Tongues: A Modest Proposal

I have a strange desire that some of you might find really inappropriate. I wish I could be Protestant Pope for a day just so that I could declare with unquestioned authority what will be the church's position on tongues. Everybody would have to listen to me as I pontificate from the chair and settle the matter once and for all - and if anyone chooses to buck the policy he'd be guilty of defying the infallible word of the Pope!

Here in a nutshell is the problem with "tongue wars" today. The Southern Baptist Convention (for example) forbids its missionaries to speak in tongues even in private. This policy disregards a command of Scripture: "Do not forbid speaking in tongues" (1 Corinthians 14:39). When Pastor Dwight McKissic criticized Southern Baptist policy, telling students at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in August that he himself prayed privately in tongues, the trustees met on October 17 and voted 36-1 to "prohibit professors or administrators from promoting charismatic practices, such as private prayer languages." (Christianity Today, December 2006, p. 17).

What part of St. Paul's "Do not forbid speaking in tongues" do these 36 trustees not understand?

Scripture teaches that tongues must not be forbidden, but they must be regulated. They are like erotic love: not prohibited (heavens no!), but restricted absolutely to the covenant of marriage. Plain restrictions on the use of tongues in public worship are found in 1 Corinthians 14:27-28: "If anyone speaks in a tongue, two - or at most three - should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God."

Walk into just about any Pentecostal or Charismatic church though, and you'll hear unregulated, uninterpreted babbling all around you. It is a mess and a nightmare and an embarrassment to uninitiated visitors. What part of "at most three...one at a time, and someone must interpret" do these Charismatics not understand?

Paul spoke in tongues more than anybody (1 Corinthians 14:18), but it appears he only did it in private. In public he preferred five words of real language to 10,000 "words" of ecstatic babble (1 Corinthians 14:19). Tongues were of limited public use because they only benefited the speaker and God (1 Corinthians 14:2,4,28). That made them appropriate for private prayer but a bad fit for corporate worship where everybody is supposed to participate.

But why bother speaking to God, even privately, in the "nonsense" language of tongues? Well, it is not exactly nonsense. Tongues are vocal but non-verbal expressions of joy, lament, praise, despair, gratitude, or whatever else might be in the worshipper's heart. On occasion they do the job better than words. We're all familiar with the concept when it appears in other forms. Cab Calloway randomized "scat" syllables to express exuberance; Frank Sinatra "do-be-do-be-do-ed" his seduction; my father whistled his contentment, and most of us groan our pain, sigh our pleasure, and "ugh" our disgust. Even at tongue-less Faith Bible Church, we go "la-la-la-la-la" for a while in one of the choruses we sing. In the spirit of 1 Corinthians 14:27, I hereby interpret that tongue to mean that we are happy to praise God.

Speaking in tongues is no big deal - neither angelic nor demonic. Some people have the knack for it, some don't. See 1 Corinthians 12:30: "Do all speak in tongues?" (No. The answer's no.) Those who don't have the knack (or gift) can probably learn it if they want to, and can add tongues to their private worship repertoire if it suits them. I've never bothered with it. Then again, I've never bothered with a lot of things (like "dancing before the Lord" - 2 Samuel 6:14) that are just great for those who can do them right.

To both Southern Baptists, who forbid what God allows, and to Charismatics, who indulge what God restricts, I say, "Oi vay. Ay yiyi. Jiminy Crickets." Which interpreted means, "Speak in tongues privately all you want, but if you're going to do that in church, the rules of 1 Corinthians 14 will be strictly enforced."

New Testament Standards For New Testament People (November 12, 2006)

The name of King David has been coming up lately in discussions among evangelicals. It always does whenever a leader falls as badly as Ted Haggard did recently. The template for the discussion seems to be that great men of God often stumble into adultery and other crimes when they let their guard down. It is understandable - they have all these pressures from being so great. Satan has put a big target on their backs, and tempts them a lot harder than he does you or me. When they fall, the important thing for us is to love them, and, despite our disappointment, forgive and restore them. We're not saying Haggard's sin was o. k. - it was bad of course - but so was the sin of King David. So let's forgive him and show how much we care for him.

Here's my problem with that.

It implies that nothing has changed with the coming of Christ and the giving of the Holy Spirit to the church. It suggests that despite the cross, despite new life in Christ, despite the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, despite the inauguration of the Kingdom, we really should not expect our leaders and shepherds to behave any better than Old Testament kings and patriarchs.

I reject this pessimism. There is a fundamental change between the Old and New Testaments. The standard is higher now that Messiah has come.

Consider for example the sins of lying, stealing and adultery. Old Testament leaders lied often: see Genesis 20:2; 26:7; 33:13-17 and 1 Samuel 21:2 for lies of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David. Jacob was a thief (Genesis 27:35), Judah picked up a prostitute by the side of the road (Genesis 38:15-16), and David was an adulterer (2 Samuel 11).

But when you get to the New Testament, where do you see lying, stealing or adultery among the apostles of Christ or other church leaders? I can only find one lie, and that is when Peter was reduced to desperate prevarication in order to save himself from death by torture - Mark 14:66-72. (The other liars, Ananias and Sapphira, died
on the spot - Acts 5:1-10). There was only one thief among them, and it was Judas the Betrayer (John 12:6). As for adultery, there is no record of any apostle or church leader cheating on his wife. On the contrary, the unnamed adulterer of 1 Corinthians 5 was kicked out of his church, and repeat offenders were said to be shut out of the kingdom of God! (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 6:19-21).

After the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the church, just what sins do you see among the apostles and church leaders? Well, Paul confessed to coveting (Romans 7:7-8). Peter refused to eat at a Gentile table (Galatians 2:11-12). John Mark turned back from a dangerous missionary journey (Acts 13:13). Compared to Old Testament iniquity, this is pretty tame stuff! Yet though these sins were relatively minor, they were dealt with severely: Paul agonized over his covetousness (Romans 7:14-24); he rebuked Peter to his face (Galatians 2:11,14); and he refused to give John Mark a second chance (Acts 15:37-40) until much later in life (2 Timothy 4:11).

That was for lesser sins! When it came to major transgressions, the New Testament response was "Die" (Acts 5:5,9); "May you and your money go to hell" (Acts 8:20); and "Hand him over to Satan" (1 Corinthians 5:5).

I'm really fed up with Old Covenant indulgence of New Covenant sin. I don't want to hear King David's example invoked next time we have on our hands one of those stinking preacher-adulterers like Ted Haggard, Gordon MacDonald, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert or Rev. Jesse Jackson. Enough is enough! The New Testament rule is in Ephesians 5:3: "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people."

Endure Hardship (November 5, 2006)

Jesus said, "He who endures to the end will be saved" (Matthew 10:22).

He said "endure," not "float along on a cloud enjoying Your Best Life Now." Sometimes the Christian life demands endurance. I have often found that when I counsel distraught believers, my words amount to little more than variations on the theme, "Keep going." It is like that brutal quote from the film Platoon, where a squad leader says to a wounded soldier: "Take the pain."

Lately I have been in contact with a couple friends whose spouses belong to that ever-growing list of "demon-spawn-who-claim-to-be-Christians." (Boy there are a lot of those now, aren't there? Last week we added sodomite Ted Haggard to the list.) One faithful spouse said (I paraphrase), "I DON'T understand why things have fallen apart for me while things go so smoothly for my spouse!" I have heard this before. Years ago a pastor friend of mine, beleaguered by a hostile congregation, said (though at least he could laugh about it), "Why are they doing this to ME? I mean, there are all these pastors who are lazy or manipulative or addicted to porn - I could understand if THEY got this kind of opposition, but why in the world is this happening to ME?" We laughed together, but there was probably some pain in it.

Yet another wounded friend, responding to the Haggard scandal, wrote, "I read that Haggard The Horrible's wife issued a statement that she is standing by her man, and I think, 'Oh that's rich. The crystal meth-snorting PERVERT has a faithful loving wife, while I, a model husband (not bragging; it's just true) get my guts ripped out and plastered against the wall by a user [female dog].' It isn't right."

No, it isn't right. But what do you say?

For what it is worth, my biblical go-to guy in these situations is John the Baptist - my hero, my patron saint. John went from preaching to thousands to languishing alone in Herod's dungeon after courageously denouncing Herod's sin (Mark 6:18). There he became so discouraged that he doubted his faith, sending word to Jesus asking if he really was the Messiah (Luke 7:20). It must have driven John nuts to have his grand audience reduced to a single individual, Herod, who "liked to listen to him" (Mark 6:20), but who never repented. Surely at some point the thought crossed John's mind, "Why does SCUM Herod get to lie on a bed of ease while I waste away in prison? This isn't right!" Then he gets his head chopped off on the whim of a girl. (Mark 6:21-28).

But John was a holy man of whom the world was not worthy (See Hebrews 11:38). He was the greatest of all those born under the terms of the Old Covenant (Matthew 11:11). And the joy he now experiences in heaven is so great that none of us could bear it - only the soul of humble John is big enough to embrace the delights that God grants him in the presence of Jesus.

You probably don't have it as bad now as John did in his earthly life. So keep enduring.