Saturday, May 3, 2008

Spiritual Gifts

What happens when a good church service is in progress, and someone suddenly gets up and starts "speaking in tongues"? Many Godly people will say that it is a work of the Holy Spirit, and the person should not be stopped. Other Godly people will say that the person is only jabbering and should be stopped.

The Assemblies of God is a charismatic religion that includes a lot of Godly Christians. The group is Godly enough that they have an unusually high number of non-charismatics who attend their churches because of the good preaching and Godly living that they teach, but these Godly people won't join because they disagree with charismatic doctrine. What happens if a person suddenly interrupts one of their services to "speak in tongues"?

Some Godly people will say that Christians are allowed to exercise their spiritual gifts in a charismatic church, while others will simply stop attending.

The Bible tells us that spiritual gifts are for the profit of all. If the speaker is driving people away from good preaching and teaching, that person is not using a spiritual gift. Likewise, when Christians do anything else that exalts themselves while hurting other Christians, they are not using spiritual gifts.

If you left a church because the leaders were hurting people, you probably did the right thing. But if you left because you disagreed with someone who was helping people, you probably did the wrong thing.