What The Bible Says About The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit, And One Person's Experience Of Recently Getting The Gift Of Tongues
What The Bible Says About The Gifts Of The Holy Spirit, And One Person's Experience Of Recently Getting The Gift Of Tongues |
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Mark chapter 16 (TEV)
9 After Jesus rose from death early on Sunday, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had driven out seven demons. 10 She went and told his companions. They were mourning and crying; 11 and when they heard her say that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe her.
12 After this, Jesus appeared in a different manner to two of them while they were on their way to the country. 13 They returned and told the others, but these would not believe it.
14 Last of all, Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples as they were eating. He scolded them, because they did not have faith and because they were too stubborn to believe those who had seen him alive. 15 He said to them, "Go throughout the whole world and preach the gospel to all people. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 Believers will be given the power to perform miracles: they will drive out demons in my name; they will speak in strange tongues; 18 if they pick up snakes or drink any poison, they will not be harmed; they will place their hands on sick people, and these will get well."
Some people think that passage is a forgery, since it appears in some manuscripts but not others. They theorise that it was added later. To read some discussion of the issues, visit Did Mark's Gospel end at 16:8?
Acts chapter 19 (NLT)
1 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior provinces. Finally, he came to Ephesus, where he found several believers. 2 "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" he asked them. "No," they replied, "we don't know what you mean. We haven't even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." 3 "Then what baptism did you experience?" he asked. And they replied,
"The baptism of John." 4 Paul said, "John's baptism was to demonstrate a desire to turn from sin and turn to God. John himself told the people to believe in Jesus, the one John said would come later." 5 As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 Then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied. 7 There were about twelve men in all.
1 Corinthians chapter 12 (NLT)
4 Now there are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but it is the same Holy Spirit who is the source of them all. 5 There are different kinds of service in the church, but it is the same Lord we are serving. 6 There are different ways God works in our lives, but it is the same God who does the work through all of us.
7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church.
8 To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice;
to another he gives the gift of special knowledge.
9 The Spirit gives special faith to another,
and to someone else he gives the power to heal the sick.
10 He gives one person the power to perform miracles,
and to another the ability to prophesy.
He gives someone else the ability to know whether it is really the Spirit of God or another spirit that is speaking.
Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages,
and another is given the ability to interpret what is being said.
11 It is the one and only Holy Spirit who distributes these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.
1 Corinthians chapter 12 (TEV)
27 All of you are Christ's body, and each one is a part of it. 28 In the church God has put all in place:
in the first place apostles,
in the second place prophets,
and in the third place teachers;
then those who perform miracles,
followed by those who are given the power to heal
or to help others, or to direct them
or to speak in strange tongues.
29 They are not all apostles or prophets or teachers. Not everyone has the power to work miracles 30 or to heal diseases or to speak in strange tongues or to explain what is said. 31 Set your hearts, then, on the more important gifts.
Best of all, however, is the following way...
1 Corinthians chapter 13 (TEV)
1 I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. 2 I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains-but if I have no love, I am nothing. 3 I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned - but if I have no love, this does me no good.
4 Love is patient and kind;
it is not jealous or conceited or proud;
5 love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable;
love does not keep a record of wrongs;
6 love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth.
7 Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail.
8 Love is eternal.
There are inspired messages, but they are temporary;
there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease;
there is knowledge, but it will pass. 9 For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial;
10 but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear.
13 Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians chapter 14 (NLT)
1 Let love be your highest goal, but also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives, especially the gift of prophecy. 2 For if your gift is the ability to speak in tongues, you will be talking to God but not to people, since they won't be able to understand you. You will be speaking by the power of the Spirit, but it will all be mysterious.
1 Corinthians chapter 14 (TEV)
3 But those who proclaim God's message speak to people and give them help, encouragement, and comfort.
1 Corinthians chapter 14 (NLT)
4 A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally in the Lord, but one who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire church. 5 I wish you all had the gift of speaking in tongues, but even more I wish you were all able to prophesy. For prophecy is a greater and more useful gift than speaking in tongues, unless someone interprets what you are saying so that the whole church can get some good out of it.
1 Corinthians chapter 14 (TEV)
6 So when I come to you, my friends, what use will I be to you if I speak in strange tongues? Not a bit, unless I bring you some revelation from God or some knowledge or some inspired message or some teaching. 7 Take such lifeless musical instruments as the flute or the harp-how will anyone know the tune that is being played unless the notes are sounded distinctly? 8 And if the one who plays the bugle does not sound a clear call, who will prepare for battle? 9 In the same way, how will anyone understand what you are talking about if your message given in strange tongues is not clear? Your words will vanish in the air! 10 There are many different languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. 11 But if I do not know the language being spoken, those who use it will be foreigners to me and I will be a foreigner to them.
12 Since you are eager to have the gifts of the Spirit, you must try above everything else to make greater use of those which help to build up the church. 13 The person who speaks in strange tongues, then, must pray for the gift to explain what is said. 14 For if I pray in this way, my spirit prays indeed, but my mind has no part in it.
15 What should I do, then? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray also with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will sing also with my mind. 16 When you give thanks to God in spirit only, how can ordinary people taking part in the meeting say "Amen" to your prayer of thanksgiving? They have no way of knowing what you are saying. 17 Even if your prayer of thanks to God is quite good, other people are not helped at all. 18 I thank God that I speak in strange tongues much more than any of you. 19 But in church worship I would rather speak five words that can be understood, in order to teach others, than speak thousands of words in strange tongues. 20 Do not be like children in your thinking, my friends; be children so far as evil is concerned, but be grown up in your thinking.
23 If, then, the whole church meets together and everyone starts speaking in strange tongues-and if some ordinary people or unbelievers come in, won't they say that you are all crazy? 24 But if everyone is proclaiming God's message when some unbelievers or ordinary people come in, they will be convinced of their sin by what they hear. They will be judged by all they hear, 25 their secret thoughts will be brought into the open, and they will bow down and worship God, confessing, "Truly God is here among you!"
26 This is what I mean, my friends. When you meet for worship, one person has a hymn, another a teaching, another a revelation from God, another a message in strange tongues, and still another the explanation of what is said. Everything must be of help to the church. 27 If someone is going to speak in strange tongues, two or three at the most should speak, one after the other, and someone else must explain what is being said. 28 But if no one is there who can explain, then the one who speaks in strange tongues must be quiet and speak only to himself and to God. 29 Two or three who are given God's message should speak, while the others are to judge what they say.
1 Corinthians chapter 14 (NLT)
30 But if someone is prophesying and another person receives a revelation from the Lord, the one who is speaking must stop. 31 In this way, all who prophesy will have a turn to speak, one after the other, so that everyone will learn and be encouraged. 32 Remember that people who prophesy are in control of their spirit and can wait their turn. 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace, as in all the other churches.
1 Thessalonians chapter 5 (NLT)
19 Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. 20 Do not scoff at prophecies, 21 but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. 22 Keep away from every kind of evil.
She writes:
"One day I went to play the harmonium in the chapel. There I found a Chinese couple were to take the service and as soon as I saw them I knew they had it. What 'it' was I did not know - but even watching them praying I sensed a vitality, a power. Immediately I wanted to know what made them so different. After the service I made a bee-line for the couple. They spoke hardly any English and I had hardly any Chinese. Soon it was clear what they were trying to convey.
"You haven't got the holy spirit."
"A little indignantly I replied that I had; they replied that I had not and so the futile argument continued as we walked out of the walled city and back to my bus stop.
"'Of course I have the Spirit,' I thought to myself. 'I couldn't believe in Jesus if I hadn't.' So what were we arguing about? These people obviously had something which I needed, which I recognised even without understanding their sermon. They called it having the Holy Spirit and I wanted to call it something else. I quit the quarrel over terminology - 'receiving the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, baptism of the Spirit, the power of the Spirit, second blessing, and what have you. If God had anything more for me I wanted to receive it and I would sort out the theological terms later. So I made an appointment to go round to the young couple's flat the next day.
"Their flat proved to be a one room affair exactly like thousands of flats all over the colony. ... My heart began to bump a bit because I was not at all sure what was going to happen next. Then I sat down and they laid their hands on my head saying over and over again in pidgin English, 'Now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking.'
"But nothing happened; they thought I was going to burst into "the gift of tongues" and it had not worked.
"Some of the West Croydon group had spoken in tongues and I had heard of other friends who had received this gift, but no one had ever been willing to discuss it. The idea of a new language in which you could speak frequently and express all the thoughts of your heart to God was wonderful. But I thought that it was something that you had to be rather advanced and spiritual to get. I shut my mouth firmly. If God was going to give me this gift - then he was going to do it, not me.
"'Now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking.'
"I was acutely embarrassed and began to get cross with them. I felt hotter and hotter and more and more uncomfortable; here was I not speaking in tongues and they were going to be so disappointed that nothing had happened. ... Eventually I could not stand it any longer, so I opened my mouth to say, 'Help me God,' and it happened.
"As soon as I made the conscious effort to open my mouth I found that I could speak freely in a language I had never learned. It was a beautiful articulate tongue, soft and coherent in that there was a clear speech pattern with modulated rise and fall. But there was no accompanying exultation. I had imagined being lifted up into praise and glory but it was most unemotional....
"As I got to the door they said, 'Oh, you can expect the other gifts of the Spirit to appear now,' but I did not understand what they meant.
"Every day for the next week or so I was waiting for the gift of healing or gift of prophecy to pop up. These were the only other gifts of the Spirit I had heard about, though there are nine. I knew that in England two of the ministers I most respected used these gifts and they certainly were most effective in their ministry. I also knew that there was an MP's wife who had the gift of healing. They followed Bible teaching carefully, so there was no doubt in my mind as to the rightness of the gifts or their usefulness but I did not know how you knew when you had got them. How do you know if you have healing?
"I remained puzzled too that I was still very cool about this great spiritual event. I had read books like 'They speak in other tongues', which had left me with the impression that this experience should make me walk on the mountain tops, or sit on a cloud brimming with love. I wondered if I had not got the right thing; maybe it was all vastly overrated anyway. I went round Hong Kong trying to find someone who would talk to me about it and no one would. ...
"As months passed I began to dismiss the whole subject. this experience patently had not changed my Christian life;
... "I was introduced to Rick and Jean Stone Willans.
"Do you pray in tongues, Jackie?"
... "'Well, no actually. I haven't found it that useful. I don't get anything out of it so I've stopped.' It was a relief to discuss it with someone.
"But Jean would not be sympathetic. 'That's very rude of you,' she said. It's not a gift of emotion - it's a gift of the spirit. You shouldn't despise the gifts God has given you. The Bible says he who prays in tongues will be built up spiritually, so never mind what you feel - do it." Then she and Rick made me promise to pray daily in my heavenly language. ...
"Then to my horror they suggested we pray together in tongues. I was not sure if this was allright since the Bible said that people should not all speak aloud in tongues at the same time. They explained that St. Paul was referring to a public meeting where an outsider coming in would think everyone was crazy; We three would not be offending anyone, and would be praying to God in the languages he gave us.
"I could not get out of it. We prayed and I felt silly saying words I did not understand. I felt hot. And then to my consternation they stopped praying while I felt impelled to continue. I knew already that this gift, although holy, is under our control; I could stop and start at will. ... just as I thought I would die of self-consciousness God said to me, 'Are you willing to be a fool for my sake?'
"I gave in. 'Allright, Lord, this doesn't make sense to me, but since you invented it, it must be a good gift, so I'll go ahead in obedience and you teach me how to pray.'
After we finished praying Jean said she understood what I had said. God had given her the interpretation. She translated. But it was beautiful; my heart was yearning for the Lord and calling as from the depths of a valley stream to the mountain tops for him. I loved him and worshipped him and longed for him to use me.
"It was in language much more explicit and glorious than any I could have formulated. I decided that if God helped me to pray like that when I was praying in tongues, then I would never despise this gift again. I accepted that he was helping me to pray perfectly.
"Every day - as I had promised the Willans - I prayed in the language of the Spirit. Fifteen minutes by the clock. I still found it to be an exercise. Before praying in the Spirit I said, 'Lord, I don't know how to pray, or whom to pray for. Will you pray through me - and will you lead me to the people who want you.' And I would begin my fifteen minute stint.
"After about six weeks I noticed something remarkable. Those I talked to about Christ believed. I could not understand it at first and wondered how my Chinese had so suddenly improved, or if I had stumbled on a splendid new evangelistic technique. But I was saying the same things as before. It was some time before I realised what had changed. This time I was talking about Jesus to people who wanted to hear. I had let God have a hand in my prayers and it produced a direct result. Instead of my deciding what I wanted to do for God and asking his blessing I was asking him to do his will through me as I prayed in the language he gave me.
"Now I found that person after person wanted to receive Jesus. I could not be proud - I could only wonder that God let me be a small part of his work. And so the emotion came. It never came while I prayed, but when I saw the results of these prayers I was literally delighted."
The book "Chasing the Dragon" is by Jackie Pullinger (with Andrew Quicke) and the extracts quoted here have been used with the kind permission of the publishers Hodder and Stoughton Ltd. The book was first published in 1980. ISBN 0340257601. Copyright Jackie Pullinger and Andrew Quicke, 1980.
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