|
|
|
Robert J Borer: Devoted Charismatic to the Third Way Full Testimony 1958
was the year. The year I was born, that is. Born into this world to a lower
middle class Catholic family, in small-town Nebraska, USA. About
twelve years later, I was born into another world. No, I did not die and get
reincarnated somewhere. I'm talking “in a figure” this time. This time I was
born into the world of Charismaticism and fanaticism (under the leadership and
influence of my parents). As
part of my indoctrination into this new world, I was taught that getting filled
with or baptised in the Holy Spirit was the next step in walking with God, after
getting 'saved'. And the evidence that you had arrived and were baptised was
'speaking in tongues.' Speaking in tongues was supposed to be a supernatural
ability that was imparted by the Spirit that gave you, essentially, a hotline to
heaven. If
we move on down the road another twelve years, we find that I am born yet again!
This time into the world of high profile Charismatic 'ministry.' I’ve moved my
family to Tulsa, Oklahoma (USA) to begin working for "Dave Roberson
Ministries." Dave Roberson was a highly anointed/gifted (or so it seemed)
and charismatic (in both senses) healing and teaching evangelist that I highly
esteemed, whose teaching centred around 'tongues' as the pivotal and all
important spiritual gift. Dave
attributed both his anointed healing and teaching ministry to tongues. According
to him, ‘tongues' was a well from which you could draw nearly all other things
spiritual. It was the key to spiritual edification. It was the key to
understanding the mysteries of God. It was the key to building yourself up on
your most holy faith. It was the key to health and prosperity. It was the
doorway to the other 'gifts.' It was the key to power in ministry. It was the
key to the miraculous, both in your personal life and ministry. It was, as I
said, virtually everything, literally. It was perfect, Spirit-inspired prayer.
When you prayed in tongues, you were praying God's perfect will for your life.
By turning yourself over to the Holy Spirit through praying in tongues, you
could rest assured that you were not praying in unbelief or in any way contrary
to God's will. You could rest assured that all of your prayers would be
answered, because the Holy Spirit knew perfectly the mind of the Father, and He
would inspire you to pray in perfect accordance with it. Of course, all of this
led to perfect peace. What more could a person ask for than for God’s perfect
will for your life? Besides
all of these personal benefits that could be derived from praying in tongues,
tongues was also the most effective way to pray for and make intercession for
others. Again, the Holy Spirit knew best what the needs of others were, and you
could trust Him not to pray amiss. Well,
being the devout and hungry (and incredibly naive and insecure) disciple that I
was - that is, hungry for health, wealth, power, and all the rest of God's material
blessings - I prayed in tongues all the time. I prayed in tongues when I walked,
when I sat, when I worked, and when I played. I prayed in tongues so much that
my wife would sometimes tell me in the morning that she heard me praying in
tongues while I slept. Like the Apostle Paul, I prayed/spoke in tongues “more
than ye all.” When
I could, I would combine it with fasting, because, according to Dave, the
combination of the two (praying in tongues and fasting) was the ultimate in
releasing your faith and mortifying your flesh. It was the ultimate combination
for drawing close to God. Again,
I was very naïve and gullible, as you can well tell by now. So naïve that I
never questioned any of this, and never in a million years dreamed that any of
it would prove to be anything but true. I was sold on it, lock, stock, and
barrel. Let’s
move down the road another five years. By now I've become very close with Dave.
I've travelled extensively with him. I've served as his personal travelling
companion. I've been his personal confidant. I’m involved in managing the
affairs of the ministry. But
in spite of my closeness with Dave, a crisis develops. I become fed up with
certain things going on around the ministry – namely the way certain people
behaved - and I call it quits. That was a bold move, because I had nowhere else
to turn. I had no degree, no skill, and no savings. I had nothing. And I had a
family to support. But I figured (again, naively so) that I could go home and
just begin praying in tongues and fasting and God would take care of it all. I
thought to myself, "Why put up with all this nonsense, when I can go home
and pray (in tongues) and fast until God gives shows up and gives me my own
ministry?!" So
that's what I did. I literally went home and began 'praying' and fasting. I
threw myself totally into it, and hung the entire welfare of myself and my
family on it. Again, we had no savings to speak of, nor any other source of
livelihood. I expected God to show up and do something miraculous in our lives. Three
weeks later (that's right, I said "weeks"), the only thing that I
could see that was being accomplished was that I was starving myself to death. I
went from ~150 lbs. down to 125 lbs. I was skin and bone! I looked like
something out of Auschwitz. God hadn't showed up like I had expected him to
(apparently He wasn't too impressed) and I started to get desperate. In
my desperation, I somewhat left off ‘praying in tongues’ and cried out to
the Lord. I started turning to my Bible more, and praying *intelligently* (Is
there really any other way??) I read much from the book of Psalms, and cried
like David: "I loooong for Your courts, O Lord! HELP ME!" Somehow
the Lord began to get through to me. He began to open my eyes (with my
cooperation) and reveal to me my wicked (selfish) heart and intent. I began to
see how selfish and proud I was. I began to see my motives. I wanted the
anointing, sure, but because of ALL THE FAME AND FORTUNE THAT WENT WITH IT! I
was basically (trying) to use God as a means to serve my own selfish ends
(rather than serving Him as an end.) Wow! How I had deceived myself into
thinking I was something spiritual! (But I had plenty of help. Most everything I
had ever been taught *assisted* me in my self-deception. My doctrinal diet up to
that point only bred selfishness and greed, rather than mortifying it as good
doctrine is supposed to do.) At
this point, I would like to introduce an excerpt from Robert Ringer that George
Otis quotes in his book "The God They Never Knew": "Simple
reasoning tells you that you must regard the interests of others in order to
obtain your objectives. Fellow human beings represent potential values to you in
business or personal relationships, and the rational individual understands that
to harvest those values he must be willing to fill certain needs of others. In
this way, the most rationally selfish individual is also the most 'giving'
person." (Robert J. Ringer, Looking Out For #1, quoted by George Otis, Jr.,
in "The God They Never Knew.") If
anything describes me up to this point in my life, this is it. Oh yeah,
outwardly I was a nice, hardworking person. But inwardly, I was as selfish as
the day is long. And when the Lord revealed this to me, I began to writhe in
mental anguish and pain - in remorse, regret, and sorrow. And
it wasn't something I wanted to pass quickly. It wasn't a thing where I just
wanted to nonchalantly say "Lord, I've sinned, forgive me," and move
on. No, this was serious business, for a change. I saw how I had grieved and
offended God, and how I had sought to use Him, and I wanted Him to know how
deeply sorry I was. I wanted the ugliness of my sin to weigh upon my mind, until
I was absolutely sick of myself, and of the way I had been living. I wanted to
see sin, and particularly *my* sin, the way God saw *my* sin. I wanted His
thoughts to fasten hard upon my mind, so that sin would become the stench to me
that it was to Him, to the end that I would cease to indulge in it. I also
wanted to contemplate my just desert for my sin. It
is hard for me to recall how long I was in this state of mind, I want to say it
was a couple of days, but I'm not sure. At any rate, it all culminated with me
finding myself at the foot of the cross, repenting of my sins, and giving my
life to God, through Jesus Christ. It is sad to say, but I cannot recall
[because I don't think it ever happened] anyone ever bringing me face to face
with my sins like this before - in all my years of Charismania. On the contrary,
I was made to believe that I was a child of God simply because I "spoke in
tongues." What a horrible doctrine. It could well have landed me in hell,
though I would not have had anyone to blame but myself. I had deceived *myself.*
Anyway, back to the story... At
this point (that is, at the point where I have genuinely repented and placed my
faith in Christ) something wonderful happened. I felt like the Holy Spirit
descended upon me like a mother hen. "He shall cover thee with His
feathers." Ps. 91. So much of what I had been reading about in Psalms, so
many of the expressions David used to describe his relationship with God, just
came to life, and meant something to me. "A day in His courts is better
than a thousand without!" "I'd rather be a doorkeeper in his courts
than dwell in the tents of wickedness at ease!" "The name of the Lord
is a strong tower." He is a "refuge" and a "fortress,"
"my rock," "my God, in whom I place my trust." For
the first time in my life I knew what the "peace that passes all
understanding" was. The most perfect peace, the most settling and
comforting peace, just enveloped me like a cloud, and went everywhere I went. And
for the first time in my life I felt like a child. Up
until this point, my life had been constantly filled with either worries about
the future or regrets about the past. I never had the peace of mind to enjoy the
moment at present. I never knew what it meant to "stop and smell the
roses." I was always striving, always competing, and always wishing. Now,
for the first time in my life, I was a child (HIS child), a contented
child, with a Father that I knew loved me, and would take absolute care of me.
All my insecurities, all my fears, all my wishful thinking about what might have
been, evaporated. I was at peace, and content, because I was completely
surrendered to Him. There was nothing else I needed. My Father was it. He was
all I needed and longed for. Nothing in this world would ever satisfy again. The
love of God was shed abroad in my heart and filled my soul. I was in love with
everyone. Love just oozed out of me for others. I even found that I couldn't
look at a pretty woman with lustful thoughts! The thought of doing such was just
simply abhorrent to me. I could only look with love and goodwill. I
could go on about all the changes that took place in me, but as this is already
going to be long, I will move on. Let me just add this: as a result of, and in
the midst of, this spiritual awakening, I found myself in a most wonderful place
of fellowship with God. I could now go to prayer and experience the most
wonderful time of *intelligent* communion with Him. I could close my eyes
anywhere at anytime, direct my attention toward Him, and enter into this
wonderful fellowship. If I got too busy, and found myself weak at heart, I would
simply get alone, and begin to wait upon Him. I would allow my thought processes
to slow down/unwind and gradually focus upon Him, and then as I began to express
my heart and mind to Him He would respond. He would quicken my heart afresh with
His love, and I would become strengthened and refreshed. (Like David says,
"His mercies are new every morning.") He would also quicken my
thoughts with wisdom and understanding when I had questions and problems to deal
with. After
this spiritual awakening and transformation took place, I was given the
opportunity to go back to work for Dave's ministry. I took it, and I was very
grateful for it, because as I said previously, I didn't have any other means of
providing for my family. I made peace with the person I had problems with, and
everything was hunky dory. Though I knew the ministry had its problems, I felt
that with God's help, we could more than deal with them. (Little did I know what
the next two years would bring.) At
this point, let me just stop and say that I still believed wholeheartedly in
Dave's teaching and doctrine. I still believed that "praying in
tongues" was this unique, God-ordained means to spiritual edification. But,
my recent experiences with God so deeply and profoundly affected me, that slowly
and almost subconsciously, I started re-evaluating everything. It seemed to me
as if my mind had literally woken up as a result of the
transforming presence and peace of God. So
here's what happened over the course of the next two years: My coming back to
work coincided with Dave deciding to rent a local facility so he could start
having regular local services (as opposed to being on the road constantly), as
well as regular "intercessory prayer meetings." He called the place
"The Prayer Center." Dave designated certain nights of the week as
prayer nights, and then began preaching on a couple of the other nights, in
order to exhort whoever came to also come and pray. He wanted to build a group
of intercessory prayer warriors. Prayer night consisted of simply coming and
"pray in tongues" for a couple hours. Well,
as I attempted to participate in these prayer meetings, and "pray in
tongues," I found myself feeling like I was "getting no where."
So I began to resort to simply expressing (albeit silently and to myself) my
thoughts to God intelligently (again, is there any other way?!), and whenever I
did, I would once again find myself in this place of sweet fellowship that I had
recently grown accustomed to, and so enjoyed. When I "prayed in
tongues" it was like speaking to a wall, but when I prayed normally, I
experienced real wonderful fellowship. To
make a long story short, this "conflict" (that was now existed between
my doctrine and my experience) caused me to want to go back to the Bible and see
for myself what it had to say about "tongues," and about this doctrine
of "praying in tongues for personal edification.” For two years I
read and reread (a thousand times) those passages (IN CONTEXT), asking
God to illuminate me, and give me understanding on what they meant. Again, never
in a million years did I imagine that such a thing would happen, but at the end
of those two years, my thoughts culminated in the conclusion that Dave's pet
doctrine wasn't taught anywhere in the Bible! That
conclusion had serious potential consequences for my life. How could I continue
to work for and support the ministry, given I was now at such odds doctrinally?
How would I support my family if I quit? I had a choice. I could choose to
compromise, or I could choose to be a man of principle and truth. Which one was
it going to be? Hey!
I had a highly esteemed position. I was Dave's direct/personal assistant and
confidant. I was his associate pastor. I was one of the administrators. I was
responsible for the counselling duties of the pastoral ministry (Dave's
"prayer center" evolved into a church by this point). I set my own
hours. I was paid well. I had a new Caravan and house. I had prestige. In short,
I had it ALL (from a worldly standpoint), in my view. And I could have kept it
all, if only I had maintained my previous position on tongues. Frankly,
compromise wasn't even an option in my mind. I didn’t think twice about it. I
wanted right standing with God more than anything. I didn't care if I had to eat
off the street. I didn't care if I ate at all! I wanted peace with God, and I
wanted to keep that peace. I knew that I had to leave, and that I was never
coming back, because this time, I was leaving for doctrinal reasons, and matters
of conscience, and not for emotional reasons. (Of course, in Dave's eyes, and
everyone else's, I was committing the unpardonable sin. “What?! Deny tongues??
That's tantamount to denying the Holy Spirit! What's the matter with you?! Are
you NUTS?!") Here
I was then, with a wife and 4 children (we now have 6), and no means of
supporting them. What was I to do? I had no other training, I knew no trade, I
had no degree! Well,
how we survived is not the story I want to tell right now. (To make a long story
short, God took care of us. We went through some lean and humble times, but God
still took care of us. The heart transformation I had gone through had put a
foundation under my life and prepared me to go through hard times.) What I want
to do now is back up and retrace the progression of my thinking that took place
over the previous two years, and that led to my renunciation of Charismatic
‘tongues’ doctrine, and to confessing that I had been deceived for the last
twenty years! Here
we go. One
of the first things that grabbed my newly revived thinking mind was, if
everything I’m being told about ‘tongues’ is true, and if praying in the
Spirit is indeed synonymous with ‘praying in tongues,’ why would anyone ever
want to pray in any other way?? Why take the risk of praying carnally? (Okay,
perhaps in obedience to other portions of Scripture we will pray “with our
understanding” on occasion, but we will certainly minimize this. After all, we
don’t want our minds to get in the way of the Holy Spirit!) That seemed like
the logical outworking of ‘tongues’ doctrine to me at the time. But that
didn’t jive with my recent experiences, and it meant doing away with the means
of this wonderful spiritual fellowship I had obtained with God. Something just
wasn’t right. The
next thing that stood out to me was that, as I read through these chapters
afresh (chapters 12 through 14 of 1st Corinthians), was that Paul
says "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (1Co
13:1 KJV) In other words, I am just making noise, if I speak in tongues without
love. This
did away (in my mind at that time) with the idea I had been taught that you
could pray in tongues at anytime, even when you had fallen back into sin and
your love for God had grown cold, and the Holy Ghost would “edify” you and
help you “mortify the flesh.” (One of Dave’s favourite verses was Romans
8:13: “but
if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Of
course, the way that the Holy Spirit did this was through praying in tongues!) This
verse, verse 1 of chapter 13, started me to thinking that the ‘tongues’
people were practicing weren’t always inspired by the Spirit, because I knew,
first-hand, people who were speaking in tongues and living in serious sin at the
same time. How could the Spirit inspire tongues that amounted to nothing more
than sounding brass, or tinkling cymbals? Well, you can imagine my answer - He
couldn’t. I reasoned that the Holy Ghost wasn’t one to waste words. I mean,
if He expects us to give account for “every idle word," surely He
wasn’t going to engage in idle words Himself. “What is good for the goose is
good for the gander." If there was no benefit to the words, if it was only
idle speech, the Holy Ghost wasn’t involved in it. So the first (reluctant)
step I took was to conclude that all ‘tongues’ were not genuine tongues.
(The reasoning that got me to that point may not have been entirely coherent,
but that was my conclusion nonetheless, and it was a good one.) IOW, “all that
glittered was not gold.” That was a big step. That was a huge step. But
I didn’t care. At this point, I was more hungry for truth than I was
interested in being right. (That is an attribute that will characterize every
true Christian.) The
logical progression from here was to ask, “Okay, if all tongues are not
genuine tongues, then how does a person distinguish between the two? What is the
distinguishing characteristic of genuine tongues? What makes Charismatic or
Pentecostal tongues different from say, Mormon tongues?” You
know what? No one could answer me. The best answer anyone could give was to say
that they relied upon a feeling they had when they first spoke in tongues. They
knew it was God because they weren’t thinking about it (tongues) at the time,
and this feeling just came over them. (So it had to be God.) Others said they
were thinking about it, even seeking it, and they just knew it was God because
they felt impressed to speak. “Wow”, I said to myself!
“It’s now all about feelings! How is this any different than the world’s
system of philosophy?” Well, I kept reading, hoping I would find the answer in
the Scriptures. The
next thing that stood out to me was the whole context of chapter 14th.
The context was one in which Paul was bringing CORRECTION. He was not giving
positive instructions to the church here regarding a doctrine of prayer in an
unknown-to-self-and-others language. He was not constructing an overt doctrine
of private prayer in unintelligible-to-self-and-others ‘tongues.’ Private
prayer was not the subject. He was correcting disorder in the public assembly of
the church. This
reinforced my earlier conclusion that all tongues were not inspired. If the
tongues that were spoken in the church at Corinth were out of order, they could
not have been directly inspired of the Spirit. Can the Spirit inspire something
that is out of order? I
then had to ask myself, what was the nature of these Corinthian tongues? Were
they pagan tongues (some pagan groups speak in gibberish just like modern
tongues-speakers do), as some are wont to say? This couldn't be, because I had
to believe that if they were, Paul would have flatly condemned them. Paul would
not have allowed a pagan ritual to go on in the Christian church. And since he
approved of them as long as an interpreter was present they could not have been
pagan or demonic tongues. What could they have been then? The
next thing I noticed was that I couldn't find where Paul made the common
distinction that Pentecostals/Charismatics make today that some tongues are for
private prayer only, while others are for public use (to be interpreted). I
backed up (to chapter 12) and began reading more of the context. I got wide-eyed
over Paul's analogy with the human body. The whole body is not an eye or a hand
or an ear. If it were - if it were all one member (that is, if everyone had the
same gift), where would the body be?! I saw that the body of Christ was a body
composed of different members, just like the human body is, and that every
member has as different gift or purpose or function! “For
as the body is one, and hath many (different) members, and all the members of
that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.” “For
the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not
the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear
shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not
of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole
were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every
one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one (the
same) member, where were the body? But now are they many (different) members,
yet but one body.” “Now
ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular (that is, differing).” “For
as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
Having then gifts DIFFERING according to the grace that is given to us…” And
all these differing gifts and functions work together for the building up of the
whole body. The individual gifts are put in the body for the sake of the common
good (that is, the good of all), not for themselves. “But
the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” (“Hmmm”,
I said. “This doesn’t seem to be leaving room for the doctrine of a
so-called gift of tongues for personal/private use.” I know, I know, some
could make the argument that if you are personally edified, then you are more
capable of being a blessing to the body at large. But the text suggests that the
gift itself is directly beneficial to the body.) As
I continued reading (over many months) I found Paul asking the rhetorical
question in verse 30 of chapter 12: "Do all speak with tongues?" The
obvious answer was NO!! (“What?! This contradicts everything I'd been taught!
What does he mean by implying that not everyone speaks in tongues?! How dare
he!”) Modern
Pentecostals and Charismatics are wont to say that Paul was only speaking of
those who are called to speak in tongues in public here. Yes, I agree,
that is obviously what Paul is talking about here - public ministry. But I could
not find where Paul made the distinction between tongues for public use (or
ministry), and tongues for private use. I could not find anywhere where Paul
qualifies/modifies his statement and says, "however all DO speak in tongues
in private prayer" (or, “all do – or should – have the gift of
tongues for private prayer.”) It just isn't there. NOWHERE does Paul (or any
other NT writer) establish a doctrine of praying privately in a new, unknown,
and unintelligible-to-self-and-others 'tongue' – for anyone. I
continued reading - and praying (intelligently), desperately wanting to grasp
(understand) the nature of these tongues that Paul was talking about, and the
meaning of certain statements made by Paul in chapter 14 that have been
historically used to teach the modern doctrine. Somewhere
in my transition (I’m not sure where exactly), I was confronted with the
Pentecostal/Charismatic (hereafter known as PC’s) definition of “spirit”.
PC’s define “spirit” as some kind of irrational ethereal essence, or
aspect of our being, apart from our minds, that the Holy Ghost communicates
‘tongues’ to, and that the Holy Ghost ‘edifies.’ Where they get this
from I don’t know. Why I accepted it I don’t know. Probably because so much
of what I thought about God at that time didn’t make any sense, and I just
thought it was the nature of religion to not make any sense. (How wrong I was.
Christianity is the most reasonable thing on earth. Anyway, back to the concept
of ‘spirit’;) The
spirit refers to the inner, immaterial, ultimate, rational, moral, conscious
self. The spirit is inherently all of these things. It is the very thing that
makes man the creature created in God’s image that he is. The spirit is the
seat of his intelligence and personality. It is that which gives his mind its
existence. There is no such thing as a communication channel apart from the
mind. Spirit is often used
synonymously/interchangeably with 'soul' or 'heart.' To 'pray' or 'speak',
with the spirit, or in the Spirit,
is not to pray mindlessly or unintelligently. It is the exact opposite! Look
at God. He is a spirit - He is THE Spirit - and He is the
most rational and intelligent Being in the universe. He is pure
reason and intelligence. And He never acts unintelligible to Himself. Consider 1 Corinthians 2:11: For
who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is
in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. My
spirit knows my thoughts. When my spirit prays, it is me
(consciously and intelligently) praying. I know what my spirit is praying
because my spirit is me (with all my rational faculties.) Likewise,
the Spirit of God knows God's thoughts. Again, God is
a spirit, He is pure spirit, and He is not mindless. There is no
separating His mind from the rest of His being. Prayer is never
represented in the Bible as being mindless. (That defies the definition of
prayer. Prayer is communion with God. How do we have communion apart from our
minds?) It always proceeds from the spirit (or heart), which is inherently part
of the intelligent and rational/moral nature of man. Simply uttering words
does not constitute prayer (let alone uttering unintelligible sounds). If
it did, I could tape myself praying, and then I would replay it over and
over, so that I could pray more. To
be in the Spirit - to walk after the Spirit - is not to bypass or set
aside the mind. It is to *use* the mind properly. It is to walk with our minds
under the influence of, and in subjection to, the Spirit of God. (God commands
us to *use* the mind – and to love Him *with* all our
mind, not to set it aside.) So it is with prayer in the Spirit. Prayer in the
Spirit is prayer conducted under the influence to, and in subjection to, the
Holy Spirit. To
pray or walk in the Spirit is to think upon those things that are of
the Spirit. Modern charismatic "tongues" (wrongly so-called) do not
give the mind anything to think upon. It is gibberish. Here
is some commentary from other sources on the soul vs. spirit
issue: From
the book _Why We Believe_, by James H. Jauncey: "What
is the soul?": "Immortality
depends on the existence of the soul. Fortunately, there is no problem about
this. The soul is simply the name we give to the nonmaterial part of ourselves
and in this sense is synonymous with ‘spirit.’ “Since
both these terms are used with different meanings in different contexts in the
Bible, we have to be careful. ‘Soul’ can refer to life or the emotions as
well as to the nonmaterial element of being. ‘Spirit’ can refer to attitude
of mind or force of will, and it often is used like our word ‘ghost.’ “Because
Jesus referred to the twofold division of man (body and soul), and Paul spoke of
a threefold division (body, soul, and spirit), some have suggested that a
contradiction exists. But there is no contradiction. Such classifications are
for convenience of teaching only and were not intended to be absolute divisions
in being. “There
is no doubt that there is a nonmaterial part of me, my personality, loves,
hopes, fears, culture, my mind. There is an essential ‘me’ that has
persisted through a lifetime of bodily change. We cannot define how this is
related to my body, or my body to it, but it is there. When we give this a name,
it is ‘soul,’ or ‘spirit.’ “The question of whether I have a soul or am a soul is academic. Both can be true, depending on how we view it. Since there is a nonmaterial element in me I can say I have it, but since this is the only permanent part of me, I am it. The immortality of the soul actually means the immortality of me." -------------------------------------- From
http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/comm_read/965638494.html d.
Is there a deliberate and significant difference between soul and spirit here
[Heb. 4:12]? i.
There is a distinction; "The New Testament use of pneuma for the human
spirit focuses on the spiritual aspect of man, i.e. his life in relation to God,
whereas psyche refers to man's life irrespective of his spiritual experience,
i.e. his life in relation to himself, his emotions and thought. There is a
strong antithesis between the two in the theology of Paul." (Guthrie) ii.
However, in this passage, "Attempts to explain [these terms] on any
psychological basis are futile. The form of expression is poetical, and
signifies that the word penetrates to the inmost recesses of our spiritual being
as a sword cuts through the joints and marrow of the body." (Vincent) -------------------------------------- Here
are some more of my own thoughts: The
words spirit, soul, heart, and mind all have a semantic range. Some have a wider
one, others have a narrower one. On occasion, they may be used
synonymously. At other times, one may be used over another to place an emphasis
on a particular aspect/facet of man. Based
upon a study of the Bible, the words may mean:
mind: thoughts, intellect, rational capacity of man
soul: whole PERSONality of man complete with thoughts, feelings,
will, intelligent/rational capacity, etc
spirit: either synonymous with "soul,’, or used as a reference
to disposition, or disembodied being
heart: center of man's moral structure, complete with will, intellect and
affections Dealing
with this erroneous Charismatic definition of ‘spirit’ was a major factor in
dispelling the fog surrounding many of Paul’s statements in chapter 14. Moving
on. Another
problem that became apparent and that I had to deal with was the way PC’s
defined the operation of the body (the church) and the individual ‘gifts of
the Spirit.’ According to them, all of the “gifts of the Spirit” were
supernatural gifts. It
was suggested to me by a friend that perhaps this wasn’t the case. Perhaps all
of the ‘gifts’ weren’t supernatural, at least in the same sense. I looked
into this, and lo and behold, the testimony of Scripture seemed to bear this
out. (The fact that working of miracles was listed as a distinct gift in chapter
12 seemed to imply that some of the things that go on in the body towards the
edification and growth of itself (the ‘whole’) are not miraculous, again, at
least in the same sense. Peter
references “gifts” of “speaking” and “ministering,” in chapter 4 of
his epistle. Paul references “gifts” of “teaching,” “exhorting,”
“giving,” “ruling,” and “showing mercy” in Romans chapter 12. Are
“exhorting,” “teaching,” and “giving” all miraculous gifts? (Other
examples could be given from the Old Testament, of gifts/talents God
specifically says that He places within people – gifts/talents that are not
normally considered ‘miraculous.’) Why,
we could just look at the company that Paul puts “diversities of tongues” in
at the end of chapter 12: “helps” and “governments.” Do we normally
consider these ‘supernatural gifts of the Spirit’? It’s the company that
Paul puts “diversities of tongues” in though, as important gifts and
functions in the body of Christ! Even
the 14th chapter lends itself to the idea that the tongues Paul is speaking of
are naturally learned human languages. Look at verses 20 through 22 where Paul
refers to the tongues of the enemies of the Israelites. (Actually, the chapter
doesn’t just ‘lend itself,’ the meaning here is obvious. And with such an
obvious definition of tongues right within the very chapter in question, what
right do we have to equivocate on the term?) These
enemies came, with their 'foreign' tongues, against the Israelites as God's
means of judgment for their sins. And their tongues were obviously not
supernatural. They were their own normal, natural, homegrown, native tongues. You
also find Paul telling the members of the church who spoke in tongues that they
needed to find an interpreter or keep quiet. Now tell me, if the Holy Spirit was
the direct initiator of these tongues, would he (Paul) have to tell the church
to find an interpreter for the Holy Spirit? Wouldn’t the Holy Spirit know it?
Wouldn't the Holy Spirit know if an interpreter was present? Wouldn’t the Holy
Spirit know if He was going to give the interpretation to someone? (Better yet,
if the Holy Spirit wanted to communicate with the whole congregation, and He was
in the business of doling out new languages, why did He go the long route? Why
didn’t He just inspire the message in a known tongue to begin with? I know, I
know, some would argue that the Holy Spirit may have reasons for doing it that
way that we can’t see, like wanting people to exercise their faith, but still,
it doesn’t make any sense to me.) No,
a careful look at the entire chapter - with a view towards giving Paul (not to
mention the Holy Spirit that inspired him) enough respect that what he said was
consistent, logical, and intelligent - and the only conclusion that makes sense
out of the chapter, as a whole, is that Paul was addressing people who were
speaking out in their native tongues, tongues that no one else understood. I
will demonstrate that in a moment, by taking a look at the chapter, verse by
verse. But let me say a few more things first. Consider
the multilingual nature of the Gentile nations as a whole. Wouldn't just the natural
ability to speak more than one language be of considerable value and go
along way towards building up the body of Christ - because it would mean the
gospel could be preached to more people? Wasn't one of the reasons (if not the
main reason) that Paul was chosen as an apostle (THEE apostle – to the
humongous population of Gentiles) because he was so naturally well educated and
knew the Scriptures? (Why didn’t God use some miraculous means, instead of
natural means?) Who did God use to write most of the letters of the New
Testament? Wasn’t it the naturally educated Paul, who naturally spoke Aramaic,
Greek, Hebrew, and who knows how many other languages, or was it one of the
uneducated fishermen? If
tongues is the supernatural gift that everyone claims that it is, how come you
never hear or read of anyone ever actually having been endowed with supernatural
abilities in this regard, for the purpose of serious evangelism? From the early
church fathers on down to the present, we hear of nothing of the kind. It seems
to me, given God's desire to evangelise the world, that if this was really the
gift that it is claimed to be, that someone (at least one person) would have
stood out down through the ages, as an example and testimony to such a gift.
However, we find no such testimony. On
the contrary, we find testimony of early Pentecostals who thought they
could supernaturally speak in the languages of other nations coming back
disappointed. Frankly,
I think the church has missed the boat to a very large extent when it
comes to understanding Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians 12-14 on spiritual things. First
of all, I think we tend to hold a simplistic definition of 'church'. We tend to
think of the 'church' as a local congregation within four walls, when actually,
the one true church is composed of all true Christians who are both presently
living, and have ever lived (and ever will live.) “Of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is name." Every
true Christian presently in heaven or on earth is part of the church. So
when Paul says: "And God hath set some in the church, first apostles,
secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of
healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues,” he is talking about the
church AT LARGE. He is not saying that God puts all of these different
“gifts,” “ministries,” and “operations” in every local church. They
may not even all exist on earth at one time. Take the apostles for instance. I
don't think we have apostles in every generation. The apostles were the foundation
for the church (see verse below). When you build a house, do you (re)lay the
foundation at every stage of it's development? "Now
therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the
saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner
stone;" Why
did the Corinthian church look to distant Paul as an apostle if they had their
own resident apostles? Even
though we may not have “workers of miracles” or “apostles” with us today
(speaking hypothetically), we, as a church, still benefit from the effects of
ministries of this nature in the past, just as we still benefit from the signs
and wonders that God wrought among the Egyptians through Moses. We still benefit
from the ministry of the Apostle Paul, in a BIG way. Since
the time of Christ, the church has benefited wonderfully from those with the
ability to speak and translate/interpret other languages. Where would we be
today without these natural gifts? Jesus certainly didn’t speak in English.
(I’ll say more on this point about all the ‘gifts’ being supernatural down
below.) Another
misconception commonly held about this portion of Scripture is that Paul
provided a conclusive list of all the “gifts of the Spirit.” That wasn’t
Paul's point. What about all the “gifts” I mentioned above that we find in
Romans 12 and 1 Peter 4? What about Ephesians 4 and the gifts/offices/ministries
of “evangelist” and “pastor”? Paul's
point was simply to show that diversity exists in the body, and to impress upon
those he was writing that all gifts, and ministries, and
operations, were important to the church, and needed to be used in a way that
edified the church. Another
thing that is overlooked is the fact that Paul does not just list 'gifts' in
chapter 12. Paul does not say, "now concerning spiritual gifts,
brethren..." The word ‘gifts’ is not in the original. It was inserted
by the translators. Twice elsewhere, the word that is translated 'spiritual'
here, is translated “spiritual THINGS.” I think that would have been a
better rendering here (though I confess that I am no Greek scholar.
Nonetheless...) Paul is talking about spiritual THINGS. He is talking about the
spiritual operation of the church. Paul
says, "I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles,
carried away unto these dumb (unspeaking) idols, even as ye were led." The
implication is that the Spirit of God has something to SAY, something meaningful
to say (not gibberish, gibberish is as bad as the dumb unspeaking idols). The
Spirit also “works,” unlike the dumb, dead, inanimate idols of their past.
The Holy Spirit uses different means, methods and ministries to get the Word of
God out, but it is ultimately the Word of God that we live by, and are edified
by. Paul
goes on to explicitly say that there are "diversities of gifts,”
"differences of administrations,” and "diversities of operations."
Why have we overlooked "administrations" and "operations"? "Administrations"
comes from the word from which we get our word 'deacon.’ It refers to service
or ministry. It is the same word used over in Acts 6 in reference to the
ministry of the seven
spiritual men “of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.” Are you
going to tell me that that ministry wasn’t a manifestation of the Spirit?? “Operations"
refers to a “working.” So
what do we have? We have Paul saying, in paraphrase, that there are different
kinds (varieties) of gifts, different kinds of service or ministry, and
different ways of working (or different ways that God works). So who's to say
that "diversities of tongues" is necessarily a “gift.” Does the
Bible explicitly say that anywhere? It
could simply be a kind of ministry or service. Are not "helps" and
"governments" types of service or ministry (that is,
'administrations', as opposed to 'gifts')? Aren’t the offices of “apostle”
and “prophet” also ministries, or ‘administrations,’ as opposed to
gifts? Again, these ‘ministries’ are the company that Paul lists
‘diversities of tongues’ with near the end of chapter 12. How about
“teachers”? Do we normally think of teachers as a supernatural gift? Can
the body of Christ (the church) survive on only the miraculous/supernatural?
Isn't it comprised of a combination of miraculous and natural operations and/or
ministries? The apostles sure thought so, in Acts 6 when they commanded the
people to “look ye out among you seven men” to attend to the “daily
ministration.” “Differences of administration” – again, the same Greek
word from 1 Cor. 12! They considered this ‘administration’ an important, and
yes, even a ‘spiritual thing,’ seeing as how they stipulated that the men
had to be full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. I
contend that the living, breathing, functioning body of Christ IS composed of
many different members (and gifts) – both natural and supernatural. I also
contend that “varieties/diversities of tongues” simply refers to the
exercise of diversities of tongues by certain people that God sets in the church
– for the church’s good (not anyone’s personal benefit). It is a ministry
(or an ‘operation’ or service) that builds the body of Christ by helping to
bridge the gap between people of different languages. So also with the
interpretation of tongues. The
undisputed facts are: “The
international ancient trading city of Corinth had a very unusual location -- on
the slender isthmus in Central Greece, between the two much larger land-masses
of Northern Greece and Southern Greece, and also between the Adriatic and Ionian
Seas to the west and the Aegean Sea to the east. Corinth's location there was
thus similar to that of Panama City in the new world --on the thin waist of
Central America, between the two great continents of North America and South
America, and also between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean
to the east. “In
the international trading centre of Panama City today, at least twenty different
languages are regularly spoken. So too in ancient Corinth. There, none of those
various foreign languages was to be spoken during worship in the Corinthian
Church --unless translated. If so used, those foreign languages were always to
be translated into the Corinthian dialect -- so that all present could
understand the message concerned. “According
to the earliest extant comments -- those of the 185 A.D. Irenaeus and the 190f
A.D. Clement of Alexandria -- the Corinthians tongues were clearly linguistic
(and therefore not ecstatic). So too Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Gregory of
Nazianze, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil, Hilary, Jerome, Chrysostom, Epiphanius,
Augustine, Theodoret, Vincent, Leo, and Gregory the Great. Likewise Thomas
Aquinas, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. So too Matthew Henry, Lange, Plumptre,
Meyer, Alford, Buswell, E.J. Young, Morton H. Smith, Robert Reymond, Richard
Gaffin, Leonard Coppes, and Francis Nigel Lee. Indeed, even some
(Neo-)Pentecostalists themselves -- such as Harald Bredesen, Carl Brumback,
Howard Carter, David J. DuPlessis, Donald Gee, Harold Horton and Oral Roberts --
also concede this point.” By
Rev. Prof. Dr. Francis Nigel Lee, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So
my brethren, where does this leave us? (I have no comment on the rest of the
chapter.) Where is this modern doctrine of gibberish-speaking ('speaking' in
public OR 'praying' in private) with 'words" (so-called) that we don't
understand?! Where I ask?! It's just not in the Bible. The truth is, the PC doctrine of modern ‘tongues’ (gibberish) is a hoax, a deception of the devil, designed to make us think we have something spiritual when we do not, designed to give us false comfort, and make us spin our wheels in fruitlessness, while true inspiration from the Spirit awaits us. The
doctrine is a feel-good doctrine. It makes us feel good about our (supposed)
relationship with God. It gives us a sense of security that we are somehow in
contact with Him - especially when we sin (!!!!! - How terrible that we should
find someway to feel good when we sin!). Tell a friend about this site: http://www.tonguesrevisited.com Any inquires or comments regarding content on, or technical problems relating to the site contact: tonguesrevisited@xtra.co.nz ClearSight, 94 Mckillop St, Porirua, NEW ZEALAND
|