The Gift of Prayer

One of the characteristics that highlights the apostle Paul’s ministry is the constant gratitude that is expressed in his letters for all the relationships that he has with his fellow believers. Sometimes we are only thankful for the good people or those who behave according to our standards. It is so much harder to be thankful for difficult people, those people who are not super cooperative. I met a missionary not too long ago who was sharing how she has a hard time loving people who are not doing well spiritually. One of her church members complained that she is only nice when they are doing good spiritually so her answer to them was, “If you want me to be nice then you better do well spiritually.” She is a tough lady.

Judging by Paul’s personality and leadership style, you would think that he would be the same way but he is actually far from that, at least by what you can tell from his letters. Paul is very thankful for all types of Christians, no matter where they fall on this spectrum of spiritual maturity. His is thankful for the believers in Rome and rightfully so because as we read in , there is a lot to be thankful for. He proudly writes to this church and says,

Romans 1:8 ESV

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

The believers in this church are famous around the world because of their great faith. They are mature believers ready to move beyond the elementary teachings of Christianity, they are prepared to tackle the weightier doctrines of the gospel, and they’re learning how to live by the Spirit. This is the church every pastor wants but it is not the church every pastor gets.

For every church that is as mature as the Romans, there is probably ten others that are more like the church at Corinth. For those of you who are not familiar with the New Testament churches, the Corinthian church is probably the most immature congregation and it is one that is filled with bickering, division, pride, and sin. We did a series on 2 Corinthians a while back and I am so thankful that our church is not like this but Paul is still thankful even for these believers who are causing him so much heartache. I found it really humorous to read what Paul was thankful for in regards to this very difficult group of Christians and to them he writes:

Romans 1:4 ESV

and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

1 Corinthians 1:4 ESV

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,

1 Corinthians

There is always a reason to be thankful no matter the circumstance and on this Thanksgiving Sunday, I am so grateful for a church that is showing signs of maturity. We are not quite there with the Roman Christians but we are moving in the right direction and so there is much to thankful for. I mention these two churches out of the New Testament because I am going to interweave today’s teaching on praying in the Spirit using Paul’s letters to both churches.

But there is always a reason to be thank

Gifts and Maturity

Since we jumped right into the middle of Romans, I realized that I probably didn’t set up the context of this letter enough. In all likelihood, the letter to the Romans was written prior to an intended visit by Paul and he states the purpose for his future visit very plainly in the opening greeting.

Romans 8:11 ESV

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Romans 1:11 ESV

For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—

Romans 1:11–12 ESV

For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.

I think it is safe to assume that the Roman believers were not as spiritually gifted as the Corinthian church otherwise why does Paul need to go there for the express purpose of imparting these gifts of the Spirit. In contrast, to the Corinthians, Paul tells them

I think it is safe to assume that the Roman believers were not as spiritually gifted as the Corinthian church otherwise why would Paul need to go there for the express purpose of imparting these gifts of the Spirit? In contrast to the Romans, Paul tells the Corinthian church:

1 Corinthians 1:7 NIV

Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

1 Corinthians 1:

There are some very important lessons that we can gather from the comparison between these two churches.

Spiritual giftedness does not equate to spiritual maturity. You can personally grow in faith without all of these gifts. It is not an absolute necessity.

Even the most spiritually mature still need to be strengthened.

The gifts of the Spirit are meant to be used by believers to mutually strengthen and encourage one another. (except for one spiritual gift, which happens to be the gift of tongues)

To some degree, churches can operate without some of these gifts but it often comes at the cost of not experiencing the full working of the Spirit in their midst and they are not using all of the weapons that God has made available.

So if you look at this letter as a precursor to Paul’s visit to impart some spiritual gifts, it makes sense why he has this lengthy section in the middle of this letter on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Before he comes and imparts the gifts of the Spirit into this church, he wanted to make sure that they had a more thorough understanding of who the Holy Spirit is and the work that He does in the believer’s life. One of the grave dangers that I’ve seen in many charismatic churches is impatiently diving right into the gifts of the Spirit without laying down the doctrinal foundation of who the Spirit is and teaching on what a right relationship with Him looks like.

Unlike many charismatic churches like the Corinthians, the church in Rome seems to have suffered from the opposite mistake of being too cautious and ignoring some of the gifts of the Spirit. Granted, we don’t know exactly why the Roman church may have neglected pursuing some of the spiritual gifts. But we can make some logical guesses like maybe they heard about the excessive behavior, issues in the Corinthian church and decided it wasn’t for them. The danger of not seeking or at least being aware of all of the spiritual gifts is that it makes us less dependent on the Holy Spirit and without us even knowing it, the Spirit of God can become a neglected accessory within the Trinity. He then becomes just a part of a creedal confession that means nothing in our day-to-day life. And what I am praying for and what I envisioned from this series on Life in the Spirit is this: that somehow, we would invite God’s Spirit into all that we do and we would depend on Him like the very air that we breathe. (A good place to start in understanding who the Holy Spirit is and what He means to to us as believers is Forgotten God by Francis Chan.)

Granted, we don’t know exactly why the Roman church may have neglected pursuing some of the spiritual gifts. Maybe they heard about the excessive behavior, issues in the Corinthian church and decided it wasn’t for them. The danger of not seeking or at least being aware of all of the spiritual gifts makes us less dependent on the Holy Spirit and without us even knowing it, the Spirit of God can become a neglected accessory within the Trinity. He then becomes just a part of a creedal confession that means nothing in our day-to-day life. And what I am praying for and what I envisioned from this series on Life in the Spirit is this: that somehow, we would invite God’s Spirit into all that we do and we would depend on Him like the very air that we breathe. (A good place to start in understanding who the Holy Spirit is and what He means to to us as believers is Forgotten God by Francis Chan.)

“There is a big gap between what we read in the Scriptures about the Holy Spirit and how most believers and churches operate today. In many modern churches, you would be stunned by the apparent absence of the Spirit in any manifest way....If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God’s kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit. The degree to which this has happened is directly connected to the dissatisfaction that most of us feel with and in the church.”

Certainly one of the signs of this happening is the general misunderstanding and even suspicion about one of the most important rediscoveries in modern church history and that is the the imparting of the gift of tongues that began at the Azusa Street revival in 1906. In terms of church history, this is probably one of the most significant things that have happened in the past 150 years and so we should at least be aware of the event because it dramatically changed the landscape of Christianity. (Let’s watch this short video that introduces the Azusa Street Revival)

Praying in the Spirit

If you remember from last week, we stopped on a theological cliffhanger if there is such a thing and I left you with the question of what it means to pray in the Spirit. Now let me be crystal clear, praying in the Spirit is not equivalent to praying tongues. I believe you can pray in the Spirit without the gift but praying in tongues does belong within the larger category of praying in the Spirit. We can see this in what Paul writes to the church.

Ephesians 6:18 NIV

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

It is my firm conviction that praying in tongues is included within this larger category of all kinds of prayers and that this gift can be of great help for some of us who need to be strengthened in how to pray in the Spirit. Before I address some of the questions and benefits surrounding the phenomena of praying in tongues, we need to answer three preliminary questions:

What is praying in the Spirit?

Why do we need to pray in the Spirit?

How do we pray this way?

According to , we can define praying in the Spirit simply as praying in accordance to the will of God.

Romans 8:27 ESV

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

According to , we can define praying in the Spirit simply as praying in accordance to the will of God. As we pray, we are simultaneously allowing God’s Spirit to intercede on our behalf so that our prayers can be aligned to the will of God. And the reason why we need to pray in the Spirit is because often we are not praying for the will of God, we don’t know the will of God, and in fact we may not even want the will of God. Oftentimes all we want is what we see in front of us and we may be completely oblivious about what God wants. At the beginning of this year, we started with few messages on the Lord’s prayer and we learned that the first thing needs to be prayed before we lift any other prayer is that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is the posture of the heart that needs to be brought in every time we come before God in prayer and that is what the Holy Spirit does through his intercession.

So then how doe we pray in this way? 5 practical steps:

1. Actively seek the Holy Spirit's presence as you pray. 2. Ask God to search your heart for wrong motives and desires. 3. Wait on the Lord and listen for the guidance of the Spirit (i.e the voice of God) 4. Confirm this by careful study of the Scriptures. 5. Surrender yourself to the will of God.

Praying in Tongues

When this happens in our prayer lives,

Some people can do these things without further help but there are some who do need some assistance and by God’s grace, the gift of tongues provides that much needed push. For what it’s worth, I would like to give you my personal experience with this phenomena. Like I shared last week, I received the gift of tongues after I found it difficult to enjoy prayer and a pastor encouraged me to seek after this gift. After about a month of praying for it, to my surprise I received the gift and began to pray in tongues but I’m a skeptic at heart and so I wasn’t thoroughly convinced about what was happening. This is both my strength and weakness. Both on DISC and Enneagrams, I score as an investigator. I need to research everything before I can make a concrete decision.

So I began to question whether or not I was making all of this up. To make things even more confusing, the church that I was at began to have some questionable practices and doctrinal beliefs about tongues. The pastor preached for like a month on this gift and then began to promote people into leadership based solely on whether or not they spoke in tongues. But no one knew that I too prayed in tongues but I did so in private based on my initial understanding of a key passage from Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 14:13–18 ESV

Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.

1 Corinthians 14:13–19 ESV

1 Corinthians 14:13-18

Eventually one thing led to another and I left that church and enrolled at a conservative theological seminary. I was actually determined to leave my tongue speaking days behind me but clearly God was not done with me in this area yet. Luckily, Mira received a miracle that I had been making fun of and you can ask her if you are curious. In hindsight, what I was prepared to leave behind was anything that remotely seemed supernatural or miraculous and I’m grateful that God kept me open to the things of the Spirit because I could not imagine my own Christian life being as enjoyable and fulfilling without them.

After making my way back into the charismatic movement, I continued to do some background study on this phenomena and stumbled on the research of Dr. Vern Poythress, who was a well-respected theologian at Westminister Seminary.

Question and Answers:

1.) Can the average person be taught to produce free vocalization? Yes. The average person can be taught to imitate the gift of tongues. One easy way is for a person to pretend the he is speaking a foreign language.

2.) Is free vocalization likely to lead to a state of trance? No, no more than reading a book. It can lead to an altered state of consciousness that is similar to day-dreaming, dozing, sleep-walking, being engrossed in a book, and other “natural” phenomena.

3.) Is there any psychological danger in free vocalization? No. Many people have been free-vocalizing for years without any ill effects.

4.) Does religious free vocalizations occur in other religions? Yes, religious free vocalizations and related phenomena occur among some non-Western religions.

5.) Does religious free vocalizations occur in other religions? Yes, religious free vocalizations and related phenomena occur among some non-Western religions.

6.) How does competent free vocalization differ from known human languages? The degree of difference varies with the speaker but in most instances linguists are confident that the samples of tongues represent no known natural language and in fact no language that was ever spoken or ever will be spoken.

5.) Are there any instances when modern tongues have been identified as a known human language? Yes but modern linguists do not consider these to be miraculous because it could be a case of memory recall.

a. Tape-recorded sample of the alleged foreign language.

b. Living authorities (native speakers) who recognize the language.

c. Documentation of the identity of the speaker.

d. Reasonably complete life history of the speakers which exempts the possibility of the speaker having contact with the language in the past.

6.) Is it possible that tongues might be language of some other kind, perhaps angelic language? Modern linguist cannot tell us. In the case of angelic tongues, no one has ever heard them speak although the Scriptures show they speak the languages of man.

Bara ashayata. Bara-a. Elahayama. Ata hashamayama. Va ata ha-ar-atsa.

This looks like non-sense and sounds like non-sense but with the proper code, it makes perfect sense. This is the consonantal Hebrew text of with the vowel a inserted between consonants. Thus it is always possible for the charismatic person to claim that tongues is a coded language that only an interpreter with the right supernaturally give “key” can decode. Obviously, this is a possibility that modern linguists have no way of testing for. Since this cannot be tested, the next logical question is can unknown tongues function like a language.

7.) Is there any indication that tongues carries information? Yes in at least two categories: suprasegmental and associational lexical. Suprasegmental deals with language characteristics like voice quality, pitch, rate of articulation, and structure. Associational lexical deals with the speakers ability to make a connection between ideas and small relatively isolatable chunks of speech on the other. ( Paul points out that it is possible for tongue speakers to interpret there own tongue and this phenomena seems to bear this fact out.)

8.) Does the linguistic and psychological evidence lead to the conclusion that almost all, if not all, instances of modern tongues are not miraculous or divine? Social science does provide a plausible naturalistic explanation for tongues but science would probably also find a naturalistic explanation for divine healing.

Conclusion

People in one extreme evaluate modern tongues in totally negative terms. According to this view, tongues is a psychological delusion having nothing to do with the Spirit of God. Hence it ought to be forbidden. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that these people are basically correct in their reading of the biblical data. Assume, then, that the “speaking of tongues” mentioned in the Bible ceased with death of the apostles. (Although there is great evidence to the contrary). Assume further that modern tongues is not of itself a special gift of God’s Spirit. Even making these assumptions, we must still reckon with the fact that free vocalizations can have psychological value in some circumstances. Million of Christians would testify that speaking in tongues benefits them in 3 key ways.

1. Reinforces the belief in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

2. Strengthens the belief that the Holy Spirit can speak through them to God.

3. Peace and assurance that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in them.

Through this the one who speaks in tongues learns of the biblical doctrine of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in believers and is taught the power of the resurrected Christ who comes to dwell in him and give him joy and victory in the Holy Spirit. It is no wonder that many charismatics show visible evidence of being filled with joy. In the light of inconclusive evidence, should we quench their joy by telling them they are full of delusions and not within the will God?

Related Media

Related Sermons