Last night after having a talk with a guy from the Church about speaking in tongues and its relationship to being baptised in the Holy Spirit, I was inspired to come home and finally do my own study in this area and search the scriptures for what it says. I simply won’t accept what a Church or anyone tells me if I don’t feel it comes from God’s word. And because of my upbringing I guess I’ve just brought some of those beliefs up with me, but concerning tongues my opinion has been looming in limbo land and its time for me to really nut it out. I started by looking up all the references to tongues, and noted about three incidents in Acts and then moved into 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 12 I read about how we are all members of Christ’s body and every person in the body has different spiritual gifts, and that no one should think they are greater then the other (this is how I understood it). I then saw right at the bottom of the Chapter Paul says “And I will show you a still more excellent way.”, because I was reading a online bible I couldn’t see what the next Chapter was, so I thought to myself what could be a more excellent way? The next chapter opens up and says this:

[13:1] If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. [3] If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
(1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV)

He goes on and takes all the gifts and exaggerates them to make a point, without love all you do is a waste of time. Lots of the gifts that he exaggerated, if we saw it done through someone we would all look and think how great that person is, but without love it counts for nothing to God. I hear people talk to me more about getting gifts then about love, I really think we all need to start perusing love foremost. After that, earnestly desire spiritual gifts… but the greatest of all is love:

[4] Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant [5] or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [6] it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. [7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV)

All these qualities of love we see ultimately in Jesus, who through His love for us endured the cross and rose again so that we might be restored into a right relationship with God and have our sins forgiven us. We need to be walking in Christ through the Holy Spirit so that our lives can be transformed to be more like Jesus. Now that I think about it, there is so much to say on love but I really don’t have the time to mention everything, I’ll just leave with a few verses to ponder over:

Us loving God
[4] “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [5] You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. [6] And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. [7] You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. [8] You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. [9] You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
(Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV)

[18] You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
(Leviticus 19:18 ESV)

[11:1] “You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.
(Deuteronomy 11:1 ESV)

[15] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
(John 14:15-16 ESV)

God loving us

[16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16 ESV)

[21] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

(John 14:21 ESV)
[9] As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. [10] If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. [11] These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
(John 15:9-11 ESV)
[12] “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. [14] You are my friends if you do what I command you.
(John 15:12-14 ESV)
Loving others

[7] Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
(1 John 4:7 ESV)
[34] A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
(John 13:34 ESV)
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