I’d been wondering about something, and now at least I’ve gotten the Presbyterian perspective on 1 Corinthians. I just had an opportunity to talk with Kevin Twit, a minister from Christ Community, about the study of 1 Corinthians 14. To the best of my knowledge, I understand the charismatic approach to this passage, but that’s what can be gotten from merely reading the passage and extrapolating without historical context or immediate literary context. Many times that can be very misleading in studying the scriptures. I wanted to know what’s Paul was talking about, who he’s addressing, and what the contemporary understanding would’ve been concerning his message.
There’s nothing I’ve read in scripture about tongues (only Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians mention it) that leads me to believe they are secret languages only God can understand. According to Kevin Twit, the historical understanding until only very recently (within the last couple hundred years) is that tongues meant other languages. Meaning that Paul was writing to the Corinthians about languages that were unknown to them specifically, but not necessarily unknown to everyone. In fact, he most likely meant that those languages were known by other people, just not to the majority of the church at Corinth. It seems that way judging from Paul’s reference to Isaiah 28:11-12; the juxtaposition of “unknown languages” and “lips of foreigners” seems to suggest that the unknown language will merely be the language of the foreign oppressors. As Kevin Twit argues, “Tongues in Acts 2 are clearly known languages, not some angelic tongue. Why should we take ‘tongues’ to mean something different in 1 Corinthians?”
And what of the prophesying? I know I’ve had many experiences where I feel God impressing something on my heart, but my knee jerk reaction is to check it in the scriptures. If it is contradicted in any way by the Bible, then it’s most likely the deceit of my heart. Are these prophecies just impressions on people’s hearts that are being misunderstood as an authoritative word directly from God? That’s a pretty strong statement to make, that a message is for you from God. It basically leaves you no wiggle room. How does one know that a word is truly from God? I’d say this is a pretty good test.
But I feel I should mention this: I am trying to come at this passage unbiased, but I have to admit that almost immediately I felt uncomfortable with the “speaking in tongues” thing. Uncomfortable in the sense that it seems there are many churches that emphasize this sort of thing, but it’s all concentrated. It’s a whole church doing it, but then over here you’ve got another church that doesn’t have anyone speaking in tongues. If this is something from God, the Holy Spirit manifest in a person, wouldn’t it just happen all over the place, unhindered by the walls of a church? It shouldn’t be some skill that you have to be taught how to do. Acts doesn’t portray Pentecost as a seminar on how to speak in tongues, it just happened (even assuming we want to interpret scripture to mean that speaking in tongues is a secret prayer language or utterance to God). Coming at it from a sociological viewpoint, it looks a whole lot like groupthink to me, but I’ll continue to study this and report on it more later.
[Edit]
I would greatly appreciate reactions to my current thoughts. I am merely charting my own study of this passage, and critique is most welcome, particularly the critique of those whom I may have offended or otherwise disagree with me.
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kev. glad to see you are taking a good look from all sides at this issue. im just going to throw a few comments your way….off the top of my head. (that was a warning of sorts). my prayer language i consider to be vital to my spiritual walk, not salvation, and i have received words i felt were from God for others, so you can see where my bias lies. to reply to the group think comment…immediately i think about the dare i say millions of christians all over the world who pray in a prayer language. i have seen this. i assure you the multiple millions of christians in china consider this a foundational and vital part of their walks with God. we have to remember to think globally if we talk about groups of people the US doesnt represent at all christianity. i dont even have my bible hear to jump into those topics but i thought i would through some ideas out there from someone living outside the US. hopefully i can be a part of this discussion later!
hey buddy,
tongues–it’s a prayer language that can be used for other things as well, but it’s pretty much a personal prayer language since it’s to edify my own spirit. As for what language it is, i don’t know, it’s unknown to me, therefore it bypasses my mind and goes straight from my spirit to God. it’s an unknown language. unknown how? i dunno, to me firstly. it very well could be an angelic language considering that would also be an unknown language, mine doesn’t sound angelic though, but i’m not one to rule it out. i have heard stories about people praying in tongues like at an altar call or walking on a sidewalk and people passing by would stop them and tell them that they were speaking in their native language or something. so it’s still here for prayer and reaching out, often unintentionally. to really understand what paul meant by unknown languages, look up the original greek.
prophecy–yes there are people who hold the official office of prophet. that means they’re really really good at listening to God and telling people what he says. as for me prophesying or a “lay” person, it can be faked or come from the desires of my heart, but i would say most of the time it doesn’t. when first starting out it’s hard to distinguish between me and God saying stuff, but practice within my group of friends/church people has helped me be able to discern God’s voice. Not to mention, a prophetic word (a word spoken to edify a person) is often varified by a word of knowledge (which is when God tells me something about your past or present that i had no way of knowing). So, word of knowledge builds faith, then you’re more accepting in faith to recieve the prophetic word, which speaks to your future, your destiny, who God really sees you as, who God made you to be.
all this can probably be really confusing and unfortunately i don’t know verses to back it up, but this is what i know and this is what i experience.
group think? it’s too real for that. not to mention it’s not centrally located in charismatic churches. it has hit all denominations, even southern baptists and catholicism though i’m sure they wouldn’t want to admit it.
to deny these two gifts specifically would also deny the Holy spirit of other gifts. or rather denying yourself from recieving the gifts. but yes, if is against scripture it’s wrong.
just to throw this out there, my youth minister says this a lot. “You can teach and learn out off the old testiment law, but don’t you dare live by it.” we’re christians under christian law/promises, not hebrew law. for more refer to rom. 7-8. good times my friend.