Unfortunately, the charismatic culture turns this Biblical principle on its head. Implicit in the teaching and practices of this movement is a view that the Spirit should be honored and sought after for His own sake i. In such an environment, Christ receives glory only peripherally by association with His Spirit.
The Bible, however, teaches that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to be a background role visible only by the way He draws men to the Lord e. In other words, the Spirit's role is to work invisibly to ensure we glorify Christ. This pattern is best exemplified in the story of Abraham finding a bride for his son, Isaac in Genesis But where is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit is pictured by the nameless servant of Abraham, who travels to Abraham's ancestral home to select a Bride. The key feature of the story is that the Spirit is never named. His identity remains in the shadows of the story to emphasize how the Spirit works behind the scenes on behalf of the Father and to the glory of the Son.
Based on our Biblical understanding of the Spirit's role and manner, we can safely say that the Spirit would never participate in any process that resulted in bringing glory to Himself, including speaking in tongues apart from the narrowly-defined purpose presented in Scripture or other such manifestations. Rather, the ministry of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to draw men to Christ and equip the saints to spread the Gospel. As Paul stated, "Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified.
Therefore, we believe based on scripture, history, and theology that speaking in tongues or similar manifestations are almost always false and man-initiated. In fact, we believe that in many cases such displays are likely the work of the demonic realm, knowing Satan desires to blind unbelievers with false signs and weaken believers by emphasizing personal experience over sound Biblical doctrine. The secondary "filling" of the Holy Spirit is another a false teaching arriving out of the charismatic movement.
In general two kinds of interpretive errors are responsible for this incorrect teaching. First, those who teach of a secondary filling by the Spirit commit a logical error in concluding that what is recorded in the scripture concerning the experiences of the early Church are expected to continue for the church indefinitely.
The error is in assuming that these early experiences are prescriptive rather than merely descriptive. The misunderstanding comes primarily from various passages in Acts that describe the ministry of the Holy Spirit during the early Church. In the earliest days of the Church, men occasionally came to a saving faith in Christ without an immediate indwelling of the Spirit. When the Spirit arrived at a later, appointed time, these believers experienced an outward manifestation of the Spirit's indwelling i.
This experience was uncommon in the early church. It happens in only three occurrences for specific reasons, which are described in detail in our Acts study. Apart from this three examples, all other believers receive the Holy Spirit at the moment of faith. Scripture never teaches that all believers should expect a subsequent "filling" experience by the Holy Spirit. Today as then, a believer is indwelled by the Holy Spirit at the point of faith, and there is no expectation for an additional "filling" or manifestation of the Spirit to follow.
Instead, the normative experience for Christians since the first century has been to see the Holy Spirit manifest His presence only through the fruit of the Spirit and the giving of spiritual gifts Gal Those who teach a secondary filling of the Spirit after conversion are making a false assumption — built on faulty logic and without support in scripture — that happened in a few limited cases must be the norm for every believer.
They make the mistake of taking descriptions of events in scripture and applying them prescriptively for all believers. As believers, we can't arrive at our doctrinal beliefs by presuming what God may do apart from His word says He will do. For example, using the same logic employed by those who teach a secondary filling of the Spirit, we could assert that because God once caused a donkey to speak in Numbers 22 that we should expect the Lord to make donkeys speak routinely.
Obviously, such a conclusion is nonsense, and yet it follows naturally from the same logic that concluded all Christians must experience what happened to a few believers in the early church.
In reality, the early church experienced many unique practices. It had the benefit of the apostles' testimony and leadership, and it had the burden of establishing the truth of the Gospel among a skeptical population that had never experienced the New Testament faith.
The apostles had to win over their first converts from three different groups Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles that each had some prior and incorrect understanding of God's plan of redemption.
These challenges led God to make special accommodations for the Church using supernatural manifestations. The supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit were powerful and essential tools to validate the message of the Gospel and the authority of the apostles during the establishment of the early church.
The supernatural manifestations also validated and distinguished the true church and true apostles from those who might try to counterfeit or distort the Gospel during its early days.
Secondly, this erroneous teaching comes from an error in the interpretation of the Greek word pleroo. When used in scripture, the word means to be made full or amply supplied. It does not usually mean to "fill up. This is the proper understanding of the word. Unfortunately, those teaching the necessity of a secondary filling of the Spirit have misappropriated this word to suit their own purposes by claiming that the word describes a greater giving of the Holy Spirit, particularly in often-quoted passages like:.
As with the earlier verse from Philippians, the "filling" here refers not to a greater measure of the Spirit but a greater reliance on the Spirit as He already lives in us. To suggest that there is "more" of the Spirit available to any believer defies the Biblical portrayal of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is a single entity, without division or measure. Consequently, all Christians receive the entire Holy Spirit. There is nothing less than the whole Spirit available to all believers from the moment of faith. On the other hand, a believer can be more or less in submission to the Spirit in their daily walk. This is the purpose of the command that we "be filled by the Holy Spirit.
He was not teaching that believers need some additional "filling" of the Spirit. Email Facebook Twitter. Introduction on Tongues First, it's critical to recognize that when the Bible uses the term "tongue," it refers to normal, spoken language e. In Acts we see plainly that these "tongues" were normal, human languages that many foreigners in the crowd could understand naturally: Acts And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.
The Scriptural Argument The authoritative teaching on the gift of speaking in tongues is given by the Apostle Paul as part of an extended teaching from 1Cor Time does not permit a full exposition of these chapters a full explanation is available in our 1Corinthians study , so we will summarize the most important points in these chapters, beginning with 1Cor 1Cor.
All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of miracles, are they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? Paul supports his point with a proof text taken from the Old Testament in Chapter 1Cor.
Conclusion Based on Paul's teaching in 1Cor , we learn that the gift of tongues served its spiritual purpose in the first century by fulfilling the Old Testament prophecy, and the Church should have expected the gift to diminish in practice thereafter. Historical Argument Before the rise of the charismatic movement in the early 20th century, the practice of speaking in tongues was unknown in the church.
Pentecostalism Today While the charismatic movement traces its roots to Seymour, Pentecostal churches today hold to a variety of doctrinal views and worship practices, and most Pentecostal churches reject Seymour's works-based theology and related unbiblical teaching.
Theological Argument Charismatic teaching runs counter to biblical theology by distorting the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian experience. The Error of the "Filling" of the Holy Spirit The secondary "filling" of the Holy Spirit is another a false teaching arriving out of the charismatic movement. Fast and pray and ask God for help. Or if [he asks] for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will [your] heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! This is great! However, I would love to be able to speak in Hebrew so I could go to Israel into the streets and witness to my Jewish brethren. Warning: This blog was written prior to discerning Paul's letters.
Finally, speaking in tongues is given according to the will of the Spirit. Having laid the foundation according to the Bible, we can conclude the following: No one should speak in tongues if no one can interpret. Any church even a group of 2 or more encouraging to speak in tongues without an interpreter, does not give importance to Bible. Tongues are a sign for unbelievers and they are real languages spoken in the world. Tongues are not a heavenly language. Tongues are not given to all but distributed according to the will of Spirit.
We are called to test every spirit. There are several ways we can test the spirit. Know their fruits This is the first and foremost step to follow. Prayer Another important and yet powerful way to discern is to pray.
Discernment Discerning of spirits itself is mentioned as a gift of the Holy Spirit. If someone speaks without a proper structure of a language, he is probably blabbering because Bible clearly teaches tongues are a language. There are no other known variants in any other language. Some adults were dancers. Some adults were tongue-speakers. Some, like my parents, were too shy for either.
But all of them closed their eyes and raised their hands to heaven, giving a curious child the chance to watch them unobserved. It was impossible to look away when your strict math teacher stood just a few feet from you, face twisted with ecstasy and speaking in tongues without pause or self-consciousness, as if it were an actual dialect. Like the dancing, it was almost a contest to see who could worship the hardest while appearing the most natural.
Maybe anything that involves performance naturally becomes a competition. It was definitely hilarious when two dancers would run up at the same time, and have to awkwardly share the stage. But there were moments, especially as I got older, where I too raised my hands and closed my eyes and felt my heart surge and heard a loud roaring in my ears.
I felt part of something bigger, some great mystery, and I was filled with an overwhelming desire to worship. Religious ecstasy was a real, easily identifiable state. Years later, when I first tried the drug ecstasy, I felt it come back like muscle memory.
When I was, 13 I went to a regular youth group meeting on Sunday nights. It was led by a couple in their mid-thirties. One spring evening, something was definitely different from usual. I knew that it had its roots in these verses from Acts of the New Testament, which I had memorized as part of the scripture memorization we did at school:. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Tim and Alice led the eight or so 12 and 13 year olds into the church sanctuary and up to the front of the stage. They pulled up a chair, and asked who wanted to go first. Being a little goody-goody hand-raiser, I immediately volunteered, even though I had no idea what actually went into this process.
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