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This is just one story of many from my recent journey across the Americas to Chile. About a month and a half ago I felt God saying to me that He wanted to stretch my heart for the nations. I simply just said, “Sweet God! Let’s do it!” and didn’t think much more about it. A few weeks later I felt God was urging me to go to Chile with a friend of mine who has a ministry that partners with foreign missionaries and church planters offering whatever kind of help they need. I tried to push it out of my mind because, quite honestly, I did not have the time or the money to take such a trip without planning or notice. For the next week I went to bed with Chile on my mind and woke up with it on my heart. I finally mentioned something to my wife about it and asked her to pray with me about whether I needed to go on this trip; if it was just me I didn’t want any piece of it, but if it was God I wanted to be obedient. A few days later, she said, “Kyle, I gotta talk to you about something.” In my head, I thought, “Oh no, what did I do?” Then she totally surprised me and said, “You are suppose to go to Chile.” I knew it was true, I knew it was God. So I tapped into our savings (don’t tell Dave Ramsey), bought a plane ticket, packed my bags, and left two weeks later.
The country itself is absolutely gorgeous, with the Andes Mountains standing proudly to the East, their summits still heavily capped with winter snow, and the endless bliss that is the Pacific to the West. It is very chilly there (pun totally intended), and the food is overwhelmingly exquisite with juicy steak, cooked-to-perfection potatoes, and boiled, seasoned clams and shellfish being some of the main dishes. I was super stoked to find that some of the finest coffee I’ve ever had was served at every one of the four meals a day. More beautiful than anything else were the people. Their hunger for God was apparent as soon as I engaged in attempting conversation, they with their broken English and me in a less-than-poor adventure in speaking Spanish. We had a team made up of my friend, a Chilean missionary, a few translators, a husband and wife who lead worship, and me. We traveled from the very Southern-most city that is reachable by vehicle called Puerto Montt, to the nation’s capital city, Santiago, within the 10 days I was there, totaling over 650 miles. Every evening we preached at a different church in different cities and brought the message of the faithfulness and provision of God. After the message we prayed and ministered to whoever needed or wanted prayer. I have never seen the power of God fall so strongly on a gathering in my life.
I’ll share one example of what God was doing throughout the week. We were at a church where many people came down to receive prayer after the message. We begin to pray for many of the people as God lead us and God began to move in the most powerful ways. As my translator relayed the things I was speaking, God began to speak to me more specifically and with more detail than ever in my life. I prayed for healing over a woman and watched her physically change. I prayed for healing over another woman and as I did my chest started burning with intense pain, which I initially assumed was caused by the mysterious shellfish/clam thing I ate the night before. As the pain increased, I wasn’t sure what was wrong so I jumped out on a limb and asked her if something was wrong in the middle of her chest. She exclaimed that she had had an operation in that exact spot two months ago and that it didn’t heal right and something was still wrong inside of her; it caused her much pain. I prayed for God to immediately heal her and as I did I felt the burning sensation go away and apparently she did too as she began to weep and cry out, “Gracias, Señor!” She said the pain was gone and that God had healed her. God is absolutely amazing!
I prayed over many more people for all kinds of different things and God continued to do miraculous things. One of the most incredible experiences happened late in the week as the service we were at was almost over. I had been praying for some people in the back of the room and was walking back up to the front. I past a young guy of probably 16 or 17 years old whom I noticed earlier in the evening. I knew earlier that I needed to pray for him and I kept waiting and waiting for him to come forward but he never did. As I past him, I called Francisco, my translator, to come over to him with me, and I said to the kid, “Can I pray for you?” He nodded slightly and I said, almost without thinking, “You knew you were suppose to come up earlier for prayer but you didn’t.” He looked down at the ground and nodded again. I told him that it was okay and that God wanted to move inside of him. I put my hand on his forehead and it was as if I immediately knew the core of who this kid was: his deepest insecurities, his internal thoughts, his secrets that he had never told anyone before. I began to speak the things that were going through my mind. I began to explain with uncanny detail the hurt and pain that he held inside of his heart and how he hid this all internally, shielding it from his friends and family. I revealed the outburst of rebellion within him and the sinful things he had been doing over the past year or so. I told him about his dysfunctional relationship with his dad and how he absolutely could not stand to be around his father. I knew it was because his father had emotionally and verbally abused him growing up and that he felt no love from his dad at all. I said that I saw him shutting the door to his room at night, pretending everything was alright, and then weeping in his brokenness and depression in his bed, crying himself into slumber. This was scary territory for me to be trudging through and I finally asked him if all of this was true. He finally looked up from the spot on the floor that he had stared a hole through and peered deep into my eyes, trying his hardest to hold back the tears. He nodded his head and said that every word I spoke was exactly right; it was all true. I then said something that I knew was the reason I was praying for him, “You hate God because you hate your dad. You think God is a father like your father. I am here to tell you that God is not like your father. He loves you more than anyone on this whole earth, from Chile to Texas, ever could. He is not mad at you. He doesn’t want to throw you in hell. He is madly in love with you and wants to know you, and He wants you to know Him.” At this, the boy broke down. The coldness rushed from his eyes in the form of ever-swelling tears holding the emotions of years and years of loneliness and brokenness. With streams forming vertically down his desperate face, I began to tell him the miraculous Gospel of Jesus, and his gaze never broke mine. I explained,” Jesus took all of your sin, all of your loneliness, all of your emptiness, and all of your brokenness to the cross where He died the most gruesome and horrific death in the history of the world. He went into the grave taking with Him all of your junk. Three days later He arose from the dead, the only person in history to have victory over death, and in the pit of the tomb He left all of your sin and brokenness. He is alive today. He wants to give you life. He is here now and wants to bring you life –real life, abundant and full life, joyful life where He is your Lord and your Lover.” I told him that Jesus is real and that the reason I knew all the stuff about him was because His Spirit was in me, speaking to me, and leading me as I spoke and prayed over him. ”Jesus has given me life, He has rescued me from death, He has rescued me from my brokenness and pain, He has saved me from the mess I got myself into. Do you want Him to do the same for you?” With the puddle of tears on the tiles below growing larger, he said, “Yes, I want Jesus!” I lead him to the Lord, telling him to pray to God and ask Him to forgive him, ask Him to save him, ask Him to live in him, and ask Him to grant him life. As the boy prayed, I watched the Spirit of God fall on him, moving deep inside his heart and restoring life and hope and love within the almost forgotten depths of this kid’s soul. I was a spectator of the amazing grace of God rushing over a wretched man, as the Creator of the universe stole back what was rightfully His to begin with–the life of this teenage boy. God did many incredible things during this journey and it was an awesome blessing to join Him in His work. I pray that this testimony of His grace and truth and Spirit and power would fall deep upon your heart, bringing encouragement and refreshment to your spirit. May God bless you as you seek Him and as we are obedient to the things He calls us to do, may He bring light and grace and truth and life to the ends of the earth.
Several months ago, I went fishing for the first time in a long while.
This was mostly because the guys I work with are outdoor enthusiasts, much like myself, however, they lean more toward the fishing/hunting aisles at Academy whereas I roam the camping/kayaking/outdoor sections. I enjoy doing most anything outside and have recently picked up hunting as a hobby, partly to join in the badgering of my co-workers and partly for the experimentation of a new sport. The talk of hunting in our office is probably on the top 5 Frequently Talked About topics and so I couldn’t help but loading up and jumping on the old bandwagon.
Fishing is up there too, but not anywhere close to hunting. Something happened a few months back that boosted fishing in the rankings. I never really paid attention to the conversations on the matter because fishing to me is… well its boring.
Maybe this is due to my memories as a kid making a fishing pole out of a long stick, rolling up Frosted Flakes mixed with Big Red into little pieces as bait, and hiking back to the little tank behind my grandparents house in the country. The construction of this rod was pristine, as I had whittled the bark bare with my trusty Swiss Army (thanks Mac), carving a loophole in the end, and even using duck tape for the grip. As I put my homemade bait on the rusty hook at the end of the line I thought to myself, “This is gonna be great. I’m going to catch the big one!” For the next hour I stared with intent at the mocking red and white bobber, ready to yank the heck out of the rod the moment it went under. Either all of the fish in the pond were brilliant and knew this was some sort of trick, or possibly they all could not stand the taste or smell of Big Red Frosted Flakes, or God forgot to put fish in this tank where fish should naturally be. At the end of that hour I found myself thinking, “The best part of fishing is building the pole. Maybe I could go back and make another rod….”
Nonetheless, fishing has never really been my thing. So when the guys at the office started rambling on about there fishing adventures, I never really paid much attention. This changed, however, with the addition of one adjective.
Kayak fishing!
This culmination of two completely separate activities, one of which I absolutely loved and the other that I hated with equal enthusiasm, somehow struck a melodious chord in my outdoorsy soul. I thought that this was something that I needed to try. I could handle fishing with the guys as long as it was coupled with paddling out on my kayak and the sound of waves breaking out on the banks.
And a strange thing began to happen at the office. Kayaks began to show up everywhere. I was being asked what kinds of kayaks were good? Which ones sucked? Which ones could track well? Which ones had good storage capacities? Kayaking jumped to the top of FTA list in a matter of days, and I loved it. By the end of the week, our whole staff had kayaks in the backs of their trucks and had made plans to kayak fish within the week.
One day, I decided to go out with them and give this newfound sport a try.
I packed my kayaking gear in the back of my Xterra, threw the boats on top, and headed for the lake. One of the guys I worked with lent me a rod and reel because, naturally, I did not own one. We met at the lake and unloaded our massive boatloads of gear. As we put in and began to paddle to the far cove, I found myself so far enjoying kayak fishing. We spread out in the cove and began casting. A few of the guys had several lines dropped in the water and their rods were in custom rod holders attached to their boats. This impressed me as I fumbled around with the one rod I had, trying to figure out how to make the little worm look real as I violently shoved the hook through its fake head. After making sure the weight was at the end of the line, the hook was properly attached, and the “real-looking” fake worm was in place, I began to cast it out and finally sort of got the hang of the motion. I began a contest with myself to see how far out I could cast the hook. After thirty minutes or so, and not even a nibble, we paddled to the next cove hoping more ambitiously hungry fish were ahead. To no avail, the fish remained full and refused to take the bait. At one point I thought I had one when I was reeling it in and my pole started to bend. I pulled and reeled as your suppose to (at least on Wii fishing), and my kayak began to move towards the fish. In my head I thought that it was the big one from back in the day that I always planned on catching, but as I moved closer I realized that my big fish was really a big branch right under the surface of the water that my hook was caught on. That remained to be the most excitement I had all day. We paddled back in and despite not catching a thing I actually had fun kayak fishing.
A few weeks after that adventure, I was at a prayer gathering with a few others and God was really speaking to us and drawing us closer to him. I was praying for a friend of mine who has a ministry that reaches out to several communities across Central America and God began to speak clearly to me what to pray for him. God was pressing on me to pray for my friends “burden,” which sort of confused me. I kept saying to God, “No Lord, you say that your burden is light and your yoke is easy. How can I pray for you to increase his burden? It just does not make sense.” Then God began to assure me that this burden was not a bad thing, although it was both necessary and heavy.
And then almost immediately, God took me back to that memory of fumbling around with the fishing lure. He highlighted in my mind the weight at the end of the line, and I suddenly realized what God was saying to me for my friend. The weight is necessary to catch fish and without it the hook is completely useless. It has nothing to make it sink. For my friend, God was showing me that Christ is the bait and the hook and the reason to fish in the first place. But there has to be weight on the end of the line to make the hook sink. What the Spirit was teaching me was that God sometimes allows our hearts to be burdened, to be heavy, and to feel weighty for the sake of the Gospel. It is not burdensome. It is certainly not condemning. And it is not to load us down with worry, regret, anxiety, or whatever else. Jesus does say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”1 But I believe God does let us feel pain for other people. He allows us to be touched and moved by the broken hearted. He gives us hearts to feel pity and mercy for other people. And he allows us, in a sense, to be burdened in order to bare each other’s burdens. He gives us the heart, or the weight on our heart, we need in order to go out and cast our line and fish for the sake of the Gospel.
As I told my friend what God was showing me, he shook his head in agreement and was deeply moved by what God was saying to him. He was affirmed in his calling and encouraged in his spirit.
What is God putting on your heart? What areas is he weighting, not weighing, you down in order for you to cast your line in HIS name?
1 Matthew 11:30.
This post is a direct result of a conversation within my small group community that occurred Monday night. We talked about what it meant to live prayerfully and were discussing Jesus’ instructions on prayer in Matthew 6, when an interesting subjected arose. “What about when people pray in tongues in a service and no one can understand them? How is that different than ‘babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words,’ in verse 7?”
Thus, the topic for discussion is what exactly is the gift of tongues and how is it appropriate/inappropriate in worship.
Before I dive into scripture, I must confess that this subject is both deeply troubling for me (because I don’t enjoy controversy), yet very close to my heart. Monday night, I came clean and outed myself as one who has a prayer language; call it what you want–praying in tongues, speaking in the spirit, whatever–I call it my prayer language.
The story of this phenomenon began when I was 17 years old and a junior in high school. One Saturday night, I was intensely praying in my room and all of a sudden these words, seemingly gibberish and incomprehensible, fell out of my mouth in one, long strand. I, being the Baptist boy I was, became afraid and felt I had done something wrong. I immediately went to bed and even asked forgiveness from God for what had happened as a just-in-case-it-was-wrong thing. The next Wednesday at our youth group, we had a guest speaker from Canyon, TX, come and speak. As a part of the band, I was there early and me and this speaker sat down before the service and began to talk about God. He paused for a second and stared down at the table we were at, then said the most impacting words I had ever heard as a 17 year old kid. “Kyle, God wants you to know that whatever you experienced this past week was real and it was from Him.” I will never forget that experience.
I have never really talked about that experience or other experiences with my prayer language to people. For me, it is a very personal thing that is, and for the most part, will remain between me and God.
So, the discussion on Monday was uncomfortable and challenging, as I came out and confessed that I do pray in a prayer language in my personal devotion and time with the Lord. This came as a shock to many in my community group and my prayer for us is that it will at least stir up some good conversation about the things of the Spirit.
I spent about four and a half hours, coffee in hand of course, in the library yesterday researching and digging up everything I could find (in 4.5 hours) on the subject. Here is what I found.
The main text I’ll exegete is 1 Corinthians 14. You can read it HERE.
In this passage, Paul is talking about the building up of the church using prophecy versus using tongues.
“For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit.” [v 2]
one
We must understand first that Paul recognizes this phenomenon as a legitimate part of church life and as a spiritual gift from God. He mentioned this gift in chapter 12 among a list of other gifts and is now, in chapter 14, expounding on the subject. So what exactly is the gift of tongues? Johannas Weiss, a renowned, German Biblical scholar, suggests that Paul could be referring to what Jewish and Greek writers call a state of “ecstasy.” This is where the person experiencing ecstasy goes under an “inspired seizure,” as words come from his/her mouth of which he/she has no control. ”The prophet does not utter anything from himself but echoes the foreign things of another being.” [This one sounds a little far fetched for me, but in an effort to be unbiased in my research, it is what I found.] Plato says that one in ecstasy is, “one who becomes inspired and out of his mind, and the mind is no longer present in him.” This person might reveal things way beyond his schooling, say profound, proverbial statements, or merely say words of phrases that do not make any earthly sense.
The difference between the Jewish and Greek idea of ecstasy and what Paul refers to as “speaking in a tongue,” is that in ecstasy, the words spoken are seemingly understandable as far as the language is concerned. The occurrence in Corinth seems to be different.
“he utters mysteries with his spirit.”
This is a somewhat difficult phrase in Greek. The word, pneumati, can be translated three different ways: 1) in [his] spirit, meaning his human spirit, 2) in the [Holy] Spirit, or 3) to the Spirit. Either way, there is a mysterious utterance in some spiritual aspect, and Paul acknowledges this act as legit gift from God.
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Paul himself prays in tongues (vv 6,14,15,18).
“I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.” “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is 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.”
It is a little frustrating to try to understand and analyze Paul’s psychology and language because he brings in Jewish and Greek backgrounds with no explanation. Though this gifting is very mysterious to us, Paul doesn’t give much instruction or detail on how it works. He merely says, “I speak in tongues.” I understand that Paul considers prayer in a tongue a genuinely Christian experience but that its natural irrationality renders it unprofitable for communal church life, which requires that the mind be productive (more on this in a bit). It is also interesting that Paul sings in the spirit. The term Paul refers to is psallein, which usually refers to praise through singing accompanied by an instrument but is not necessarily a previously written song in which everyone already knows. So in this sense, glossolalia could be related not only to prayer but also to singing a song. (I thought it interesting that the only other mentioning of Paul singing is while he was in the Philippian Jail, in Acts 16:25).
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Paul does not reprimand or treat harshly the people who are speaking in tongues. He has the gift himself so he wouldn’t kick someone out of the assembly for using the gift. The problem is that it was creating alienation within the church, making the ones who didn’t possess the gift feel inferior, pushing them away from Christian community.
I found that the same situation broke out about a century and a half after Paul’s time with the followers of Montanus, who claimed special inspiration from the Spirit through the gift of tongues. The movement was rejected by church orthodoxy but was later espoused by Tertullian, who defended it. Perhaps this was because of a severe theological and devotional laxity in the church during the early second century. Regardless, some accepted it as Biblical practice while others rejected it.
four
Paul believes that prophecy is especially important because it illuminates the people of the church.
“I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy.” [v 5]
In contrast, speaking in tongues is of value only to the person who speaks. Apparently, Paul believes that the primary function of tongues is to express feelings, thoughts, or sentiments too deep for words and to address them to God in vocalization that breaks the bonds of ordinary, rational speech. Perhaps this is what he means in Romans 8:26, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
Prophecy builds up the church, and therefore, is a more important gift. John Calvin defines prophecy as, “that unique and outstanding gift of revealing what is the secret will of God, so that the prophet is, so to speak, God’s messenger to men.” It develops loyalty, appealing to the conscience and will. Evidently, prophecy in these early churches functioned as a role filled now mainly by preaching. It built up the church, aka congregation, or assembly of believers, or the body of Christ.
five
Paul seems to be saying that personal devotion has its place, but it is not as important as public devotion, which concentrates on building up the entire group.
“I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.” “He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.”
The only way tongues can be regarded to as more important than prophecy is when one interprets the utterance to the body, which builds up the church. Outside of interpretation–although it is of value to the individual–tongues is of no value to the church.
Paul compares tongues to instruments; lifeless things that make sounds, “such as the flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the nots?” If you cannot understand the individual notes, it is merely meaningless sounds.
Then he compares it to other world-languages; “there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me.” By contrast, this suggests that, at least in this case, the gift of tongues spoken of here is not an unknown, earthly language (as in Acts 2). Here, it is words unintelligible to anyone on earth, other than the person whom God has gifted as an interpreter. It also must be noted that the one who speaks in a tongue is permitted to interpret the utterance himself (v 13). The word foreigner is barbaras, or barbarian, suggesting the onomatopoeic words, “barbarbarbar.” The point is that if the sounds are heard by the hearer, they are still of no value unless they communicate a message.
Paul’s main concern is the building up of Christian community within the body of believers. Speaking or praying in tongues, though appropriate and beneficial in times of personal devotion and intimate, spiritual settings, does not build up the church and therefore, is inappropriate in larger, congregational worship settings. Prophecy is encouraged in larger settings (and small settings) because it edifies and builds up the community of believers. I do believe that speaking in tongues or praying in a prayer language is beneficial in some cases. If a small gathering of believers are seeking the Lord together, and everyone is comfortable praying in a prayer language, or at least with others praying in a prayer language, I do not think it is inappropriate. The believers are seeking to draw closer to God, through the Spirit, communally. If there are, however, members or individuals in the gathering that are not comfortable with tongues, I think it is more beneficial to do as Paul says. ”If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.”
Upon conclusion of this overly-lengthy post, we should heed the words of Paul. ”Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.” “Be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”
