Thoughts on a Prayerless House of Prayer, “Premarital Sex” as an Oxymoron, and More

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I’ve been accused of being a thinker, but I just bluff well. Fact is, my Myers-Briggs is strongly ENFP, which makes me a feeler instead. Still, I’m always in my head, though the heart rules.

Some things I’ve been pondering…

Prayerless House of Prayer

I don’t have any figures to back me up, but my own experiences over the years tell me most evangelical churches spend about five minutes praying corporately during any 60-90-minute Sunday meeting. Mainline Protestant churches may up that to 10 minutes out of about an hour. Either way, it’s slim pickings prayer-wise.

When Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple, He referred to the temple as a house of prayer. While it’s an error to conflate the OT temple with a NT church, the idea that corporate prayer matters still exists. Consider how many references to prayer the Bible contains.

Consider this also: On your own, you can listen to a recording of a teaching/sermon, sing songs to God, and find out about goings-on in your church, but you can’t pray corporately without a corpus, the Body of Christ.

So what the heck is our problem on Sundays with praying as a group of believers and actually spending some time doing so? Isn’t that one of the purposes and tasks of the Church? Do we simply not believe our own mantra concerning the power of prayer?

Makes you wonder if one reason people eschew church meetings is because the church isn’t doing what it should be doing anyway, so what’s the point?

Is Premarital Sex an Oxymoron?

Facebook’s trends sidebar recently included “news” of celebrity couples who “saved themselves” for marriage by refraining from the wango tango before the wedding. How bizarre that this qualifies as something we need to know.

We think of fornication as sex before marriage. Adultery is sex after marriage but with someone who is not one’s spouse. Both trend high on the “really bad sins” list in the minds of most Christians.

A challenge: What does the Bible say constitutes a marriage?

Almost all Christian wedding ceremonies quote this verse from Genesis:

So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
—Genesis 2:21-24 ESV

Here’s the baffling reality: For as highly as God and Man hold marriage, there’s no proscribed marriage ceremony in the Bible. No set words to say. No vows to make. Nothing. We have other examples of things to say or do as shown in the Bible for hallowed events, but weddings, nope.

When you look, almost nothing is said except that a man who defiles a virgin must pay a bride price for her and make her his wife, but if her father objects, the man still must pay dad the money (see Exodus 22:16-17).

So does the wedding ceremony really mean anything?

If we get down to the purest essence from that Genesis passage, we find these elements:

  • Leaving parents
  • Holding fast (cleaving) to a spouse
  • A sexual union that formally makes the couple one flesh

So, is marriage simply the following?

  • Have sex exclusively with one person, leave your parents, and set up your own household.

Because it seems to me that’s the definition of marriage from a biblical perspective. Which makes the whole issue of premarital sex an oxymoron. The sexual act itself creates what God recognizes as the formal union. There’s no ceremony there, just the intention to start a separate household.

We understand why adultery is wrong. But what if the real sin in fornication isn’t the sex itself but having sex without any intention both to stay true to the other person and to establish a separate household with them?

Really changes the perspective, doesn’t it?

Super Bowl as Church Meeting

Heard more arguments for making Presidents Day the Monday after the Super Bowl. I don’t see any drawbacks in doing so.

Except that the Super Bowl has become an alternate Thanksgiving Day, only with friends instead of family members. It’s the religious holiday for people who feel no compulsion otherwise to do anything religious.

Used to be that Sunday evening church services didn’t bow to the Super Bowl, but now they do. Many churches cancel whatever Sunday evening meetings they ordinarily hold in deference to the Big Game. One could argue that all the elements of a church service (communion meal, worship, separation from other events, identification with a restricted group, and fellowship) exist within a Super Bowl party.

Makes me wonder if instead of decrying our perpetual slide into worldliness and placing too much emphasis on things that will pass away (such as Super Bowls), we Christian instead try to understand what we have done to our church meetings that so many people would rather be at a Super Bowl party substitute.

False Football Prophets

Dear Lord, I hope it’s not true that some self-proclaimed prophet said revival would only come to America if the Panthers won. Looks like my hopes are dashed.

Are there any genuine prophetic voices left out there?

Of Kingdoms and Politics

Christians I know continue to line up behind their chosen presidential candidates, and it’s a hot mess honestly, much more than usual. It says something about the beliefs of the supporters and how they read the Bible.

  • Those who feel the need to upset the establishment, to turn against the Pharisees and usher in a new kind of Kingdom, so to speak, support Trump or Sanders.
  • Those who desire a kinder, gentler, humble Kingdom are falling in for Carson.
  • Those who want a Kingdom that transcends boundaries and makes peace between factions look to Rubio.
  • Those who instead want the King to come, winnowing fork in His hand, to separate the wheat from the chaff support Cruz.
  • Those who nostalgically recall the way the Kingdom used to be are in for Christie, Bush, Kasich, or Clinton.
  • And I’ve got nothing for Fiorina.  😉

Thoughts?

Want to rebut or endorse any of my musings from above? Please comment below. Your comments make Cerulean Sanctum a great place to be, and I appreciate them very much.

Hmm, I Wonder What My Father’s House Shall Be Called?

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PrayerThe fashion today finds some churches talking smack about how long the worship portion of their Sunday meeting persists.

“We open with 20 minutes of nonstop praise to the Lord!”

“Well, we spend 40 minutes lifting up His name!”

Meanwhile, churches continue to build or renovate so that the altar area is more like the stage at a KISS concert. It used to be that a church could drop $50,000 easily on sound equipment. How 2005! Now they spend that much on stage lighting.

Can I ask a simple question?

What did Jesus say His Father’s house shall be called? A house of a 45-minute worship set with lasers?

When was the last time you heard anyone brag, “We open our meeting with a half hour of prayer”?

Something is monstrously wrong in American Christianity when a church of believers can sing some bad rock songs interminably  and then brag about it, yet you can’t get the assembled Body of Christ at that same church to spend five minutes in shared prayer.

I wonder if we’ve reached a stage where we can say that our Father’s house has become one of misplaced priorities.

He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
–Matthew 21:13

You see, there is more than one holy thing such robbers can steal.

Praying in Tongues

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'Descent of Holy Spirit on the Apostles' by Mikhail Vrubel, 1885Speaking in tongues.

Just mentioning tongues gives many people pause. Tell others you speak in tongues and the stares come out. Talk about glossolalia (the fancy term for speaking in tongues) in polite company (heck, any company) and you’ll be branded forever. It’s not enough that being a Christian separates you from other people, speaking in tongues separates you from other Christians, as a minority of Christians today in the West care to deal with tongues. In short, if you’re in a group and desire to be left alone, talk excitedly about speaking in tongues.

What the Bible says:

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
—1 Corinthians 12:7-11 ESV

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
—1 Corinthians 12:27-30 ESV

For 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. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.
—1 Corinthians 14:2-5 ESV

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.
—1 Corinthians 14:18 ESV

So, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But all things should be done decently and in order.
—1 Corinthians 14:39-40 ESV

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
—Romans 8:26-27 ESV

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.
—1 Corinthians 14:14-15 ESV

{emphases mine…see below}

I quoted a lot from 1 Corinthians. In truth, reading chapters 12-14 of that book are  essential for understanding the Bible’s teaching on this spiritual gift of tongues (and the other gifts too).

Unpacking truths and realities about speaking in tongues

  • 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 and 1 Corinthians 12:27-30 seem clear to me (though not to all Pentecostals, for certain) that the spiritual gifts a person receives from God vary according to God’s purposes. God apportions gifts as He alone sees fit. Paul’s many “do all?” qualifiers appear to me quite obvious that the answer to his rhetorical question is no. No, not everyone fills every Church office or has every spiritual gift. So despite what many of my Pentecostal brethren believe, I don’t think that tongues is an automatic gift for everyone. Paul’s desire that everyone speaks in tongues may be wish fulfillment more than anything else given that he already notes that Spirit-endowed believers don’t always manifest all the gifts. That the early Church had its clear prophets and nonprophets says that when Paul wishes everyone would prophesy, that was not the case for everyone either. Feel free to disagree with me here, but I don’t see those verses mentioned as supporting all gifts for all people at all times. And that includes tongues.
  • That said, we should always desire all the gifts, even if we do not receive them all. I can’t support this thought fully from Scripture, but I would not rule out that God may impart a gift for a season or for a specific need at a specific time—but don’t quote me on that.
  • As for “my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful,” science actually backs this up. PET scans of tongue-speaker’s brains shows none of the intense activity related to language when a person is speaking in tongues. Even more surprising is that a person faking speaking in tongues DOES show high-level language activity. So clearly, something is going on that is beyond natural when a person speaks in tongues. (See “A Neuroscientific Look at Speaking in Tongues” and “Why We Talk in Tongues,” both New York Times articles and NOT from Charisma Magazine.)
  • That latter NYT article above notes a recent Pew Research Center  survey that claimed 18% of Americans spoke in tongues several times in a year. If so, that’s one of the most underreported spiritual facts I’ve ever noted. We’re talking almost one-fifth of the American populace—and that’s just those who self-reported.
  • Paul writes, “Do not forbid speaking in tongues.” That ends any arguments right there. Sadly, that may be the most ignored Scriptural command in the Bible.
  • Tongues comes last or near last in lists of spiritual gifts in the Scriptures. While it’s the most obvious supernatural gift due to its vocal nature, Paul also downplays some of its importance by placing it a distant finisher in importance to prophecy.
  • While the most commonly considered use of tongues is to build up the Church through the combo gift of the interpretation of tongues (so the tongues may bless everyone, even those who do not understand them otherwise), Paul also mentions praying in tongues. And that’s the gist of this post.

Praying in tongues: the what, the why, and three benefits

What is praying in tongues? It’s using the gift of tongues in one’s prayer life, whether in private or in public prayer for others. Pretty simple.

Why pray in tongues? Well, we have the example of Paul and his other notes to us on the function of this gift. Since Paul writes his readers that he is worthy of being imitated (1 Corinthians 4:16), if he prays in tongues, then so should we.

And what are some benefits of praying in tongues?

  • Praying in tongues is a means of continuing in prayer when normal words fail. I endorse that fully. Sometimes, as the Scriptures say, we don’t know how to pray. Tongues removes that roadblock. As noted, the language centers of the brain get bypassed, going around the roadblock. This is a truly spiritual event. It’s the Spirit of God in us teaming with our spirit to connect with the Father and get to the root of a matter. Think of it as broadband rather than dial-up. (I will add that for those who do not have the gift of tongues, perhaps their normal prayer life is naturally more fruitful as is OR they are less likely to find themselves stymied in prayer.)
  • Praying in tongues regularly produces immediate well-being. Though I should be used to it by now, I am regularly surprised how quickly praying in tongues can improve a situation, especially if it is personal and related to mood or physical health. “The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself” is most definitely true! When praying in tongues by oneself, peace is often the first feeling encountered. This reflects God’s mercy and is one of the strongest reasons that we should pray in tongues. Heaven knows we all need more peace in our lives.
  • Praying in tongues will take us deeper. Because this is spirit to Spirit communication, and the Spirit of God searches all things, praying in tongues may address deep-seated issues in an individual. This includes granting spiritual healing and release from habitual sin. Those roadblocks mentioned earlier? Not all are language. They may be keeping spiritual ground from being plowed, unusable as is for planting good things from God. Tongues cut through and may help break up that fallow ground in a person’s life. Much good comes from allowing God to work in us through tongues. Again, we allow God to build us up through this gift.

Many more benefits exist for praying in tongues, but as I see it, these three are indisputable and indispensable. Please feel free to share your wisdom in this or your own positive personal experiences with tongues in the comments below.