Pentecostals generally do not have a formal liturgical structure. We have no Saints, no Book of Common Worship and . . . most Pentecostals wouldn’t have a clue about Maundy Thursday or what a Novena is. Ours is a more free-form spiritual exercise, if you know what I mean!
If I were a minister in the liturgical tradition (Anglican, Presbyterian) I would have treated my congregation to an Ascension Sunday message a few weeks back, with readings from Acts 1:1-11, Psalm 47, Ephesians 1:15-23, and Luke 24.44-53, in anticipation of Pentecost Sunday, (June 5, 2022) a day of particular importance to Pentecostals like me.
To speak of Pentecost is to surely speak about the infilling of the Holy Spirit . . . or what Pentecostals call the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. And to speak of it is to invite lots of positions and questions – and regrettably, a number of myths, too. Now to be fair …
Some have never done the personal hard work of searching the Scriptures themselves; they simply parrot what someone else once said and are content to go no further. Their theology is likely to be static, rigid . . . and safe!
Others dismiss the extended role of the Holy Spirit in the church because (a) they are afraid of it and what it might mean, or (b) have made up their minds that it is not for them, or (c) because it is not a part of their church ‘tradition’.
Still others have not really bothered to investigate further but are open in their hearts and minds to whatever new things God has in store for them. What a great approach!
As 2 Timothy 3:16 reminds us …
“Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.”
The Bible is not designed to persuade people who have made up
their minds that something it says is not for them. It is designed
to bless believers who wish the truth.
Admittedly, I hear few [no!] children saying, “Mommy, how many more sleeps till Pentecost?” Still, I believe that just as the Holy Spirit is an integral part of the Trinity, Pentecost is a significant ingredient in God’s plan of redemption, and I trust that every Pentecostal church seized the recent Pentecost Sunday to celebrate it. If they (you) did not – what a shame!
So, in the event you went to a Pentecostal church on Pentecost Sunday and heard pretty much squat from the pulpit ... I would like to address some common myths that affect our understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I will try to present them logically and deliberately --- without too much Pentecostal passion, so that you can stay focused on the substance and not be distracted by my style.
# 1. Tongues are not for everyone
Now those who believe that tongues are not for everyone generally appeal to I Corinthians 12:30 to support this view: “All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they?”
It all seems rather straight forward. After all, clearly these are rhetorical questions which demand a "No" answer. Not everyone in any church has the same gift or exercises these 9 gifts of the Spirit categories. There is a good reason for this because as the Body of Christ we need each other and that is why the gifts are dispersed among that Body for the profit of all. So, at first glance we might conclude that tongues are not for everyone. But wait a minute! If this is true, then what are we to do with other passages in the same book of Corinthians . . . by the same author that encourages us to speak in tongues?
I Cor. 14:5 “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues.”
I Cor. 14:39 "Forbid not to speak in tongues."
Even an Anglican bishop doesn’t have the power to countermand words like that! How are we to reconcile the apparent conflict here between (a) tongues are not for everyone and (b) “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues.”? Well, the answer is straight forward.
In I Corinthians 12 Paul is not talking about being filled with the Holy Spirit. Rather he is talking about the 9 public ministry gifts (Spiritual gifts) that are manifested in the church – like word of wisdom, knowledge, gifts of healing.
Look at the language Paul uses in I Corinthians 12. Notice he calls speaking in tongues, "different kinds of tongues" (vv. 10, 28). ‘Different kinds’ means not the usual. This leads a person to ask - “Well, what is the ‘usual’ kinds of tongues?” The answer, Paul talks about in I Corinthians 14.
In I Corinthians 14 Paul is talking about tongues as a private, devotional prayer language and as the ‘initial’ sign of the baptism in the Spirit. Put another way, this is the ‘usual kind of tongues’. This is what Pentecostals have in mind when they talk about the ‘Infilling of the Holy Spirit’.
The Holy Spirit gets a raw deal in the Apostles’ Creed. Instead of getting a paragraph to Himself, He gets bundled in with the final list of extras which almost feels like an afterthought.
So, when Paul asks the question in I Corinthians 12 "Do all speak in tongues?" he is referring to the public gift of speaking in tongues within a church service which allows for the interpretation to follow. Not everyone has that gift. Not all have been given this gift of ‘different kinds’ of tongues. However, in I Corinthians 14 Paul reminds us that in our personal, devotional life, God has given us a prayer language (14:2): “For anyone who speaks in a tongue, does not speak to men but to God.” Paul said that when it comes to this private prayer language . . . “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you” (I Corinthians 14:18).
In Acts 2 we read there were 120 in the upper room. And unanimously, every one of them spoke in tongues. "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance". (v. 4)
In Acts 10:44-46 at Cornelius’ household at Caesarea – every one of them spoke in tongues: “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished . . . For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God."
Mark 16:17 "And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues.”
Not everyone will experience giving a message in tongues to be interpreted in a public church service. However, according to the most recent figures available (World Christian Encyclopedia, 3rd edition [2020] some 644 million Christians have experienced this private prayer language of speaking in tongues . . . and the numbers are growing by 19 million a year. Tongues are for everyone!
# 2. Speaking in Tongues is of the Devil
Someone once said to me, “Speaking in tongues sounds like demonic gibberish to me”. Ok, I get it – especially if you have never witnessed it yourself. So, consider Luke 11:9-13:
“So, I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"
So, if you were to ask God for the Holy Spirit, do you think He would give you a demon? Really?
In Mark 3, the religious teachers tried to deceive the followers of Christ by saying that Jesus acted by the power of Satan: “And the teachers of the Law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub. By the prince of demons, he is driving out demons”. (v. 22)
Hmmm! Acts 10:38 says: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power” . . . and went around doing good. Do you remember how Jesus responded to those religious teachers back in Mark 3? He said (v. 29) Be cautious . . . because ‘whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven’. When we attribute to the Devil divine things, we are on shaky ground. When we start showing contempt for the things of God, we are skating on thin ice
When we connect speaking in tongues with the devil’s work . . . we want to be very careful.
I confess . . .
I have never heard anyone speak in tongues who didn't confess Jesus.
I see only believers in the Scriptures speaking in tongues. If you know of a verse where this is not the case, let me know.
A believer cannot be ‘invaded’ or ‘spatially indwelt’ by a squatter demon.
While it is not unusual for the devil to counterfeit something of God … if he did counterfeit speaking in tongues, such people would always be in a trance-like state under the control of demonic power. (See previous statement)
Yet, the Bible is clear that when you speak in other tongues as the Holy Spirit gives you utterance you are not forced to do it. You are completely free to exercise your will, as it should be. Remember I Corinthians 14:14-15 … “If I pray in a tongue my spirit prays, but my mind in unfruitful. So, what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.”
We should not confuse the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with
the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. God does not override a
person’s free will.
If speaking in tongues is of the devil, then the Apostle Paul was of the devil, because he spoke in tongues (I Cor. 14:18). So did the Apostle Peter . . . all the N.T. writers . . . including Mary the mother of Jesus. (Acts 1:13-14; 2:1-4)
The Holy Spirit is not an unclean Spirit. He is holy and righteous. To attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil is to blaspheme him, endanger yourself and imperil your soul. That some people misuse and misapply the gifts of the Spirit does not negate them.
# 3. Jesus Didn’t Speak in Tongues
True enough, Jesus did not! However, that is hardly a good argument. There is no record in the Bible of Jesus getting married either. Does that mean that Christians should not marry? Now, I could suggest a couple of possible explanations for this. For example . . .
Since He was God, there were no languages He did not know.
Since He was sinless, He had perfect communication with the Father, and therefore, He did not need tongues.
Jesus didn't speak in tongues because He had the power of the Spirit without measure (Luke 4:14, John 3:34). Without measure means not in a limited degree, but fully, completely. You and I are not in that position, I think you will agree?
However, a far better answer to that question would be to remind ourselves that it was because Jesus ministered under the Old Covenant. He was the last person to function as a prophet under the Old Covenant. Tongues are a New Testament phenomenon. Tongues and the interpretation of tongues did not exist until after Jesus ascended back into heaven. Speaking in tongues occurred for the 1st time at Pentecost . . . and by then Jesus was gone . . . and the Comforter had come (John 14:17-18) and the Church had come into being. In other words, under the Old Covenant Spirit baptism was not available; nor could the Holy Spirit be given until Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross, was resurrected and ascended to His Father.
By the time the baptism of the Holy Spirit came, and tongues were manifested, Jesus was already with His Father in heaven. Having done everything, He needed to do to save us . . . He provides the indwelling presence of . . . and the infilling power of the Holy Spirit.
While we are talking about Jesus, He Himself said that tongues would be a normative sign that would follow believers. Remember Mark 16:17 . . . "These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues.”
# 4. Tongues have passed away
Folks who reject the practice of speaking in tongues argue that tongues, and the other miraculous gifts, passed away after the death of the original Apostles - that they were only given to authenticate the ministry of the apostles. The thinking here it that it began on the day of Pentecost in 30 AD, fifty days after the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified . . . and ended in 70 A.D., 40 years after they began when the Roman armies destroyed the Jewish nation, Jerusalem, and the temple. A couple of thoughts here:
First, to say that believers at the beginning did speak in tongues is to admit that tongues was legitimate at some point – a point that should not be lost to us. In other words, the gifts of the Spirit are not smoke and mirrors!
While I concede that 1, maybe even 2, 3 or 4 of the 644 million ‘Pentecostal’ folks in the world might be delusional, what about the rest of them?
Second, to believe that tongues have ceased is to suggest that God favored the believers who lived in the first 300 years of the church more than He does those in these last 1700 years, even though the Bible says in Acts 10:34:“God is no respecter of persons”.
Where do we read in the Bible that speaking in tongues was lost or ceased after the last Apostle died? The appeal is generally made to I Corinthians 13 … and in particular verses 8-10: “Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. Our knowledge is incomplete and our ability to speak what God has revealed is incomplete. But when what is complete comes, then what is incomplete will no longer be used.”
Now we cannot just pick and choose here, like we do when we go to Tim Horton’s for a dozen donuts! If the gifts of prophecy and tongues have ceased. . . then let us be sure to also add knowledge to that list of things that have passed, because both are in the same verse. Of course, no one wants to go that far, do they? In fact, Daniel 12:4 (writing about the distant future) said: “knowledge will increase”.
Some folks believe that the phrase “when perfection comes” (v. 10) is referring to the completed canon of the Bible. So now that we have the Bible, we don’t need anything else . . . including the gifts of the Holy Spirit — things like healing, miracles, or gift of faith. This is inaccurate . . . and a little nutty of an approach. Verse 10 cannot be referring to the Bible because the Bible says that when perfection comes (v. 12; a reference to Christ, not the Bible), we are then going to see God face to face and know as perfectly as He knows us. Pentecostals believe that the potential for the gifts of the Spirit did not stop at the end of the apostolic period but are genuine spiritual gifts that can be manifested by believers today. As Peter says in Acts 2:39 … “This promise belongs to you and to your children and to everyone who is far away. [in fact] It belongs to everyone who worships the Lord our God."
# 5. Salvation and Baptism of the Holy Spirit are the Same
A rather popular and attractive myth is that believers are baptized in the Spirit at conversion — when they are saved. Therefore, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a separate experience, as classical Pentecostals believe. Not so!
We need to make a distinction between the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Let’s investigate that claim.
For sure, the Holy Spirit is involved in salvation. Paul the Apostle wrote in I Corinthians 12:13 “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” Again, he writes to the Galatians (3:26, 27) …"For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."
Well-meaning pastors and church traditions may have inspired
our denominations, our churches and even our opinions.
However, since God has inspired the Bible, we should make
it our final court of appeal.
There is no such thing as a believer who has not received the Holy Spirit. So, when a person accepts Christ as Savior, he is baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ, the Church. (Romans 8:9 and I Cor. 6:19) [Water baptism is a picture of this baptism] Responsible Pentecostals believe this. Baptism by the Holy Spirit is quite different than baptism in the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 1:5 Jesus told his disciples, [who were saved btw] “You will be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Question: If these disciples had died prior to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, would they have gone to heaven? The answer is obvious. Of course! In fact in Luke 10:20 Jesus told 72 disciples, long before Pentecost — “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven”.
In Acts 8:14-20 Peter and John prayed for the Samaritans “that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.” The point here is that the Samaritans were already genuinely converted before Peter and John arrived. In fact, the writer Luke explicitly tells us in v. 14 that the “apostles heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God” . . . and only after that were Peter and John sent.
Acts 8:17 says that Peter and John laid their hands on them ‘and they received the Holy Spirit’. Nowhere does the Bible teach or imply that salvation is received by the laying on of hands. But . . . the Bible does show that a post conversion experience of receiving the Spirit can happen when you lay your hands on someone. Consider later passages in Acts:
Acts 9:17 Ananias placed his hands on Saul to be filled with H.S.
Acts 19:6 Paul at Ephesus laid his hands on the disciples and “the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues.”
I think some see the Holy Spirit as a ‘stand-in’ ― a substitute, a 2nd stringer who gets called into the game when someone gets hurt ... or the success of the game has already been determined. Poor theology!
Now over the years I think I have heard every conceivable reason to not speak in tongues. Some will speak of the genre of Acts and raise the descriptive / prescriptive argument. Others will play the Acts versus I Corinthians card. And still others choose to make bold (but thin) statements like “Find one place in the New Testament where it says every believer should speak in tongues” . . . or “Well, John the Baptist never spoke in tongues”. [See # 3 Jesus Didn’t Speak in Tongues] Think I will let my words speak for themselves.
Pentecost Sunday is now behind us. No doubt it was celebrated in Catholic and liturgical churches, given that it is part of their church calendars. I can only ‘hope’ that the Pentecostal church did likewise. Yah, I know – “Pentecostals are not liturgical so there is no reason to.” Hmm! Given that Christmas, Easter, Mothers and Father’s Day messages appear naturally ‘on time’ in the Pentecostal church – Pentecost Sunday seems like a reasonable opportunity – you think? Assuming it did (fingers crossed), I trust the experience was an informing ... teachable moment for you; one where the Pentecostal pulpit celebrated Pentecost and encouraged you to embrace ALL the good news surrounding the work of the Holy Spirit. After all, as Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 12:1 "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant."
Before Pentecost the disciples were living behind locked doors – for fear. After they received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, they turned the world upside down. That same transforming experience; that same dimension of power … is available to us, for Jesus still baptizes His followers with the Holy Spirit. “Father, I thank You for the depth of You that is available to me.” “OnlySaying.”
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