Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you.
Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with your host, Ben and Spencer.
Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful lens of love.
In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.
So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives.
Welcome to the Love in Context podcast. I try to say it a little different every time for Ben, and I don't know if he appreciates that or not.
It's kind of like, you know how like when somebody texts you a joke and you breathe slightly more air out of your nose than normal?
It's like that. I don't chortle with the light, but I do breathe slightly more air out of my nose. That's how I appreciate it.
I think my next play is just to like leave out words. Yeah.
So I'll be like, welcome to the Love in Context podcast. Context podcast. That is the classes list podcast.
So we are moving on to talking about eye care. Yes.
Fun thing, we're joined by your wife today. We are.
She can introduce herself. I do. I'm married to the beard. Thank you. Married to the beard.
Do you have the beard when you first got married? No, this is new, but I love it. Like Alaska new? No, Alaska. Kid new.
I've only known him with a beard. Yeah. She does not like it when it's gone.
Well, a lot of people don't know, but your name is Lindsay. Yes, that is my name. I have a name.
We should probably let them know because, you know, for our Belgian listener, they're never going to know. I got hiccups.
All my fans need to know. All your fans. So thankfully you came here to come and talk with us today.
We're going to be talking about the spiritual gift of tongues. We're actually continuing on in our spiritual gifts series.
So just kind of giving a recap of where we've been, because we had a couple of weeks where everybody in the world got sick and then it was impossible to schedule anybody.
In fact, Pastor Sarah, who's going to be on next week, we had something scheduled with her and none of us showed up to that meeting. We all forgot. We all forgot.
It was great. She texted and I'm like, yeah, I'll be right there. So, but luckily none of us.
Ben ran up to the church to see if I was there. That I wasn't there. That Ben's like, good news. We all forgot.
I will say we don't want to lie to our podcast listeners. I did not run up here. I definitely. I took my car up here. I am capable of running.
I just something's chasing you like a dinosaur or you're running to keep your kid from doing something that's true. That's fair. I have. I've done both of those things from a dinosaur.
I have. I have been. I have been protecting my children for dinosaurs for like the last five years.
Well, no tax about Alaska. We still have dinosaurs. Yeah. Yeah.
So we're talking about the gift of tongues and clearly we're going to get very far.
But so the way we preface this idea of spiritual gifts is the first we talked about is if you're going to operate in the spiritual gifts, you have to have this idea of loving God and loving others.
Correct. Like this has to be settled. You cannot what you can, but it's not going to bear the fruit of the spirit when you exercise the gift, when loving God and loving other people is not first and foremost correct.
And then we had this conversation about what does it mean to actually hear the voice of God?
Because if you're going to go in relationship with God, you got to be able to hear his voice and to yes, both read the word and talk to the word that is Christ.
And then we talked about how believers are called to exhibit this fruit, this fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patient kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
This is like the bare minimum. If you're going to be walking in the spirit, you should be living a life that is reflective of what the spirit brings in you.
And if you're not loving God, loving other people, you're not listening to God and you're not bearing the fruit of the spirit, you probably shouldn't be engaging in the gifts.
You need to get those things right first. And then we had Les on and we talked about prophecy.
And then we took a two week break. And here we are. We're talking about a non-controversial topic in the church today.
Who would ever get up in the room about that?
Nobody ever gets.
You know, just, you know, we probably have just as much controversy as when we talked about women in ministry.
So this is a proof that your phones listen to you.
Yeah. So we were sitting around the fire the other night and we kind of talked a little bit about this.
And then I was like, I'm going to scroll Instagram for a little bit.
And then it was like four reels in a row about speaking in tongues.
And I was like, aha, aha, you're not very sneaky there.
Instagram, we're on to you. Yeah.
We're on to you, Metta.
Yeah. Yeah.
But there was one reel that was actually really good that it was this pastor he was talking about.
We want to be careful about saying speaking in tongues is the only evidence of the spirit.
Correct. Right. Yeah.
He was saying the he's like evidence of the spirit actually comes in the form of the fruits of the spirit or fruit of the spirit.
Right. In many ways. So love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control and and tongues can be great and it can be a part of that.
But we want to be careful saying that that's the only evidence that you are living in the spirit.
Yeah. I think there's that there's a danger when you when you say it is the evidence.
Yeah. Right.
And that is the evidence you run into this danger of like why I speak in tongues.
Therefore. Right.
And I don't necessarily think that's a healthy posture to have just like you shouldn't have this posture as a pastor like I priest to the church.
Therefore. Or I am a prayer warrior.
Therefore. My favorite is when you get like an elder of a church who's like, well, I am one of the elders of the church and they like put themselves high and mighty.
And I was like, you know, almost every time that's mentioned in scripture, it's mentioned next to humility.
Or there's there's like just to take it away from like the spirit, the the overspirit like spiritual.
But I've actually legitimately heard this in the church.
I give more to the church than anyone.
OK. Like good for you.
Good. That is good.
I'm so happy that you did that.
You guys are going to quickly learn that that my wife's blunt.
Yeah, I got to be to keep up with you.
The man it is.
But this this mentality and so and then the flip side of it is because we have people who listen that are both Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal.
And so we're going to have some people who are really uncomfortable with tongues.
And based on some of the things that they've seen, they probably have a legit reason to be a little uncomfortable with us because it's been definitely abused.
Just like most of the spiritual gifts have been abused.
Yeah. And once again, spiritual gifts being anything that God enables you to do through the spirit that can be preaching, singing, prophecy, healing tongues.
Like there's a lot of things that wrap in under that.
Yeah. So let's take a step back and actually talk about like what is tongues?
Because I think it's been kind of narrowly defined, but it's a lot broader than that.
Maybe we think. Yeah.
I think probably the first occasion that we actually see of something where they talk about some sort of heavenly language.
Now, there's some there's a lot of things that happen in the Old Testament and I would reference them.
But the easiest example for us to go to is going to be an axe to.
Yes. So at the at the culmination of Shavuot, we call it Pentecost.
Shavuot being the festival where all the people are gathered in the temple and it's a harvest festival.
Right. Takes place on the same day as Pentecost. So everybody's in the temple celebrating.
They're there in the morning, which is why Peter makes a statement.
He says, no, we're not drunk. It's nine o'clock in the morning.
Right. It's early in the morning, which, by the way, this is going to this may throw a wrench in some of your perspectives on the falling of the spirit happening in the upper room.
There's a lot of scholarly and biblical conversation that in fact would have happened in the temple, not inside of the upper room.
Yeah, because there's no place for three thousand plus people to be at a person's house.
Yeah. Yeah. So this would have happened at the temple.
And and I actually Brad Gray has a great video on that in his Bread of Life series.
Go and check that out of where he talks about the reason.
Now, if you believe it's still the upper room, totally cool.
But we're going to proceed with the idea that it happened at the temple.
So they're at the temple and mirroring the story from Exodus, they're on the top of this mountain and there is clouds that come about.
There's thunder on the mountain and something like fire descends from the heavens.
Now, if you're a Jew here in the story, you're like, this is the Exodus where they got the where they received the law at Sinai, except something else is happening in the fire.
Instead of coming down and consuming sacrifices now comes and it rests on people and they start to prophesy and speak and they start praising God.
But it's super weird for the people who are there because they come from Crete and from Syria and from modern day Turkey.
And they come from Egypt and they're from all over the place.
And they're like, why are they speaking Egyptian? Why are they speaking Turkish? Right.
Why are they speaking Macedonian? I don't know if Macedonian is language, FYI.
But like and yet one person is saying something and all of these different people are hearing it.
So this is the first demonstrative thing that we see in tongues is that God enables all the listeners to be able to hear in their own individual language the praises that are being uttered.
Yeah, like something significant is happening, something gospel revelation power wise. The the power of the Holy Spirit is coming on as people to are then going to go and be witnesses.
And God's like, everybody needs to hear this. And the other thing that Jewish people, they might be connecting as a reverse from the Torah, Babel.
Oh, yes. Oh, so good. Is is that you will is that Torah, Babel, everyone was given different languages.
They scattered and scattered. But then this came and then everybody was able to understand and be unified again.
Man, I love that connection. And so that's that's a beautiful idea. Taking it all the way back to Genesis.
Yeah. So this is the first occasion that they have with tongues.
But that's often not what we talk about today when people are talking about tongues, though I don't know about you, Spencer.
I've known a number of people who missionaries overseas and they have told me stories about they're in a location that they can't speak the language.
They start talking and people understand them in their own language. Yeah. Yep.
And and, you know, they weren't doing the by the way, this is this is not poking fun at anybody who speaks in tongues is just an example.
But they're not doing the Shabbat of us. Right. They're speaking English or or whatever their native language is.
And it's coming out to the people in their native language. And the gospel is moving forward.
Well, I had I had a time where in my life in high school, where I was being prophesied over, where a group was being prophesied over.
And there's a couple of people there were Spanish was their main language.
They understood English song, but Spanish was their main language.
And then at the end of the time of us being prophesied over the they were like, oh, it's so good to be prophesied over in our own language.
And I was like, oh, I was like, bro, that was English. Yeah.
And they're like, no, it was Spanish. And we're just like, that's amazing. Yeah. Right.
Like that someone was prophesying and that we all understood our own in our own language. Right.
The the more controversial bit that I think comes up about tongues is when people talk about the heavenly language. Right.
They talk about the the language of I'm going to say angelic language because in in First Corinthians, Paul says, you know, if I speak in the tongues of men and angels.
Right. Is is a good reference point. Yeah. And this is the the thing that doesn't sound like English.
And, you know, I playfully said Shabbat Abba's, but it really depends on the person.
Like everybody speaks slightly different, which is is actually kind of one of the identifying marks is that it's actually not the same.
It's unique. It's it's something between that person and God.
But they they speak in unintelligible words is what I'm going to call them.
Now, this is not a not a not a gift that I personally have at least that I know have have participated in.
But it is a gift that I've seen other people participate in and you can feel the power of the Holy Spirit moving through them.
On the flip side of that, I've had some people do it and it's definitely not the power of the Holy Spirit moving through them.
And I guess there's just maybe sensitivity and knowing God in that situation.
Yeah, I think we need to back up just a little bit. Yeah, please.
Before we fully dive in there. There are then laughs that we went around the fire the other day.
But there are people where I lack of for lack of better word, I say can just conjure it up.
Yeah. Right. Who who can just rattle off in tongues. No problem. Right.
Then there's other people like myself where I've had times where I've been in deep prayer and I have no idea what I'm saying.
But I know I'm in a sleeping for someone. Yeah. Right.
But by the way, that conjuring idea is in people and they do it in English, too, because I've heard that I've heard Brother Deacon get called to pray.
And he's and he rises up and his voice goes, oh, magnanimous Lord.
You're right. Yeah. I was like and it's like this whole reverent, like persona that they slide into.
You're conjuring then, too. Yeah. Yeah.
So so where are there wherever you fall on this with you're like, well, I've known I've had times where I'm praying, but I don't know what I'm saying.
But I know I'm interceding for a friend or what not. Great.
Or if you are someone who can just speak in tongues on demand. Great.
Or if you're someone who's never done it, that's OK, too.
Spirit moves all of it like spirit moves in all of it has a place in a place.
Yeah. And there are there are times where it is a there are times where tongues are totally appropriate, like in private prayer life.
Absolutely. Right. In the public sphere, Paul actually puts structure.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I don't know about you, but I've had times where tongues have been spoken and there's been interpretations and it's been awesome.
Yeah. I've had another time where I was at a youth conference and the main speaker got up and just spoke in tongues for like 20 minutes and all the students.
They're like, what's happening right now? And then he tried to explain to him like, well, that made no sense.
Yeah. And it was like so. So there is a structure to it when you are publicly proclaiming.
Well, and let's let's talk about that structure because Paul is having a conversation with Corinth.
Now, we've talked about Corinth a couple of times, especially in the women in ministry.
But I I recently was talking about Corinth. The best way to explain them in a modern city might be like Las Vegas, but on the coast.
Yeah. Right. That is the core.
Yeah. Like, of course, what course was a pretty like crazy city.
Yeah. And you know, a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds with a lot of and then and he had to explain to them because they're like, oh, I have the spirit of prophecy.
I have the spirit of tongues. I have the spirit of healing. And he's like, well, hold on. It's the same spirit. Right.
Same spirits doing the same thing. You all have the Holy Spirit and you're being gifted differently.
So like you don't need to stand up and be like, well, I have the spirit of tongues, so I must speak.
And well, maybe depends on what the spirit is doing. You need to be sensitive to the spirit, the spirit that is moving in all of you.
And so he's trying to, you know, because you're dealing with a polytheistic society that is now understanding that God is one. Right.
Yeah. And so if you have a bunch of people who think that their gift is the most important thing, not that we would ever run into this. Right.
Not that we would ever run into this. You put some structure being like, hey, let's figure out how we do this.
And our meanings are chaos. By the way, I like being chaos. I don't know if you saw this Instagram reel where the lady was talking about.
She's like, I went to church and did you know that they plan everything?
And then like people. Yeah. And then people, people stitch it and they're like, what did you want them to do?
It was like, just like show up and be like, all right, who's got a plan? What are we going to do? You know, got the word today.
And and like, you know, she talks about like they have greeters that are meant to like welcome you is like, don't be welcoming.
And like, you know, just a bunch of, you know, like the music is supposed to connect you to like spiritually with what God is doing.
And I'm like, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, can you imagine doing anything without a plan?
Like the difference, of course, between having a plan, but also being sensitive to what God is doing in the moment.
And then you go into a job interview and they're like, so they're like, so what's your vision for this job?
You're like, I'm just going to wing it. Yeah. They're going to be like, that's great.
There's the door. I imagine when I get there, I'm going to have an idea of what to do. Yeah. Right. In the moment.
Right. I don't want to spoil it with my planning ahead. Right.
And so like there is a place for structure. Yeah. You got to have structure.
And speaking in tongues is is no exception to that. Yeah.
And going back to First Corinthians 13, where Paul is talking about I can speak in the language of tongues and of men and angels.
But if I don't love the noisy gum, it's a noisy gum.
Shabba da ba da.
Backing up to your point about like when you're interceding for people and you're not necessarily thinking about what you're saying, but you're just like,
I would say spiritually groaning for what God is doing. Right.
Like I've been there. I was like, but I've never consciously like in my mind, like spoken in tongues.
And so there's a reason we brought Lindsay on today because now she's going to give a 30.
No, a 35. It's a magic trick. No.
Though I want to conjure it up. Not conjure. I can willingly. I am not editing.
I am not editing that out. I'm going to. I'm going to. It's not conjure, but you know what I mean. Carry on. Carry on.
To the NID to like have them change it to conjuring up tongues.
Somewhere. Please put this up there. OK, so just to specify, we actually don't think you should conjure anything.
The Holy Spirit is always present and we're connecting to what the Holy Spirit is doing all the time. Yes. Yes.
But from from your experience, because you are God has given you the gift of tongues.
What is it? What is it about speaking in tongues specifically that connects you with God?
It is I mean, it's a little bit like this was saying to like, or you guys have both experience where you pray.
You're praying and sometimes you just don't know what to pray or you're in a situation where you just don't know.
And like you're like you just. Your heart cries out your spirit long for this person in this situation or whatever is going on.
It's it's words that can come out. So people, I mean, I think we all have the times can say, oh, I probably.
I've felt something and I wanted to speak it and not known and speaking tongues.
If there because again, it's the personal a lot of times speaking tongues that people do are able to just.
Speak in a language that is heavenly and that the angelic language or however you want to phrase it, that is not their native language.
It's not a language you can't like can hear and be like, oh, I learned that in school. Yeah, you know, I learned that.
That's definitely Dutch Indonesian. Exactly. Yeah, you're like, oh, I know that one.
But it's a way that your your spirit can reach out your spirit.
It feels like your spirit is able to say something that you're like, I know I want to say it, but I don't know exactly what it is.
Right. So I have now have words that I may not even. Cognitively understand what it is I'm saying, but I know that it's my spirit saying I need to reach out to God for this.
Or I need to praise God for this, but it's also a personal thing.
It's not one that for the most people, most situations, most times is not a language that you're like, I have tongues and all hear me during worship as I tell you the glory of God through words you will never understand because there's not someone here to interpret.
It's this very specific. Like if you have if somebody has words to share in tongues, somebody also has to have the gift of interpretation, which is also a gift that you know.
And it happens much more. It's much rarer than the natural like I'm speaking because I want to pray and sing to God.
One. And I think I think what you're nailing on the head there is that when you're speaking in tongues in your prayer closet or during worship before you for yourself, like where you're connected with God and something where you let's just say you reach the end of yourself.
And like then you start stepping into where God is right.
Like you allow him to walk you through those things like you know what's going on in that moment.
You do because you know how you're connected with God and God might be communicating with you in pictures or in like feeling or like these different ways.
Right. When you're when you just speak that over somebody who is not inside your brain and there is no interpretation, it's chaos because they have no idea what you're doing.
Right. I think there's never there to have over a person or over to a group.
Right. Because I've used it in prayer for a person where I was like and then but they're not good because you're like this is what I feel like needs to be prayed. But it's not a group thing.
Right. And usually it's behind their base. No. Okay. Yeah. And that's the wrong word. But like it's like it's not for them to hear is more like I'm going to I'm still reaching out to God for this person.
Yeah. And I think I'm even on the personal level that works a lot better. But when you have a group of people it doesn't quite work.
My turn to pray and worse. Yeah. And so like if I'm sitting there and like there's like 15 people there and somebody just gets up and they rattle something off.
Okay. Like what do I do with that. You know it is incidentally really interesting. My brother and I were having this conversation because he was looking into edit tongues and having a conversation about it.
And my brother is also fairly Pentecostal not the one who lives here the one who lives in Washington. And just so in case they're listening I am not throwing my oldest brother under the bus.
He is not super Pentecostal. But he was having you know the thing is that the interpretation actually doesn't have to come from somebody else.
It can come from you. But there needs to be an interpretation. So if you rattle something off and you don't know what it means unless somebody else is interpreting like you probably shouldn't have done it.
Yeah. Like that's what Paul's getting at here. He's like you need to actually be able people need to be able to receive what you're actually giving from God.
Cool. Which by the way that is true for most of our spiritual gifts.
Most things we say in general should be. Well so this is like because I'm going to take a step out of the spirit like not out of the spiritual but out of the spiritual gifts and I want to talk about preaching the gospel.
And people will make a statement they say well preaching the gospel is the most important thing you can do. I said yes but if somebody is starving they can't hear you.
Well we come from Christian camping and like one of the things that we one of the models we had in camping was like if you want them to hear you feed them like like make sure they have a good meal because if they're hungry by the time you're sharing the gospel they're not going to retain it.
No. I mean let me rephrase that. Thank you very well. That can still work. Yeah. Yeah. God often works in spite of us. Yes. But but there's a reason why we actually meet the needs of those around us.
But so like one of the things they did in their food planning which worked most of the time is they actually just upped what the number like what they thought they needed per person by 25 percent 20 to 25 percent because they're like it might is might mean a little more food waste.
But we want to make sure everybody has full bellies. Yeah. So that when they sit down to hear the gospel that they're not distracted by being hungry. Yeah.
One and it's when you are when you are paralyzed by pain or thirst or hunger or you're in jail or sick or any of these things like you.
There's a reason why God talks about being rivers in deserts and shade in a in a dry land like there's a reason he talks about us doing these things and in Isaiah he makes a quote he says this quote says a king will reign in righteousness princes will rule the justice.
Each man will be like a shelter in a great storm like water in a thirsty land and then the eyes of those that can see will be opened and the ears of those that can hear will be or will hear.
Well and when people talk about OK well we just need to preach the gospel it's like well so what do you do with Matthew 25 then where Jesus is separated out the sheep from goats and it's like you didn't go to these places and you didn't feed me you didn't clothe me you didn't
mess with me in prison you didn't take care of me.
Now I'm not I think on the flip side of that you can also say if all you ever do is meet people's needs and you never you never bring the gospel and you have this invitation but you never actually open people up to this world where the kingdom of heaven is among us.
Yeah.
Recognize through Jesus's life death burial resurrection.
Then there's a problem with that too.
Yeah.
Like they're meant to walk hand in hand our generosity and this invitation walk hand in hand.
Right. It is an invitation to a table.
Yeah.
And you're not required to sit there.
But regardless of whether you sit there or not we are going to make sure your needs are met.
Right. And so like the same idea when we when we talk about like tongues is it's not about like the prayer language sure it's about you.
It's about God connecting to you and you connect into God and actually connecting your spirit in some capacity.
Right.
And when you're speaking it out you actually need to make sure that the person who is you're speaking to is capable of receiving what you're giving.
Right.
It was meant to be a message they need to be able to.
Yeah.
Understand and receive.
And and I think I think there's a temptation in I'm going to say Pentecostal culture where they're like oh well if you just do this then people will recognize that it's from God.
I'm like.
I mean I have a reference point right. And and Paul one of the best missionaries I know I didn't know him actually.
I didn't know Paul. Just going to be honest.
I am very old.
Like dirt is a little bit younger than me.
The but Paul in his missionary conversations he would go and he would learn like talk about their local gods and then he would talk about you know these different things that have man of man and then he wants to talk about the God outside.
Like so he finds commonality and he quotes their philosophers and like finds a way to connect with them in a way that's going to connect with them.
And I think that's really important for us today because if you work with a lot of teenagers if you talk about God Jesus with teenagers like the knowledge of what they know now versus what they mean 20 years ago just as like general knowledge if they've never been to church.
20 years ago there's kind of a general understanding like oh yeah God he has sent Jesus something about a cross right.
Right now. Now they're just like what are you talking about.
Yeah. Like we have no idea. God had a son. Yeah.
Like I remember beyond beyond the fact that it's a swear word.
Yeah. I remember doing a teaching series for youth groups I took over and and the whole premise was built around that they had the idea that God had a son.
Right. And so I mentioned Jesus God's son one of the kids was like raises his hand and I'm like what I was like what's up and he's like God had a son.
All right. We're gonna take everything I had planned. Chuck it out the window for right now. Yeah.
Go pick that up later. Yeah. Yeah. And it's you know and I don't want to discount like miraculous moments. Yeah. Right.
Because I think God does use the spontaneous and like the but in our day to day lives like if you look actually yes Peter gets up and he speaks to a bunch of people and they all hear him in their own language and they talk to them about Jesus and how there's access to heaven now through the sacrifice of Jesus right.
That the heaven has now come to earth right. The spirit has been poured out on all flesh. 3000 respond that day.
But then over the next weeks months of what happens in Jerusalem they start praying together eating together fellow shipping together reaching out to the people around them and the churches grows by leaps and bounds.
It says that daily people were added to their number. It wasn't because of miraculous events that were happening.
It was because now the miraculous lived inside of people and they went and took the kingdom of God to people in both the way that they took care of their needs and the way that they spoke.
So one of the other things that I thought about with tongues that I wonder if is not something that does because we talked about you speak in one language and people here in another.
Have you ever taught or preached and you said something are you like you reached the entire sermon someone comes up afterwards and they're like I really liked it when you said and then they say like a two sentence thing and you're like I never said that.
Like nowhere in my sermon did I ever bring that up nowhere in my teaching did I bring that up but it connected with something that was going on in their life and they're like yeah guys was speaking to me and I need to do X Y Z right.
Yeah I well over Christmas I had that happen I was preaching at church about the sacrificial lamb and talking about Bethlehem Bethlehem was a place that raised sacrificial and all this stuff.
And then the lady came up to me afterwards and I was like I really liked it when he talked about Elijah and I was like I didn't talk about Elijah but like she's like he really gave me but but for her she's like it really gave me words to say to my son who's not a believer and to share some of what I believe with him and all this stuff and like so I was I was there for it.
Right. But when she got done I was like I was like racking my brain I was like I didn't say any of that right. And I know I mean I just know so many pastors who have said the same thing is like they they have people come up and they're like yeah I love it when you said this and I didn't say that.
And they're like when you applied this I could just hear like my own life and it's like you're just like reading my mail they're like I literally prepared the sermon weeks ago and I don't know who you are.
You know like yeah and it's just I think I think that's one more like evidence of the Holy Spirit and taking the words that we say so when we when we choose to partner with God and we speak words out into the world we speak them with the spirit.
So that one of the reasons why being filled with the Holy Spirit is important when you preach and teach and love and do anything is because that action gets translated to what God wants to do in the world.
Yeah. Right. But we're still responsible for partnering with him in those things. Right.
But yeah so just back and track backtracking to that idea of the Lord just speaking in spite of us. Right.
Because that's kind of what we're talking about a little bit.
Sometimes sometimes when we are proclaiming the good news the gospel to people there are the times where people where their lives are just changed from those little interactions.
I was having dinner with a friend a while back and he told the story about how he was at camp and the speaker came up to him said hey you're going to do great things and walked away.
And he and he was like that was a transformative moment in my life because someone saw me and saw that there was value and that I was actually and that I was actually valued by God was going to great things for God.
And the funny thing is actually knew the speaker was so I texted her and I was like hey I just want to share a story with you and she's like that's awesome.
I don't remember that at all. Right.
Like like there's those times where the spirit moves in us and we might not know what we're saying or what we're doing or the significance of this idea.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I had I had other times where I had another story where I had got a phone call me like hey we need you to come speak at camp and I was like oh OK like when they're like now.
I was like I was like what do you mean now they're like like they're like session starts in five minutes.
Perfect. And I was like great.
So I go down there and I'm like I have no idea what I'm going to say.
Right. And then you share and kids were like dude that was awesome.
Thank you for sharing. And then I got done with it and I was like and then I had some of the other staffing like dude that was that was great.
Like how did you pull that off in five minutes. I was like I want to be honest with you. I have no idea what I just said.
Yeah. Right.
Like I have no idea what I just said.
Like I sometimes the Lord moves in ways like that too.
Yeah. And I think I think specifically with that because one of the things I've gone back and forth is like people are like oh well you need to not prepare.
You just need to be full of the spirit on Sunday and then go out and have a talk.
I don't think that's a good day to day idea. I think that what you do is you devote yourself to the scripture you devote yourself to prayer you devote yourself to preparation and then you ask God to breathe on it and follow him.
Yeah. Right.
We have a plan of where we're going. But I'm saying God breathe and then I'm sensitive to what God is saying in the moment.
Yeah. Right.
I want to talk about some things that are not helpful in the tongues conversation.
It is. Oh yeah.
And they're just not helpful when we're trying to find unity with the body of believers.
So if you are a person who does not speak in tongues talking about people who are weird that speak in tongues all the time is not helpful.
No.
If you are we might be weird. Am I speaking in tongues and the two may not be related.
On the flip side of that if you're a person who speaks in tongues and you make a statement that says well you must not have the spirit because you can't speak in tongues.
That is not helpful.
That's not helpful.
There's very little there's very little to none for scriptural basis for you to hold either one of those positions.
The Bible is full of much stranger things than people speaking in tongues.
Dead people rising dead people rising again all sorts of stuff.
Right. Or how about the body of Elisha falling in a grave and like the people get up and they're like moving around.
Right. He falls like his body falls and like yeah I mean it was some crazy stories.
Or one of my favorites is when Saul finds out where David is hiding and he sends people after him and they keep coming close to the city and they start prophesying and they forget what they're doing.
And then Paul is like I'm going to go get David and he gets close and he starts prophesying and praising God and can't get close to the city either.
Like that's one of my favorite stories like this because it's so weird and awesome.
Or you know Jesus taking two loaves and or five loaves and two fish and feeding 5000 plus people.
Right. Like the Bible has like crazy stories people speaking in a heavenly language not that strange.
So harassing people about that or harassing people for not having that both bad.
We need to learn how to live together and seek the spirit together and love each other well.
Avoiding the topic of tongues is not a good choice.
Dwelling on the topic of tongues also not a great choice because I feel like you get lopsided both ways.
I mean I don't know if you guys have been part of churches where like it's one spiritual gift is so heavily emphasized that there's no balance in the in the diet.
Yeah. You know I mean I was involved with some some ministers of things where speaking in tongues was huge.
It was a big thing where like the it wasn't that that was the only thing but it was like you sought after it.
And if there is a benefit to it like speaking in tongues like is a great way to like I'm choosing to speak in tongues to connect to God even though I may not feel it or may not know how to.
So the but it was the sometimes it came to the point of being like praying to speak just pray with all your just praying to you get the tongues and you speak it and then you will connect to God more and it will be deeper.
It'll be great rather than being like God does speak the spirit moves through us in various ways and the ways and sometimes it's the ways we need it to we get the gifts we need and the gifts God needs us to have.
Yeah. Can you imagine if somebody said for preaching there's like just get up and fake it until it's true.
Like I'm like let that sit with you for a minute like that's a crazy thing right.
That's a great way to proclaim some heresy.
Right. Get up there and fake it until it's true right until until God moves on you with the real word.
Yeah. Like just fake it like.
But there are a lot of people do that with tongues.
They're like just say gibberish until it starts until it starts flowing.
Also not not helpful because what you're going to end up getting people to do is chasing a feeling rather than the spirit and like trying to make something happen.
We call it conjuring. You're trying to conjure something inside of you rather than being graced with a gift from God.
Now that being said if you are a you are passionately seeking the gifts and you're seeking that in your prayer time.
I'm there for it like in your closet with you with God or with like trusted friends like in your seeking after God because it's something that you want.
I was like it's OK to look a little foolish.
I was like but don't do this just because you want to speak gibberish until something happens.
Like there's a tension that we walk as believers because like you can't ignore the power.
But at the same time the power is built on relationship.
Yeah. And and just being completely transparent like most of the conversations I've had with people around speaking in tongues when they're like OK we want to talk about this.
I was like great. Do you love Jesus with everything you got like yeah I was like do you love the people around you with the love of Jesus.
Yeah I was like great. No like that's it. I was like yeah.
If you're if you're speaking in tongues if you're doing those things great if you're doing those things you're speaking in tongues great for doing those things and not speaking in tongues great.
We also like miss the conversation too with gifts of spirit to and speaking tongues is like God intentionally made of all of us unique.
Like we can't all be the same because God is too vast for all of us to be images of him. So we all have to be little glimpses of it.
So it wouldn't make sense for every little glimpse to speaking tongues it would make sense for every little glimpse glimpse to preach or to serve or heal or to whatever the gift is or we all are uniquely made to connect to God and to serve him in different ways.
And we can't all we shouldn't all feel bad or seek for what we okay we should seek for all that God wants to use us and be with us and then as in how he wants to stick around be what he designed us to be.
We shouldn't seek to be the person we're not just because somebody else like that person is great and I want to do that right.
That may not be the way God wired you to be and that is fine.
That ding is somebody texting us while we're trying to record how dare them.
Yes.
And with that said we need we need those people around us who are different.
Right.
We're only around same people like us we're going to very lopsided and narrow view of what the body is and what God is.
If I looked at my wife right now and said I am very detail oriented.
They can see it.
They can see you.
So don't lie.
Just don't lie.
They can see.
Well one of the things one of the things I can tell you as knowing you for a while is that I'm going to call you on that because I know you well enough to know the details are not your thing.
No.
Yeah they're not.
And so people who are good at details they're great to have in my life.
They also annoy the crap out of me because I'm like yeah because there's things with details I'm like I should be able to handle that right.
One of the one of the things my wife and I've had the conversation about because part of the way that my brain works and there's a possibility that I have that I'm on the spectrum of some sort.
That's always very possible.
But the way my brain works I also have a very low EQ which she has done dutifully and helping me raise my emotional you know.
I have a very low EQ which is a very low EQ ability and often like sometimes like somebody will do something I'll be like well stop doing that idiot.
You know and they're like and she's like you can't say it like that.
I was like why they're being dumb and she's like because people don't accept it like that.
I was like OK so how should I say it.
She's like do it like this.
And so like I'm learning.
My wife is much more emotionally intelligent than I am right and I'm learning and I and the big thing is that I have no qualms about apologizing over and over again for my lack of emotional awareness.
It but can you imagine if I only hung out with people who never got offended.
Right.
I probably get offended by them.
Yeah.
But like having having people who exercise the guess is a really is a really crucial part of the body and I have I have gotten huge benefit from people who speak in tongues around me.
Right.
That have opened me up to like the movement of the spirit and things that are happening.
Yeah.
The one of the one of the other things we want to mention that is not helpful when you say that the gift of tongues is the evidence not helpful.
We talked about that.
It's not helpful.
It can be a evidence.
It can be unevidence.
Yes.
And I think that it is a very demonstrative evidence.
But it's not the evidence and scripture is pretty clear on that because there is a lot of things that actually go there's a spirit and the spirit does this and he does this and he does this and this but it's one spirit working in all of us to do specific things.
Well and one of the things that is almost tied in trees and trades that intrinsically.
The word is intrinsically and I'm not editing that out.
One of the things that is almost always tied with the speaking in tongues and scripture is the broadening of understanding.
Right.
Like you see that in Acts chapter two where they speak and everyone's able to understand.
Yeah.
Right.
You see that in first Corinthians when Paul's providing structure for he's like well don't just get up and do the Shabbat Abba is like how somebody interpreted.
Right.
And so like and then when there is also there's other times in scripture to where a language is spoken and people understand.
Yeah.
What is going on.
And so it's it's meant part of it is meant so that you can understand more of who God is.
He has for you.
And if you're if we're not living into that piece of it that can be very it can be very destructive.
Yeah.
And I know I say like for being the one that does speak in tongues in this group not but I think too there are people speaking tongues and hearing this like I think there is there is times though like where you have to trust God and be like you need if you're speaking out loud there has to be an interpreter.
But sometimes I've had been situations where somebody's been like I know I need to speak in tongues they do and you have to wait and trust that that person who hears it is going to also have the strength or the courage to be like this is what it says.
So there is also a learning to grow in the gifts too.
But again it's the leaning into knowledge and broadening of understand is like some there may be times where you're like I feel like God wants me to say something and I have no idea what it means because it's not in a language I understand.
And you have to be like I'm trusting that somebody here knows what this is because I'm trusting that this is what I need to do.
Well but if that's your always go to then you like might want to be like well maybe we need to reevaluate like.
Interesting story about that is that guy that I know he I think he's probably 80 90 at this point but he made he made a comment to me one time because he's talking about spiritual gifts and he comes from a very traditional background so not charismatic at all is not a kind of guy who would necessarily lean into the spiritual gifts in any capacity.
But he is at a church and somebody stood up and they spoke in tongues and like he's like leaned over to his wife and he's like I know what they said and she's like well then you better get up and say it.
But he didn't.
Now the flip side of that is is that you may be a person who doesn't speak in tongues and you might be an interpreter.
You never know and you're not going up you never and it is your responsibility to stand up and be able to speak into that because you're partnering with what God is doing.
One of the last things I want to I want to just mention is that if you are engaging in the spiritual gifts that is prophecy tongues healing and like other other spiritual gifts of course but these are the big ones we're talking about in the podcast episodes.
There should be something different about you after interacting with the spirit of God.
One of the things that is very true of the Bible is that every time somebody comes in contact with the spirit of God they're not the same.
And so one of my concerns that I have seen in in spiritual gifts is people exercising gifts and I'm putting them in quotation marks and then the next day they look the exact same as they always looked right.
Their life still doesn't demonstrate the fruit of the spirit.
When you come in contact with the spirit of God in in a in a powerful way like through tongues through healing through prophecy through all the other gifts even in like teaching and worship and gratitude like all the different places that God can meet you.
Something changes about you because a little piece of heaven touches you.
And maybe I might say that heaven gets inside of you a little bit.
And it concerns me when that when somebody is talking about moving the spiritual gifts but their life never actually changes.
I just don't think that you're encountering the spirit of God because I've never seen the spirit of God touch somebody and then be it be exactly the same.
And last thing I would say is if somebody and if the gifts are exercised tested against scripture tested against the word of God.
Right. Because there are people who can unfortunately kind of fake it like you were just talking about.
And so tested against what the word has.
Yeah. Well he's written down.
There's a reason why we tell people you need to know the word of God so that when God speaks, you're able to do know what his voice sounds like.
Yeah.
Because that's important in Pentecostal non Pentecostal churches alike, because you're going to have pastors who get up and say something and you're they're like this is the word of God and you're like, well it's a word.
About the word of God said lots of words said lots of words there, you know, your situations to where the people who are speaking are offended by you doing that.
You probably need that. There's some things you probably should look at to you or like there might be reasons why I think the most healthy place you can be is where people are like, I'm telling you this, but you should go look for yourself.
You need to study to you need to do your do your own pursuing of God.
I was in a conference one time and the speaker, there is a friend of mine recommended the speaker and they're like there. She's awesome. And then she came in and just did a horrible job.
It's a bummer. And like but there were people who are like, oh man what she said was good and I was like, it wasn't like, and then we had to have these series of conversations with people afterwards being like, okay, like, like, we see where she's getting this stuff from, but that's actually not what the Bible teaches.
Correct. Sometimes people can quote the Bible and not be biblical. Yeah. Yeah. And so we want to be we want to be really we want to test everything against the word of the Lord.
Yeah. And so speaking in tongues is no different.
Yeah, I'm not all of the spiritual gifts. They're not going to be absent of conflict because conflict is just a natural part of life like in a marriage.
You guys had conflicts, I'm assuming.
Well, just at one point or another he was cleaning the kitchen up and she's like, and this goes here.
And I was I was like, I just put it where it makes sense. And she's like, No, you didn't. And I was like, I absolutely did. Now, dear listeners, I'm inclined to agree with Lindsay on this one because I've seen where Spencer puts things.
So wherever it fits, like this could go here. It's so spiritual. Spiritual gifts are not absent of conflict. But if there is an absence of love and compassion, I would question whether or not you're operating in the spirit.
Yeah, because the fruit of the spirit is going to be love. Sometimes love is uncomfortable because you have to address some really bad things.
Yeah, but it's always valuing the person over the issue. Yes. And if there's never some discomfort or conflict or like there's no growth from it. Correct. There's a lot of theories of like.
And I think one of the biggest things with love though that we often can forget to exercise is keep no record wrong.
Right. Like it's something I personally have been working on in my life and my marriage can be very easy to be like, well, you did this. You did this. You said yes to this.
But like, right. When really it's like, no, like address the issue. Let it go. Move on. Yeah. Right. Right.
This is where I should tell you I accidentally broke the handle on the truck.
Oh, OK. I just get one. That's fine. I mean, I guess it's better than her purposely breaking it. I was accidental. I mean, the trucks got together.
Listen, there's just so you know, like my definition of a reliable car. Four wheels that move is very, very low.
Yeah, I don't even know if it's that high. I mean, it could probably have three wheels in moving. He'd probably be OK. As long as it's balanced. I've driven those. Yeah, I've driven those.
So I don't know if this is this is a helpful conversation on tongues. I hope it is. I think the big thing that we want to take away is that it is a legitimate part of what God does in the in the body.
Yeah, it's not for everyone, but it is for everyone. Yes.
Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Next week, we're going to have Pastor Sarah on and we're going to be talking about healing and deliverance, which will be kind of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So until next time.
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