Tongues

Singing in the Rain

At the Junior Camp presentation last night, Brandon reminded me of this important worship ritual. Everyone stand-up. We’ll skip right to the last part.

Thumbs Up. Knees bent. Elbows In. Knees Together. Bunky out. Head back. Tongue Out.

Singing in the Rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling I’m happy again.

Can’t understand a thing.

What if someone walked into church right in that moment? You all look ridiculous.

Tongues out! Word association: prophecy and tongues.

Prophecy and Tongues

Last week we heard all about the prophecy side of this.

Prophecy is a message from God. It is given to build up, to encourage, to comfort and to convict God’s people. We are all called to earnestly desire it, to speak God’s Words to God’s people. That happens in sermons, yes, but it should be bursting out of all of us.

What is the “gift of tongues?”

There has been a lot of debate in Christian history about what is going here. We should know, the Corinthians weren’t confused about what was happening. This was going on every week, people speaking in tongues, to such an extent that it was clearly disruptive in their worship.

I expect people were complaining to Paul, that’s how Paul knows about it, and he writes to correct a specific abuse or misuse of the gift of tongues.

But Christians since have been a bit confused. Is the “gift of tongues” talking about miraculously speaking other languages (xenoglossia) or are they speaking some miraculous heavenly language or are they just saying nonsense syllables for meditative reasons.

The first idea goes back to Acts, the tongues of fire, the rushing wind, they were filled with the Holy Spirit...

Acts 2:3–6 ESV

And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

Now here’s a cool thing. There are so many languages represented, and they are hearing not only their own language, but it seems their own dialect. Which means the “super-natural” gift is operating not only through the tongues of the disciples but also upon the ears of the hearers.

And not on all hearers, because some just thought they were all drunk.

So, no question, the Holy Spirit can supernaturally have someone speak a language they haven’t learned to share the gospel.

No question, the Holy Spirit can supernaturally have someone understand, hear as their own, a language that someone else isn’t even speaking.

God can do as God wills.

What is happening here in Corinth?

There’s a few clues in our text about what exactly we are talking about.

1 Corinthians 14:2 ESV

For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.

That may be all we need to say. Who is the target of “tongues”? Not men. God. Who understand him? No one but God.

1 Corinthians 14:5 ESV

Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.

There’s a gift of tongues, and there’s a gift of interpretation of tongues. Maybe they are saying “speak Spanish and hope someone else can translate for you...” but there seems to be a great deal of question whether someone will interpret.

In fact, the assumption is that the “speaker in tongues” is making “unintelligible sounds.” Listen to this:

1 Corinthians 14:9 ESV

So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air.

Paul seems to leave it up in the air, it could possibly be a real language… but the real point is that no one there is likely to understand it. It gets clearer than that.

1 Corinthians 14:14 ESV

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.

The mind isn’t engaged. Some translations say “my spirit prays but my mind doesn’t understand.”

Private Prayer Language

So here’s what I believe is going on here.

Romans 8:26 ESV

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

I don’t know what to pray. I don’t know how to say what I want to say, what I need to say. Maybe the emotions are flooding through me and I can’t even keep up. Maybe it’s my spirit communicating with the Holy Spirit and I want to verbalize that somehow, but I just can’t say it.

It’s like a song, where I am so overjoyed, I don’t have words so I sing: “La la la la la, la la la la la.”

I don’t need words, I just want expression.

Understand this is an implied concept in Scripture. This isn’t laid out. It certainly isn’t mandated. It is NOT a measure of your spiritual maturity. It is not a sign of your salvation. It doesn’t mean you are a better Christian (in fact that’s a big part of what Paul is correcting here.)

But it is helpful to many. It has occasionally, though rarely, been helpful to me in my prayer life. And it looked like this:

God, I don’t even know what to say. But I am pouring out my heart before you. My spirit to your Spirit, Lord.

And then, cue “spontaneous eruptions of sounds.”

Blaggedy Bloo Speaky Non.

That sounds silly. If you are just making stuff up, yeah, not so helpful.

If you are making sure it sounds super cool and mysterious, like you are chanting magical spells, also not helpful, and almost certainly some kind of showing off.

But just allowing sound to bypass your mind, spirit to Spirit, as the Holy Spirit gives utterance, that can be a powerful and beautiful tool of prayer. And it’s this simple: was that prayer to God? Was God in it? Did he minister to your spirit through His Spirit. Awesome. Beautiful. That’s helpful.

You have to be INCREDIBLY careful when doing this before anyone else. Because the temptation is for the focus to be all on what you are doing. Doing it before people to impress them, to freak them out, to show your spirituality… NO! It isn’t about you. Ever.

That’s worth saying again.

It isn’t about you. Ever!

This is how the Corinthians were beginning to use the gift of tongues. Shouting out in the public worship setting. Maybe it was sincere. Maybe often it was sincere. Certainly often it was about “Hey, look at me...” But imagine everyone doing that at the same time.

Let’s not imagine. Let’s do it now. Every one shout out garbledy gobbledy gook on the count of three. 1. 2. 3.

Weren’t you edified? No. That was noise and nonsense. Not helpful.

In light of that, understanding what was going on in Corinth, Paul’s words become so clear, so I’m just going to read all the way through it.

Prophecy vs. Tongues

1 Corinthians 14:1–20 The Message

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does. Give yourselves to the gifts God gives you. Most of all, try to proclaim his truth. If you praise him in the private language of tongues, God understands you but no one else does, for you are sharing intimacies just between you and him. But when you proclaim his truth in everyday speech, you’re letting others in on the truth so that they can grow and be strong and experience his presence with you. The one who prays using a private “prayer language” certainly gets a lot out of it, but proclaiming God’s truth to the church in its common language brings the whole church into growth and strength. I want all of you to develop intimacies with God in prayer, but please don’t stop with that. Go on and proclaim his clear truth to others. It’s more important that everyone have access to the knowledge and love of God in language everyone understands than that you go off and cultivate God’s presence in a mysterious prayer language—unless, of course, there is someone who can interpret what you are saying for the benefit of all. Think, friends: If I come to you and all I do is pray privately to God in a way only he can understand, what are you going to get out of that? If I don’t address you plainly with some insight or truth or proclamation or teaching, what help am I to you? If musical instruments—flutes, say, or harps—aren’t played so that each note is distinct and in tune, how will anyone be able to catch the melody and enjoy the music? If the trumpet call can’t be distinguished, will anyone show up for the battle? So if you speak in a way no one can understand, what’s the point of opening your mouth? There are many languages in the world and they all mean something to someone. But if I don’t understand the language, it’s not going to do me much good. It’s no different with you. Since you’re so eager to participate in what God is doing, why don’t you concentrate on doing what helps everyone in the church? So, when you pray in your private prayer language, don’t hoard the experience for yourself. Pray for the insight and ability to bring others into that intimacy. If I pray in tongues, my spirit prays but my mind lies fallow, and all that intelligence is wasted. So what’s the solution? The answer is simple enough. Do both. I should be spiritually free and expressive as I pray, but I should also be thoughtful and mindful as I pray. I should sing with my spirit, and sing with my mind. If you give a blessing using your private prayer language, which no one else understands, how can some outsider who has just shown up and has no idea what’s going on know when to say “Amen”? Your blessing might be beautiful, but you have very effectively cut that person out of it. I’m grateful to God for the gift of praying in tongues that he gives us for praising him, which leads to wonderful intimacies we enjoy with him. I enter into this as much or more than any of you. But when I’m in a church assembled for worship, I’d rather say five words that everyone can understand and learn from than say ten thousand that sound to others like gibberish. To be perfectly frank, I’m getting exasperated with your infantile thinking. How long before you grow up and use your head—your adult head? It’s all right to have a childlike unfamiliarity with evil; a simple no is all that’s needed there. But there’s far more to saying yes to something. Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility.

That last is a sermon unto itself. What you say “yes” to can be so dangerous, it requires wisdom and maturity.

1 Corinthians 14:20 ESV

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.

Saying “no” to sin is actually quite simple. “Just say no.” Things get tricky when something “good” becomes a distraction to the “best”.

A Sign for Unbelievers???

1 Corinthians 14:21 ESV

In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”

This is important, this is where folks get real confused.

The above is from Isaiah. Isaiah comes with simple words, speaking their language and they reject him. Isaiah is speaking prophecy… straightforward and they reject him. So he says, one day I (God) will send people, foreigners, who won’t speak your language. You won’t believe simple words or foreign words, you just won’t listen.

That’s important context.

1 Corinthians 14:22 ESV

Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.

What does “sign” mean here. Does “sign” mean that the gift of tongues will bring unbelievers to Jesus? That is the exact opposite of his quote from Isaiah and the gist of the next verse “they’ll think you’re crazy.” Just like the “unbelievers” in Acts 2, they thought the disciples were drunk. It’s a “sign” that you are crazy.

Prophecy is a “sign” for believers. It was in Acts 2, for the people who “heard” didn’t hear nonsense tongues, they heard clear language in their own tongue and dialect. Not tongues, supernaturally, they heard prophecy - a clear message from God.

So, Paul says, speak prophecy. God can always intercede miraculously for someone who doesn’t speak your tongue when and where he wants to, as He did at Pentecost. But you know the language Carl speak, speak to Carl, speak the message of God to Carl as clearly as you know how.

1 Corinthians 14:23–25 ESV

If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

This is what is happening every day in E.B. Raines park, by the way. This is the Kingdom of God. People falling on their face, declaring that God is really among you.

Your Worship Challenge - It Isn’t Tongues

Your challenge isn’t a misuse of the gift of tongues in corporate worship.

But what is the heart of that? What were they doing with the gift of tongues?

The Corinthians were elevating one aspect, one gift, one way and means of expressing love and praise and obedience to God above all others.

“Look at how good and how loudly and how freely I can speak in tongues!”

And maybe that makes me a better Christian than you, more spiritual than you, more Godly than you.

We don’t do that with tongues, do we?

What do we do that with?...

The flesh loves to do this. The enemy loves to push us in this direction if He can. Take any one thing out of order, out of priority, out of proportion. Get everyone to focus everything on “this” one aspect of history, theology, worship, practice, whatever. Make it “divisive.” Make it “distinctive.”

Take a good thing, push it and prioritize it until it squeezes out the MOST and MORE important things.

Maybe it’s Scripture memorization. Storing up God’s word in your heart is good. Someone who has memorized every word of Scripture chapter and verse but “has not love?” Nothing, no good. Doesn’t speak that Word to the lost, to the hurting, to the broken, to build up the church? It’s fruitless.

Maybe it’s Sabbath keeping.

Is Sabbath keeping a good thing? Obedience to God’s commands? Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy! But if it becomes a status symbol that elevates me above you… or my church “above” your church, that’s a problem.

What is the guiding metric.

Above all, 1 Corinthians 13, practice love. Practice your gift of tongues in a loving way, practice your Sabbath observance in a loving way, practice your prophecy in a loving way.

What is the measure for how important a given gift is?

Does it build the church? Is the church edified?

Is the church edified, built up, by prophecy. Oh yes. Prophecy encourages, edifies, comforts and convicts.

Is the church edified by the gift of tongues? Not much.

Is the church edified by what you are doing?

What is stopping you from love?

What is stopping you from prophecy - from delivering the message of God?

That’s a real question, by the way. If you haven’t delivered the good news of Jesus’ love… what’s stopping you?

Something is. Or something is trying to.

We all come to God with mixed motives. With brokenness. Our flesh is always trying to make it about us. Our selfishness is always rearing its ugly head, trying to hijack our worship, trying to hijack our ability or willingness to speak God’s message of love to the lost and broken.

It isn’t about guilt and shame, that’s just another thing trying to stop you from Prophesying the GOOD NEWS… from sharing the love of Jesus.

It is about this: God, create in me a clean heart.

Bring me back to the Heart of Worship. It’s “all about you.” Make me “all about you.”