City Life Starter

“Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there comes in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind?” 1 Corinthians 14:23

Let’s say you entered a new church for the first time.

As you entered into the church lobby, greeters happily greet and welcome you.  The first impression is everything, so your initial thought of the church is that the people that attend this church are authentic and kind.  After some interaction with other attendees, you entered into the sanctuary to attend their main service.  When you enter the beautiful sanctuary, a pastor welcomes you and one of the ushers escort you to your seat.  As they are ready for the service to begin, one of the leaders asks the congregation to stand and says, “Let us pray.”  People begin to pray out loud:

“!@#$%^&* shoulabalahonda $#@!!@#$%^&* shoulabalahhona !@#$%^&*()_+_”

You have no idea what is happening.

Your spouse looks at you with an eye saying, “I thought you said you did some research on this church?”

What is their final verdict of the church?  “They are out of their mind!”

The story above might sound far-fetched, but it has happened in the past, as early as the first-century church of the Corinth and as late as the modern-day church.  The main issue, whether in first-century Corinth or modern church, was the use of the spiritual gifts in a self-centered way and without any guidance or order.  The main purpose of the spiritual gift is described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:26:

“Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation.  Let all things be done for edification.” (NKJV)

Edification, that is centered in the body of Christ and not self-gratification or glorification as the Corinth church was experiencing.  To Paul, this was a misrepresentation of the church and damaging to the church, both believers, and non-believers.

Paul ends with the command, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” (14:40)

I believe this is the key on how to exercise spiritual gifts today.

Disclaimer: As a one who encountered Christ at a Charismatic church, and was trained at the Baptist seminary, after hours of wrestling with this issue of the existence of the spiritual gifts in today’s church, I believe that spiritual gifts are also for the today’s believers.  I do not believe that the spiritual gifts, such as prophecy and tongues, have ceased as my Cessationist friends would say.  The reason is quite simple, who gets to decide if the gift of the Spirit is also for today’s believer or not?  Shall we limit God and the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives, simply because we do not understand or because of bad examples we’ve seen in some churches?