“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #166
“There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me” (1 Cor. 14:10–11).
The miracle at Pentecost was a reversal of Babel, which meant that it was a unifying miracle. When God confused the tongues at Babel, the result was that men scattered, divided by their different languages. When God gave different languages at Pentecost, the intent was to move men in the opposite direction, to gather them all to Christ. At Babel, the different languages scattered. At Pentecost, the different languages gathered. They all heard, in their own tongues, “the wonderful works of God” being declared (Acts 2:11).
God has set the direction, and so our worship services should continue to move in that same direction. There are many voices in the world and all of them, Paul says, have specific signification. There is a meaning there, but if I don’t know the meaning, what effect does that have? It has the effect of making the speaker a barbarian to the listener, and the listener a barbarian to the speaker. But God’s purpose in the church is to make us all members of the same household, the same holy nation (1 Pet. 2:9). We are not supposed to be foreigners to one another.
The word barbarian came from this idea of what alien chatter sounds like. When someone is a foreigner talking away aimlessly in my presence, I am going to tag him with an onomatopoeic label – they sound like they are saying nothing other than bar bar bar bar. And so, Paul says, don’t do that to your brothers in church. And if you withhold from your brother the signification of what you have said, that is exactly what you are doing. You are exiling your brother, who ought to live right next door to your meaning, and you are exiling him to a distant and barbarous land.
When you do this in church, you are introducing the tongues of Babel, and not the tongues of Pentecost.
“Forbid not to speak with tongues.” Yeah, it’s qualified–e.g. forbid uninterpreted tongues in public worship–but one qualifier qualifies because God in Scripture tells him to, so that tongues can properly glorify God and edify men, and another qualifies in order to forbid. Do you suppose Nimrod tried to suppress the tongues of Babel? Is “shut up” a unifying, I Cor 13 type thing to say? In an eschatological cessation of tongues, will Doug forget all his Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Beowulfish Anglo-Saxon, and even Latin, and settle for English? Naw, my guess is we’ll be able to understand any saint we… Read more »
@Andrew Lohr
Yours is the best case for tongues I have ever read. Most arguments I have observed are back-n-forth’s on verse-vs-verse. You provide a context that jibes with the character of our Lord.
Andrew — I’ve not read Doug forbidding tongues or their interpretation.
Doubting this gift is still being given? — Yes.
Forbidding? — No.
Pastor Doug:
“God’s purpose in the church is to make us all members of the same household”
Yet dost thou separate the wheat of full voting members from the chaff of your “honorary” attenders?
Surely we can’t let just any Spirit-filled, submitted, members-in-Christ regular attendees at Christ Church participate in all the full governance you want from bottom-line subscribing “members”, now can we?
I mean, lets do keep some barbarous land in the back of your church, right?
We don’t need to unify that much!