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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | sheila, why pray for a lesser gift? | Gal 3:28 | prazn | 122454 | ||
Sheila, 1 Cor 14:2 states, "For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries." If tongues are intended to be spoken solely among unbelievers so that they may understand the mysteries of God in their own language, why does Paul say, in the verse quoted above, that tongues are not spoken to men, but to God? peace, prazn |
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2 | sheila, why pray for a lesser gift? | Gal 3:28 | Searcher56 | 122463 | ||
I believe whenever Paul uses the singular tongue, he is mocking the church's misuse of the gift. When tongues in the plural is used, it is about the gift. If you studied the background of 14:21 - you will see it is about the judgment of Israle |
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3 | sheila, why pray for a lesser gift? | Gal 3:28 | kalos | 122486 | ||
Steve: You correctly observe: "If you studied the background of 14:21 - you will see it is about the judgment of Israel" Here you make another good point, that "tongues" was a judicial sign from God of Israel's judgment (1 Cor 14:21; compare Isa 18:11,12). John MacArthur writes: '1 Cor 14:22 "Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers." Explaining further, Paul says explicitly that all tongues are for the sake of unbelievers. In other words, that gift ("tongues") has no purpose in the church when everyone present is a believer. And once the sign served its purpose to pronounce judgment or cursing on Israel, and the judgment fell, the purpose ceased along with the sign gift' (MacArthur Study Bible, 1997, Word Publishing). Grace and shalom, kalos |
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4 | sheila, why pray for a lesser gift? | Gal 3:28 | Morant61 | 122493 | ||
Greetings Kalos! As you with me, I usually agree with Dr. MacArthur about 95 percent of the time! :-) However, this is not one of those times! :-) I have had read several of his books on this issue, and he is not 'fair and balanced' on this issue as Fox News would say. There are a couple of problems with his interpretation of this passage. First of all, there is a MAJOR textual difficulty. 1 Cor. 14:22 says that tongues are for unbelievers, and prophecy is for believers. Yet, the following verses seem to contradict this statement. V. 23 says that 'tongues' will cause unbelievers to think that the church is out of her mind, while v. 24 says that unbelievers will respond to prophecy. This has led to a couple of suggestions. Some have suggested a textual error in v. 22. However, there isn't really any manuscript evidence for this view. Another, better suggestion is that v. 22 may be another one of the Corinthian 'slogans' to which Paul responds in vv. 23-24. In other words, the Corinthians may have been arguing that estatic displays of tongues would 'impress' unbelievers. Paul then counters with his earlier arguement from chap. 12 that prophecy is more edifying. Another problem with his interpretation is that the context of the passage is a gentile church, not Israel. Israel is mentioned in the OT quote, but it was a common rabbinic practice to string quotes together based on a key word - in this case 'tongues'. For instance, check out the quotes in Rom. 9-11 sometime and see how they are organized around the words 'son' and 'people'. If the previous view is correct that Paul is correcting their mis-statement, then the OT quote may have been used to illustrate that unbelievers, like Israel, would not listen to tongues. Regardless of the position one takes on this passage, it clearly is a difficult passage. Read any commentary on this passage and you will find multiple possible understandings! :-) So, I would not advice basing one's entire approach to tongues on this one passage. Rather, I would use the entirety of Paul's discussion. From that, we can gather the following. 1) We are not to forbid speaking in tongues - 14:39. Thus it cannot be a false gift or an invalid gift. 2) Tongues are one of the gifts of the Spirit - 12:10. 3) Tongues are one element of worship that must be done for the edifying of the church - 14:26. 4) An uninterpreted tongue edifies the individual doing the speaking, but no one else - 14:4. 5) An uninterpreted tongue is one means of speaking to God - 14:2, 14. 6) Paul would have liked for everyone to speak in tongues (14:5), but he prefered that everyone would prophesy (14:5). However, an interpreted tongue was equivalent to prophesy (14:5). 7) Paul spoke in tongues more than the Corinthians (14:18), but he would rather speak intelligible words in the Church (14:18). 8) Tongues should be restricted to two or three messages at the most in a church service (14:27) and must always be interpreted (14:28). If there is no interpreter, than the speaker is be speak only to himself. 9) Finally, everything should be done in order (14:33, 40). There is no doubt that this gift was misunderstood and misused. It was misunderstood in that people saw the 'value' of it in the estatic display itself, while Paul points out that it is in the content of the message where the true value lies. It was misused in that it was over emphasized and uncontrollably exercised. So, it is evident from the very clear passages of Paul’s writing that he was not trying to say that tongues were a fake gift, or that he was trying to devalue them, or that he was trying to forbid their use in worship, or that he was trying to say that they would no longer be a part of worship. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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5 | sheila, why pray for a lesser gift? | Gal 3:28 | kalos | 122516 | ||
Tim: Thank you for the information and the points you made. Your points, as well as those of others, must be given serious consideration before a person can say he has taken an honest look at both sides of the question. You write: "Regardless of the position one takes on this passage, it clearly is a difficult passage. Read any commentary on this passage and you will find multiple possible understandings! :-)" I agree -- it clearly is a difficult passage. Upon further reading I did today, I have discovered that one will indeed find multiple possible understandings. Where am I on the issue of the cessation of tongues? The jury is still out. I plan to do further reading and investigation on both sides of the question. I pray that whatever position I take will be based on neither my experience(s) or lack of same, but rather on the Word of God. I want to thank both you and Searcher for giving me much food for thought. Grace and shalom, kalos |
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