All About The Tongues
Sunday Feb 4, 2024
Series: Beautiful Body - Week Three - Scripture: 1 Corinthians 14:1-3, 14:10-11, 14:26, 14:33 (NIV11)
Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.
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What is a Spiritual Person? - 1 Corinthians 14:1-3. Prophecy is not fortune telling, it is the telling forth of truth, articulating what is true in community. Paul asks the Corinthians to keep their speaking in tongues in check. Glossolalia means “language or tongue” (glossa) and “speech” (lalia). “Speaking in tongues” is speaking in a language incomprehensible to the hearer. In the Bible, speaking in tongues shows up in Acts 2 and 19 (those tongues were foreign languages, intelligible to others). In the Greco-Roman world, speaking in tongues and other ecstatic spiritual experiences show up in contexts where people sought new revelations and an escape from their depressive existence in the empire. Disagreements over spiritual practices has been tearing down the church from the very beginning, and for Paul what makes you spiritual is how you speak to one another.
Trouble with Tongues - 1 Cor 14:10-11. Paul’s context: he wants to revert the trend, because using incomprehensible language is not good for the people in the community and for those visiting. But also because of the economic inequality: there were people in the community who pulled rank calming that they are more powerful because they have this super-spiritual ability to speak in tongues. Modern context: Glossolalia started in 1900s, grew in 50s and 60s through the global Pentecostal and renewal movements. Later, speaking in tongues became synonymous with deep intercessory prayer. In Bobbi’s personal experience, those revival movements have left her critical and angry because of the divisions she observed. With her family and community, the evangelists who brought that charismatic gospel and organized meetings, did not stick around for the long work required for people and communities to grow, change and heal.
Chaos and Control - NT scholar Christy Cobb offers a playful reading of Acts 2:1-13. Speaking in tongues - languages that diverse people groups could understand - created an unpredictable chaos in the city and sent a message that this new faith was for everyone. God would speak to all people through their own language. When people take it further (by the time Paul is writing this letter) and start using mystical experience to keep others out, Paul moves his communities toward the sense of control - 1 Corinthians 14:26. The point is that we can hear the Sprit in the times of chaos in our life and in the times of when we feel like we have more control, it all belongs.
Speech - What does it mean to speak words of life, truthful words, prophetic words to each other? Paul’s advice is 1 Corinthians 14:33. The wisdom we seek can be found in the next truthful conversation that we might have.
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Connect: Briefly talk about what, in your opinion or experience, makes a spiritual person. What are the qualities of a spiritual person, or spiritual community? Would you agree with Paul that what makes us spiritual is the way we speak with one another? Or how Bobbi put it: “we are most spiritual when we are speaking God’s words to each other in ways that can be understood.”?
Share: Bobbi gave us some context for speaking in tongues - in the time of Acts, in the Corinthian church, in the 20th century, in our times and even in her own experience when she got swept up into it for a season. What has resonated or connected with you from those contexts? What has been your experience with the charismatic or Pentecostal movements (or even mystical experiences of faith)?
Reflect: Reflect on the relationship between our desire for mystical experiences and our need for the prophetic, i.e. to hear and speak the truth within our communities, in ways that are clear and understandable. “Our disagreements on spiritual practices… have built up and torn down the church from the very beginning to this day.” For Paul, and for us, speaking in tongues has the potential to both unify and divide a community. What are some of the guidelines we can follow or things we can do to use our spiritual gifts in a way that builds up the community (or our family, or our neighbourhood) rather than causing division and breakdown?
Engage: In her message, Bobbi spoke about how in Acts the Spirit was experienced as a destabilizing but truth-bringing chaos that expanded the circle of faith to include others, and how speaking in tongues also required Paul to introduce control and order in the Corinthian church, so that others, especially the poor, could be included in the community. In what ways have those things - chaos and control - been needed in your life at different points? Or, just engage with this quote from the sermon: “If you walk with Jesus for any length of time, you too will have a diverse story to tell about what moved you, hurt you, healed you, and changed you. There will be times when you see the ways of God so clearly, And other times when you feel like all the lights have gone out. There will be times when you have a profound experience that’s hard to put into words, but there will be other times when your doubt is so easy to name. There will be times when all you want is clarity, control, and certainty. But there will be other times when chaos, confusion, and even anxiety have something more to say to you. It all belongs. You aren’t doing anything wrong. The Spirit plays, surprises, and organizes with one guiding principle: love.”
Take away: Bobbi wrapped up with this invitation, “To be prophetic isn’t actually that hard…Can you actually bring a little more of yourself to community? Can you speak truthfully about life and faith to each other? Can you practice some vulnerability right here, with the people in this room? I’m not talking about your tidy story, I’m talking about the messy one you’re in right now. Could the wisdom you’re looking for be in the next truthful conversation you have? It’s worth a shot. So … Open your mouth. Trust your heart. And speak the truth that’s ready to flow out.” What are some barriers that prevent us from having these kinds of conversations that lead to wisdom? And how might we overcome them to foster deeper, more loving, and more prophetic fellowship?
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Pray: Every one of us is spiritual We’re in relationship with mystery and awe We’re reaching for what’s true We’re in need of great love. It can be so hard to know what to say, So God, won’t you Help us not to rush to fill in the quiet in conversations Help us to patiently wait for people to find the truth themselves And also, help us to speak honestly and lovingly when the time is right. Spirit of the living God, Present with us now Enter the places of our honest prayers, our honest conversations, our honest inner dialogues and heal us of all that harms us. Amen.
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CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 34
MUSIC Curated by Kevin Borst
Bethel Music - Raise A Hallelujah
Commons Worship - Be Thou My Vision
Mission House - I Don't Have Much
All Sons & Daughters - Great Are You LordPRAYER FOR THE COMMUNITY: Written by Scott Wall
God that welcomes every unique experience, sourcing divine goodness out of all our diversity -
For healthy bodies full of energy - for recovering bodies full of anticipation -
We give thanks.
Even as we pray for weakened bodies - for bodies receiving treatment - for bodies needing care and rest -
For thriving minds full of curiosity - for thoughtful minds lending their brightness to the world -
We give thanks.
Even as we pray for anxious minds here today - for minds weighed down by troubling news, unresolved conflict, and the search for a new way forward -
For every heart surrounded by love and care - for hearts full of compassion and mutuality -
We give thanks.
Even as we pray for hearts broken and afraid - for those whose hearts feel numb, and alone - for hearts held captive by despair -
We choose to trust we are seen and known by your gentle Spirit.
That somehow, surrounded here, our stories are held by divine embrace.
Give us delight and courage in our care for each other, we pray.
Amen.
