instead of placing the gift of the interpretation of tongues in the church, that a natural-speaker of the tongue would be required and sought who could in turn verify and interpret the tongue.

But instead, God elected to place in the church the supernatural gift of the interpretation of tongues - probably because very often no natural-speakers of the tongues would be available.

Interpreting a tongue through the gift of the Spirit requires the services of an already-convinced believer, to interpret a tongue which neither he nor anyone else present - believer or unbeliever - can understand, to give an interpretation which no-one - believer or unbeliever - can really verify was an accurate translation or not. Yet this is the way God planned it.

No comments:

Post a Comment