Questions and Answers Addendum (continued)

12. What about private prayer tongues? ... the answer continued. Tongues are limited to two or at the most three in a meeting ... spoken in turn ... and spoken only if someone interprets, 1 Corinthians 14:27-28. From verse 28, "if there is no interpreter, let him speak to himself and to God." That refers to the two or three people with a public tongue who are silenced by the absence of an interpreter. In that situation, those specific people are told to pray privately rather than publicly. This falls significantly short of teaching private prayer tongues for all believers. Some say that private prayer tongues were so popular in the early church that there was no need to document them in the Bible ... however, that cannot be substantiated.

13. Why is there so much disunity about signs, wonders, and gifts of the Spirit? Paul put the great verses on love, 1 Corinthians 13:1-8, in the middle of his teaching about gifts. Lack of love rather than lack of truth causes much disunity. Some have gained their opinions on these subjects by osmosis from other Christians rather than from unprejudiced study of the Word ... promoting disunity from lack of Biblical knowledge. In addition, some Christians have adopted the opinions of their leaders or favorite authors ... rather than forming their own opinions through prayer and study of the Word. Persuasive shepherds can divide the flock ... promoting disunity because of their personal opinions.

14. Why do the gifts exist? The Holy Spirit has given us special abilities to empower us. In addition, Jesus has given us specialized people to equip us. The gifts of the Spirit and the gifts of Jesus make it possible for us to live successfully in the Body of Christ so that we can "grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." Ephesians 4:15-16.

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IN THE BODY 15    PAGES: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15    
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Disciplemaking 1, copyright 2003, is available free from www.MyDisciplemaker.org where you can study online or print free copies. You may copy this course, any any part of it, for free or at-cost distribution ... without change to the content ... and with this copyright policy attached. Published by www.ActsOneEight.org. Bible Quotations are from the NASB unless noted.