Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #63： Are Modern Day Prophecy and Tongues Biblical？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today, we are talking about our modern-day prophecy and tongues biblical. 0.55

00:00:06.540 We shouldn't say today because it's actually tonight. We are recording this episode at 9 21 p.m.

00:00:15.220 We've been trying to record this episode for, what, two and a half days now?

00:00:20.400 Yeah.

00:00:21.100 Just one thing after another.

00:00:23.440 Yeah.

00:00:23.860 So we're here, and we're going to have a discussion around, yeah, prophecy and tongues.

00:00:28.620 I'll let Veronica open up.

00:00:30.000 Yeah, so modern-day prophecy and tongues, are they biblical?

00:00:35.220 Does God still use prophets in the church?

00:00:37.800 And if so, what do they look like?

00:00:40.260 What does the Bible say in the New Testament about prophecy?

00:00:44.740 What about tongues?

00:00:46.360 Do you need to speak in tongues in order to be saved?

00:00:49.060 That's a question that we get often.

00:00:51.100 And how should I be viewing spiritual gifts through the lens of Scripture?

00:00:55.000 So these are just a few of the questions that we're going to try and tackle

00:00:57.960 and answer today in this episode of Real Christianity.

00:01:01.560 Yeah, so guys, if you haven't already left a review,

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00:01:11.960 And if you guys want the show notes of this episode,

00:01:13.560 you can always go to Real Christianity.

00:01:15.700 You go to relearnchurch.org forward slash listen,

00:01:19.560 and the show is available there in video format,

00:01:23.600 all the show notes.

00:01:24.940 The audio can be played there as well,

00:01:26.760 and you can get the links to Spotify, Google Play, and other outlets that have the episode.

00:01:32.060 One thing I wanted to talk about is my new book is just about to release.

00:01:37.900 It's in pre-order right now, so if you guys are interested in picking up a copy of my new book,

00:01:42.880 Real Christianity, same title as the podcast here,

00:01:46.280 the subtitle is How to Be Bold for Christ in a Culture of Darkness.

00:01:50.000 And guys, the book is very short.

00:01:52.880 It's a little 5x7 book.

00:01:55.260 there we go how did I get my hands right there we go like that five by seven book and it's a

00:02:00.780 little hardcover book and it's 15,000 something words so uh you know about a third the size of a

00:02:08.020 regular book and it's available at relearnchurch.org forward slash rc and can they read that book in

00:02:16.180 one sitting you can read it in one sitting I actually just recorded the audio book for it

00:02:20.360 which will be available soon too.

00:02:22.540 And I did it all in one sitting.

00:02:24.700 That's partially why we couldn't record the podcast

00:02:26.200 because your throat was so sore.

00:02:28.040 It was.

00:02:28.660 After reading the book.

00:02:30.060 The audio book, yeah.

00:02:30.940 And you did it in one sitting, right?

00:02:31.960 I did, yeah.

00:02:32.740 And you can also pick it up as Kindle as well.

00:02:37.420 So it's in pre-order right now

00:02:38.920 if you're listening to this episode live.

00:02:40.760 It'll be available on all outlets probably soon

00:02:44.240 if you're listening to it post now.

00:02:46.400 So we're going to start the conversation

00:02:48.240 on these massive topics. And I'm going to be honest, I'm going to be pretty heavy in today's

00:02:54.660 episode. And guys, if you're seeing, if you're watching the episode right now, we have a couple

00:02:58.560 flies in here that I tried going to war with before this episode. So I had no luck.

00:03:05.220 I'm not trying to make you upset, babe, but I literally saw fly straight across the camera

00:03:09.500 just a few seconds ago. Yeah. So you'll notice that. So I'm going to be talking probably more

00:03:14.580 than Veronica this episode, because we're going to just dive into some pretty heavy topics.

00:03:18.300 Veronica's almost going to be asking me some questions.

00:03:20.240 It's going to be a little interview today.

00:03:21.420 Interview today.

00:03:22.000 Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

00:03:23.360 So first thing is we are not, Veronica and I are not cessationists.

00:03:28.860 Now that's a theological word.

00:03:31.320 What is a cessationist, right?

00:03:33.160 They believe, and I quote,

00:03:36.580 a cessationist believes the charismatic and spiritual gifts of apostleship,

00:03:42.780 prophecy, tongues, healing, and miracles have seized.

00:03:46.900 that's where the word cessation is, have seized

00:03:49.520 at the death of the apostles, and while God may continue

00:03:53.440 to heal or produce miracles, he does not use humans

00:03:57.520 to accomplish this work. So, that is, there is a group

00:04:01.580 of Christians who are called cessationists, and we are

00:04:05.600 not part of that group. Now, this is a heavy debate

00:04:09.440 in the church, a heavy debate, almost as heavy

00:04:13.540 is the Calvinism and Arminianism debate that's going on.

00:04:17.540 Now, John MacArthur and Dr. James White, who I both respect,

00:04:22.540 they're both cessationists.

00:04:25.400 John Piper and D.A. Carson are not cessationists, like Veronica and I.

00:04:31.960 And so you got just really heavy theological hitters

00:04:35.760 who have differing perspectives on this,

00:04:39.460 that some think the gifts have ceased completely,

00:04:41.800 and some don't think that they've seized.

00:04:44.280 We have, our perspective of the scriptures say that they have not seized.

00:04:48.760 And so I believe that all the spiritual gifts listed in the New Testament are still alive,

00:04:55.360 but many are not well.

00:04:57.580 You know, this idea of alive and well, some of them are not well.

00:05:00.780 And I think we need to have a discussion about that today.

00:05:03.680 And I think it's because the church has lost its spiritual sobriety or reverence for the Word of God.

00:05:10.320 I think that's the root of what's going on.

00:05:12.040 We've distorted and perverted many spiritual gifts into emotional expression.

00:05:17.800 And it's become really difficult to discern what's authentic and what's actually deceptive.

00:05:23.780 And that's what makes it so difficult today.

00:05:26.400 And again, that sobriety, that reverence for the Word of God, I think really helps solve that problem.

00:05:32.640 So personally, Veronica and I have been really careful around spiritual gifts.

00:05:38.200 and again we're not against them and we think they're alive and functioning in the body of

00:05:44.920 Christ but we are we do have a very careful hand and I don't personally align with the kind of

00:05:52.060 modern Pentecostal movement or the health and wealth prosperity gospel or even really what's

00:05:59.260 kind of going on in the theology of spiritual gifts at like churches like Bethel I would say

00:06:03.740 that's far beyond the expression and understanding of the biblical look that I have and Veronica has

00:06:09.940 on this topic. You know, Bethel offers their school of supernatural ministry. And my response

00:06:17.580 is that if you can learn or improve a spiritual gift, then it's a skill and it's not a gift.

00:06:24.180 if you can go learn to prophesy uh or to heal or to speak in tongues um uh then these aren't

00:06:32.740 these are the skills of man and these aren't the gifts of god and so i just want to be very

00:06:37.580 cautious about like the idea of trying to learn how to do spiritual gifts that they're gifts

00:06:42.880 you don't get a chance to to learn them and so um yeah so what do you think yeah so um

00:06:51.100 in this episode i just i don't think that we can focus on all of the spiritual gifts because that's

00:06:56.840 that's a lot of time yeah we don't have that it's 9 30. yeah but uh dale and i are going to discuss

00:07:02.720 apostleship and prophecy and tongues um and since there are so many people that ask us about it

00:07:08.240 we're going to spend most of the time discussing prophecy and tongues yeah um but let's go ahead

00:07:13.140 and just start with apostleship um and dale i remember a while ago you told me a story about

00:07:18.960 you grabbing lunch with a man who had called himself an apostle um what do you make of this

00:07:25.620 and how should people be viewing this kind of viewing this kind of statement through the lens

00:07:31.420 of scripture yeah this is a pretty i thought it was a real rare conversation but i've actually

00:07:36.580 found out that a lot of people call themselves apostles and so i'm gonna talk about what that

00:07:41.500 means from a biblical perspective so the word apostle means sent one that's really just uh

00:07:46.700 what it means it's a roman word that was given to someone who was in charge of speaking on behalf

00:07:54.060 of the emperor and so that that's what it was basically if you disobeyed an apostle you disobeyed

00:07:59.720 the emperor so that's the kind of understanding in the cultural historical context of the word

00:08:04.940 for the new testament but in the biblical sense um an apostle was given the authority to speak

00:08:10.240 on behalf of god or to speak on behalf of christ and so that's that's why that word is so important

00:08:16.360 It's a big biblical word. And so there's a difference between the office and the gifting.

00:08:25.460 We're going to talk about that in a second. But the office of apostle, the office of the sent ones, there's only 12.

00:08:33.140 And Jesus personally chose those 12 men. You can see that in Luke chapter 6, 12 through 16.

00:08:40.060 But the office of apostle were filled by those 12 men.

00:08:43.540 And we can see this again affirmed in Revelation.

00:08:46.740 Revelation 21, 14 reads,

00:08:48.860 And the wall of the city, he's talking about the new Jerusalem and heaven,

00:08:52.560 and the new heaven and the new earth.

00:08:54.000 It says, And the wall of the city had twelve foundations,

00:08:57.640 and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the lambs.

00:09:02.160 And so I want to connect this just real quick to Paul.

00:09:06.040 Earlier he writes in 1 Corinthians 3,

00:09:09.300 this kind of same idea of building and foundations.

00:09:13.080 And I want you to kind of give you just a bigger picture of this.

00:09:16.200 He says, according to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder,

00:09:21.960 I have laid a foundation and another builds on it.

00:09:25.100 But let each one take heed how he builds on it.

00:09:27.940 So basically what Paul's saying here, what Revelation's saying here,

00:09:31.540 and the idea of apostleship is that the same way, you know,

00:09:35.800 maybe you'd go to your house and draw your name in the foundation of your house

00:09:39.360 before it gets built or before it gets built.

00:09:41.440 um this is exactly what jesus is doing he's giving the apostles the ability to have their

00:09:49.080 names and the foundations of you know the the new jerusalem but really what it is is that he's a

00:09:56.220 master builder of the laying the foundation for the church which jesus christ is the cornerstone

00:10:01.300 and so it's a cool word picture uh at the very least and what this means is there's no longer

00:10:08.740 any capital A apostles, which is bad news for the Mormon church, some Pentecostal churches,

00:10:16.940 and the International House of Prayer, because these people all kind of say this capital A

00:10:21.340 apostle, I'm an apostle, they count it as an office. Now, I will say, I can buy into the idea

00:10:28.580 of there being apostolic workers, and this is little a apostolic workers, which again is

00:10:34.400 basically men who follow in the work that was accomplished by the twelve, the same style of

00:10:40.260 work. And these men, the twelve, what they did is that they were called to plant new churches with

00:10:46.380 new believers. That's really what Paul did. If you look at his life and his ministry, he planted

00:10:50.480 new churches with new believers. Today, we might call these people missionaries. And they're not

00:10:56.680 just traveling evangelists. They are, you know, folks dedicated to really midwifing new churches.

00:11:04.400 Like they're, they're like birthing new churches, preaching the gospel and establishing new churches.

00:11:10.040 So I think to wrap up my point just real quick is you have the office of apostle.

00:11:14.960 That's one thing and that has been filled and there are no longer any living people that are sitting in the office of apostle.

00:11:22.380 And that's a sacred word. It's a big word. And it's really important. We understand that.

00:11:27.260 Then you have the call of apostolic ministry. And that's again, evangelizing and planting new churches.

00:11:34.040 I think a lot of people that call themselves apostles, I think they mean the little a, but it's just good to know the difference, biblically speaking.

00:11:41.100 Yeah. So thank you for sharing your perspective on that.

00:11:44.600 The next spiritual gift that has gained a lot of attention under the modern church is prophecy.

00:11:50.700 A very well-known pastor recently said in a sermon, while you were worshiping, God changed your whole financial situation.

00:11:58.360 I've also heard lots of preachers say things kind of like, God just told me X, Y, Z, or the Holy Spirit has spoken to me and said, or even the word of the Lord for this year is this.

00:12:13.700 Yeah. And so what do we do with this? Is prophecy dead? Is there any validity when people say things like this?

00:12:23.660 but most importantly what does the bible have to say about prophecy yeah i think a lot of people

00:12:30.420 are under educated under educated under educated on the idea of prophecy i think we want to know

00:12:39.440 more about it as a whole as a theme throughout scripture and you know these are important

00:12:45.020 questions what's the difference between old testament prophets and new testament prophets

00:12:50.480 I think this is probably the central question that a lot of people get lost on.

00:12:55.480 And so the Old Testament prophets were like the literal mouthpiece of God.

00:13:01.140 They weren't there to translate.

00:13:03.200 They were there to straight dictate exactly the words that were going to be delivered to the nation of Israel from God.

00:13:11.080 And so there's a verse in Deuteronomy 18, 20 through 22.

00:13:15.300 It's a tough one. I'm going to let Veronica read it.

00:13:17.000 Oh, great. You guys all know how great I am at reading it loud.

00:13:20.480 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak,

00:13:29.940 or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.

00:13:33.880 And if you say in your heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?

00:13:38.220 When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass,

00:13:45.240 that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken.

00:13:47.680 the prophet has spoken it presumptuously you shall not be afraid of him okay so this is a

00:13:55.160 really important passage to understanding old testament prophecy um you know one is that

00:14:01.660 if you say something that it doesn't actually come true you are to be killed and and so old

00:14:08.800 testament prophets like isaiah and jeremiah they had a hundred percent accuracy and again if an

00:14:14.700 accuracy, if it came to be false, what the prophet said, then there was a purpose to die there.

00:14:22.060 And so there's a really heavy expectation for Old Testament prophecy in the nation of Israel

00:14:27.800 under the law and in relationship to those that are sitting in that office. And so I want to break

00:14:35.300 down the difference between Old Testament prophets and New Testament prophets. So I want you to pay 0.68

00:14:40.680 attention. I'm going to say a statement. I'm going to read it because it's just so important.

00:14:44.700 And I'm going to say it twice so that you can grasp the concept here.

00:14:47.620 Okay, Old Testament prophets were foretellers of the future according to God's revealing words.

00:14:56.540 New Testament prophets are foretellers of truth according to God's revealed words.

00:15:04.740 Okay, one more time I'm going to say that.

00:15:06.540 Is that Old Testament prophets were foretellers of the future according to God's revealing words.

00:15:12.820 He's revealing words, and they're speaking it.

00:15:16.020 New Testament prophets are forth tellers of truth according to God's already revealed word.

00:15:22.400 And so the Old Testament prophets are ultimately revealing the word of God as it's being spoken to them.

00:15:29.580 And New Testament prophets are proclaiming the revealed word of God.

00:15:34.140 And so how do we know this?

00:15:35.960 And then we will discuss some differences here in a second.

00:15:39.000 So Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1 through 2 is a really important scripture.

00:15:42.820 knowing that Old Testament prophecy is dead and New Testament prophecy is different.

00:15:49.780 Because it says in Hebrews chapter 1, 1 through 2, it says,

00:15:52.200 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets,

00:16:00.660 but has in these last days spoken to us by his son.

00:16:05.520 And so God used to speak to us, his people, I should say, by the prophets.

00:16:11.140 But now he speaks to us by his son through the gospel and through the Holy Spirit, which we'll talk about here in a second.

00:16:19.520 And I'd argue that this is a really important point.

00:16:23.220 I would argue that after Christ died, even the apostles aren't bringing any new revelation.

00:16:30.860 I think they're just clarifying the revelation that was already revealed in Christ, in the gospels.

00:16:38.040 there if you just even look at at like there's no new way for salvation there's no updated um

00:16:44.960 you know insight on on how to be saved or or how to have a relationship with christ or or the

00:16:50.820 mechanics of the gospel that they're just bringing clarity to those things and so it is a really

00:16:57.660 important distinction for you guys to make so when i hear this um i wonder then what's the difference

00:17:05.120 between a bible teacher and a prophet if a prophet is forth telling god's revealed words

00:17:10.420 then how is that any different than a pastor preaching god's word on a sunday morning yeah

00:17:15.800 this is a good question so uh first corinthians 14 3 tells us what prophecy

00:17:22.840 is in terms of its relationship to the church it says but he who prophesies speaks edification

00:17:33.060 and exhortation and comfort to men so that's that's what prophecy the result of prophecy is

00:17:41.080 is that it's someone that speaks edification exhortation and comfort to men so first we know

00:17:45.580 that it's edifying that's important and we know that it's comforting but for something to be

00:17:52.060 exhorting that means that it's actually corrective and that means that it assumes a moral law of some

00:17:59.120 sort, which again, my thought is that if it, if it's exhorting, it needs to be attached to God's

00:18:04.620 word. That's the moral law that you can exhort something against some sort of objective truth

00:18:10.280 that stands still there. And so again, this is prophecy explained in the New Testament.

00:18:17.440 Now in, in my biblical study and experience, prophecy is something that's always prompted

00:18:24.160 and carried through by the Holy Spirit.

00:18:27.880 And so you're going to see the difference.

00:18:29.540 What I'm saying here is that the words of a prophet

00:18:33.000 must always agree with the word of God.

00:18:36.260 Okay, so just because we have a prompted revelation

00:18:40.140 by the Holy Spirit,

00:18:41.220 in order for it to be validated as a prophecy,

00:18:44.780 a valid prophecy,

00:18:46.420 the words of the prophet must always agree

00:18:49.140 with the word of God, always.

00:18:50.800 and the Spirit and the Word will always agree.

00:18:55.280 Just keep that straight there.

00:18:56.940 You're never going to get anything revealed

00:18:58.460 that doesn't agree or align with Scripture.

00:19:03.520 And so 1 John 5, verse 7 says,

00:19:05.760 For there are three that bear witness in heaven,

00:19:07.600 the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.

00:19:09.560 And these three are one.

00:19:11.940 And so the Word of God and the Spirit of God

00:19:15.400 aren't going to disagree.

00:19:16.720 They're not going to be revealing new information.

00:19:18.680 they're going to be affirming the information that's already revealed.

00:19:23.060 And so that's an important function.

00:19:25.160 1 John 4, verse 1 even warns us to be really careful about people who are saying or claiming that they're prophesying.

00:19:33.440 It says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God,

00:19:41.800 because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

00:19:45.500 So it opens with this command is like, you should already start with skepticism. 0.77

00:19:49.960 Don't believe everybody that calls themselves Christians and says that they're preaching the word of God or having a prophetic word. 0.87

00:19:56.500 Just don't believe it. 0.99

00:19:57.340 No.

00:19:58.100 First thing you do is test the spirits.

00:20:01.080 Now, what do you test them against?

00:20:03.560 You test them against scripture, the word of God.

00:20:06.720 And why?

00:20:07.760 Well, because there's many false prophets that have gone out into the world.

00:20:10.760 So just because someone has a prophecy, if it doesn't align with Scripture and the principles of Scripture,

00:20:15.880 then it's probably a false prophecy.

00:20:18.320 It's probably a false prophet.

00:20:20.620 And so to answer your question, what the difference between a Bible teacher and a prophet is,

00:20:27.260 I view prophecy as a Holy Spirit-prompted preaching, according to God's Word.

00:20:33.940 So I'm going to say that again.

00:20:35.080 I view it as a Holy Spirit-prompted preaching, according to God's Word.

00:20:38.760 And this is different than a prepared teaching of God's word.

00:20:43.580 And we've seen this at church, that you have a prepared teaching where I studied several days before,

00:20:48.860 and I bring a prepared teaching.

00:20:51.820 That's different than an in-the-moment, Holy Spirit-prompted, revealed message.

00:20:58.160 Yeah, scratch the notes. It's just prompted. You start going.

00:21:01.500 Boom. And it's the Spirit is leading, and we are going.

00:21:04.980 And sure, we're going to be talking Scripture.

00:21:06.600 we're going to be talking revelation with conviction with passion the holy spirit's going

00:21:10.360 and i think a lot of people would go like this these are the best sermons when the when the

00:21:14.600 pastor drops the notes and says okay we're just going well totally and and in our situation where

00:21:18.920 we're in a home church i know a lot of you guys are not in a home church um we have a little bit

00:21:22.980 of a unique situation there but i'll notice that uh if there is a holy spirit prompted teaching

00:21:29.560 generally like the other men in the fellowship are prompted as well and like it ends up being

00:21:36.560 like at a really amazing time where you can just see the holy spirit moving through the body of

00:21:41.700 christ yeah and everybody's using scripture because the holy spirit is one with the word of

00:21:48.060 god and all the messages kind of align yeah i mean they do and it doesn't erase the fact that there

00:21:53.980 is expository teaching we we go through the word of god every single sunday as a church should but

00:22:01.360 it becomes that when the spirit when christ is the head of the church and the holy spirit is the head

00:22:05.240 of the meeting in terms of the movement, it's not sitting on your schedule, it's not sitting

00:22:10.460 on your program plan, and a prompting, a revelation is revealed to someone nearby that aligns

00:22:16.740 with the scripture, and we get to test the spirits, is what it says, the spirit of the

00:22:20.920 prophets is subject to the prophets, is what it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, and so

00:22:25.100 there's rules and understanding about prophecy and how those can be played out, and it's

00:22:30.080 important because a lot of people in the culture, the church culture, don't understand

00:22:34.180 this. So, um, New Testament prophecy is the human report of a divine revelation that aligns with

00:22:43.020 scripture. Okay. I'm going to say that one last time. New Testament prophecy is the human report

00:22:49.180 of a divine revelation that aligns with scripture. All right. So the last spiritual gift that we're

00:22:56.380 going to discuss is speaking in tongues. Um, and this reminds me of a little story. Um, many years

00:23:03.060 ago probably maybe a year into me becoming a christian um this is before we were married

00:23:10.340 i went to a pentecostal church where people there were speaking in tongues like everybody in the

00:23:16.900 congregation was speaking in tongues and they kept prompting me to do it and they were even

00:23:22.400 telling me that um that i'm not a christian that i'm not saved because i can't speak in tongues

00:23:27.800 and as a new believer that

00:23:29.740 super discouraging devastated me

00:23:32.200 I was like but like I do believe in God

00:23:33.980 and I do think that I have the least right and they're like no

00:23:35.800 no you don't like not unless you

00:23:37.700 you speak in tongues and I was at

00:23:40.000 this church service and

00:23:41.000 so much so that they like there was several

00:23:43.880 people up in the front but they brought me up to the

00:23:46.020 front I didn't walk up there they brought me up there

00:23:47.800 and several

00:23:49.940 people probably 10 people I don't know

00:23:51.780 were laying their hands on me praying over me

00:23:53.800 and all speaking in tongues and I'm just standing there like

00:23:55.800 sobbing crying because i thought that like i thought i was a christian i thought i gave my

00:24:02.040 life to the lord and just praying and asking god like lord if this is of you please give it to me

00:24:08.180 because i want to serve you and i want to honor you and it never came for me um and so it was

00:24:14.100 really hard to have these close friends who i loved but were telling me that i wasn't a christian

00:24:20.500 and i didn't have the holy spirit um i've also yeah it was just it was a crazy time um

00:24:27.160 so hearing that what do you think uh the bible's perspective is on something like that on this

00:24:35.120 yeah it's um it just makes me mad like that just like it's so sad it makes me mad now now that i

00:24:43.600 have more understanding yeah and guys in the middle of this i'm fighting this fly so it's

00:24:48.500 literally landing on my microphone yeah so um we're buzzing we will win um so yeah speaking

00:24:55.160 in tongues guys is historically speaking in the new testament um it's this spiritual gift that

00:25:03.600 was commonly seen as a result of the holy spirit coming up upon a person that's what you kind of

00:25:07.080 see as the scriptural new testament narrative um as i'm waving my hands here fighting this fly

00:25:12.440 still i'm not going to give up guys um and this is again descriptive of what happened it's not

00:25:17.720 prescriptive of what to do, or of what must occur. It's descriptive of what happened. People spoke in

00:25:23.660 tongues when they received the Holy Spirit. It doesn't imply that that happened to everybody,

00:25:28.140 but it was something that happened quite often in the record, especially in the book of Acts.

00:25:34.380 And so, 1 Corinthians 14.5 is a really key verse for kind of, I guess, removing this false doctrine.

00:25:44.040 Paul, who's writing a letter to the Corinthian church, which is a church full of Christians,

00:25:49.420 he writes them, I wish you all spoke with tongues.

00:25:54.100 I wish you all spoke with tongues.

00:25:56.020 But even more, that you prophesied.

00:25:58.580 For he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues.

00:26:01.600 Okay, so one, first, Paul's telling us that not all Christians speak in tongues.

00:26:07.460 And there's other parts of scripture that would allude this and support this point here.

00:26:12.620 But second, tongues are not to be elevated above prophetic truth.

00:26:18.480 And so it's actually not only is it you don't need it,

00:26:22.140 but it's actually not nearly as important as other spiritual gifts

00:26:26.360 that people are aiming for in terms of the church of this Corinthian time.

00:26:31.080 There's a passage that you need to read.

00:26:34.260 It's too long for me to read on the show right now.

00:26:36.440 It's 1 Corinthians 14, 6-25.

00:26:39.480 and it really gives a great understanding of tongues.

00:26:44.500 I want you to read it and just be with a careful eye,

00:26:47.860 read it slowly, read it in the ESV or the New King James

00:26:52.760 and just get your head wrapped around the idea of tongues.

00:26:56.640 Read it as if you were an attorney reading terms of a contract.

00:27:00.820 Read it as if you were reading it as a 10-year-old

00:27:03.360 and you're just going to take it very literal for what it says

00:27:05.880 and it'll really break down a lot about tongues.

00:27:08.480 But tongues were typically seen as a language where the gospel was being preached in a language unknown to the one who speaks it for the foreign hearer in the room.

00:27:24.700 So it would be like me speaking in tongues in German to the person who only speaks German in the room and is hearing the gospel in German, even though I don't speak German.

00:27:40.520 So that's one expression of tongues, which is awesome.

00:27:45.080 That's not the general expression that we see in the church today.

00:27:49.540 The other expression is like a spiritual utterance.

00:27:53.840 Some people have called it an angelic language that occurs, I think, when a person is in communion with the Holy Spirit.

00:28:03.000 And to an outside world, it's babbling and not edifying.

00:28:07.040 And that passage of scripture I told you to read talks about why it's not something to be done in the church unless there's an interpreter.

00:28:13.960 You need to be careful when you do it.

00:28:15.900 It's not for a public thing.

00:28:17.400 It's a private thing between your relationship with God.

00:28:21.760 And I'll actually read you that verse.

00:28:23.680 It's in that chapter and it's verse 18.

00:28:26.620 It says, I thank my God, I speak in tongues more than you all.

00:28:30.940 Yet in the church, I would rather speak five words with my understanding

00:28:35.580 than that I might teach others also than 10,000 words in a tongue. 0.96

00:28:40.360 He's showing the utter uselessness of tongues without interpretation. 0.99

00:28:45.260 And so what Veronica was dealing with, 0.96

00:28:47.240 all these people babbling at church around her with no interpretation,

00:28:51.040 it was complete chaos.

00:28:52.440 yeah and I was I've been around uh speaking in tongues a lot in my early years of Christianity

00:28:58.400 um and out of those I'd say probably three years that I was in that um only one time did I ever 0.89

00:29:06.800 see somebody interpret a tongue yeah yeah and so um to wrap it up really is not all Christians

00:29:15.180 have the gift of tongues I don't have the gift of tongues um I'll be honest I've prayed for the

00:29:19.640 gift of tongues before um but i don't have the gift tongues john piper did a great video about

00:29:24.580 him talking about that how he prayed for the gift of tongues um and um yeah it doesn't mean that

00:29:31.620 you're not filled with the holy spirit if you don't speak with tongues um and you know therefore

00:29:36.820 you and your relationship with god in private uh don't do it in public unless you have an 0.70

00:29:41.580 interpreter um and that's it we don't need to elevate tongues like the corinthian church did

00:29:46.940 in chapter 14 Paul set them straight in that relationship okay well thank you guys for joining

00:29:55.680 us today on real Christianity as you guys know you can always find this video and the show notes at

00:30:02.600 and this episode at relearnchurch.org forward slash listen there are flies everywhere we're

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Dale Partridge - September 18, 2019

Real Christianity #63： Are Modern Day Prophecy and Tongues Biblical？

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