#7. 'RE SPIRITUAL GIFTS; THE BEST COURSE IS TO BE CONSERVATIVE (STICK TQ THE SAFE ONES, AND LEAVE THE OTHERS WELL ALONE!)'

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Every church ought to be open to the full spectrum of the gifts. Spiritual gifts are meant to create truly Christian community. Where there is love, there'll be gift-giving. God's gifts are love-gifts - God at work. When someone is healed, a loving God is at work, when a gift of money is given to another, the generous love of God is at work. Whilst the 'Corinthian gifts' have achieved prominence (notoriety?), they must not be viewed in isolation from other charismata (see e.g. Romans 12:6-8 and 1Peter 4: 10,11, Eph. 4). All God's gifts are good and beautiful. An exaggerated role is sometimes attributed to tongues (by both pro' and 'con' people). Calling the charismatic renewal a tongues movement is erroneous. Certainly 'speaking gifts' (tongues, prophecy, interpretation, knowledge, wisdom) belong to the full spectrum of spiritual gifts, but they do not exhaust it. The gifts of the Spirit are without number and include service functions and ministries as well.

Gifts are given freely by the Holy Spirit to whomever he wishes. They can't be manufactured by us nor is their presence or absence a sign of Christian maturity. In a truly biblical fellowship the focus is not on the gifts, but the Giver (but that shouldn't be a cop-out, ignoring the gifts we aren't comfortable with). We meet to proclaim 'Jesus is Lord' by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). The occasion of baptism in water is the appropriate time for special prayer for receiving gifts. Pentecostals would sometimes expect tongues to be manifested at that point, but charismatics would have a more flexible expectation.

Here's a common problem: 'I had the best hands laid on me, but nothing happened.' Well, what did you expect to happen? Faith-filled prayer believes you have received the Spirit; leave the rest to God's timing. David du Plessis ('Mr. Pentecost) says, 'Baptism in the Spirit is always easy when Jesus Christ does it for you, but always difficult when you struggle to do it yourself or with the help of others.' (12) And Richard Lovelace: 'Christians act as though fellowship with the Holy Spirit were very hard to establish. Actually it is very difficult to avoid! All that is necessary is for the believer to open up to that divine Reality in the centre of consciousness which is the most fundamental fact of a Christian's inner life.' (13)

Spiritual gifts are to be received gladly, and developed and used. (What's the point of leaving a gift unwrapped?). They must glorify Christ, and promote love and unity in his Body. If those outcomes are unlikely, then the gifts in question should be wisely and sensitively restrained. For example, praying in tongues or giving a word of prophecy from the 'floor' is generally O.K. in Pentecostal churches, but if a congregation is not used to these charismata, surely love and unity are promoted by exercising these gifts in public with discretion. A word of prophecy should be 'tested' with the pastors/elders, for example, before being given to the church (1 Thess. 5:19ff., 1 Cor. 14:29,32. This helps obviate the common problem of people receiving untested 'direct revelations' - 'The Lord told me!'). If a congregation is taught well, if there is loving, wise and sensitive leadership, they may look back five to ten years later and wonder why they were so scared of these gifts! It takes skill to find the mean between dynamism and structure, freedom and authority.

The Scriptures seem to draw no sharp distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural? gifts. In 1 Cor. 12:28, for example they're mixed: helpers are mentioned alongside miracle-workers (though, as one pastor said, it's a miracle if you get all the helpers you need). That doesn't mean that someone with a 'natural gift' automatically operates 'in the Spirit' when he or she becomes a Christian. Singers with a good voice may or may not be spiritually gifted in uplifting the Lord rather than themselves! One charismatic leader said 'When renewal hits your church sack your organist!'

#8 : 'PROPHECY ISN'T NEEDED TODAY - WE'VE GOT THE BIBLE'.

Western fundamentalism has been infected with dispensationalism' which sees the activity in the Book of Acts as transitional: the canon of scripture is now closed, and the curtain has been brought down on all this sort of thing. When Paul says tongues and prophecy will be with us 'until the perfect comes' (Icor. 13:10) they say Paul meant a 'perfect Bible'; the rest of the church interprets Paul as referring to heaven, 'when we shall see face to face'.

Prophecy is a direct dominical utterance ('thus says the Lord') for a particular people at a particular time and place, for a particular purpose. The Divine Word also comed through Jesus, through Scripture, through circumstances and through visions (more commonly in non-Western cultures). Prophecy gives the church fresh insight into God's truth (Eph 3) or guidance about the future (Acts 11), or encouragement (I Cor.14:3, I Tim.1:18), or inspiration or correction. It either edifies the church or brings it under judgment ('God is in this place!' - see 1 Cor. 14:25). The biblical prophets combined judgment with hope.

#9 'TONGUES IS AN "ECSTATIC" GIFT FOR IMMATURE CHRISTIANS)'.

The gift of tongues ('glossolalia') is a quasi-linguistic phenomenon, not language in the normal sense of the term. (14) it has recurred sporadically throughout history - e.g. among the Mendicant Friars of the 13th century; among the Jansenists and early Quakers; some of the converts of Wesley and Whitefield; the persecuted Protestants of the Cevennes, and the Irvingites and Revivalists of Wales and America.

Tongues-speaking is not an indication of mental imbalance. After fifty years of research the consensus still runs, in the words of Virginia Hine twenty years ago : 'available evidence requires that an explanation of glossolalia as pathological must be discarded.' (15)

Two decades of research into the discrete functions of left and right hemispheres of the brain appears to show that the dominant cerebral hemisphere (the left, for 95 of the population) specializes in thinking processes, which are analytical, linear, logical, sequential, verbal, rational. The right hemisphere normally shows preference for thought that is visiospatial, simultaneous, analog (as opposed to digital), emotional. While speech has been seen to rise from mapped sectors of the left hemisphere, language-formation capacities are probably spread over both hemispheres. (16) Glossolalia may be right hemisphere speech, sharing a location beyond - but not contradictory to - the usual canons of rationality. It is appropriate to think of glossolalic prayer as neither irrational nor arational, but rather transrational: when reason fails in prayer, the Spirit helps (Rom. 8:26,27). It's spirit to Spirit communication rather than mind to mind. (1 Cor. 14:15). Glossolalia is thus, probably, a non-cerebral prayer gift.

Richard Beyer claims there is a 'fundamental functional similarity between speaking in tongues and two other widespread and generally accepted religious practices, namely Quaker silent worship and the liturgical worship of Catholic and Episcopal churches'. (17)

The tongues-speaker has full control when exercising the gift. Once experienced, glossolalia may be evoked at will. Paul assumed the Corinthians could speak or fall silent at liberty. Are glossolalists too emotional? Depends on your perspective; however if you're communicating love to someone it's usual for your emotions to be involved somewhere!

For the tongues-speaker the notion of 'praying in the Spirit' (Eph. 6:18, Jude 20) takes on new meaning. Prayer is offered with either mind or spirit (1 Cor. 14:15), including prayer for others, as the Spirit makes deep intercession according to the will of God (Rom. 8:26,27).

On three explicit occasions in Acts persons spoke in tongues when filled with the Spirit (Acts 2:4, 10:46, 19:6); on two other occasions (Acts 8:17, 11:15) they probably did so. Only 3/66 books of the Bible and only 7/1189 chapters specifically mention tongues (though if one is to argue a case from infrequency of occurrence in the New Testament we may have problems with our theology of the Eucharist!). Not all are expected to work miracles or speak in tongues (1 Cor 12:27-31).

The most common 'horror' for conservative Christians: 'What if someone speaks in tongues during a church service?' The answer is quite simple, really: they shouldn't, if a visitor to a non-Pentecostal/charismatic service; and if a 'regular', as with the operation of any spiritual gift, they would minister under the authority of the pastors/elders.