I have met a number of pentecostals throughout my years. Whenever I have asked, they were all convinced that you had to speak in tongues to be a Christian - or at least that tongues were the evidence that the Holy Spirit was in you. I definitely do not agree with that belief, and that has been something that has damaged my view of the pentecostal/charismatic church.
As of the last few weeks, I have been thinking a lot more on the Holy Spirit, and on spiritual gifts (I am not a cessationalist). Why does prophesy, the gift of tongues, healing, etc. not exist in the church that I attend? Is it because of the structured, spectator-like services that we have, or is it that we don’t earnestly desire it, or is it something else altogether or a combination?
A friend of mine asked me about speaking in tongues a couple weeks ago. So, I read through 1 Corinthians 14. The first verse hit me differently than it ever has before. it says (ESV):
Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
We are commanded to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts! They exist for the building up of the church, which is what we want to do right?
Coming back to the title, for the first time, I met a pentecostal who did not believe that you had to speak in tongues to be a Christian, or to have the Holy Spirit. It was very refreshing, and encouraging. He told me numerous stories of ways that his church used speaking in tongues correctly (according to 1 Cor. 14) and how it built up the church or someone in the church. And, how prophesy or a word of knowledge was used correctly. His theology was right on from what I could tell in our conversation.
So - all that to say that my interest in the role of the Holy Spirit has been heightened. There will probably be more posts to come as I read more.
Holy Spirit
