In recent months, people have been asking where Good News stands on the charismatic movement—specifically, the matter of speaking in tongues. At this summer’s Good News Convocation in St. Louis, we offered a seminar on "The Evangelical and the Charismatic Movement." One of the two seminar leaders was a lady who speaks in tongues, and this, apparently, has caused some of our friends to think that the Good News Movement now promotes glossolalia (tongues-speaking).
This conclusion is not justified.
We believe that every Christian needs a continued filling with God’s Spirit.
We believe Jesus and the Spirit are inseparable, and that you cannot receive Christ without simultaneously receiving the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).
We believe that the Spirit, present and active in a persons life, produces definite fruit: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control" (Galatians 5:22, 23).
We believe these fruits are to some degree evident in the life of every person who has been born again and has, in the moment of New Birth, been indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "A tree is known by the kind of fruit it bears" (Matthew 12:33b). Our Lord also said to His disciples, "This is how my Father’s glory is shown: by your bearing much fruit; and in this way you become my disciples" (John 15:8).
We believe that the Gift of the Spirit, and the fruits produced by the same Spirit, are more to be thankfully received than aggressively sought after. Which gifts you receive is not a matter of your wanting; rather it is a matter of God, in His superior love and wisdom, bestowing upon you those gifts you most need in order to praise Him fervently and serve Him effectively (1 Cor. 12:llc).
God is infinite, and the gifts brought by His Spirit are many and varied. Galatians 5:22, 23 has already been mentioned. But the most complete listing is found in 1 Corinthians 12: utterances of "wisdom" and "knowledge" (vs. 8); faith and the ability to heal (vs. 9); working of "miracles," "prophecy" (telling what God has done, is doing and will do), distinguishing between spirits (see also 1 John 4:1-3), speaking in tongues and interpreting what is spoken in tongues (vs. 10).
From this it is clear that "the gifts of the Spirit" involve much more than just speaking in tongues. To so limit the Spirit’s blessing—to make glossolalia a main emphasis—is a bad mistake if you really consider the Bible as authority.
Too much emphasis upon tongues-speaking is one common problem today; another opposite difficulty is created by people who deny that glossolalia has any legitimacy in the Christian life. They ignore the fact that Paul declared "Now I want you all to speak in tongues" (1 Corinthians 14:5a) and "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all" (v. 18). Some question whether Paul meant the kind of tongues-speaking seen today, but this is not certain—and cannot be safely used as a reason for rejecting glossolalia.
Is there a middle way between pro and con in this matter?
We think so.
Let all remember that God gives gifts of many types to whom He chooses. Let not all expect to receive any one endowment. Let all who belong to Christ respect equally each other’s Spirit-given gifts. Let the full range of gifts specified in the Bible be honored by all.
Let tongues-speakers stop feeling superior to non-tongues speaking Christians. Let those who have not experienced glossolalia stop ridiculing those who do speak in tongues.
We were talking, not long ago, with a Christian lady. She remarked almost wistfully that some tongues-speakers in her church were always bubbling with praise and joy in the Lord.
"They really have something extra," this orthodox Christian remarked a bit enviously,
Many have turned to glossolalia, and to fellowship with tongues-speaking groups, as an antidote to the coldness and deadness of today’s institutional church. The tongues movement’s spread can be seen, in part, as an index of the spiritual deadness in the church. One wise pastor remarked: "Where the Gospel is fully preached, where people are being converted, where the Spirit is bringing glorious new freedom, there the matter of tongues assumes its proper Biblical place as one of the gifts which the Spirit brings to some. A truly Biblical church will never have any problem with tongues-speaking."
An interesting observation comes from Bishop Earl G. Hunt’s "State of the Church" delivered to the Western North Carolina Annual Conference on June 7, 1972:
"I chanced to be in a rather large hotel in the Charlotte area on a Saturday night some months ago in connection with my general superintendency duties, I was amazed to see the conclusion of a meeting involving hundreds of men, women and young people, many of whom I recognized as loyal United Methodists. Some I could identify immediately as highly intelligent and deeply trusted leaders of our Annual Conference.
"Nearly every person there had his Bible and there was a spirit of camaraderie almost electric and altogether lovely.
"I asked myself how many of our churches could have projected any kind of Saturday night event, even an ice cream supper, which would have attracted as many enthusiastic participants? I went to my room and pondered what I had witnessed. Then prayed about it, and I must confess I came to the conclusion that I had seen something very important…. The issue, embarrassing as it may be for many of us to acknowledge it, is the spiritual hunger, even famine, of large segments of members within the organized church and the failure of many of us who are ministers to feed them from the pulpit and in the programs we have developed. I plead with you to ponder the curious possibility that God Himself may have been driven to birth the charismatic movement in our time lest His people be confronted by spiritual starvation."
In recent months, we have noted not only growing curiosity about tongues-speaking, but what seems to be a growing fear on the part of many United Methodist evangelicals.
One—a layman who is a professional psychologist and a very solid Bible Christian—took part in an inter-denominational, charismatic prayer group for a number of months. He reported a growing emphasis on tongues-speaking as the be-all, end-all of Christianity. He saw love melt away, displaced by pharasaical self-satisfaction which tongues speakers conveyed by stressing that people who lack the "experience" are somehow inferior.
"It became more and more an exclusive in-group" he observed. "We dropped out because speaking in tongues became a substitute for serious Bible study and Christian outreach through witnessing to the present power and reality of Jesus Christ."
Another staunch evangelical United Methodist, (a missionary and pastor for more than 45 years on three continents) told of talking recently with two teenagers. They were home on vacation from a Pentecostal "Bible Institute" and the teens quickly told the veteran Christian that he was going to hell—because he did not speak in tongues! Their "witness" also included the testimony that the Holy Trinity is a lie.
Many pastors—sincere Bible Christians—have reported that tongues-speakers, in their zeal to lead others to the experience of glossolalia, have split churches and diverted many people from the church’s primary task: seeking the lost and introducing them to Jesus Christ.
Instead, these pastors report that tongues-speaking enthusiasts often draw churches into a morass of argument and suspicion—not over issues which the Gospel says should divide believers from unbelievers, but over the question: "Do you speak in tongues?" (marginal because Scripture nowhere mentions tongues as either a condition of salvation or a necessary mark of the authentic Christian life).
Tongues-speakers need to face these facts. They should realize that they sometimes put a serious strain on the evangelical community. At the very time when unity is desperately needed among believers so they can confront the secular world with the Good News of Jesus, the tongues-speaking controversy divides us into two warring camps! Could Satan win a greater victory?
On the other hand, non tongues-speakers need to examine their own close-mindedness. They need to ponder whether or not they are too dogmatic in denying the Holy Spirit a right to work in ways strange and unusual. Those who do not speak in tongues also need to remember that if the reality of Christ is evident in people’s lives, then tongues-speaking (or non tongues-speaking) means little.
The final word in this matter comes from Ephesians 4:4-6: "Do your best to preserve the unity which the Spirit gives, by the peace that binds you [believers] together. There is one body [church] and one Spirit, just as there is one hope to which God has called you. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; there is one God and father of all men, who is Lord of all, works through all, and is in all."
Peace, brothers, peace!
This article was published in Good News, (Fall 1972/Winter 1973).