Someone is speaking in tongues, while someone else is mocking it. A pastor defends it, while a critic calls it fake. Before long, the blood-bought church of Jesus Christ is arguing over whether noise is the same thing as the Spirit.
I am a Baptist pastor tucked away in the Missouri Ozarks. I believe in the Holy Spirit, that He gives life to dead sinners, opens blind eyes, convicts the proud, strengthens the weak, comforts grieving saints and makes Christ precious to people who once yawned at His name. I have watched Him change a room through the preached Word.
So when someone says, “You just do not believe in the Spirit,” I feel the sting of it because I do believe in the Spirit. That is why I tremble when His holy name gets stapled to confusion.
Wes Huff recently stirred the internet by answering a question about speaking in tongues and bringing the conversation back to the text. His point was simple enough. In the NT, tongues were tied to real language, interpretation, order and the unique foundation-laying work of the apostles. He left room for God to do what God pleases, yet he warned against treating tongues as normal proof of fullness.
That is the lane where I want to stand. When tongues first appear in Acts 2, nobody is coached into the moment. The apostles are not told to empty their minds, loosen their mouths and start making sounds until something happens. The risen Christ keeps His promise and the Spirit comes as wind fills the house and fire rests upon them. Then men from the nations hear the mighty works of God in their own languages.
Pentecost was not holy fog rolling over Jerusalem. It was a trumpet blast where Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Romans, Cretans, Arabians, all heard words they could understand. The Spirit did not blur Christ, He announced Him. Tongues served the sermon. Peter stood up preached the crucified and risen Jesus, and three thousand sinners were pierced to the heart.
That is what the Spirit loves to do. He throws light on the Son of God and presses the Word into the conscience. He makes sinners ask, “What shall we do?” bringing men and women to repentance, faith, baptism and life.
Paul gives the same guardrails in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. Gifts are given for the body. Tongues without interpretation leave the church hungry. Sound without understanding may thrill the speaker, yet the people remain unfed. So Paul plants the fence posts deep in the ground: “Let all things be done for building up” (1 Corinthians 14:26). “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). “All things should be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40).
That does not sound like chaos..it sounds like a shepherd guarding the flock from spiritual excitement that tramples order and truth.
Here is where my grief sharpens. I do not believe the modern tongues movement matches the tongues of the NT. Acts 2 gives us intelligible languages. 1 Corinthians gives us order, interpretation, and the strengthening of the gathered church. Much of what fills the internet gives us repetition, spectacle and confusion where sincere Christians look down at their shoes because someone made them feel spiritually unfinished.
The Spirit has already brought him from death to life!! My concern is not that Christians want too much of the Holy Spirit. My concern is that many have been taught to recognize Him by the very things Paul told the church to restrain.
There is a deeper danger too. When tongues become central, the Bible often gets pushed toward the wall as the sermon shrinks in stature as the testimonies swell. People begin craving a fresh word while the written Word sits open like bread cooling on the table. Experience and intensity becomes the proof.
Christ has not left His church starving. The Spirit who inspired the Word will never make us bored with the Word. He will never teach us to treat Scripture as the foyer and our experiences as the sanctuary. He loves the Bible and He opens it to hungry hearts. The church does not need more spectacle. We need Christ preached with tears and fire..sinners called to repentance, saints rooted in Scripture, mothers praying over sleeping children, young men fighting lust, old saints finishing well and pastors opening the Bible without apology.
The Spirit IS present when the room is quiet. Sometimes He does His deepest work when a sinner sits still under the Word and realizes he has offended a holy God. Often He moves when a proud man drives home in silence because the sermon found him. I absolutely love when He fills the church when ordinary voices singing of the blood of Jesus and broken hearts cling to every word.
The Bible’s deepest problem with the human tongue is not that it lacks heavenly syllables. The problem is that it praises God on Sunday and tears people apart by Monday. It lies, boasts, flatters and curses. James calls the tongue a fire. Jesus says the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
Our first need is not a new sound. It is a new heart.
Jesus Christ came for sinners with ruined mouths and rebel hearts. He lived without sin speaking only truth. Having never flattered, never lied, never cursed His Father, never twisted His words to save Himself. Then He went to the cross and bore the wrath deserved by every blasphemer and every religious performer. He rose from the grave with mercy in His hands.
Turn from sin. Trust Him. Receive forgiveness, eternal life, and the Holy Spirit. That is the miracle I refuse to trade for noise. Give me the Spirit who glorifies Christ. Give me the Word opened and preached. Give me repentance in the pew, holiness in the home, and joy that survives Monday morning.
The world can keep its viral fog. I want the fire that makes Christ known.
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Very well said indeed! I feel exactly the same way and for the same reasons.