The point we've made all through the series is that we are tied to the things we say. Our words are tied to both the success and the disfunction in our lives! If you think about it, the same could be said about the practice of speaking in tongues. In the New Testament tongues were tied to both the miraculous and the messy! The same is true in the church today.
Pretty much the entire fourteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is Paul's effort to clean up the mess associated with speaking in tongues there at the church in Corinth. What's interesting to me is that he took a very practical approach to the supernatural. He dealt with supernatural issues on very practical terms. He laid out in very practical ways how the gifts should and shouldn't operate. I believe he set a precedent there. You see, the issues that were tied to speaking in tongues or operating in other spiritual gifts in the first century may be different than those tied to these practices in the twenty-first century, but they still require us as leaders in the church to deal with supernatural things in very practical ways.
I'll give you an example. We have services in a 650 seat auditorium. If someone in our church felt led to give a word of prophecy or if there were a message in tongues and interpretation, at least half of those in attendance wouldn't even hear what was being spoken. We're about to move into a 1,500 seat auditorium where it will be even more impossible. So we require anyone who feels they have a message for the church to let our ushers know, so that one of our pastors can hear it and decide if it is something that should be shared. If so, we can do so over the sound system so everyone can benefit from it. That's what Paul was doing in Corinth. He applied practical guidelines to the supernatural things God was doing in the church.
Through the years, the practice of speaking in tongues has been tied to all kinds of weirdness and confusion that God is not the author of and I don't want our church to be connected with. But I refuse to throw the baby out with the bath water! The gift of speaking in unknown tongues is tied to some really great things too! Things like a more effective prayer life and deeper worship. (Romans 8:26, 1 Corinthians 14:1-5) Jude 20-21 says we build ourselves up to our most holy faith by praying in the Holy Ghost! I want my life (and our church) tied to these things, so we will encourage people to continue to seek the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and experience the supernatural. But we will do so in very practical ways!
