"Do all speak in tongues?" What did Paul mean when he asked that rhetorical question?
Hi, welcome to today's Little Lesson. Thank you so very much for joining me. If you're a regular
viewer, you know we've been spending a lot of time on a series of lessons about speaking in
other tongues and the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And this is I think the 24th lesson. So we've
spent quite a few hours studying this. If you've just happened to stumble upon this video, please,
find the first video and start at the beginning, and that builds a foundation that will build your
faith right up to where we are at today. But I mean, you could watch this one. We're going to
talk about that famous passage in Corinthians where Paul asked the rhetorical question,
"Do all speak in tongues?" to which the answer was obviously no. And that is often used as an
argument against folks like myself who are trying to persuade every Christian that you
can be baptized in the Holy Spirit and the initial evidence will be speaking in tongues.
And someone would inevitably say, "But the Bible says so obviously, do all speak in tongues? And
the answer is obviously no. And so it may not be God's will for me to speak in tongues
and so you're teaching us the wrong thing." Well, okay. You've found one verse.
But what about those verses where God did baptize an entire group of people in the Holy Spirit,
and they all spoke in tongues. On the Day of Pentecost, 120 were gathered in the upper room,
and they all spoke in tongues. So did they all speak in tongues? Yes. They all spoke in
tongues on that occasion. And in Acts chapter 10, when Peter was divinely led down to Cesarea
to preach to Cornelius and his household, the Holy Spirit fell upon those who were listening to
a sermon and they all began speaking in tongues, just like the Jews did on the Day of Pentecost.
In fact, that's what they said. "How could we say no to baptizing these folks
who've received the Holy Spirit just like we did?" That was years before.
And then Acts chapter 19, 25 years after the Day of Pentecost at least, Paul's traveling through
Ephesus, he comes across some disciples. There's a little confusion because he thinks they're
disciples of Jesus and really they're disciples of John the Baptist and they are missing a lot
of information about what's happened since John the Baptist. Paul elucidates their understanding,
and they then are baptized and then he lays hands upon them and they all spoke in tongues. See?
We're considering the whole Bible, not just one verse. All right, so let's look a little
context here and see if we can find an answer to this, because I've laid hands on and prayed
for hundreds. And I'll bet it's well 1000 people and over the last few decades, Christian people,
and heard them speak in other tongues when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit.
But here's what I have found. They have to have faith. They have to believe. And if they're not
certain it's God's well, if they think, "Well, wait a second, the Bible says, 'Not all speak in
tongues,' so how could I have faith for that?" Well, then, they can't have faith for that.
You can only receive the Holy Spirit by faith, so you have to be convinced it's God's will.
That's what I've been trying to do throughout all these lessons. So now we're going to address this
one and try to do a thorough job of it. So I want to read from First Corinthians, chapter 12. Now,
in these Little Lessons, I don't want to take the time to read all of chapter 12, all of chapter 13,
all of chapter 14, although it would benefit you to do that, because those are the big chapters
about speaking in tongues in the Epistles and the other gifts of the spirit and so forth. So let's
use our brains here and see if the Holy Spirit will help us to understand what is going on.
Paul says in First Corinthians 12, I'm starting in verse number four.
No, there are varieties of gifts, and we'll soon see he's talking about gifts from the
Holy Spirit, but the same spirit. There are varieties of ministries and the same Lord.
There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things and all people. You
don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that, do you? If you've been around Christianity for
a few years, you've noticed that there's a lot of different kinds of ministries, a lot of different
kinds of gifts, and the gifts we're about to read about here, these are foreign to many
Christians because they're actually not even open to them because they think that these things have
all ceased with the days of the Apostles. That's to be regretted. Anyways, we read now starting in
verse number seven. "But to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good."
And now he lists what we commonly refer to as the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit.
"For one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit. To another, the word of knowledge
according to the same spirit. To another, faith by the same spirit. To another, gifts of healing
by the one spirit. To another, the effecting of miracles. To another prophecy. To another,
the distinguishing of spirits. To another, various kinds of tongues. And to another,
the interpretation of tongues." There's nine altogether there.
"But one in the same spirit works all these things distributing to each one just as he wills." You
got it? There's the nine gifts of the spirit. The last two are of particular or interest for us as
we're talking in this series about speaking in tongues. And we saw the eighth gift of
the spirit was various kinds of tongues, and we saw the ninth gift was the interpretation
of tongues. And that was two gifts that were in manifestation in the church in Corinth.
Now, if you've read these few chapters, you know that among the many problems that the
church in Corinth had one of the problems they had was that people were speaking in
tongues and there was no interpretation. And Paul tells them to stop. And he basically just says,
"Look, if there's no interpretation, no one's being edified and you're just edifying yourself
by speaking out in tongues. So just be quiet and speak to yourself and to God, or do it at home."
Now, that, of course, raises the question, if God was giving people in the Corinthian church
this eighth gift of the Holy Spirit, various kinds of tongues, why wasn't he giving them
the ninth gift, giving somebody the ninth gift, the interpretation of tongues, if it's
not appropriate to speak out in tongues without there being an interpretation? See the question?
And there's only one possible answer, and it will be affirmed as we read through the facts
that will be following this, is that, although speaking in tongues is just always speaking
in a language that's unknown to the speaker, there's different uses of speaking in tongues.
There is a private devotional gift of speaking in tongues, which we could call
praying in tongues. And Paul calls it prayer.
We'll read that. And it's primarily for your private devotional life speaking to God. It's
what Pentecostals and Charismatics sometimes refer to as, "my prayer language".
And then there is another use of speaking in tongues that is spontaneous. You can't do it
as you will. It only happens as the spirit wills. Whereas praying in tongues, it's very clear from
what Paul said, and we'll read this, that he could do it any time he wanted, and he encouraged the
Corinthians to do it anytime they wanted as well. It's not as the spirit wills. It's as I will.
I can speak in tongues anytime I want to. But Paul said, we just read it, "One and the same
spirit works all of these things distributing each one, individually, just as he wills."
This is a spontaneous sudden gift of the spirit, just like the other eight gifts of the spirit.
Even those people that God uses in working of miracles or in the word of wisdom,
word of knowledge, they can't operate it as they will. That's totally as the spirit wills.
Not up to them. Up to God. So you see these two uses, and the bonafide gift of speaking
in tongues that is spontaneously suddenly given to a believer in a church gathering, for example,
that's always accompanied by the interpretation of tongues because God's not confused and he's
not giving people gifts that Paul is saying, "Don't use that gift." Because that's what
Paul's saying. You read that here. He's saying, "Don't be speaking out in tongues, unless there's
an interpretation. If there's no interpreter, don't be speaking out in tongues. Be quiet.
Speak to yourself and to God." That was a problem in the Corinthian church. Now,
we're just about out of time. Let's close by just reading this passage. We're going to skip
over all that stuff in First Corinthians 12 about many members in one body and so forth.
But look at verse 27. "Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it. And God
has appointed in the church first apostles." This is something God did. The apostolic gift
is the highest gift in the church. And people think, "Well, there was only 12 of them." No,
no. In the New Testament, there were over 20 people mentioned as apostles. They are sent
to supernaturally plant churches, basically. That's what an apostle does. Then there's a second
gift, a second ministry that's second to the apostle. The apostolic gift is the highest gift.
"Second," Paul says, "prophets. Third, teachers." So these are listed in order of importance within
the body of Christ and these are all ministries. "Then, miracles. Then, gifts of healings, helps,
administrations, various kinds of tongues." So we can say one of two things are true.
Either this is a list of ministries, that there are apostles, prophets, teachers,
then there are people who can constantly God uses in miracles and gifts of healings."
Many Bible students believe that that's the gift of the evangelists, because of the example of
the evangelist in the New Testament, Phillip. He had miracles and healings in his ministry.
And then we have "helps, administrations, and various kinds of tongues" that also
would be describing ministries where God anoints people to be consistently used in a certain way.
Or we can say that these are ministries and gifts, a list of ministries and also some gifts,
but these are all given as the spirit wills and not as anyone else wills, because we keep
on reading here, and now Paul asks several rhetorical questions, All are not apostles,
are they?" And that's a rhetorical question. The obvious answer is no, not all are apostles. "All
are not prophets, are there?" No. "All are not teachers, are they?" No. "All are not workers
of miracles, are they?" No. "All do not have gifts of healings, do they?" Obviously, no.
And now here comes to that question, "All do not speak with tongues, do they?"
Obviously, the answer is no. "And all do not interpret, do they?" Obviously, no. "But earnestly
desire the greater gifts." So he's talking about the use of tongues in public manifestation.
And as we keep on reading, we'll see that it's very similar to prophecy. Paul basically says,
"Tongues plus interpretation is equivalent to prophecy." So you see, these kinds of tongues
are not a prayer to God, which we'll later on read where Paul talks about praying in tongues. This
is a message from God to the congregation that is then spoken in tongues and interpreted by someone
so that the congregation, the gathering knows what God just said. And it's like a prophecy. You see?
And this is the only conclusion that can really come to, unless the Bible is nuts, unless Paul was
an imbecile, which he wasn't, and if this wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit, which it is.
This is the only conclusion you can come to, that there's two different uses of speaking in tongues.
I mean, it almost sounds like everybody in Corinth could speak in tongues,
because Paul encourages them to do that, and we'll read that later. But there were
people speaking out in tongues, speaking out in their prayer language, like any Christian who's
baptized in the Holy Spirit can do any time he or she wants to. And that was inappropriate because
it really wasn't the gift of tongues, which would be similar to prophecy where the Holy Spirit moves
upon someone, motivates them to speak out in tongues, and then it gives that same person or
another person the gift of the interpretation of tongues so that everyone knows what God just said.
All right, so there's more to come in this and we'll take a look at it in our next Little Lesson.
Thank you so much for joining me on this one. Hey, if you've never been to davidservant.com,
why don't you navigate over there and see what there might be for you there in the way of
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free, davidservant.com. Until next time, may the Lord bless you richly.