Extreme Continuationism

Acts 15 and Galatians 1 Against Adding to the Gospel

Remain standing and open your Bibles to Acts chapter 15. As most of you who have been with us know, and for those who haven't, I'll catch you up. We have been looking at Acts 15 in the Jerusalem Council, where we see that men came down from Judea and said that you must be circumcised in order to be saved.

And that's what it says in Acts 15 .1, and this begins our lesson. So let us read. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

And if you look down at verse 5, it says this,. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.

Now I want to invite you to turn to Galatians chapter 1. The Apostle Paul, addressing this very same issue with the Galatians, the issue of those who would add something to the Gospel, says this, I am astonished, verse 6 says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel, not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a Gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a Gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Father in heaven, as we look today at the final lesson in this series on modern Judaizers, I pray, O God, that you would, by your mercy, give me strength to preach, that you by your Spirit would speak through me, and ultimately, Lord, that you would keep me from error as I am a fallible man incapable of preaching error.

God, I pray you would be merciful to your people. Lord, use this as a time of instruction, and Lord, if you see fit to save, I pray that you would save one today through the preaching of your Gospel. But most, Lord, on top of that, we pray that your people would be drawn closer to you.

And in all this, we thank you, in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to begin this morning by way of a short personal testimony, and I promise this won't be the whole message, it's going to be just a moment to sort of introduce you to why this particular subject might have significance in my personal history.

Childhood Church Background and First Encounters with Tongues

As a child, I grew up going to church. After my parents divorced, I spent weekends either at home with my father and stepmother, or I would spend weekends with my mother and my stepfather. And it would depend on where I was as to what church that I would go to.

As I'm sure any of you who are from a similar situation would understand, when you're with one, you would go with one, and when you're with the other, you go with the other. And when I was at home with my dad and Pat, we would go to Forest Christian Church on Trout River Boulevard.

And it was, in a lot of ways, a very liturgical worship service. We had an order of worship, we had responsive readings, we had hymns, we had an organ accompaniment. It was generally a very quiet atmosphere.

You might occasionally hear the word, Amen, but it was not super common. It was more of a reserved atmosphere. Then I would go with my mom to her church, which was Congregational Methodist, also known as Holiness Church.

And instead of a quiet atmosphere, the Holiness Church was, I guess, more lively. It was not uncommon to hear people say a hearty Amen. Then, it was not uncommon to see people stand and shout, or to raise their hands and shout.

And I even remember one time, very specifically, seeing the shoes of the pastor walk by my head as he was walking on the backs of the pews. So it got, sometimes, very lively. And for a child, it was a very strange mental shift, one to the other.

I'm sure you can imagine. The one thing that really stood out, though, for a child, myself, was that when I would go to the Holiness Church, there were those in the church who would speak out ecstatically, and their words didn't make any sense.

Often, they would be rhythmic and repetitive, but they were never sensical, and they were often just simply sound. And I later found out, because I asked, well, what is that? I found out that that was what they called speaking in tongues.

And at the time, it frightened me. And I had no interest in pursuing the subject any longer. I figured that was for them, but not for me, and I'll leave that right where it is. Well, later, I was saved by God's grace and His mercy, certainly not by anything that I did, but by His grace alone.

And I began to study the Bible, and I began to look at the Scriptures, and I began to see that this term speaking in tongues was actually in the Bible. It's there. And so now, I'm seeing it. Not only is it spoken of, it's spoken of in a positive way.

So now, I began to wonder, well, am I missing something? I think that I'm saved. I believe that I'm saved. I've confessed the Lord Jesus Christ. I've confessed my sins. I've sought repentance. I'm missing something here, because there are people who believe they do this.

I'm not doing this. Am I wrong? And so, it became a point of conflict in my own heart. And the concern became so augmented, or even more augmented, rather, when I realized that there were those who actually taught that unless you spoke with tongues, you weren't saved.

And see, that's where the real issue became a homecoming for my heart, because I believed I was saved. I believed I confessed the Lord Jesus Christ. I believed I'd received the Holy Spirit, and I believed that I was living, at least in pursuit of Him, certainly not in perfection, but living in pursuit of Christ.

I was on my way to study the Scriptures in seminary and become a minister, and yet I wasn't doing this thing. This ecstatic speech had never come from my lips. And so, I began to wonder, is that something that I'm doing wrong?

And so, and I remember very specifically when I was in seminary, I was invited to a camp meeting, and I went down to the camp meeting, and while at the camp meeting, some of you have heard this story, I was introduced to one of the ministers that was leading the camp meeting, and of course, I was introduced as the person going to the Baptist seminary.

Ha ha. So, that was wonderful. I wish they hadn't have shared that, because the guy at the camp meeting, when he was told, this is Keith, he is a student at the Baptist seminary, he reached out, grabbed my hand, shook it very intently, and he said, I want you to know that we believe that the evidence of sanctification is demonstrated by the utterance of speaking in tongues.

I'll never forget that sentence, because that was the first thing he said. And my wife remembers that, because she was with me. She said, I want you to know that we believe that the evidence of sanctification is demonstrated by the utterance of speaking in tongues.

First thing out of his mouth. So, this is a foundational teaching for some. It's very important, and it carries a strong inference. If you must speak with tongues to be saved, then if you haven't spoken with tongues, what's the inference?

You're not saved. That's a serious claim, and even more serious is that we should be seeking to know the truth about this, because if this is what is being said, we need to know whether or not it's right.

Modern Judaizers, Cessationism, and Continuationism

Those of you who have been here, as I said earlier, you know that we're in the middle of a series. This is all part of a series called Modern Judaizers. You see it on the board. Modern Judaizers are those who have added something to the Gospel that is not something that is the Gospel, but they've made it part of the Gospel.

In the first century, it was the Judaizers who said, unless you're circumcised, you can't be saved. And the Apostle Paul and Barnabas said, no, that's not true. They took the issue to Peter and James and the other Apostles that were in Jerusalem.

They had a council regarding the issue, and they all came away saying, no, you don't have to be circumcised to be saved. You have to have faith in Christ to be saved. You have to come by grace through faith alone to be saved.

And that's the Gospel, and that's the simple message of Christ. And if you add circumcision to that, you have abandoned the Gospel, Paul says in Galatians chapter 1. He says you have become a curse because you've added to the Gospel something that's not there.

Well, over the last four weeks, today being the fourth week, we've been looking at what I call Modern Judaizers, people who have added something else to the Gospel. The first one we looked at was Saturday Sabbath teaching, the idea that unless you worship on Saturday, unless you bear the Sabbath, keep the Sabbath, you cannot be saved.

There are people who teach that. We talked about that. If you weren't here and want to hear it, you can get the tape. We don't have tapes anymore. Go online. What's a tape? Everybody who's less than 15 just said, what?

What's a tape? The second one we looked at was baptismal regeneration. There are people who believe that unless you've been immersed in Jesus' name only, and for the forgiveness of sins, you have to be immersed in Jesus' name for the forgiveness of sins.

And if you have not had that particular formula that particular way, your baptism doesn't count and you're not saved. Last week we looked at the King James only movement. Now, as I said before, that can be an emotional issue.

And I said this, if you love the King James, so do I. But if you say a person who's not reading the King James can't be saved, then we're not on the same page. Neither are you on the page of Scripture.

So that's the three that we've looked at so far. Today we're going to look at extreme continuationism. Now, I didn't make that title to confuse you, but I'm very particular with my language on this particular issue.

So, extreme continuationism is essentially those who would say, unless you've spoken with tongues, you cannot be saved. Or you aren't saved unless you've spoken with tongues. That's how we're defining it.

And we're going to define it a little clearer why I'm using this language, but just know that that's what it means. Are we there? Are we all together? Can I move forward now? Okay, all right. Well, let's look at first why I would use such an obscure title.

Well, when we talk about the subject of speaking in tongues, we understand, at least if we're good Bible students, we understand that it is listed among the gifts in Scripture. Everybody agree? It's listed among the gifts in Scripture.

It's not something that we can deny. It's there. When it comes to the gifts in Scripture, there are essentially two camps that you would fall into, one or the other. One camp is called cessationism. Cessationist is a person who believes that the gifts ceased after the end of the apostolic period.

That essentially that there were gifts that were given to the apostles and to the early church that stopped at the end of the apostolic age. That's called cessationism. Understand why it's called cessationism?

Because that means it ceased, all right? Now, what's continuationism? It should be pretty obvious, right? One believes it ceased. Well, continuationism is the idea that it continued after the apostolic period.

So you have two camps. You have those who believe that the gifts ceased and you have those who believe that they continued. That's where the term comes from. Very few people are absolutely one or the other.

Even those of you who came today and might say, well, I'm absolutely a cessationist or I'm absolutely a continuationist. I don't think so. Because let me explain. Cessationists will say not all gifts have ceased, but some have ceased.

Those which were intended for establishing the church. Okay, so you're a partial cessationist. You believe some ceased and some didn't. That's good. That's fine. And continuationists are the same thing.

They'll say, well, we believe most of the gifts continue, but even a continuationist would say that certain things, like apostolic authority, which was given to those who had actually seen and worked with Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul being the only additional one.

He said he was the one born out of season. We understand that there are certain apostolic gifts that were specific to those men that did not continue after their death. Even the hardcore continuationists would say, yeah, there was something special about that particular office.

So, like I said, very few people are hardcore one or the other. It sort of becomes a spectrum at that point. So, the way most people break it down is like this. Most people say this. And again, I'm not trying to confuse you.

And if you're new today, know this. Sometimes I like to teach. So, I hope you like to learn. This is important. I'm not telling you today four ways to have a better bank account. I'm telling you about the Bible.

And the Bible can talk about our bank account, but that ain't where we are today. We spend all our time talking about us and us and us. We need to learn what the Bible says. We need to learn what these things are.

Because there's so much ignorance in Christianity today, it breaks my heart. Doctrine isn't talked about. People want to talk about self. They want to talk about self-improvement. They want to talk about all these things.

They don't want to talk about Scripture. And that's frustrating. So, I'll get off my hobby horse and I'll get back to it. But here's the thing. Most people will either say that they believe in the miraculous gifts today or they believe that the miraculous gifts were for the early church.

The cessationists would say that there were certain miracles that were given to the early church for the foundation of the church and that those things ceased after the church was founded. And that cessationism, as it's normally understood, continuationism, says no.

All of the gifts of the early church that were miraculous, such as healing and tongues and these things, were meant for all times, for all Christians, for all places and all times. So, ultimately, the question often becomes, well, pastor, what are you?

And not that what I am really matters, but just in case you're wondering, I would identify most closely with what is called cessationism. But, and this is a hard but, I do not in any way, shape or form deny God's ability to do anything at any time that He so chooses.

I believe that certain miracles were common in the installation and establishment of the church that they were not intended to continue on as normative because, honestly, there is no miracle in Scripture that is normative.

If it were normative, it wouldn't be miraculous. We have hundreds of years in Scripture, historical times, where there was no miracles recorded. Think about the time between Genesis and Exodus. Jack just started Exodus in Sunday school this morning.

There's a 400-year period, right? Is there anything recorded in that 400 years that we know of? That's not to say nothing miraculous happened, but we don't know. So you can't claim anything. Think about the time between Malachi and Matthew.

Again, another 400-year period. Is there anything miraculous that is recorded for us? Well, somebody might say, well, there in the Apocrypha there are some things, but we don't accept the Apocrypha as Scripture.

So we don't know for certain that these miracles were actually there and had happened. Even in the life of Christ, what made the miracles so miraculous was that they weren't normal. Right? If a miracle is normal, it's not a miracle.

But I do want to caution you. If you're a cessationist, if you came in today, you're a hardcore cessationist, I want to caution you this. If you believe the gifts ceased in the first century, praise the Lord, amen, that's fine.

That should not lead you to becoming an anti-supernaturalist. Now, I really want you to think about this. There are people who become so hardened in their cessationism that they deny that God can do anything miraculous, and thus they don't see any miracles anywhere.

That's bad. For instance, a few weeks ago we had a missionary come, and he stood on this very chancel, and he preached to us about going to the people of the Tao tribe of Indonesia, and he told us how before he ever even got there, that God had paved the way for his coming by giving the men of that tribe dreams about white people.

They'd never seen anybody whose skin didn't look like theirs. And they had had dreams about these people coming and sharing with them a message that would change their life, and guess what he did? He came in and he shared a message that changed their life.

Why did they receive him? Because God had given them that precursor to see these white people as having a special message for them. I have no reason to doubt that God did that. I have no reason to doubt that God would use that.

Even as a cessationist, I don't say God is not using miracles anymore. I just do not believe that the gifts that were specifically used for the foundation of the church are meant to be normative. They're meant to be miraculous.

Because that's what miracles are. So, I hope that helps a little. I don't want you to become anti-supernatural. Every time we see something that's miraculous, we don't automatically have to discount it.

But also, every time we see somebody who's claiming to do miracles, we don't automatically have to believe them either. We test the spirits. Somebody claims to do miracles, but he's teaching heresy. I don't believe that his miracles are from God.

He might be doing miraculous things from the devil. But having said that, just because I would identify myself as a cessationist doesn't also mean that I would condemn continuationists. If you came in today and you believe God still uses tongues in the church, I'm not going to necessarily condemn you.

We may disagree. Please don't stand up and start using them here though. Because our elders have confirmed that we do not believe that gifts are for the use of the church anymore and we will ask you to stop nicely first.

And I'll let you leave that where it is. But there are men like Wayne Grudem and John Piper, men who I trust and love in the Lord, and they are continuationists. I disagree with them on things. On this particular issue, I would disagree with them.

That doesn't mean I think that they're not Christians. So just keep that in mind when we're talking about that. The issue here is not continuationism and cessationism. The issue here is extreme continuationism.

And how are we defining that? Anyone who would say, unless you speak with tongues, you aren't saved. That's the dangerous. I'm not saying that we're arguing with people who say you can or can't. That's a discussion for another time.

The question today is you must or you're not. And that's the issue. So hopefully you're all still with me and we can actually get to the issue because extreme continuationism is the belief that unless you have certain spiritual gifts, you cannot be saved.

And I want to read to you from the actual writing from the United Pentecostal Church, the UPC, on the subject of the Gospel. This is how they define the Gospel. Quote, The saving Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again.

We obey the Gospel by repentance, water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the initial sign of speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance. So how do they define the Gospel?

You've got to believe, you've got to be baptized, and you've got to speak in tongues. If you haven't had those three things in that order and in that way, then you're not saved. That's a problem because that ain't the Gospel.

One blog writer named Marta Daniels was asked the question directly. She's part of this movement. She was asked the question directly, Do you have to speak in tongues to be saved? This was her response.

And I quote, Yes, speaking in tongues exists. Yes, it is necessary to be saved. Speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance is the evidence that a person has been filled with the precious gift of the Holy Ghost and that Holy Ghost dwells within the person.

This is serious business. I mean, this is somebody who's saying if you don't have it, you ain't saved. A few years ago, Dr. James White debated Pastor David Bernard of the United Pentecostal Church and in that debate, Dr. Bernard was very clear.

He stated in no uncertain terms that unless a person speaks in tongues, he has no confidence that God has saved him. So this is not a small issue. So, I say again, these don't represent all people who believe in speaking in tongues, but they do believe that it does represent a large enough contingency that I would say that this represents a large subsection of those that I would identify as modern Judaizers.

People that are worthy of, are at least bringing to your attention and addressing. Now, their argument is based primarily on the book of Acts because in several occasions in the narrative of Acts, when the Holy Spirit falls upon a group of people, the response of the Holy Spirit falling on a group of people is that they speak with tongues.

If you want to turn to Acts 10, we'll see this there. It says in Acts 10, verse 44, while Peter was still speaking these things, this is in the house of Cornelius, while Peter was still speaking these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.

And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God.

Okay, we see that happening. Now, if you go over to chapter 19, just a few pages to the right, you will see also the same thing happens again in Acts chapter 19, verse 6. It says, and when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.

So, as such, some say that here you have the proof. Anytime the Holy Spirit fell on people, they spoke with tongues. Well, not exactly the truth. As you can go back through Acts and you can see times when the Holy Spirit did fall and there was no reference to the speaking of tongues.

So, that's an important point to make. But, if you're listening to their argument, their argument is, we see it in the narrative, so that proves to us that this is normative and because it was normative in the first century, it must be normative for all time.

So, I want to offer a rebuttal to that argument, a very simple rebuttal. It begins with this. One, you need to have a proper understanding of the nature of the book of Acts. The gift of tongues is only mentioned specifically in three books of the Bible.

By the way, that's an important little note. The gift of tongues is only mentioned in three books of the Bible. It's mentioned possibly at the end of Mark, and that's even a debate as to whether or not that's what Jesus was talking about.

It's mentioned in 1 Corinthians, and it's mentioned in Acts. It's not mentioned anywhere else. So, we are limited as to where we can even go to find out information as to what this is even talking about.

But, here's the other side of that. When we talk about Acts, Acts is a historical narrative. As historical narrative, it is meant to be descriptive more than it is meant to be prescriptive. Narrative tells you what happened, not necessarily what it's supposed to be.

That is to say that it describes to us what is happening, not necessarily prescribing to us what we should do. Now, does that mean we learn nothing from a historical narrative? No, we learn a lot from historical narrative.

We see examples of good and bad. We see examples of right and wrong. We see examples of behavior. But a historical narrative, while they are teaching tools, they are not to be held up as this is always the way something is supposed to be.

It's not always intended to prescribe behavior for us. We should recognize that the gift of tongues is something that is mentioned in Acts as happening, but it's never said it has to happen or is it going to continue to happen.

It simply is said this is what occurred. And something else that has often perplexed me, especially as I was studying this as a young man in the ministry and in seminary, as I was studying this issue, because again, I was told you have to do it or you're not saved, so I really wanted to focus it.

I want to know what is it? Because here's the other thing that's really confusing to me, or was not anymore, but was at the time, was I don't think that really what is happening today and being called speaking in tongues is what the Bible describes.

What the Bible describes as speaking in tongues is not what I see in churches today that call themselves charismatic or Pentecostal or whatever, tongue-speaking churches. Go back to Acts 2. I know I'm having you run all through the Bible today, but you know what?

I've got plenty of time. Because we've got food for you all today, so nobody's got to run to lunch. But in Acts 2, it says this, When the day of Pentecost arrived, this is verse 1, they were all gathered together in one place.

Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. It filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Okay, at this point, it doesn't tell us what it is. It just tells us that it is. Right? It doesn't define it. It says they spoke with tongues. Glossalia in the Greek. They spoke with a tongue. It doesn't tell us what that is.

Now, in verse 5, Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

What does that tell us? It tells us that they were speaking something that other people understood. That's good. So, right away, that causes me to question the fact that when I hear people making noise that doesn't make sense, that that's not what happened here.

Just because it goes on. It says,. And they were amazed and astonished and said, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each, one of us, hear in his own native language? They are not speaking gibberish here.

They are speaking languages here. Languages that they didn't know. But go on with it. It says, It tells different kinds of men. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya, belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians.

We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. See, that's the point. They were saying the Gospel, the mighty works of God in other languages. If somebody came here and told me, Pastor, I went to Spain and there was a group of people that had never heard the Gospel and I never spoke Spanish, and yet God opened my mouth to speak Spanish to them and I spoke the Gospel to them and people were saved, I would say, praise the Lord.

There is the speaking in tongues. There's the miracle. And I would have no inclination to question such a miracle because it's certainly in line with what's happening here. I believe this is a reversal of the curse of Babel because Babel created the curse of division with languages.

God saw that the men were prideful and so to destroy their pride, He separated their language and it forced them to divide and subdivide according to their languages and that happened. And I believe the miracle of Acts 2 is the miracle of the suspension of the curse of Babel.

That men will be able to communicate with each other without the division of languages. But it was a temporary thing. Now where it gets confusing is when we go to 1 Corinthians 14 and I want to be fair because in 1 Corinthians 14, tongues are also described and I can see in 1 Corinthians 14 how someone might could arrive at the conclusion that someone is speaking in a gibberish rather than a known language.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 14. We're going to read a little bit of the text. 1 Corinthians 14 says, Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For the one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God.

For no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. Right there they argue, we'll see here, nobody understands, it's not a known language, they're just simply making noises in the Spirit.

They argue from that text. It goes on to say, On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. One of the things you have to understand from 1 Corinthians right away, 1 Corinthians 14, is this is not necessarily an encouragement speaking in tongues.

It's showing that prophecy is more important than speaking in tongues in the church because prophecy actually edifies the whole body. It edifies the church. So really this is a challenge against those who are prideful in their tongue speaking, I believe.

It's challenging those who are misusing this gift. They're using it to show off their spirituality. I've never seen that happen. Ha ha, yes we have. It's challenging those who would use it to show off their spirituality.

And he's saying, look, the more important thing is that people understand the Word of God, not that they hear you rattle off a bunch of noise. Because he goes on to say, Verse 4, The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.

And I've heard people say, See, when I speak in tongues I'm building myself up. That's not a good thing! The gifts of God weren't given for you to build yourself up. They were given to build up the church.

This is a condemnation, not an encouragement. Sorry, I get a little excited about that. I really do, because I think Verse 4 is the problem. They say, see, I'm building myself up. I'm building myself up.

It ain't supposed to build yourself up. God never gave a gift for you to build yourself up. He gave a gift to build up His church. Verse 4 is not an encouragement. Sorry, I get a little emotional. I'm not on the back of the pews though.

Now Paul says in Verse 5, Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. And in that he's simply saying, I'm not condemning those who are speaking in tongues necessarily, but the more important gift is prophecy.

The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues unless someone interprets so that the church may build up. You see, there are those who were given the gift of tongues to speak a language, and then there were those who were given the gift to interpret that so that other people understood what they were saying.

And it was a miracle within the church. Now brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? If even lifeless instruments such as flute or harp do not give distinct sounds, how will anyone know what is played?

And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So you yourselves. If with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air.

There are doubtless many different languages in the world. None is without meaning. But if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me.

So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestation of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful, what am I to do?

I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also. I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in a position of an outsider say amen to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying?

For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. And I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.

So, Paul describes tongues here in a few ways. He talks, he says, speaking to God, not to men, being an instrument with no sound distinctions, being a form of spiritual prayer. All these are used by the continuationists to say, see, it's gibberish.

But I don't think that can be proven from this. I don't think that you can use that to define that specifically. Because I think you have to harmonize 1 Corinthians 14 and Acts 2, and if a person speaks a language unknown to them, it sounds like gibberish to everyone else.

But that doesn't mean it's not a distinct language. Imagine I had a person who spoke Spanish come up here and just start speaking Spanish. To the vast majority of us who don't speak Spanish, that would sound a lot like gibberish.