Macrorepentance Question
This is not a rhetorical question but it's one that has been eating at me for a while. I learned a long time ago that I don't have everything figured out. And, so, while I have a strong opinion about this, and am strongly convinced that my view is correct, I've been convinced of my error so many times in the past that I've learned humility. So, enlighten me.
All the CGGCers I know personally take the following teaching about speaking in tongues literally and they consider it to be authoritative and relevant to today. Here's the teaching:
"If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret; but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God." (1 Cor 14:27-28 NASB)
Yet, those same CGGCers regard the teaching in the very next verse regarding the speaking of prophecy as not authoritative or relevant for today because it addresses a situation unique to the first century church in Corinth. That teaching is:
"Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment." (1 Cor 14:29 NASB)
As a result, when we gather we restrict speaking in tongues, based on a teaching from 1 Corinthians 14 but we do not encourage the speaking of words of prophecy by multiple speakers even though that practice is commanded in 1 Corinthians 14 and those two teachings appear together in the text.
I can see no justification for what we do based on the text and our historic claim that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice.
Many of you who post here and lurk here regard the teaching about tongues and interpretation as being authoritative and you obey it tenaciously YET prohibit words of prophesy by a minimum of two speakers which, in the text, is very literally commanded.
How do you justify your practice from the Bible?
posted by bill Sloat at 6:53 AM
3 Comments:
How would one prohibit a word of prophecy? If I have, it is by total accident / ignorance.
I've never personally heard anyone divide these two verses into one being applicable today and the other not.
I think the shape of what prophecy 'looks like' is the bigger issue / question that we need to deal with, not whether it ought be be permitted and encouraged.
M,
How would one prohibit a word of prophecy? If I have, it is by total accident / ignorance.
Wow! This is a very basic question.
I have a book in reply, which I won't burden you with.
But, I'll say this: The same Spirit who gave disciples words of revelation, knowledge, prophecy, instruction, tongues and their interpretation ((1 Cor 14:6) in the early church still operates in the world today and nothing that we in the CGGC believe leads me to think He's stopped speaking to people. We still believe in 1 Corinthians 12, after all.
If people with whom you gather are not speaking words of prophecy, then in some way, probably by total accident or ignorance, you are prohibiting people from speaking through the same Spirit who spoke through people in the early church--unless spiritual gifts have disappeared.
In my opinion when you impose the innovations of the "SERMON" "PREACHED" by the "PASTOR/PRIEST" as a "SCHEDULED" part of "WORSHIP" included in your "PREARRANGED" "ORDER OF SERVICE," you create an unbiblical gathering culture that inhibits disciples other than the professional from speaking in the Spirit so that they'd hesitate to speak even if they felt strongly led.
Also, when you give the impression that what's said in a gathering must be prepared ahead of time and may not be spoken extemporaneously through the Spirit, you inhibit the disciples from being vessels of the Spirit as they were on a regular basis in the early church.
I think the shape of what prophecy 'looks like' is the bigger issue / question that we need to deal with, not whether it ought be be permitted and encouraged.
I agree that this is an important issue.
However, from our experience, the issue of creating a gathering culture built on the values that all have spiritual gifts and that the professional clergy person isn't the only one empowered to speak for the Lord is more basic.
M (and Y'all),
Have you ever had the experience that, on the way out of 'church,' someone in the congregation said something like, "When you were preaching and said, (fill in the blank) I realized (fill in the blank) and I just had to tell you about it?"
That happens at Faith all the time except that the person stands up and says it as a word from the Lord to the entire body and it normally edifies us all in the moment and in the Spirit.
If people who receive those insights are not speaking them to the body, your gathering culture is probably quenching the Spirit and your people are probably being robbed of truth that the Spirit would speak to them all if you allowed Him to do so.
And it is likely that you are disobeying the biblical command, "Let two or three prophets speak....
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