Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

On March 14 of this year Chrisma magazine published an article titled “What Every Believer Should Know About Receiving Spirit Baptism” Near the close of the article they stated (quote), “If you want to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit so that you will be an empowered witness and take part in the continual priesthood and prophetic ministry of Christ, with love toward God, ask Him to fill you, knowing He will give you His marvelous Holy Spirit according to .

Then, knowing Jesus is the baptizer with the Holy Spirit, focus your affection on Him in worship, believing you will receive the promise from the Father and will speak in tongues.

Don't get discouraged if it doesn't happen immediately, but keep asking and exercising your faith as you seek Him daily.”[1]

This quote highlights the misunderstanding many have about speaking in tongues.

Here it is equated with the power to witness, and participation in the priesthood and prophetic ministry of Christ!

It treats speaking in tongues as normative instead of the rare exception we see it as in the NT.

How do we respond to these kinds of statements?

What does Scripture teach about speaking in tongues?

These are questions Paul answers in .

We are going to Jet our way through three chapters this morning.

While there are a lot of things I would love to comment on, I am going to primarily hit on the things that relate to the use of tongues.

Some of the things we will deal with have been dealt with more completely in our Wednesday morning bible study and if you are interested you can download the notes from the bible study on our website.

By the time we are done this morning we will have read the entire text of these three chapters.

You may be wondering why we are spending so much time discussing tongues.

After all this isn't a Salvation issue.

You are right.

It is not a Salvation issue.

However, there are those who make it a Salvation issue.

There are those who will tell you that if you do not speak in tongues you are not saved.

There are those who will tell you that if you do not speak in tongues that you cannot grow or be pleasing to God.

It is these attitudes that we are seeking to address this morning.

It is because of these attitudes that We need to have a proper understanding about what the Bible does and does not teach on the topic of tongues.

You may be wondering why we are spending so much time discussing tongues.

After all this isn't a Salvation issue.

You are right.

It is not a Salvation issue.

However, there are those who make it a Salvation issue.

There are those who will tell you that if you do not speak in tongues you are not saved.

There are those who will tell you that if you do not speak in tongues that you cannot grow or be pleasing to God.

It is these attitude that we are seeking to address this morning it is because of these attitudes that we need to have a proper understanding about what the Bible does and does not teach on the topic of times

You may be wondering why we are spending so much time discussing tongues.

After all this isn't a Salvation issue.

You are right.

It is not a Salvation issue.

However, there are those who make it a Salvation issue.

There are those who will tell you that if you do not speak in tongues you are not saved.

There are those who will tell you that if you do not speak in tongues that you cannot grow or be pleasing to God.

It is these attitude that we are seeking to address this morning it is because of these attitudes that we need to have a proper understanding about what the Bible does and does not teach on the topic of times

We will be consider the other two places tongues are used in Acts as we get to them in our study.

For today we will examine the only other place they appear.

This brings up a very interesting fact.

In the New Testament tongues are only mentioned in Mark, Acts, and 1 Corinthians.

Mark is written in the AD 50’s, Acts around 63, and 1 Corinthians around 54-55.

In Mark Jesus is prophesying about the events of Acts.

Acts is descriptive, not prescriptive.

This means that The only appearance of tongues in the church age is in a corrective letter of rebuke written fairly early in the history of the church.

No other epistle mentions the use of tongues.

If tongues are as essential as some claim, this absence of mention seems rather glaring!

When Paul is writing to Timothy and Titus about the qualifications of an elder, no mention is made of tongues!

The final 30 years of the early church are completely silent about this gift.

Why? Let’s find out!

There is a key phrase that must be identified in properly interpreting 1 Corinthians.

That is the phrase “Now concerning”.

This first appears in 7:1 as Paul begins to answer the questions they have written to him.

Every time it appears it indicates a topic shift as Paul transitions to a new question.

As we come to Ch. 12 we have the 4th appearance of the “now concerning” phrase.

There are three essential facts we must understand about tongues.

Paul presents them in these chapters.

Only as we understand these facts will we grasp the true nature of tongues.

When we understand the Biblical Use Of Tongues we will be better equipped to defend the truth.

The best defense of the truth is to serve where God has placed you.

The first essential fact is…

1.

The Priority Of Tongues ch. 12

What place do tongues have among the gifts given by the Holy Spirit?

Are they as important as many today make them out to be? Paul addresses how important tongues are in this chapter.

He first reveals that tongues are…

a.

One gift among many vv.

1-11

v. 3 is very important.

In we saw that what the disciples proclaimed was the wonderful works of God!

This proclamation was made in spirit-enabled languages they had never studied.

Here Paul says that if you are speaking by the Spirit of God, you will never say Jesus is accursed, you will only proclaim Him as Lord.

Since Scripture is all about the proclamation of Christ we could easily say that the words the Spirit will give someone to speak will never contradict what has been divinely revealed in Scripture.

Any message that contradicts Scripture does not come from the Holy Spirit.

“Gifts” in v. 1 is italicized meaning it was added by the translators.

I believe it shouldn’t be there.

This section goes from ch. 12 – ch. 15.

While much of what appears is focused on Spiritual gifts, ch. 15 is focused on the past, present, and future impact made by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

These chapters are addressing spiritual things.

v. 3 is very important.

In we saw that what the disciples proclaimed was the wonderful works of God!

This proclamation was made in spirit-enabled languages they had never studied.

Here Paul says that if you are speaking by the Spirit of God, you will never say Jesus is accursed, you will only proclaim Him as Lord.

Since Scripture is all about the proclamation of Christ we could easily say that the words the Spirit will give someone to speak will never contradict what has been divinely revealed in Scripture.

Any tongues that contradict Scripture do not come from the Holy Spirit.

Paul goes on to demonstrate that tongues were only one Spiritual gift among many.

There are a diversity of gifts (v.

4), ministries (v.

5), and activities (v.

6)!

One of the problems in Corinth was the believers placing an undue amount of emphasis on tongues.

Paul rebukes them for making tongues more important than other gifts!

V. 7 is vital in understanding Paul’s teaching about tongues.

Gifts are given to profit the entire body of Christ.

This is borne out in Ephesians as well.

I want us to notice that in vv.

8-10 Paul deliberately states that not all believers were supposed to speak in tongues.

Also notice who determines the gift you get according to v. 11.

The Holy Spirit!

The Holy Spirit distributes the various gifts to whoever He wills!