THE key to understanding
the purpose of the gifts and the purpose of the gift of speaking,
according to Paul, is to build up God's people. It is to bring
that which had been divided by sin and evil back together again
by the Spirit of God.
Why did God give human beings
the ability to communicate? Genesis 1 is a crescendo of speech
that rises to the creation of human beings in God's image and
thus with the ability to communicate and it is in Genesis 2 that
the gift of speaking allows for Adam to respond to God to fulfil
his will for creation.
Unlike other animals, God's will
for man would not be realised through mere instinctual obedience
to nature's law. True fruition for humankind was only possible
through the gift of speaking with and responding to God as persons.
And here lies the awful calamity of sin. Rather than a means of
truth and order, the gift of speech served to alienate humanity
from God and each other through their lies.
The depths of estrangement are
reached in the futility of Babel. Babel means "tongues"
and bespeak of our inability to heal the breach between man and
God as well as between man and man. It is the cacophony of alienation
that the Spirit is overcoming in Corinth, according to Paul.
As he argues in 1 Corinthians
12-14, through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, God is
re-uniting that which was torn asunder by calling the Corinthians
to "pursue the way of love".
This
pursuit, according to Paul, should guide all the gifts and particularly
the gift of speaking. Nearly every gift involves to some degree
the gift of speaking. Yet it is precisely here that the danger
to our unity dwells. Because the gift is by nature diverse, apart
from the power and unity of the Holy Spirit, it threatens to divide
rather than bring us together.
When the gift becomes self absorbed, used to build up our own
self rather than the community, the gift actually begins to tear
the church apart. Even tongues, prophecy, or preaching can divide
if they merely are used for individual spiritual fulfilment.
Rather than building up the body of Christ, the tongue can
quickly become an instrument to attack, degrade and divide. Such
division reflects not the Kingdom of God but the division of Babel.
This is the problem Paul faced in the church at Corinth. The very
gifts bestowed upon the church to re-establish the bonds of unity
were wrongly dividing the church.
The problem was not the gifts but their disorderly use. Thus,
Paul affirms speaking in heavenly tongues even as he gives preference
prophecy wherein God's clear communication is manifest. In prophecy
God helps the church in difficult circumstance through foretelling,
exhortation and edification so that the church can address its
challenges with boldness. It also includes words of consolation
when we suffer. Here prophecy provides God's solace, comfort and
love during hard times.
Prophecy is clear. It is revelation
thus making manifest what was previously hidden. Whereas tongues
leave mystery as mystery, prophecy makes the vague comprehensible
providing guidance so that the church can pursue the way of love.
This is why prophecy is the orderly and appropriate word for God's
gathered people in worship.
WORDS cannot console, cannot edify,
cannot exhort unless they are clear words that we understand.
These are the words that help us to ride through the storms of
life or to grasp the challenges before us. Thus in both foretelling
and forth-telling, prophecy is the better gift, according to Paul.
Clear and articulate, prophecy
tells us about God, ourselves, the world or the situation we find
ourselves in. For the more we know about God, the more we love
Him, and the more we love Him, the more we want to know Him better.
This path of knowing and loving God requires clarity, not mystery.
There is certainly a place for
mystery in that we can never know everything there is to know
about God and even the greatest theologians reach the point where
they must fall upon their knees in praise of God because they
know God is beyond their ability to fully know Him. On the other
hand, what God has revealed we are to strive to understand.
Thus, we begin to see the purpose
of the gift of speaking. God in restoring creation to its true
beauty draws us back into unity with Him through the word. The
purpose of the word is to order the wonderful diversity of our
world according to the peace of God.
The Rev Dr Thomas Harvey, a lecturer at Trinity Theological
College, works with the Presbyterian Church as a Partner in Mission
from the Presbyterian Church (USA).
QUOTE:
THE TONGUE CAN DIVIDE
'Rather than building up the body of Christ, the tongue can quickly become an instrument to attack, degrade and divide. Such division reflects not the Kingdom of God but the division of Babel. This is the problem Paul faced in the church at Corinth. The very gifts bestowed upon the church to re-establish the bonds of unity were wrongly dividing the church.'