Many Endings But One Conclusion: An Easter Sunday Reflection On The Endings of Marks Gospel

I watched the movie “16 Blocks” recently on DVD. It was a good movie with a gripping story. All the way through the movie runs a theme that the main characters wrestle with: can people change? A criminal who is now giving states evidence against crooked cops is wanting to turn over a new leaf move out west and open a bakery and a warn out cop crippled with guilt has a chance to do something right for a change. They both have the chance to change from their past. I don’t want to ruin the movie by telling you the end. But I do want to tell you that the movie has two endings. On the DVD you can choice to watch the movie with the ending that went out on the cinema release and also an alternative ending. The cinema ending is a typical Hollywood one leaving you smiling, and all warm and fuzzy inside. The alternative ending is sadder and you may need your tissues. But either way at the end of the movie it comes to the same conclusion people can change. Marks gospel is kind of like that movie it too has several endings. Scholars in fact identify three endings: It cuts off abruptly at v 9 and leaves us dangling in the air, there is a shorter ending found on some manuscripts that tries to tie everything together and there is a longer ending that does not appear on early manuscripts but seems to be a later writers attempt to finish Mark’s gospel by rounding it out with all the other gospel narratives about Jesus resurrection. Three different endings but one irrefutable conclusion Jesus is Alive.


Mark starts his ending with an account of the women coming to the tomb.

The women named again as the ones who had faithfully stood at the cross and faithfully followed Joseph of Arimathia to see where Jesus was buried bought spices to anoint Jesus body as soon as the Sabbath had ended. Then having spent the night waiting at first light they went to the tomb wondering as they went who would roll the stone away for them.

They arrive and find the stone already rolled away and a young man dressed in white sitting on the right side of it alarms the women. Their reaction and the young mans opening words “do not be alarmed “ are enough for us to realise that this was no man but rather an angel. Every time people encounter angels in the scriptures they find themselves filled with alarm and fear and the first thing that the angel has to do is calm them down: fear not, don’t be alarmed.

The angel then tells the women that Jesus of Nazarene is not there that he is risen and he is alive, that they are to tell the peter and the disciples that he has gone ahead of them to Galilee and will met with him there.

Then the earliest manuscripts finish up in the air and with great irony. All through Jesus ministry he had told people not to tell about the wonders he had done, its what we call the messianic secret. It’s as if we have been let into the secret of who Jesus is as we read the gospel and the people in his time have to work it out for themselves. But now when the angel tells the women to go and tell the greatest news of all these women who had courageously been at the foot of the cross and had followed Jesus even when his disciples had deserted him are too frightened and do not say any thing.

Scholars have wondered if Mark never really finished his gospel, the whole gospel the feel of being a hurried account of Jesus life all the way through and maybe because of something that happened to him he never finished it off. But the conclusion is very clear. Jesus is alive.

Even if it stops here somewhat up in the air there is a lot for us it’s enough. Peter and the disciples had run away and deserted Jesus. Peter had denied Jesus three times, but in the message from Jesus that he has gone ahead of them to Galilee is Jesus offering them a chance to be reconciled with him to have their sins forgiven and follow him. In John Chapter 21 the disciples say lets go back home lets go fishing and there is the wonderful account of Jesus meeting them there on the lake front and Jesus asking Peter the question do you love me three times giving him the chance to publicly declare himself for Jesus. They may have thought they were running away but according to Mark Jesus went before them to meet with them. Jesus is alive and the invitation to all of us is to come and meet with the risen Jesus Christ. Come and have the past failings and sins forgiven, the slate whipped clean and start afresh following Jesus. If you never have or even if you feel like you’ve blown it and blown it and blown it Jesus offers the chance to start again. He is alive you can meet with him and be renewed.

The faithful women who are rewarded by being the first to hear the good news that Jesus is alive were afraid to tell the others at first. In the other gospel accounts we know that they got over that and told the disciples. But in Mark’s gospel we are left with the invitation to declare what the women know. The gospel leaves it in our hands to proclaim the good news Jesus is risen from the dead just as he said he would do. It is the singularly most important fact for the Christian faith and we are invited to proclaim that at the end of the narrative. With all that it means.

There is also a shorter ending to Marks gospel, which appears in a few later Greek manuscripts.

They reported all these instructions briefly to Peter’s companions. Afterwards, Jesus himself sent out through them the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.

It’s treated as a latter inclusion and in most new translations of the bible it’s not included in the text like the more common longer ending. Scholars say that the language used is totally different than the language Mark uses in his gospel. But again its a different ending with the same conclusion, Jesus is alive. It ends not with the messianic secret, not giving us a chance to declare our own affirmation that Jesus is alive but to add our cry to those of the disciples and apostles and people down through history who Jesus himself has sent out with the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. It is many endings from one conclusion: Jesus is alive.

It is the end of the hold of sin and death on us. Nicki Cruz was recently in New Zealand invited by affiliates of the gangs in this country to them the story of how the risen Jesus Christ had turned him from a feared gangland warrior into a follow of Christ. You may know the story Niki and his gang the MauMau’s were invited to a gospel meeting by David Wilkinson and they had arranged with their arch rivals to battle it out to the death at this stupid preachers rally. They would lock the doors and the last gang standing would rule it all. But Nikki and many others met Jesus Christ that day. The next day many were seen returning goods they had stolen to their rightful owners. They went and apologised to the police for causing so much trouble asking the police to sign their bibles. Nikki began working with drug addicts and gang members to have their lives turned around. Jesus is alive the power of sin is defeated.

The good news of eternal salvation lead Paul to proclaim ‘death where is your victory, where is your sting death has been swallowed up victory. For those who believe death is not the end but rather it is a doorway through which we step from this world knowing and following Christ to the next where we will see him face to face and dwell in the house of the lord forever. Many endings because of that one conclusion Jesus is alive

Mark's gospel has a longer ending as well. Again it’s pretty well considered by all as a latter addition to the gospel. Possibly even a second century tag on, trying to provide a good rounded end to Mark’s gospel. In the pew bible you will see that it is introduced as ‘An Old Ending To The Gospel’. Again scholars tell us that its form and structure are different than the rest of Marks gospel. What it does is it ties together all the other gospel traditions, Jesus other appearances, to Mary Magdalene recorded in John’s gospel. The two on the road to Emmaus that Luke writes of. He appears to the eleven scalding them for their unbelief, possibly talking of Jesus appearance to Thomas as well. Like Luke and Matthew’s gospel Jesus gives the disciples the commission to go throughout all the world and proclaim the good news. There is an affirmation that Jesus would send his spirit and that the disciples would preform signs and wonders that would be God’s backing up their words. The list reads like a summary of what is recorded in Luke’s sequel to the gospel the book of Acts. The apostles speak in tongues at Pentecost and other times, the sick are healed, Paul is bitten by a snake but lives, demons were driven out, miracles preformed, The stepping on scorpions and drinking poison and not being harmed may be a bit strange to our ears.

Then this longer ending has the ascension and affirms that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the father and the disciples went and did what Jesus had commanded them and the lord worked with them preforming miracles that proved their preaching was true.

Many endings and one conclusion, Jesus is alive.

In this ending the effect of Jesus resurrection is worked out in Jesus being seated at the right hand of the father, but also Jesus being present by his spirit in the lives of his followers. He is at work through them, through us, to spread the good news that Jesus the Son of God is alive and we can know him and be saved from our darkness to live and serve him in his kingdom.

Jesus is alive, our journeys all will have different ending. We will go different ways and face different things in life and by his spirit he is with on that journey. On that journey we too are called to tell the wonderful news we know of Jesus the Son of God and we can have confidence that Jesus will back up the words we have to say.
Like this gospel all who believe in him will have different endings to our journey, and we will be called to proclaim the good news along that journey and Christ will be with us There will be many endings there is one conclusion the tomb is empty, Jesus is alive.

The God Who Moves Through His Body In A Myriad Of Ways (1 Corinthians 12:12-31)

The body of Christ is a metaphor for the church that we have become very familiar with, we are comfortable with it. We use it so often we may be in danger of not being able to hear what Paul has to say to us in passages like 1 Corinthians 12.

We can mistake the body of Christ for what we call the body of the church. The body of the church being the place where people come and sit on Sundays and people get ministered to. The focus can be that ministry is what happens up the front. At its best we are lead together in corporate worship and people use their talents and abilities to do that. At its worse it is like a cinematic moment we walk into a cinema or a theatre and while we have some connection with the people round us and we share a common experience we are simply consumers of what is happening up there. But says Paul we are the body of Christ. It’s an active thing. We all have a part to play. It’s about what happens between us.

We use the idea of the body of Christ to talk about a place where everyone belongs. All who are in Christ belong to the body of Christ. Our recent focus has been on words like inclusive, welcoming of diversity and tolerance. That reflects the fact that just like in the first century the church reflects a great cultural diversity and we have a diversity of understanding about the Christian faith and the focus has had to be on fitting all that together. And the metaphor the body of Christ is used in scripture to express that idea of a diversity of people from different backgrounds and worldviews being bought together in Christ. But when we come to passages that deal with the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Pauls writing that is not the way in which that metaphor is used. It’s not about simply belonging to the body. We are the body of Christ and we all have a part to play.

Paul starts this chapter by saying that he did not what his readers to be uninformed about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and we are working our way through a series of messages looking at the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that we to will not be misinformed about them. The gifts of the spirit are manifestations that the spirit gives to the church and its people so that we can grow in our unity in Christ and be empowered and enabled to witness to Jesus Christ in the way we live together as one and in doing the things Jesus did: Using Paul’s metaphor to be the body of Christ and embody Jesus Christ in the world. The gifts are given to the body so that each part can function properly and the body can work together to achieve what Jesus our head wants us to do.

These days we are able to see the human body more clearly than ever before. For example with computers and advances in medical imaging technology scientists and medical educators working for the national medical library in America have embarked on what is known as the visible human project. That is that they have taken a male and female body that were donated to science and have done xrays, cat scans MRI scans and what that they call cryogenic sectioning to build up a comprehensive visual data base for the study of anatomy . They have created photo real and 3D computer images that show where the various body parts are and how they connect with each other.

You can literally fly through the human body and every part becomes visible. It’s a great tool for the study and understanding of the human body and for medical research and training. It makes for some far out amazing images and computer graphics as well.

However there have been quite a lot of criticisms of the project. It started first with the man’s body and it was open to the criticism that it was not right that a man’s body should be seen as the normal human body. So they added a women to the project. Both bodies had come from convicted killers who had been executed, the bodies were then healthy but there was some question as to whether they could be seen as normative. There were other issues as well. While they were as close to a living human being as we have been able to get they were still without life. They couldn’t show how each body part functioned and how it worked together. It was a dead body and none of the parts worked.

Paul says that we are not the inanimate dead body but a living organism. He says that we are an alive body because the spirit of God dwells within us all. Just like God breathed physical life into the body formed out of clay in the genesis creation narrative God has breathed his spiritual life into the body of Christ. We have all been baptised in the same spirit and we all have been given the same spirit to drink. It’s what makes us alive, it’s what says Paul makes us the body of Christ. There has been some though with the coming of the Pentecostal movement and its mainline cousin the charismatic movement that the baptism in the Holy Spirit was like a second experience apart from Salvation, but Paul does not imply this here he says we are all baptised in the same spirit and we all drink the same spirit. However as Gordon fee maintains there have been times in church history when we have forgotten and ignored the role of the spirit or not had any expectation for the spirit to manifest itself in people’s lives. It not that the church is dead it’s, its forgotten the life spirit that flows through it and this has had to be wakened again and the spirits presence and gift giving to all recognised and awakened again.

The focus of Paul’s body metaphor is that the spirit manifests itself in and through people in different ways, the body is active with all people playing a different part. At Corinth the key issue being addressed in the church was divisions and factions who saw the manifestations of the spirit in their group and particularly speaking in tongues as a badge that they were superior to others. If you didn’t do that then well you were sub-Christian. So Paul again says just like the human body has different parts that play a different role in the whole body functioning so it is with the body of Christ. Not one Gift was exclusively the Gift the manifestation, but we all have been given the spirit and gifts by the spirit to actively use together for the common good.

Paul uses the analogy of the body to show that we don’t despise parts of our body in fact the weaker parts are given special consideration it’s not about elitism between body parts. It’s about cooperation and them all doing their part to function properly. The eyes need the ears and the hand needs the feet. There is unity in one body but diversity in the gifts that are given. The manifestations are not given to show off or as badges of superiority but to be used for the common good. If they are not or if all are focusing on one gift the body does not function well or at all.


Then like you are able to fly through the body like you can with the visible human project, he takes us on another highlight tour of the body of Christ to illustrate his point and bring it home.

Apostles, prophets and teachers

He says that there are people who have roles in the church Apostles, prophets and teachers who are a gift to the whole body and that the body needs to function properly. Some people have wanted to see a hierarchy of gifts built into this list that the word first, second and third implies importance. But apart from the fact that the gifts appear in different orders in different lists it is probably better to see that these first three have a particular role within the church that seems to follow on from each other. The planter of the church, the one who takes the word and make it timely and the one who then fleshes out our understanding and helps us to apply and live out the word in our lives. They are ways that God chooses to speak through and to his people, initially and authoritatively , timely and systematically.

Miracles and gifts of healing

Then we have miracles and gifts of healing. Not only does God want to speak through and to his people he wants to move and minister through us as well. We often read through the gospel narratives and the book of acts with some sort of twenty first century scepticism to the miracle and healing stories, but the body of Christ is just that the hands and fett of Jesus to do the things Jesus did. While we were in Dunedin An evangelist from the fledgling church in Mongolia came and spoke to us and it was amazing to hear the story of whole villages coming to know Jesus, he told some stories of miracles and healing but not many. Ray Coster who was travelling with him said he tried to get his guest to tell more stories of the miraculous things God was doing and the healings but his friend was reluctant his reply was well New Zealand is such a Christian country that he expected such things to be common place here and that we would think such stories passé. Maybe as a church in the west we have become reliant on our own means and our own wealth and we have stopped needing the spirit to move in such ways in our midst. Almost like we have allowed that part of our body to stop functioning.

Helps and guidance

Then we have the gift of helps and guidance, we don’t have a great understanding of what is meant by these gifts. In some translation guidance is interpreted administration, but seems to have in mind more the ability to give good guidance and wise counsel to the body of Christ for it to function properly. For the church as the body to run smoothly the spirit gives these gifts as well. Up front and behind the scenes it God working by his Spirit in and through his people.

Speaking in tongues

Speaking in tongues again comes last in this list Paul has tipped the emphasis of the Corinthians on its head to emphasis his point that there is a diversity in the uses of the gifts, he is not writing this one off or putting in down simply placing it alongside the other gifts not in prominence. Its a way of correcting their thinking.

He then reinforces the idea of diversity in unity and our interdependence on each other by asking the questions are all prophets or teachers do all speak in tongues do all interpret? The expected answer of course is no, no it’s not about uniformity of manifestations but about diversity and interdependence.

Then Paul does two things. He says that his readers should earnestly seek the greater gifts and tells them that he can show them an even better way. This is where the challenge comes for us. We need to seek the gifts that Good gives to speak and move in and through his people. They are not according to the scriptures optional extras like leather upholstery and mag wheels on a car they are the things that make it function when they work together. WE all have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us and we should ask god to give us the gifts he has for us so we can serve each other and be the body of Christ. Paul’s letter focuses on the internal workings of the church at Corinth and we’ve often taken that to be the focus of the whole scriptures and the metaphor of the body of Christ, its inward looking but Paul is writing to a sick and dysfunctional body and he has to do some internal medicine and we have forgotten that the key of being the body of Christ is so we can embody Christ in the world. The spirit was originally given in Acts 2 so that the people of God would be empowered to witness to Jesus Christ. WE need to seek those gifts so we can do what the body is designed to do. People often see unity of the body as the end goal the great aim but it reality unity is an expression of the love of Christ for us all and it is to show the world about Jesus.

There is a better way says Paul. The focus for the Corinthians had been on the manifestations of the Spirit but Paul now will show them that the context for these gifts is love. It’s not about status but about love, it’s not about the gifts themselves it’s about using them in loving service. They are not manifestations of spirituality they are manifested by the spirit to enable us to love. Love one another and love people in the world who do not know Christ.


We are the body of Christ, the spirit dwells within us. The spirit calls us to love one another and in that love to use the gifts of the Spirit to serve one another and the witness to Jesus Christ.

A God Who Speaks Through and To His People (1 Corinthians 12)

We are working our way through the passages in the new testament that speak about the gifts of the Holy Spirit: We looked at Romans 12 and saw that by grace God gives gifts for his people to use and they are to be used to serve each other and God. In Ephesians 4 we saw that Jesus gave gifts to the church so that all may be built up together in maturity in Christ and be enabled to do the things that God has called us as a body to do. Today we are starting to look at the longest section in scripture on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14.


Like all the epistles in the New Testament Paul is writing to a particular context and occasion and really to understand what he is saying here about the gifts of the spirit we need to understand what that context and occasion is.

Paul had established the church in Corinth and then moved on and as he is travelling and he hears some disturbing news as to what is going on back in Corinth. The church seems to be at war with itself wracked by divisions and different groupings and Paul is writing to correct the sort of thinking that has caused these divisions.

Amongst other divisions there seems to be a group within the church who saw themselves as being the spiritual ones. That as Christ had come they had all the benefits of heaven today and now, Paul finishes his letter by explaining that while Christ has come that the consummation of the kingdom is yet to come when Christ returns. The focus of this group was that they could prove that they were the spiritual ones because of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in their lives and in particular the gift of speaking in tongues. They saw themselves as being like angelic beings because they spoke in the tongues of angels. They saw these manifestations as badges of their spiritual superiority and Paul has to write to correct this. And that is the context we need to keep in mind when we look at the teaching on the gifts of the spirit and their use in Corinthians 12-14.

Paul starts by saying that he does not want his brothers and sisters to be uninformed about the gifts or manifestations of the Spirit. It was Not that they did not know what they were or they did not use them but rather that they needed to understand more about them and their proper uses. They were like men and machines, we like to operate them the moment we get them and we don’t consult the manual unless it all turns pear shape.

We find ourselves in the same situation today.

Some focus negatively on the gifts of the spirit saying the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not for the church today that they stopped, but this is not to be found in the scripture. Some of us may not teach that but we can live that way, Gordon fee laments that in that case the church has lost touch with the spirit of God in its ongoing life and has settled for the ordinary. We try and do it all in our own strength. Others, like those spiritual ones in Corinth, have majored on the gifts of the spirit and in particular speaking in tongues, traditional Pentecostal teaching used to say that you needed to speak in tongues to be filled with the spirit and some even took it as far as saying you needed to speak in tongues to be saved. They again were seen as badges of spirituality and the focus had been on the manifestations of the spirit not the manifesto. Praise god that changing now. But we need to see what Paul has to say to us

In this first section that we had read out to us today Paul makes three important statements about the gifts of the spirit.

Firstly that the manifestation itself is not the important thing rather the message is. As ex-pagan’s Pauls readers would have been used to spiritual manifestations. People who wanted to make important decisions in their lives would consult oracles, people who supposedly spoke on behalf of a certain deity, these people were sometimes in trance states induced by various drugs or starvation or dancing and from examples we still have the messages they gave were cryptic and hard to understand, there would be weird things associated with these folk, maybe even speaking in tongues. Paul says that these manifestations lead people astray to worship dumb idols. But when the spirit of God speaks it’s intelligible and the focus is on exalting Jesus Christ.

The focus of the gifts of the spirit is to glorify Christ. No one says Paul who is speaking by the spirit of God can say Jesus is cursed. Conversely no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Spirit of God. To say that meant total allegiance to the one person Jesus Christ. This was why it was important to have an intelligible utterance in public worship not just speaking in tongues because the focus was Christ.

The second thing that Paul says is that the one spirit, God’s spirit gives a diversity of gifts. People often read this passage and focus on the nine gifts that Paul mentions in the list at the end of this paragraph and in doing so they miss the point. For Paul the gifts listed are almost secondary the focus is on the fact that the spirit gives a diversity of gifts. People have often seen a hierarchy of gifts in the list here saying that tongues is the least amongst them but rather Paul puts it last to highlight his point that there are many gifts not just that one, not to put that one down but so the focus is not on it.

He uses the trinity in the passage to show how there can be diversity in unity. He says that the one spirit gives many gifts, there are many services but the one Lord there are many works but the one God. Note gifts and service are again synonymous here. Just like the Godhead expresses itself as diversity in unity so it is with the body of Christ, we all have different gifts given for the common good. Diversity in unity.

The third point is that the gifts are given to the church not the individual and the focus is not on the spiritual superiority of the user, but rather they are given for the common good. After this passage Paul will pick up his great metaphor for the church again, that we are the body of Christ and all the parts function together for the good of that body. In our day and culture we do tend to focus on the individual and gifted individuals are given special honour, but Paul says the spirit has given us all gifts , in fact the implication is that all these gifts are available to everyone not the possession of one person, for the benefit of all.

Then Paul runs through a list of spiritual gifts and it’s not exclusive or exhaustive by any means and each list in scripture is different. The focus is on the different gifts given by the same spirit for the common good: diversity in unity.

Words of wisdom and knowledge

He starts with ‘words of wisdom’, we don’t know exactly what Paul has in mind when he said this and there has been much written about what these are. The Corinthians were very captivated by the idea of wisdom. Paul tells them that for the follower of Jesus wisdom and understanding comes not by human means but by the spirit. Paul had told them that the wisdom of God was Christ and Christ crucified and this was foolishness to the world, so a word of wisdom would be an utterance that line up with the gospel insight and how it applies to a certain situation.

Word of knowledge is often seen as knowing something that you could not know except by supernatural means. Jim Wallace tells the story of talking with a business man at a party and having the man tell him that he had no need for God he had everything together. Jim sensed the spirit say then ask him why he sleeps with a gun under his pillow, which Jim did and the man turned white and asked how he knew that. Then he really opened up and shared what was going on his life it was the start of that journey to faith.

It may not only be such supernatural manifestations. In Exodus 35 Bezalel and Oboliab are the first people in scripture who are said to be filled with the spirit. They were said to be filled with wisdom and knowledge and skills to design and work with metal and wood and cloth gifts given so that the tabernacle could be built. These may have seemed to people natural ability and talent but their wisdom and knowledge was in actual fact a gift of the spirit. We need both examples of

Faith, healing and miracles

Faith is seen as a gift. While we are all given the faith to believe and be saved there are some who the spirit gives the faith needed to move mountains. The film amazing grace comes to mind with William Wilberforce’s lifelong battle against the slave trade, a spiritual gift of faith perhaps to see a better future and tough it out. Faith enables us to act trusting God and in this list it is linked with healing and miracles.

It is a mystery it is grace, God uses people to heal, this is the next gift in the list. I am always reminded of John Wimber the founder of the Vineyard church when I think of healing, because he was asked if he believed God heals people today and what about people that don’t get healed and he replied all I know is this that more people get healed now I pray for them to be healed than when I didn’t’. We’ll look more closely at this later in the series.

Miracles are God’s intervention in supernatural ways other than healing. I am always reminded of the video viva christo rei where a catholic community in El Paso became involved with the people on the rubbish dump to the south of the border in Juarez they talked of often seeing God provide in miraculous ways, Having only fifty bags of flour and over sixty in the line and the last sack going to the last person in line. You can see why these two gifts follow on from the gift of faith and are connected with it.

Prophecy and the discernment of spirits

Prophecy, that is speaking God’s timeless word in a timely manner, we talked about last week and will talk about in depth later.

Discerning of spirits has often been equated with a deliverance ministry, but as it is in this list next to prophecy and a parallel with tongues and interpreting tongues and faith and healing and miracles, it does seem to be connected to the idea of prophecy. A prophet is encouraged in scripture to speak what they feel is on their hearts what God is telling them and it is up to the community to weigh that and to see if it is from God and this is where discerning of spirits naturally fits, being able to know and understand by the spirit where something is coming from: From the spirit or just a human voice or from another spiritual source like the demonic.

Tongues and interpretation

Then we have the problematic one for the Corinthians speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues. Again this is in the context of public worship and Paul says that if one is to give a message in tongues there should be someone there to interpret it. If it isn’t interpreted it just builds up the one who speaks but if it is interpreted then it can be a message to encourage everyone. The first time I heard someone give a message in tongues it was done in a very Presbyterian way decently and in order. An elder stood up in an evening service when space was given for such things and said I believe I have a word in tongues for the church and he gave it. Then a few minutes afterwards another elder gave a message in English that we then discerned was the interpretation. A third lady was the wife of an elder had taught in Tonga for many years and said while it was not Tongan it sounded ;like a pacific island language and she heard certain words that she could identify that came out in the translation in the right places.

This list is not exclusive or definitive. It shows the great diversity of gifts that the one God the one spirit chooses to manifest within us. It’s not about uniformity it’s about diversity in unity. It’s about allowing the spirit to move within us for the common good: Both within the church and without: To be the body and to embody Christ. It is the same spirit that is in all of us and gives all of us gifts to use to glorify Christ lets use them to the glory of God. We serve a God who wants to speak and move through his people. You are the body of Christ We are the body of Christ, we are the body of Christ.

'Gifted Body Builders Needed To Mature Church (Ephesians 4:1-16)

This is the second in a series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit

‘Gifted bodybuilders needed to mature church’


You open the doors of the church and instead of their being the things you would expect you find it totally transformed: Rowing machines and static bikes to sit and exercise on instead of pews to sit and doze off in. No organ music or even the worship band singing harmonies rather there is the pounding of ‘techno’ tracks and the harsh bark of an instructor taking an aerobics class up by the sanctuary. Instead of the rather old world musty smell tinged with candle smoke and a hint on incense, there is the pungency of sweat and strain. They are not passing round the bread and wine but rather what you hope are just vitamin supplements and energy shakes. As folk walk past decked out in Lycia to show off the results of their hard work to the best effect you realise that people didn’t use to dress like this to come to church. You didn’t need the mirrors round the walls to check you’re hat was on right or to straighten your tie. Instead of the rather weedy gawky nerdy guy up the front, muscle bound folk are there as personal trainers to help people build themselves up, become fit and physically strong.

‘Gifted body builder’s needed to mature church’

I don’t know if Paul had the modern gym or pumping iron in mind when he wrote to the Ephesians but in the passage we had read out to us today, he talks about gifts being given to the church to build us up. Paul says that Jesus has given us gifted body builders to equip and encourage us to exercise our own gifts and roles within the body, so it can be healthy and grow together in Christ and become more Christ like and embody Christ in the world.

This year our major focus is the Holy Spirit agent of renewal. We did a series looking at the person and work of the Holy Spirit earlier in the year. We saw that the Holy Spirit was not just an inanimate force in the universe but a personal being and the third person of the trinity. The passage we had read out to us today contains one of the strongest Trinitarian formulas in the whole of Paul’s writing. We are one body says Paul because we share the same spirit, the Holy Spirit. We are one people because we have the same Lord and faith and have the same baptism in Christ, one because we all have been adopted into the same family and have the same heavenly Father.


Later we are going to do a series looking at the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The characteristics that the Spirit is wanting to develop and grow within us, so that we might be more like Christ. In fact those characteristics and fruit come very much to the fore in the passage we had read to us today. Paul says that we are one body by virtue of the fact that we share the same spirit and then commands his readers and us to guard that unity by developing the virtues of humility, gentleness, patience and bearing one another in love. Three of these four virtues are amongst the list of the fruit of the spirit we will be looking at in Galatians 5:22.


But at the moment we are focusing on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. That we all have a part to play in the body of Christ and in embodying Christ to the world and the Holy Spirit empowers and enables us to do that, to the glory of God. We are looking at the three passages in Paul’s letters that talk of the gifts of the Spirit. Last week we looked at Romans 12 and saw that we are all gifted to serve. Today we are focusing on the list of the gifts in Ephesians 4 and for the next few weeks we’ll be focusing on the passage in 1 Corinthians 12-14. Again while we call them the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, in these three passages we see that the whole of the godhead is involved in equipping and empowering the church. In Romans 12 it says God gives gifts by grace, here in Ephesians we see that it is the risen and glorified Christ who gives gifts to his church and then in Corinthians we see that it is the Spirit who is the one who gives the gifts to the body to use. The whole of the God head is involved in creation, in our salvation and in seeing the church be the body of Christ. The gifts are graciously given, they are not ours by right or personal possessions they are for us to serve God and serve one another.


While we want to focus on the gifts of the Holy Spirit you can’t do so without focusing on the metaphor that Paul uses to talk of the church or of the interconnectedness of believers, that we are the body of Christ, whenever the gifts of the spirit are mentioned it is in this context. Again in Ephesians Paul says it’s a fact because of what God has done for us we are one body, even as we come from across the great cultural divides of our time and history, we are one, but for a body to function and be healthy we need to work at that unity. It’s like having a healthy and functioning body. All the parts need to work together; they need to do their part for the body to function. I have type two diabetes, it means that my pancreas doesn’t produce the right amount of insulin for my body or rather the wrong shaped insulin. Because my pancreas doesn’t function properly the rest of my body is put under a lot of strain and suffers from it.


Paul says that Christ has given people as gifts to the church to help build us up so we can function properly and be healthy. Like the support staff in a sports team. Not people to do the ministry of the church but to help train and equip us all to do our part in the body to help equip us for every good work and to grow into maturity in Christ. In the church I grew up in back in Titirangi this was expressed every week on the front cover of the newssheet. Where it said minister instead of there being the name of the clergy it said the congregation. Then under that it said assistant to the ministers and had the name of what we call the ‘Minister’.


Paul highlights five different gifts that Christ has given to help build up the body of Christ: To help us function and mature in Christ. They are called ministries or service rather than positions within the church. They were not necessarily the people in the early church who carried out the leadership and governance function of the church. Where ever Paul and the early missionaries went they set up a structure based on the Jewish system of setting up elders and there does seem to be a leadership structure based on overseers, elders and deacons. These gifts and servant to the church denote a function within the body not a position. They are the support staff.



Firstly apostles, literally ‘messengers’ there is some controversy over what this means for us today. The orthodox view has been that this refers to the Apostles, those first followers of Christ who actually meet Jesus risen from the grave and were commissioned by him to spread the gospel. They include the twelve and Paul says that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, in fact he calls himself least amongst the apostles. We also have Andronicus and Junia mentioned as being outstanding amongst the apostles in Romans 16. Junia is interesting because it is a women’s name, for many years it was mistranslated with a masculine ending because they thought there was no way there was a woman apostle, but with modern scholarship and modern sensitivities it’s been rediscovered. Why shouldn’t there be women apostles as the women were the first to hear the good news that Jesus was raised from the dead.


The Apostles are the ones who have passed on the good news of Jesus Christ to us and who originally established the church. It’s their testimony and teaching that is foundational for us and we need to build us up.


Some would say that apostles are simply messengers and it means someone who is a church planter or missionary or pioneer of the faith and people have an apostolic ministry in the world today.


I guess I’d want to say that both are true we need the Apostles and their authoritative testimony to Christ’s resurrection and we also need the messengers of today who have gone out and planted churches and established the church in various cultures, countries and contexts . I would be loathed to call anyone today an Apostle and say they have that authority, but I see there are people who we need in the church today that have an apostolic ministry in terms of planting and establishing churches, people I would listen to because of what they have done in Christ.


Secondly prophets, that is people that God has gifted to be able to take the good news of Jesus Christ and apply it to the here and now. To be a prophet is to tell forth God’s word: To take God’s timeless truth and make it timely. Paul in his letters functions both as an apostle, witnessing to the Good news in Jesus Christ and a prophet in his letters he applies that timeless truth to the occasion of the churches he is writing to. We need that so we can grow together so that God’s message becomes God’s message to us, To you and to me.


WE may think that prophets and prophecy ace about being innovators but in actual fact they are about being faithful to the faith and faithfully applying to new contexts and to our context. You can see how that would build up the church.


Evangelists, good news tellers are people who take the message of Jesus Christ and communicate it in a way that others come to know Jesus Christ and chose to follow him. We need them to build up the body of Christ because well they build up the body of Christ numerically. They may be mass evangelists, but also those who simply out of love and compassion for family and friends share their faith.


Then we have pastors and teachers, these two are linked together and scholars think that while Paul had itinerant ministries in mind when he talked about the first three that here he had the local leadership of a church in mind. To pastor means to oversee and to lead as well as care, it means to be the shepherd of course the model for that is the chief shepherd and the good shepherd Jesus Christ. To teach means that people would know and learn the good news, the scriptures to know what it means to follow Jesus and to apply it their lives. To train people up, in the ancient near east a teacher was more of a mentor than a lecturer, it was to show by example and to invite people to do alongside them. Again the example is Christ, who taught the disciples and then sent them out to do the things he had done.

The end product of all these gifted which by the way I believe we are called to exercise in different degrees according to grace given to us is that we are built up together. That you and I are trained and equipped and encouraged to do our ministry to be the body of Christ. They are not the ministry of the body of Christ they are there like personal trainers to enable us to do what God has called us to do. To love and care for each other to proclaim the good news we have received. You are the body of Christ we are the body of Christ, we are the body of Christ, and the spirit is upon you to be that body and to embody Christ in the world.

Gifted to serve (Romans 12:1-12)

Having posted one sermon from this series on tongues I thought I might post the rest of the series. It works through passages in the New Testament that mention the gifts of the holy Spirit (mainly in Paul's teaching). Hopefully people will find them useful. I must admit that they are not an exhaustive comprehensive study on the gifts of the Spirit. They are my reflections and I hope therefor they will be helpful to people. This first one sounds more like a lecture on the failing of 'Autor theory in film studies' . 

The film ends and the credits start to roll and we get up to walk out of the theatre or we flick from the DVD player back to the TV just in time for the all important ads, and we miss something that is of utmost importance to the art of film making. Some movies put bloopers and outtakes amidst the credits to keep our attention so we won’t miss what is so special about the art of film making.

You see at the very heart of film making, the art form of the twentieth century, is the fact that it is a team effort. Not just the vision of one man a director or the abilities of a group of actors whose performances compels them to stardom and fame and everyone’s A list but those credits that roll around reveal, cinematographers, screen writers, editors, costume designers , composers and production designers they all get some recognition at places like the Oscars but also producers and financiers, administration staff, technicians, CGI artists, that’s people who do all the computer generated special effects, folley artists, that the people who do all the sound effects, and sound technicians, musicians, caterers, chauffeurs and truck drivers, animal handlers, set designers and builders, seamstresses, and roadies who lug copious amounts of equipment round , riggers who can put it all together, stunt people. The names roll past and we don’t often stop to think about all these people and their gifts and talents.

One way to talk about films is to see it as the work of an Autor which of course is French for artist. That a film was the work of one person, the director. Alfred Hitchcock is always held up as the prime example of an autor,


but now this idea of the autor is being challenged and as they began to look at Hitchcock and other great directors they found that a key talent they had was to gather around them a team of gifted people whose talents and abilities and characters complemented and offset their own.

Citizen Kane which is Orson Wells first ever movie perhaps epitomises this when Wells the director shares billing on screen with his cinematographer Greg Toland, whose innovation and brilliance enabled Wells to tell the story so well.

Films are acknowledged both as a body of work of a certain director but also the work of a body of people each with different parts to play and its only when they use their gifts together that the art piece forms that the story gets told.


This year we are taking some time to look at the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity. We did a series around Pentecost looking at the person and work of the Holy Spirit and now after a break we are starting a series looking at the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In our first series I introduced you to this diagram that expresses the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. That first and foremost the Spirit dwells within us and brings us into communion with God. That the spirit then works to reflect that central relationship to the world round us. The Spirit works on our character to make us more like Christ. That’s not at the bottom because it’s least important it’s there because it is foundational. Later in this series we will look at 1 Corinthians 12-14 and Paul, not denigrating the gifts of the Spirit but putting them into context says we maybe the most gifted person in the world but if we don’t have love then well, it’s like being a noisy gong, or if Paul lived in a 21st century urban setting might say its like a jack hammer and road works at dawn and all day long. And we are going to look at what the Spirit wants to develop within us when we do the third part of this series; Hey I’m a science fiction fan everything’s got to be a trilogy, looking at the fruit of the Holy spirit in Ephesians 5:22. The other thing that the spirit does within us is that it gives us a calling and the capability to serve and to witness to Christ. To do the things that Jesus did. Over the next few weeks we are going to be focusing on the passages in the new testament that talk about the gifts that the spirit give and how they are to be used.

In the passage we had read out to us from Romans Paul moves from having explained the gospel and how it relates to the gentile and Jews to deal with how that Good news is to be lived out. ‘Therefore he says’ because of what Christ has done for you. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice’ which is true or spiritual worship. We tend to think of what we do here in church as worship and we do call it public worship, and it is worship but Paul says that true worship is not just when we gather together to sing songs pray and hear the word read and preached that’s part of it, but it’s as we give our whole selves to God and dedicate everything we are and all we do to Christ. In my favourite worship song at the moment offering by the band “third day” the chorus says “lord I give you my life it’s all I have to give because you gave your life for me”.


Then Paul says that the believers are not to be conformed to the world but to allow the Spirit to renew their minds, and it’s in this context then that Paul writes about us being the body of Christ and using the gifts that have been given by grace to all. He says that we are not to think too highly of ourselves rather has sober judgement.

Let’s look at that in three ways.

Ours to own v. Gift of grace

Firstly, the world sees giftedness as being the possession of a person but the emphasis on the passage here is that the gifts are given by God by grace. As such all our talents and gifts and abilities are to cause us not to think more highly of ourselves but to thank God for what he has done and to present them back to him to use for the kingdom of God. Lets realise that they are not ours but God’s given to us. That dictates how we use them.

Individual v. Body

Secondly, In the world’s way of thinking, we see ourselves as individuals. But Paul says no In Christ you are a community together. It’s not just about you it’s about us being together as the body of Christ. We belong together and we all have a part to play. There is an irony that many films made today by teams focus on an individual who is gifted or talented and who is able to save the world or the girl by themselves. Christianity isn’t like that you and I are all together we are one body, and it’s the one whom we embody who has saved the world and we are invited to live out and tell forth that act of grace and service.


Status v. Service

Thirdly, the world tells us that the gifted person is to be respected and given kudos and honour. Gifted athletes command a king’s ransom, gifted actors or people gifted with beauty and pose before a camera get to live a lifestyle that even when it all falls to pieces still demands our attention and sell magazines and the clothes they wear and the accessories they accessorise with. But Paul says well actually we are all gifted we all have a part to play; we need to use those gifts to serve one another: It’s not about status but service. It’s not about getting the gift or the gifts and talents you have it’s about investing them and giving them. In fact did you notice that in the order of gifts Paul uses in this passage leadership comes second to last? That gifts such as service and giving and encouraging come before that. They are all to be used for the common good. We are gifted to serve.

Then like the credits rolling past Paul mentions some of the Gifts that God gives and some direction as to how they are to be used in the body of Christ.

Prophecy

Firstly is prophecy, Prophecy is God speaking to his people and his world today through his people. If we look at the Old Testament prophets you’ll see that they were ordinary people that God called out to tell forth his word to a certain situation. In the New Testament we are all filled with the spirit and all called to tell forth God’s word. Maybe it may simply being sharing a bible verse at the right time. Paul is encouraging people to use the gift they have with the amount of faith they have and for some they are more able to speak what they believe God is calling them to say as God gives them the faith to do it.

Serving

If servings your gift says Paul then serve. You know you don’t often have to tell people who have a gift of service to serve, they are usually doing it. But even people who like doing the things behind the scenes are gifted by grace to do it. Their doing it well is worship to God. This covers things like administration and organisation as well as doing the hands on things.

Teaching

If your gift is to teach then teach. We need people who can both get up front and teach but also those who can get alongside and do what we call mentoring: Teaching by investing time and energy into another person or a small group so they might grow to have faith or grow in their faith. Jesus did both.

Encouragement

Encouragement is an important gift. Often in a church that is in decline or has been struggling just to survive our self speak, what we say to ourselves can be disheartening or reinforcing the way things have been, one of the things that encouragement does is allows us to see where things are going OK and to allow us to look to the future in a positive way. As new Zealanders we are not that good at encouraging each other, I guess we’ve made an art form of the old tall poppy syndrome. So if your gift is encouragement then encourage. We need it.

Giving

Giving is a gift and the encouragement from Paul is that if your gift is giving then you should do so generously. I remember a This is your life programme on Michael Jones when he was asked how given his Christian faith he could be such a ferocious tackler. He smiled at and answered ‘well the bible says it’s better to give than receive’. Because there are gifted givers the call on us all is still to give, but once again God has graced the body of Christ people for whom blessing other financially is their gift, there thing and Paul says go for it be generous,

Leadership

If your gift is leadership then lead diligently. Leadership is a servant role within the body and maybe it easy for a leader to think they can focus on the status put Paul says no leadership is hard work. Those who lead need to be diligent. Also in leadership roles it’s easy to get distracted and leaders need to be diligent in keeping the main thing the main thing.


Mercy

If your gift is mercy or caring then do so cheerfully. A person have gifts of compassion and mercy they thrive on caring for others and while we are called to all love one another god has given us people who are gifted carers. They can get down in the midst of the misery and suffering Paul’s encouragement for those who care is to do so with cheer. A merry heart is as good as a medicine.

While film is the art form of the twentieth century, a new art form emerging in the twenty first century is Photomosaic’s. That is using computer power making images out of photos. I’ve shown you this before I think but it’s a photo mosaic of a lion , the king of the beasts right! It’s made up of hundreds of pictures of lions. The computer had taken all these individual photos and arranged them is such a way that this bigger picture comes emerges. Each individual photo has a place where it belongs and a part to play so in this body of work people may see the King. We too have a place to belong and a part to play. God has given all of us gifts to use to be the body of Christ and embody Christ in the world. So the call is to use them and develop them that people would see Christ in us.

Tongues: The Problem Gift ( a testimony and sermon on 1 Corinthians 14)

This is the text of  a sermon I preached a few years back as part of a series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Interestingly some students have been asking me about this very issue of tongues recently so I thought I'd just post it here

Today I want to focus on the gift of speaking in tongues. I want to start by giving a testimony of my experience of this particular gift, then look at what Paul has to say about it in the passage we had read out to us today, where it does seem to be the problem gift in the church at Corinth. Not a problem because Paul didn’t think it was a genuine gift, but because of the way it was used in particular in public worship.

the first time I encountered speaking in tongues was at the Presbyterian Church I grew up in. It was an evening service and during a silence in at the forefront of the Charismatic movement at the time. During  the worship time one of our elder spoke in tongues. A little while later another elder at the other side of the church spoke a short word (sorry charismatic shorthand happening here). after the quite time our minister asked if the person who had spoken in tongues believed that the other word that was spoken was an interpretation. the answer was 'yes' they believed it was. Then the wife of another elder spoke up and said that she had taught in Tonga for many years and that the message in tongues sounded like a pacific language and she understood some of the words and that they occurred in round about the right place in the word that was spoken in English. Now it was interesting to see this sort of thing happen in a very orderly , you could even say stayed Presbyterian way.

Since then I've had some interesting experiences of my own.
I’d been a Christian for about six months when I went round to a house where a group of people from our church in Titirangi were flatting together, sort of like a community.. They had been very instrumental in me becoming a follower of Jesus and one of the guys had been asked to mentor me in the Christian faith. They asked me if I’d ever been prayed for to be filled with the Holy Spirit and I replied no I hadn’t so they asked me if I’d like to be and I said yeah why not. They prayed for me and after a while started speaking in tongues and in what was the Pentecostal practise of the day suggested that I should just start praising God and maybe even try and say the things they were saying and if God wanted to give me that gift it would come. I had a real sense of God’s presence as we prayed and believe that God did give me the gift of tongues. So in my personal prayer time and other times I will pray using that gift. Like Paul I want to pray and praise using my mind but also i find a real intimacy with God as I pray in this other language.

I hope I am a thinking person and after that time I’d always wondered about the validity of that experience. One evening at a healing meeting, with Dolorous Winders, who Presbyterian renewal ministries had bought out to New Zealand, a Maori man I’d never meet before asked me to pray for him. He was going into hospital for an operation and wanted me to pray for healing. I said yeah sure. But actually wasn’t that confident, after a while I sensed the spirit say pray for him in tongues and I asked him if that was OK and he said yes he was comfortable with that. So I did. When I finished praying he looked at me and said ‘do you realise what you’ve just done?’ Now being an over sensitive white guy I thought that I’d just done something cultural inappropriate. So I gasped and in trepidation said no. I didn’t. But was ready to apologise. He replied ‘Well I speak my language and you just prayed in fluent Maori and I understand every word you just said. Now I don’t speak Maori, I did it in the third form and can say hello and name bits on a Marae but that’s about the size of it.

I was a bit worried about what I had said; it could just have been a new recipe for Seafood chowder or something totally satanic. So I asked what I had been saying. He told me that I had been giving praise to God and praying against powers and principalities. I don’t know if Dallas was healed that day. But in a profound way I know that he knew God cared about him. Kind of blew me away.

I was the youth coordinator for Auckland Presbytery for four years and the first youth service I attended was at St Giles out at Te Atatu and a Cook Islander was speaking. His message really struck a chord with where I was at and I knew I needed to go up in response to the altar call. So I did. After Alfred had prayed with me I again sensed the spirit say Howard pray for Alfred in tongues so I asked him if it was Ok and did, he told me he didn't speak his own language fluently but had heard enough to hear God say "I know you by name"  He told me that at the Bible College he was at that he felt he  was losing his cultural identity, the thing that really epitomised it for him was the way in which his name was being butchered and mispronounced. So to hear God saying to him in a pacific language that he knew him by name was important. Alfred became a strong leader in the PI community at college .

There have been other times when I have prayed in tongues and had people understand what I have said.

So experiential I have no problem with the gift of tongues, nor do I biblically. Even in the passage that we had read out to us today, Paul does not put this gift down or write it off he instructs the church at Corinth about its proper use and the purpose of public worship.

The church at Corinth seems to have been a church split into different factions. One of those groups believed that they were spiritual people that the sign of their spirituality was that they spoke in tongues ‘the tongues of men and angels. When they gathered for worship, they would speak in tongues. It was like they used it as evidence that they were spiritually superior to other people. So Paul spends a lot of time arguing against that.

• One Spirit, One Body a diversity of gifts

In 1 Corinthians 12, he says that while there is one body and one spirit that that spirit gives a whole array of different gifts, not just the one. He says that the church is the body of Christ and just like a body needs different parts and for those parts to function properly so it is with the church. The spirit has given different gifts to all of us and we need to use all those gifts properly for the body to function properly.

• The only context for using gifts is Love

Secondly, he has to tell them that the context for using any gift is the context of love; 1 Corinthians 13. That love is the sign of spiritual maturity and that the gifts are to be used for the common good. Seeing them as a badge of spiritual superiority wasn’t very loving. Neither, he says, is using a gift that does not build up the whole body in public worship.

• In public worship Gifts need to be Intelligible

He spends the chapter we had read out to us today saying that prophecy is a more loving gift in public worship because it seeks to build up the whole body and that despite the fact that he speaks in tongues more than any of them, it’s almost as if Paul has to defend himself to the spiritual faction in the church here, he would rather speak five intelligible words than a thousand that no one understood.

• It should be orderly

In the second half of the chapter he focuses on the fact that public worship should be orderly, it seems that this spiritual group were speaking in tongues all over the place all together and it was dissolving into chaos. It should be orderly and one person speaking at a time. Paul tells them that unlike in pagan worship where prophets and people who manifested had no control because they were possessed by the demonic , That it’s not the case for the believers, they were in control of their own spirit, and could wait and do things at the right time. He says that chaos is not the way it should be, worship should reflect the God being worshipped and our God is a God of peace.


It’s almost an aside to what we are talking about but in this chapter Paul says that part of that orderly worship is that women shouldn’t talk in church. Now this has been used by many to say that Paul says women shouldn’t have any leadership role in church but that is not the case. In 1 Corinthians 11:5 in a passage that is hard to understand and has a lot to do about not abandoning gender identities in the surrounding culture, Paul had already said that women can pray and prophecy in public worship. What is in mind here ( and this is one possible interpretation) and in keeping with the idea of one person speaking at a time, is that women were not to talk amongst themselves. In Jewish worship women and men were segregated and in the Jewish faith women were not given an active role. They simply were there and probably zoned out and chatted to each other. Here Paul is saying No don’t do that, be involved, be attentive, if there is anything you don’t understand well don’t call out and ask hubby then and there do it afterwards. In a time when women were not given a Theological  education being told to ask their questions and get answers and understanding was liberating.

So to insure order Paul sets out guidelines for the use of Gifts, so that they and in particular prophecy could be used to build everyone up. People speaking in turn, not all at once, being willing to yield the floor to one another. Tongues are OK as long as it is interpreted. Then it becomes prophecy. Even in Acts chapter 2 when the spirit is poured out at Pentecost the gift of tongues is not just a babbling of voices together but it says that people from all over the then known world heard God being praised in their own language. Even though they all spoke at once It was intelligible and a prophetic sign that the good news of Jesus Christ the kingdom of God was to be preached and proclaimed to all the earth.

So what does Paul actually say about the gift of tongues

• Tongues is speaking to God

Paul says that the gift of tongues is first and foremost speaking to God.

• It is private prayer and praise It builds up the individual

It is a private prayer and praise language where the Holy Spirit prays through a person. Paul calls it praying by the spirit, and singing in the spirit, it’s an expression of intimacy between someone and God. When used in public it needs to be interpreted.

It builds up the individual believer.

• It is the Spirit praying by the Spirit

It is the spirit praying to God. In Romans 8;26 Paul says In the same way, 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. I wonder if this isn’t where the gift of tongues doesn’t fit. It allows our spirit by the spirit to cry out to God without having to process it into our own words. Paul says that he prays both in the spirit and with his mind. In public worship he prays with his mind in an intelligible way so that people can add their amen to what he is saying. He praises with his mind so people can agree with him.


John was a youth group leaders of mine when I was a teenager and like a second father to me. He had attended a 'Life in the Spirit' seminar and overzealous people had prayed over him for about 30 minutes to receive the gift of tongues. In desperation to escape from these well meaning people he began reciting the names of welsh railway stations he had learned as a boy. This seemed to satisfy the ‘spiritual ones’ and they let him up. Then one night his son came into his room and woke him up. His son was going out with a girl who had some very strong gang affiliations and said to his father "Dad I can’t tell you what’s happening with my girl  friend  but please pray" right up there with every parent’s worst dream right. At that stage John said he prayed and asked God to give him the gift of tongues so the Spirit could pray through him for the situation. John says he started speaking in a way that he felt was a different language a really heartfelt prayer its the only time he ever did. He never found out what the situation was but in the morning his son said yeah dad it’s sorted.


It’s strange but there are the same problems with the gift of tongues as there were in Paul’s day. How is it to be used in public worship? Pentecostals and Charismatic’s would say that it’s OK to use it in public worship, they have a time of what they call singing in the Spirit. I enjoy such times but do question their place in public worship for the very reasons Paul does. What is the effect on non believers, they will think we are mad. Is it the most loving? There has been an emphasis on tongues as the gift, both positively and negatively both of which put people off seeking and using spiritual gifts. It’s been seen as the sign of the Spirit's infilling. While people can point to occurrences in Acts where this is the case, it doesn’t actually line up with the whole of scripture. The first people filled with the spirit in exodus were given wisdom and knowledge. Throughout the rest of the Old Testament it is that they prophesied. It’s not even mentioned in Peter's sermon at Pentecost, again the focus is on prophecy and dreaming dreams and having visions. It’s sad that it was used in the past to sort of sort out the spiritual from the non spiritual, hard really when it a gift given by grace and to be used in the context of love.

Paul says that speaking in tongue is not to be discouraged but to be used properly. A tongue edifies the one speaking and there is nothing wrong with that to edify the body of Christ it needs to be interpreted. A tongue is about mystery and an intimate relationship with God. Public worship is about edifying the whole body and for that to happen it needs to be in order and intelligible. You are the body of Christ, we often don’t listen to the voice in our own culture we need a voice from outside that culture, tongues is a way God can speak to us all, when it is interpreted . You are the body of Christ and the Spirit dwells within you and wants to build you up, you are the body of Christ and the spirit wants to enable a Deepening relationship with him, the gift of tongues is one way he can use to do that. Paul’s wish for his readers was that they all spoke in tongues he found it that beneficial. I am always happy to pray for anyone and everyone to be filled with the Spirit and be given this gift along with the others.

The Irony Of Grace: A Good Friday Reflection

Good Friday always leaves me wrestling with irony and paradox. It’s a dark day yet it is one filled with light and hope. It is sad yet joy filled. It leaves you thinking about the worst of Human depravity and violence and yet there is hope because it is full of God grace.

On the one hand we can see the worst of our human condition. Our violence, our injustice, our inhumanity all shown to this person Jesus: He experienced the worst we had to offer, betrayed by a friend, with a Kiss no less. Rejected by the people he had come to serve and save. Handed over to be killed by a cowardly government official, who feared the crowd more than he loved justice. He was mocked and tortured by an army of occupation, fighting a war on terrorism, who wanted to make a point about who was the real King, who had the real power. He was mocked at the point of his death, in a way that reflected the devils temptation he had faced at the start of his ministry, and executed by one of the most brutal and painful ways that mankind had envisaged. A torturous death measured in hours if not days, designed to show all who saw it the hopelessness in resisting roman rule.

On the other hand we see the best of God’s grace. We see in the midst of our injustice God’s justice and mercy. We see in what looks like ignominious defeat at the hands of the powers of this world, the coming of the kingdom of God, the earthly powers and greater powers sin and death and evil are the ones that are defeated here. Mark and Matthew in their gospels portray Jesus death as his coronation and enthronement. In John’s gospel we have Jesus assertion from the cross ‘it is accomplished.’ We see brutality and torture but in the face of that Jesus shows us how to overcome evil with good, living out what he had taught his followers in the Sermon on the Mount. We see him rejected by his people but we are left with the universal nature of what Jesus has achieved in his death by the assertion of a gentile soldier “truly this is the son of God.” We see death but in the midst of that we see a new way through death into new life.

We see God’s grace even as the crowd chose which Jesus they wanted. It was Jesus Barabbas, who had led a revolt against Rome and was a convicted brigand and murderer, someone who we would brand a terrorist today. We see God’s grace because the sinner goes free and Jesus, the messiah, the son of God, dies in his place. It foreshadows what Jesus death has achieved for us. The sinner goes free because he has died in our place.


Pilate and the crowd argue about who is to take the guilt for Jesus death, something that historically has sadly been used by Christians to justify anti Semitism. Pilate wants to be clean of the blame for Jesus death and so asks the crowd to take responsibility, which they do ‘Let it be on us and our children they say’. Pilate thinks that washing his hands can absolve him of this but it can’t. His wife had intuitively known that Jesus was innocent and sent word to him, which Pilate ignores. It’s interesting to note that throughout the gospel narrative it is the women who act correctly towards Jesus, from Pilate wife to the group of Judean women who loyally stay with Jesus to the end and looking to give his body the dignity it was not given, by anointing properly for burial. Pilate cannot wash away his responsibility with a little water. So we see In Matthew’s gospel a universal guilt being taken on by people. Jew and gentile religious and civil authorities, Yet with wonderful grace filled irony in the one they are condemning to death we see a universal offer of forgiveness release from guilt and new life.

Jesus is given over to the soldiers to be crucified. They are part of an army of occupation who have been fighting a bloody and elongated war against rebels and insurgency. When presented with a living symbol of that revolt, they react with brutality and inhumanity. They beat Jesus and mock him and in an effort to show that there is no other king but Caesar, they carry out a mock coronation and bow down and worship this king of the Jews. In the face of this we see Jesus living out what he had taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Turing the other check, not returning curses for curses. In Luke’s gospel we see Jesus loving his enemies by praying for them father forgive them they know not what they do. The Kingdom of God is not going to be bought in like the kingdoms of this earth with violence and military power; rather it would be healed in by this death on a cross. The soldiers may have thought they were mocking a defeated enemy but as you read through Matthew and Mark’s gospel it reads like a real coronation and enthronement. Jesus is hailed as the king of the Jews and he is raised up for all to see under the banner which reads ‘King of the Jews’. In an irony that is really hard to accept to look at. This torture and this brutal death are not a defeat for Jesus but the completion of his mission. We have a king whose kingdom is bought in by sacrificial love. Not by murder or violence but by death. More than that it’s if all the violence and injustice that is thrown at Jesus is taken with him to the cross and it is defeated. Jesus takes on himself the sin of the world and sin and death and evil are defeated. They think they have won but they haven’t, while we may see them around us and think that they still reign in our time, the fact is the vicious rearguard reaction of a defeated enemy.

As I read through Matthew’s account of Jesus passion, the thing that really jumped out at me this year was Jesus word’s on the cross, etched so much in the ears of their hearers that they are recorded for us in the Aramaic that Jesus would have used in his everyday life, “Eli, Eli, lema, sabachthani?” My God My God why have you forsaken me’. Such a profound identification with the human condition as Pete Grieg Comments

“What an alarming question for God to ask God. And there is no immediate answer. No word from heaven. No Miracle. No sign except the darkness itself in the middle of the afternoon. In this moment, Jesus legitimised for all time the need we have for explanation. He also demonstrated that the explanation may not come when we think we need it most. Although we will never suffer in the way Jesus did on that day, there are Good Friday seasons in all our lives when pain and disappointment, confusion or a sense of spiritual abandonment cause us to ask God the ultimate question why?”

Even with this sense of abandonment and cut offness from God that Jesus expressed and we can all encounter in what has been called ‘the dark night of the soul ‘there is an irony of grace. As Jesus passed through this deepest and worst suffering, as sense of separation from his father, You and I have been given a new and living way, as the writer to Hebrews says, to enter into the very presence of God.

At times when we find ourselves going through that dark night of the soul we need to recall the graffiti found on the wall of a cellar in Kohn, Germany, believed to be written by a Jew who was hiding there from the Gestapo

“ I believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining

I believe in love even when i am alone

I believe in God even when he is silent.


God’s answer to Jesus seemingly unanswered prayer comes on the third day when he raises Jesus from the dead.

We don’t know what it was about the way Jesus died, but as he did a hardened Military officer who would have seen many crucifixions and many battles is moved to acknowledge ‘that surely this is the son of God”. As Jesus rejection by his people is final and he dies, there is the irony of Grace: That while Jesus is facing the ultimate rejection of his people. Here is the hope for the world that he is recognised for who he is by a gentile. This death would make a path for all Jew and gentile to come to know God’s forgiveness and be reconciled with him.

In the world we live in today we need to remember and hold on to this irony of grace. We live in a world where we are still surrounded by the worst of the human condition. It’s not the darkest it’s been in fact our times very much echo the open line of Charles Dickens’s tale of two cities ”it was the best of times it was the worst of times”. We still live in an era where there is violence and torture. Words such as genocide are heard in places like the Balkan’s and Darfur. Where even a supposed free democracy like the US bandies round the euphemism ‘rigorous integration’ to hide a slippery slide into legitimising torture. Good people still face injustice, be it from political expediency or that it is for sale to the highest bidder.


In the irony of grace, that person who died and their death two thousand years ago on the cross is still the source of forgiveness and reconciliation, still the source of God’s justice and undeserved mercy to us. It is still the death in the place of the sinner, so the sinner may go free. It is still the defeat of the forces of sin and death in our world and the hope of new life beyond death with Christ. It is still the model to us that what Jesus taught about overcoming evil with good is the way to live, even if it does result in our death. It is the beginning of the kingdom of God in amidst our earthly realms. It is the hope we have the irony of grace. In the midst of the worst we could throw at him, Jesus returned the best of God’s grace and it available for us to day.