| FreeBibleStudy.org
Welcome! "It has really changed my life."Andrew, Michigan |
|
Home |
The Gift of TONGUES
“And God has appointed in the church... third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues ” (1 Cor 12:28).Enabled to Spread the Gospel in Other Languages Tongues means languages, intelligible languages (for in order for something to be a language, that is a tongue, it must first be intelligible, otherwise it is just babel). Its purpose is for unbelievers to hear the gospel in their own language from strangers (1 Cor 14:21, 22). “ ‘BY MEN OF STRANGE TONGUES AND BY THE LIPS OF STRANGERS I WILL SPEAK TO THIS PEOPLE, AND EVEN SO THEY WILL NOT LISTEN TO ME,’ says the Lord. So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers.”For example, in Acts 2, the apostles were enabled by the Holy Spirit to speak the gospel in the various languages of the people who were gathered together in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost [those listening thought this was strange indeed since these were “men of strange tongues”, Galileans vs. 7, 8]. Three thousand souls were saved as a result of this (Ac 2:41). As it is written, “These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues” (Mk 16:17). Obviously the apostles fulfilled this verse because they spoke in “new tongues” on the day of Pentecost. But these new tongues were not new in the sense of never before heard or spoken, they were not unintelligible words, they were not some sort of special and private prayer language with which to speak with God. Instead they were simply the home-town languages of the foreigners that were in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Ac 2:8-11). Therefore, the true and certain, regular and ordinary, main Biblical meaning, sense, or use of this gift is for a foreigner/stranger to speak about God in the language of the listener, obviously without the need for interpretation. The purpose is for unbelievers to hear the gospel in their own language. If the gospel could only be preached in one language then the whole world would have a much harder time understanding it. Therefore, God has enabled certain people, in times past miraculously (Ac 2), to communicate the gospel in the language of the hearer without the need for an interpreter. God wants the gospel to spread rapidly in to all the world, and He does not want different languages to be a barrier. So he has enabled certain people to speak in variety of languages. Note: Cornelius and those with him were enabled by the Holy Spirit to speak in tongues. Peter and the others with him not only heard them praising God in different languages, they more importantly understood that now God was going to save the Gentiles with the gospel of Jesus Christ, not just the Jews (Ac 10:46, 47). A great and convincing turning point for the apostles and their co-workers in the beginning of the spreading of the Gospel.Do You Speak in Tongues? If so, what tongue is it? This is the appropriate question to ask anybody who claims to speak in tongues. The reason you need to ask this question is that some claim to speak in tongues, and yet they do not even know what language it is, they simply call it “tongues”. They seem to think that “tongues” in and of itself is some sort of spiritual language. But they are badly mistaken. Obviously they do not understand the true meaning or the purpose of this gift. And so they are given to babbling instead. As evidenced above, those who heard the apostles speak in tongues understood what they were saying in their own language. In order for something to be called a tongue, a language, it has to be intelligible; capable of being understood, comprehensible. A tongue is a language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations. Otherwise, it is not a tongue. It is babel, infantile, childish..... more about this in the Bible Study on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit |