Beyond The Basics 8: Spiritual Gifts (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Father, it is a joy to be here this morning, to be among your people, to just know that we are precisely where you desire us to be, because we're here.

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This is your decree from before the foundation of the world, and Lord, we just pray that this morning would be pleasing and honoring to you.

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Lord, would you turn us again and again to your word as we look through these difficult issues of healing and speaking in tongues, and really issues that confound the church even today.

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Lord, would you bless this time in Christ's name, amen. Well, quite a day yesterday,

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I'll say, I'm sure Michael mentioned this, and then of course Michael never mentioned it, but you guys will have the inside scoop.

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We went down to Newtown yesterday for the ordination council of their new pastor down there.

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Bill Shannon was down there, Ted Bigelow, and we just had a great time, and Joey Newton is his name.

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And Joey was kind of embarrassing to me, because these Bible knowledge questions, what's the theme of this book, what's the outline of that book, and he didn't even let the guys finish their questions, and he was throwing out the answers, and he did a great job.

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Anyway, last week we brought up some difficult issues, and I thought I would follow up on some of them this week.

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Let's first go to the Bible. It's a good place to go.

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First Corinthians, when in doubt, that's something I learned in seminary, when in doubt, go to the

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Bible. It's a pretty good motto. Let's go to 1

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Corinthians 14, and I'm going to start reading in verse 4.

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Paul writing. Now, you know, I just want to set this much context, I'm not going to set a lot of context here.

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Let me ask it in the form of a question. The church at Corinth, is this a church that had its act together?

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So negative. What were some of the problems at the church at Corinth?

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Disunity, definitely. You know, I am of, I am of, I am of, you know, they're all carrying around banners.

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Charlie. Okay?

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They were trying to basically Christianize what they used to do, and they should have waited until Constantine did the same thing a couple hundred years later, right?

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Anything else? What's that? Disorderly. I mean, it was bedlam in there, Paul. There was sexual immorality, and worse than that,

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I mean, there's sexual immorality all over the place, but worse than the fact that there was sexual immorality was the church was aware of it and didn't do anything about it.

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What else? Look, great point,

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Daniel. They had a, they were misapplying the spiritual gifts. They were all about themselves, and that's where we are this morning as we go to chapter 14.

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Let me begin reading in verse 4. One who speaks in the tongue edifies himself, but one who prophesies edifies the church.

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Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy. And greater is one who prophesies than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may receive edifying.

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Again, just notice, let me stop right there for a second. Notice what the focus is always, that the church may be edified, that the church may be built up.

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Verse 6, but now brethren, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you unless I speak to you either by way of revelation or of knowledge or prophecy or of teaching?

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Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tone, how will it be known what is played on the flute or the harp?

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For if the bugle plays an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for a battle?

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So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken?

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For you will be speaking into the air. There are perhaps a great many kinds of languages in the world, and no kind is without meaning.

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If then I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

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So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.

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Now let me just give you a few notes here from MacArthur, and then we'll have a little discussion, and then we'll move on to James 5, and then

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I want to take a kind of a different jet tour through the book of Acts, but MacArthur says that the type of tongues the

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Corinthians practiced, the Corinthian church, listen to this, I love this, had no edifying value at all.

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Why does he say that? Well, think about it, Paul indicates right here, you know, as a barbarian, which was as we've heard

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Mike do this before, you know, the bar, bar, bar, bar, it was repetitious, it was meant to signify that they were just babbling, that they were doing nothing of value for other people, and they were also not speaking to God, there's no private prayer language ever indicated in the

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Bible. MacArthur notes this here, he says, the Bible records no instance of believers speaking to God in anything but normal, intelligible language, and I thought this was a good point, it says, even in Jesus' great high priestly prayer in John 17, in which the son poured out his heart to the father, when deity communed with deity, the language is remarkably simple and clear, there's no gibberish there, no kind of pagan, in fact,

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I think I may have mentioned that before, that that's what the pagan world did, in fact, that book we read for my class, the author and the title of the book and everything else escapes me at the moment, wait a minute,

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I have it on here in my notes, what is it?

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Okay, Satisfied by the Spirit by Thomas Edgar, exactly. And he notes, he goes through all of history and he says, listen, the idea of babbling or of an unknown language and that being classified as speaking in tongues only occurs in pagan religions.

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MacArthur goes on, he says, the carnal Corinthians, however, were much more interested in the sophisticated than the simple, in the mysterious rather than the edifying, they did not care that no one understands or literally no one hears, their concern was for the excitement and the self -gratification of speaking mysteries in the spirit, they did not care that the mysteries had no meaning to themselves or to anyone else.

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Just a couple more notes, because even true tongues must be interpreted in order to be understood, they, talking about these tongues, cannot possibly edify anyone, including the person speaking, without such interpretation.

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They cannot, therefore, be intended by God for private devotional use as many Pentecostals and Charismatics claim.

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Why, many people wonder, did Paul say, I wish that you all spoke in tongues? He had been warning them about their abuse of tongues and is beginning a chapter devoted to showing the inferiority of tongues, why would he have wanted the problem to be compounded by getting everyone involved?

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He says, but Paul was wishing the impossible for the sake of emphasis. Now listen to this, he knew that all

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Christians did not have the same gifts, 1 Corinthians 1230, all do not have the gifts of healings, do they?

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All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? And the answer to all those is no, the apostle certainly was not suggesting that his wisdom was even greater than that of the

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Holy Spirit who works all things, this is 1 Corinthians 1211, who works all things, distributing to each one individually just as he wills, talking about spiritual gifts, the

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Holy Spirit's sovereign. Not everyone could speak in tongues anyway because it is the

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Holy Spirit who gives them these gifts, and as I just said, all do not have the gift of tongues.

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That was also in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul simply was making it clear that he did not despise the genuine gift of tongues, the true manifestation of that which is

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God. If the Holy Spirit chose to endow every one of you with the gift of tongues, he was saying that would be fine with me, but that was not the case.

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Anyway, just some additional notes about, oh, one more thing and then

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I'll get to you. When he goes on in the verses I just read there, talking about the harp, the bugle and all those things, they have a distinct sound, a distinct purpose in their sound.

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And MacArthur notes in the same way, in other words, if it was an indistinct sound when the bugle sounded, nobody prepared themselves for battle,

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Paul writes. In the same way, we cannot communicate Christian truth through meaningless sounds.

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I mean, if you're waiting to hear a specific bugle call for battle and instead, you know, the guy breaks out his harmonica, you're not going to know how to react.

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The Corinthians were so carnally self -centered that they could not have cared less about communication.

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They were interested in impressing others and burnishing their own accomplishments, you know, feathering their own nest, building their own resumes, however you want to phrase it.

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Daniel? Well, I think they're, you know,

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I don't know that specifically, but my take on that would be that is, my initial response to that would be that seems to be the case because it seemed like it was really important that you have these kind of flashy gifts.

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So yeah, I think that's probably right. Anyone else on speaking in tongues? Anybody want to interpret anything

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I'm saying? Bruce?

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Well, I think they had to do them in a specific order. I think, you know, I've known churches,

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I've been in churches where they held to this biblical model. You've got to listen. If somebody says, raises their hand, says,

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I've got a tongue, then someone else would have to raise their hand and say, I have an interpretation. You know, and so I think if you want to say that those are for today, that would be the way to go.

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But I think the overarching theme here is the, again, the inferiority of tongues.

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And if we look at 1 Corinthians 14 .22, Paul says, so then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers.

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And so it would make you wonder a little bit if the purpose of gathering on Sunday is to edify the body, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, then what would be the purpose of speaking in tongues on Sunday?

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You know, and certainly, you know, if he says here that that is a sign for unbelievers and we're gathering for believers, a little bit difficult to understand.

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So John, there are different views on that.

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I mean, MacArthur definitely takes the view that MacArthur says that it is preaching. Prophecy is the telling forth of God's word.

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Although it's interesting note, he doesn't call himself a prophet. So, and then there are some that say, you know, that we do have prophets today, but they're just lesser prophets, that they can be wrong, that there's a lesser gift of prophecy.

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So, any other questions about speaking in tongues or are we going to fade it away?

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Right. Yeah, and I think that's what the point was trying to make last week. When you talk about prophecy, speaking in tongues, you know, the gifts, the sign gifts that were given to affirm the message of the apostles, to establish the church.

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I mean, look at speaking in tongues. You know, I mean, we talked about it last week. You know, you go from 120 people in the church to 3 ,120 on one day.

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That's a pretty good deal. And, you know, it came about on the day of Pentecost and was the message of the gospel was affirmed by speaking in tongues and they heard them in their own language.

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And as I said last week, that is the one passage in all of Scripture where we actually get the mechanics of how speaking in tongues worked.

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So, and note the ED on the end there because, you know, it's my position that they have ceased.

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So, and I'm not going to throw anybody out of the church if they don't agree with me.

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First of all, I don't have that power. And secondly, it's just not a major issue.

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You know, when I taught the charismatic theology class, I tried to be very careful about this. I mean,

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I had the students, Pat was in the class. I wanted to have them sign a disclaimer. I'm not saying charismatics are not

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Christians. There are many wonderful charismatic people, you know, within the Christian church.

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You know, there are some really good teachers, you know. And so I went up on the board and I said, you know,

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John Piper, C .J. Mahaney, and help me out. What's that?

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Yeah, Mrs. MacArthur. Yeah, she's not really a… But, you know, here are the really good charismatics that we agree on, on the main thing, which is the gospel.

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You know, I mean, we don't separate on issues of speaking in tongues and those kind of things.

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We separate over the gospel. We don't separate on eschatology. You know, there are many people that we would disagree with on eschatology.

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And we don't say, oh, that guy's not in the camp because that's really a secondary issue. Yes, Daniel.

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So where's the line between… Well, and again, you know, I just… I wouldn't really draw the line in terms of sinful behavior.

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What I would say, having been in a church where they did try to do things well and in order,

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I would commend them for at least looking at the prescriptions that are given here and saying, you know what, we need to follow those.

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Now, I would say if you're going to a place that is absolute bedlam, then you violated the end of the chapter where Bruce was just reading where, you know, things are not being done in good order.

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You know, people are flopping around. If you go to a church and they say it's carpet time, I think it's time to leave that. Now, does anybody not know what that means, carpet time?

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I don't want anybody to go, I don't understand that. Okay. I went to… I had this experience. I had a friend who was at this charismatic church, and he said, you know what,

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I'm really… He goes, I feel like I'm the only non -charismatic at a charismatic church. And, of course, my answer was leave, and he didn't want to do that.

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So he said, do me a favor, would you come with me Friday night? It was a different place. It was called the

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Mott Auditorium in Pasadena. And it was Friday night. There were about 900 people there.

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It was sweltering. It was like New England hot. It was very warm.

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But anyway, they had all kinds of things going on. And then eventually, you know, once the speaker got done distorting scripture, he said, okay.

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He said, okay, it's carpet time. And they opened… I mean, it was a big basketball arena. And they opened these curtains, and they had these huge carpets rolled out in back.

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And they said, okay, we need people to volunteer to be catchers. And so people volunteered to be catchers.

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And then they… Everybody's lined up, and they started whacking people with the spirit. And people were rolling around and writhing on the ground and, you know, roaring like lions and barking like dogs and, you know, crawling like hyenas, whatever, you know, whatever.

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And so that's what I'm saying. I'm going, you know, if you go to a place like that and you're an unbeliever, you think they're insane.

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If you go there as a believer, you think these people are insane. But it was difficult because we're standing there.

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I mean, we're both cops, and we weren't packing. But we're standing there, and we're just kind of watching, you know.

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We're not saying anything. We're just watching. We're just very much in investigative mode.

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And there's this little Asian girl. She was really probably 5 feet and 85 pounds.

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And she's standing behind us, too, and we're just kind of watching. And I look back at her, and all of a sudden, she starts going…

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And her face just starts changing. And then she starts growling and roaring. And I'm like, step back, step back.

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You know, it was just unsettling. So that's what carpet time is anyway.

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It's that idea of, you know, slaying people with spirit, flopping around, doing all that stuff. Scripture, yeah.

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And just to build off what you just said, you know, he said that sometimes if you're in a charismatic church, the pastor will give a key word, and people will volitionally begin manifesting the spirit.

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And I just thought, you know, while I was listening to you describe that, I thought, that really does sound like what? I say a key word, and then your behavior changes.

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Let's say hypnosis. You know, I'm going to put you under, and then, you know, da -da -da -da.

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And then as I'm bringing you out, I say, by the way, when you hear the word carrot, you're going to start acting like a bunny.

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Right? So, yeah, I find that disconcerting. And, you know, same

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Holy Spirit, yes. And I think, you know, I think the problem with many charismatic, you know, again, many dear brothers and sisters in Christ who love the

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Lord who are in these churches and sometimes may be confused about different things, but that doesn't mean that they're not

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Christians. I think the difficulty comes in, you know, my wife. I like to say

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I married a charismatic because she was in a four -square church. And, you know, their response was, oh, well, he's going to Grace Community Church.

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Well, you know, at least they love the Lord kind of thing. You know, they don't have the

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Holy Spirit, but, you know, I don't know how that works. How do you not have the Holy Spirit? How are you, you know, so difficult?

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But I think there are certainly difficulties and excesses.

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And, you know, I think with any system there could be excesses, you know, not being open to any kind of Holy Spirit, you know, leading or whatever.

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I don't know. I don't want to get too touchy -feely here. But I think there are just—I think there are some kind of—they are given to excesses in some ways.

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And I think, you know, other people can be given to other excesses. So I think it's always good to check ourselves against Scripture.

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And, you know, as far as the gifts go, again, I would make the argument, and I'm going to make another argument about healing here in a minute.

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But I think the argument could be made that speaking in tongues was for a given period to establish the truth.

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And then we don't see it really talked about and recorded after that period is over.

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So other comments on speaking in tongues? Pam? Yeah, she's saying that they went to a church, you know, sound statement of faith and all that.

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And then after the service, you know, he said, okay, it's time to start speaking in tongues. And people just—you know, they started for, you know, about half an hour.

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And I'm going, so what is that? You know, you start speaking in tongues, and then you stop. Okay, it's over. So I'll go home.

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I don't know. I don't know how that works. Daniel? Well, I think

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Paul, you know, basically was writing the Corinthian church and saying, you know, there are some excesses here, and you guys need to trim your sails.

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You need to tighten up. And so I think speaking in tongues, Daniel says, you know, can be of yourself or of a demon.

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And I, you know, I don't know. Well, let's put it this way.

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Let's say for the sake of argument that it is of yourself, can you delude yourself into believing that you're doing something good even if you're not?

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I think the answer is yes. So, yeah, throw me a line, Pastor Dave.

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Yeah, and Dave's exactly right, talking about, you know, if everyone was meant to speak in tongues, even if we believe that that gift was for today, then we'd have a real problem.

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Because then not only, well, first let's go back to the idea of a second blessing, that somehow that's a manifestation of the second blessing, which really isn't a biblical concept.

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But if everyone is meant to speak in tongues, then you've got a problem because, A, the Holy Spirit gives out the gifts as he wills.

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B, not everybody has the same gifts. Even as Pastor Dave was saying, if everybody spoke in tongues, then what's the benefit to the body?

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Well, what if everybody had the gift of teaching? I mean, just imagine here, if we have 300 teachers on Sunday morning, we'd have a problem.

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You know, Pastor Mike would have to make that list out for the next six, seven years. Okay, you know, so and so will be teaching on such and such a day and we'd never get anything done.

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Everybody had the gift of leadership. Everybody had the gift of, you know, fill in the blank. We'd have a really awkward and out of balance church.

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The whole idea of the church is that, much like the human body, as Pastor Dave was saying, and even as 1

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Corinthians 12 says, when the body works in harmony, when its various parts work together, that's when the body of Christ is a fearful thing in the hands of a living

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God. So, exactly, good point. Any other notes on speaking in tongues? Yes, Dotty.

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Excellent point. Fruit of the Spirit, self -control, Galatians. So, here we have a situation where people basically exercise their courage.

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Let's put it this way. They're encouraged not to exercise self -control. You know, go flop around.

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I mean, first of all, where do we see that? Where would we see that kind of behavior in Scripture, where people flop around uncontrollably?

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When they're demon -possessed. You know, and we don't see that as, you know, here's a manifestation of the

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Holy Spirit. You will not be in control of your body. If anybody knows that verse,

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I'm willing to be corrected right now. I don't know where that is. In fact, the fruit of the Spirit is self -control.

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Yes, Carolyn. Well, we read through Acts 2,

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I think, last week. And, yeah, I think that is where people get it. But I think, again, the interesting part to me is not that the

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Holy Spirit came upon the whole church. That's to be anticipated. But it came upon them in a special way.

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And remembering that this is what Jesus had promised, that the Holy Spirit would come upon the church in a special way.

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But I think the most interesting—well, the two most interesting things is this.

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Number 1 in Acts 2 and—okay, in verse 6.

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And when this sound occurred, the rushing sound, the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak, these

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Galileans, in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, and they go on to describe it.

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And what were they hearing? What they're hearing was testimonies about God, about His greatness, and the things that He had accomplished.

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So that's the first thing that I think is amazing, is that they actually understood, unlike today, the way speaking in tongues is practiced, it's meaningless.

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It edifies no one in the church, and it doesn't reach out. I mean, let's say I know that there are a number of—I think there are

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Armenians who like to hang out at a particular Starbucks. Isn't that what they are? Armenians? Or Georgians?

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Wherever they're from. Albanians. That's where they're from. All those A things running together.

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Albanians. And, you know, if the Holy Spirit was to rush upon members of the church there so that they could understand the gospel in Albanian, that would be a marvelous thing.

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But that isn't what speaking in tongues is practiced as today in the church.

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It really is bar, bar, bar, bar. It's a meaningless repetition of things.

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But the second thing is, look what happens after that. It's not the event and then stop.

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Everybody doesn't just go home and go, wasn't that cool how the Spirit came upon us and we were enabled to do these great things?

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They don't go home and worship and relish the experience. What happens next is Peter seizes the moment and does what?

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Preaches the gospel. That was the whole point. The point wasn't, you know, hey, we're going to go and dazzle these unbelievers with our ability to babble incoherently.

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It was the Holy Spirit rushing on them. Why? To set the stage for Peter's message.

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This was the preparatory work of the Holy Spirit in order to convict souls and usher them into the kingdom of God.

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We don't see anything like that in the charismatic movement today. Nothing. Bruce.

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Yes, that would be very sad if they read it in Mark 16 and got. I'm going to guess it's after verse eight.

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And, you know, again, I don't want to. I need to write a book review for this book by Edgar because it is so great because he goes through and he says, listen, he even takes.

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He doesn't even go through what I'm about to say. He just goes through Mark 16 and says, fine.

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And he just explains it all. And he does a great job, much better job than I'm going to do. What verse did you have in mind in particular?

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16 to 18. Why don't you go ahead and read those? OK, a few things.

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I think it's interesting when people want to kind of hopscotch through this and I say hopscotch through it.

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Why? Why would I say hopscotch through it? Yeah, they take out what they like.

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They like the whole healing and casting out demons and things. But, you know, those same people who are claiming healings and claiming that they're casting out demons.

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We don't really see them. Hey, you got any poison out there? Bring it on up here and I'll just guzzle it down. You know, you want to see a demonstration of the power of God?

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Watch this. What's the problem with Mark 16 verses 9 to the end of the chapter there? Not the original text.

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And that's a pretty big problem. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. That's a good clarification. Not the best manuscript, shall we say.

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But I think these signs will accompany those who have believed in my name.

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They will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will pick up serpents. And I think all of that, there are a number of issues, too many issues for me to go into.

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But, I mean, the number one thing is I would just say that's not in the best manuscripts. And I don't know too many people who take that as scriptural.

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But, secondly, you know, if you want to take one part of it, you need to take all of it. And then there are other contextual issues where you look through and you go,

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I don't think it really means what people want it to mean. You know, that this is how believers are to act now.

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But did you have anything you wanted to add on that, Bruce? Okay. Paul.

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I'll get to you in a sec, Mike. Typically, they're marked out with, yeah, nine and following.

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Oh, you just meant there. Yeah, yeah. Nine through 20. The older ones, which are, well,

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Sinaiticus. Yeah, I'm thinking they're the Byzantine and the Alexandrian texts are the best ones.

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The Alexandrian texts are older and, generally speaking, they're better.

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What's that? No, Texas Receptus is a real mess.

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The TR, Texas Receptus, which is what the King James is based on, does anybody know who put that together?

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Erasmus. Erasmus, believer or unbeliever? Unbeliever. That's problem number one.

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You know, I mean, problem number two is he didn't have a complete copy of Revelation, so he took the

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Latin, translated it back into the Greek, and then translated it back. I mean, he did all kinds of Mickey Mouse things.

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So the TR, not Theodore Roosevelt, but Texas Receptus has some real problems.

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Plus, it wound up with the, I mean, I'm going to get esoteric here, the Yohannin comma, which

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I think has only been found in one manuscript ever, and Erasmus eventually put that in.

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And so, just a lot of problems with the, yeah, you guys care about that. Okay, so, yes,

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Dottie. Yes, we could say that, and I would agree with that totally.

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Dottie was saying, can we not say that those things were fulfilled in the early church, and that's what I would say, but I don't really want to take the time to go through that.

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So she summarized it very nicely. I would agree. Michael, I want to just amplify what you said,

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Michael. Michael said, you know, Moses didn't go to Pharaoh and say, hey, check out these things that I can do. That wasn't his point.

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He didn't, you know, it wasn't some cool parlor trick or something else, you know. He just kind of, you know, let me show you this.

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The whole point was to demonstrate the power of God, to demonstrate that he was God's messenger, not to inflate himself, but so that God might be glorified when the things that Moses said came to pass.

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It was always the signs and wonders, the miracles that we see in the Bible, are always to glorify God, not so that we might go, whoo, that Moses, he could sure part the

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Red Sea. That was never the point. Never the point. Yes, that's a good point.

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Kind of a reverse Tower of Babel thing. Good. Babel, babel.

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You say babel, I say babel. I don't know. I see.

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We had another question. I don't know if we're going to get to this quiz here or not.

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Maybe I'll email it out this week. We had another question come up.

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Any other comments about speaking tongues, Daniel? Yeah, how they got the, how they spoke in tongues.

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Yeah, he's talking about in Acts 8. Let's see if we can.

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Okay, verse 14, right. Now when the, talking about how the

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Sumerians received the word and then they wind up speaking in tongues. Let me just read that.

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Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Sumeria had received the word of God. Now keep in mind, what is Sumeria?

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Not S -O -M -E -A -R -E -A, but some area, but Sumeria.

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What is Sumeria? Yeah, they're dogs. They're mongrels. They're, you know, this is, this is, you know, there's only one thing worse than being a

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Gentile. It's being a Gentile and a Jew, you know, kind of a mixed race.

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Not only a mixed race, but a mixed religion where they took in bits of paganism and parts of Judaism.

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And they were hated by the Jews and the Jews would go out of their way not to travel into Sumeria.

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So this was a, I mean, I don't even know, you know, it would be like, you know, me saying at the height of the

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Cold War, you know, I think I'm going to go vacation in the Soviet Union. And you go, what's wrong with you?

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You know, which would be a valid question. Verse 14, now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Sumeria had received the word of God, they sent them

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Peter and John. So the apostles are going to send Peter and John to find out what's going on. Who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the

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Holy Spirit. For he had not yet fallen upon them. They had simply been baptized in the name of the

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Lord Jesus. Then they began laying their hands on them and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.

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Now some say, well, you know, there you have it. There's the evidence of the second blessing. What's the response to that?

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Okay, putting the Sumerians under apostolic authority. I think that's right, Charlie. Yeah, I would say if we looked at it,

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I would say there's more going on there. But that is true that they might receive the

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Holy Spirit. I think there's, but what is that? Let me see if, what does

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MacArthur say? See, I'm going to say it is speaking in tongues. But what is filled with the

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Holy Spirit in contrast to the Holy Spirit? Anyway, whether it is speaking in tongues or not, it can be interpreted that way.

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What would you say to someone who said that's evidence of the, that there is a second gift that, you know, you get saved and then you get speaking in tongues, the gift of the

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Holy Spirit? John, okay.

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Well, does received necessarily mean believed? I don't know how you receive them and don't believe, but, okay.

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Okay, there could be that. There could be that, okay. Right, they had been baptized, so if they hadn't believed yet, they'd have to be rebaptized at least to be a member here.

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John. Exactly right,

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John. Exactly right. This is an exceptional event we have, even within the book of Acts, because typically what happened is people believed and they were accepted right into the church, and there's this cultural barrier.

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It's kind of like when Peter has this dream, you know, arise, kill, and eat in Acts.

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You know, does that mean we should all have the, you know, some kind of dream like that? No, the point of that was, listen, all these dietary laws have been set aside.

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And the point here is that these Samaritans, I almost said Samarians, these

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Samaritans hated by the Jews in Christ are welcome in the church.

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And to show you that, we're going to show you that the Holy Spirit has visited them just as he visited you on the day of Pentecost.

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Same thing. So the apostles go down there and they investigate it and they go, you know, I mean, I don't know how they came back.

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They might have said, well, I don't know what to tell you guys, but yeah, they're Christians. Or they could have been like, and I'm sure this is probably more like it, brothers, it was with great joy we tell you that the

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Samaritans are indeed our brothers and sisters in Christ. I probably wouldn't take it that way because I think if I know where you're going with the binding and loosing,

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I think that has to do more with church discipline. But I think the bigger issue is what

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John was saying, that this is God's way of affirming to a primarily, I think, almost exclusively

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Jewish church at this point, that these Samaritans are indeed members of the church, members of the body of Christ, a unique thing.

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And that's something, you know, again, when someone says, if there are one foundational passage for proving a bit of doctrine is in the book of Acts, you know, it's almost as bad as, you know, the only reason

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I can tell you that you should not get a tattoo is Leviticus. I mean, and frankly, there aren't really many, very many good scriptures on that.

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But I think if the only argument you can bring is a unique, like John said, unique passage in Acts that is meant for a specific purpose, and that's what you build your entire, you know, you get saved, and then later on there's a second blessing, the filling of the

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Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, I think you've got a pretty weak case. Other comments?

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Otherwise we're going to have to wait for James 5 and my whole Acts tour of healings and everything else is going to have to wait until next week.

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Any other questions on speaking in tongues? That's a good point, too.

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Even if it was a second blessing, what are you going to do? Are you calling the apostles? Hey, can you guys come down here and give us a, that's an excellent point.

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You know, again, and that's what happens when you say, okay, this foundational truth of our denomination, by the way, there is a denomination that says this is one of their foundational truths.

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When you make that your foundational truth out of Acts, then you've got a little problem because you've got to find some apostles to come and put their hands on you.

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That would be a disadvantage for your particular viewpoint. Yeah, they just make up apostles, which also gives us a problem because then you have to have, you know, hi,

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Loretta. You have to have people who have seen, and Emma, Emma's up there, too, who have seen the risen

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Savior, and you're not going to have many of those people walking around. Any other points?

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And if not, we will go to carpet time, donut time. Father, we rejoice in your goodness to us that you have given us your word that we may examine it, that we may clutch it, that we may hold fast to those things that are true.

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Father, hold lightly those things that others wrestle with.

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Lord, we praise you for the clarity of your word, for the fact that you have even given it to us, that we might know you, that we might know how we are to conduct ourselves in daily life, how we are to work at unity, at edifying one another within the body of Christ, and to exercise our spiritual gifts for that purpose and not for ourselves.

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Father, would you, in each one of us, just build up the attitude of preferring one another, of being willing to sacrifice ourselves for the building up of your body.