Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9–11)
The gospel of Luke shares the same story and relates the “good gifts” that the Father gives specifically to the Holy Spirit: “How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Even if you have asked God more than once to enable you to pray in tongues, I encourage you to keep asking.
First Experiences
I have heard many stories from individuals about their first experience praying in tongues, and all are different. Sometimes they were in a prayer meeting, other times they were at home alone. When I first spoke in tongues, I was in a church service standing at the front of the sanctuary worshipping God after an altar call. As I stood there with my hands raised and my eyes closed, someone approached me and asked me if I wanted to be filled with the Spirit. I wasn’t too sure what he meant, but it sounded good, so I responded affirmatively. He lead me in a prayer: “God, I ask you to now baptize me in the Spirit.” I thought this meant being slain in the Spirit, so I let myself fall backward. He was kind enough to catch me. (Give me a break—I was a teenager.) As I lay there on the cold, musty carpet, I somehow realized that Spirit baptism wasn’t the same as being slain in the Spirit. I think I prayed the prayer again. Then, after a little while, I started to speak in tongues. My mouth didn’t feel any different than normal; I just didn’t understand the words I was saying.
In 1906, Ellen Hebden and her husband started what eventually became the first Pentecostal church in Canada, and she was probably the first Canadian to speak in tongues during the contemporary Pentecostal-Charismatic movement. This is how Ellen described what happened to her in Toronto on November 17, 1906:
That day I had done quite a lot of visiting in connection with the mission, and, being very tired, I retired at 10:10 p.m. Only a short time elapsed when the Spirit of God prompted me to rise and pray, which I immediately did. For some months I had been seeking earnestly for more power to heal the sick, and with this desire still in my heart I began to pray. . . . My whole being seemed to be filled with praise and adoration such as I had never realized before. . . . Then God began speaking to me . . . and a very quiet yet distinct voice said, “Tongues.” I said, “No, Lord, not Tongues.” Then followed a moment of deathlike stillness, when the voice again uttered the word “Tongues.” This time I felt afraid of grieving the Lord and I said, “Tongues, or anything that will please Thee and bring glory to Thy name.” One unknown word was repeated several times and I thought that must be Tongues.4
Ellen’s story is different from mine, and, if you haven’t yet spoken in tongues, your first experience likely will be different from ours. But if you do find yourself praying and you sense God is leading you to pray in tongues, let that first sound out, and the Spirit will guide you. A mouth that is glued shut will get you nowhere. Remember, a synergy happens: you pray in tongues, and the Spirit enables you. You will no doubt wonder if it is “just me,” but remember what Jesus said—the Father won’t give you a stone if you ask for bread.
Tongues and Spirituality
I have come to value speaking in tongues as a regular part of my prayer life, so it saddens me when people reject the experience. We should “not forbid speaking in tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:39). At the same time, we must be careful not to make this experience the pinnacle of spirituality. Remember, there is a long history of both immature Christians and mature Christians who have spoken in tongues. Plus, it is always a sobering reminder that “if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). And so, like the apostle Paul, I will continue to “pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding” (1 Corinthians 14:15).
Father, forgive us if we have ever viewed tongues as more important than other aspects of being in relationship with you. When we do not know how or what to pray, may your Spirit guide our prayers, even prayers in tongues. May your Spirit build us up and help us to praise you well.
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
1.Have you ever believed one of the four errors this chapter describes about speaking in tongues?
2.If you have prayed in tongues, what value do you find in it as a regular spiritual practice?
3.If you have prayed in tongues, how did it first happen and what was the experience like?
4.If you have never prayed in tongues, how open are you to the Spirit praying through you in this way?
5.Why do you suppose that the Bible does not regard speaking in tongues as the pinnacle of one’s spirituality?
CHAPTER 5
LIVING LARGE
Faith, Health, Wealth, and Other Wonderful Things
Jim slouched on his hospital bed as the doctor informed him there was nothing more she could do to help him. After she left the room, he stared at the ceiling and cried out to the Great Physician, the heavenly Father who “heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:3). Not willing to accept defeat, Jim stood up and shuffled over to the bathroom. He looked deep into the mirror and confidently confessed the healing power of the Holy Spirit over his life. And he claimed the truth of Scripture. He recited texts like Proverbs 12:21: “No harm overtakes the righteous.” And he quoted Isaiah 53:5: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
Jim said he could not see his healing with his physical eyes, but that he looked for it with his spiritual eyes. He claimed his healing. And, eventually . . . he received it! As wonderful as it is that Jim was healed, before we cheer too loudly for this story, we should pause and consider what it means to have faith in God and how God responds to our faith.
The idea that we can claim a spiritual reality in spite of our physical reality comes out of what many refer to as the prosperity gospel, the health-and-wealth gospel, word-faith theology, or simply, the faith movement. The prosperity gospel comes in different shapes and sizes, but at the heart of it is the teaching that God desires all Christians to prosper in every aspect of their lives. While this includes things like having healthy relationships, those who teach some version of prosperity theology usually emphasize financial and physical health. One wonders if the health and wealth gospel blesses the American dream as if it came from God. On the financial side of things, the emphasis on prosperity can be problematic—at its best it rightly encourages us to trust in God as our provider, whereas at its worst the prosperity gospel blesses selfish greed (1 Timothy 6:9)—but in this chapter I focus particularly on the issue of healing.
Who Teaches This?
It is not always easy to know if you are listening to a pastor who teaches the prosperity gospel or not. First of all, those who preach health and wealth generally hold to the same orthodox theology as the whole of the evangelical church—in other words, they have a lot of biblical things to say, including emphasizing that Jesus is Savior. Second, since people usually speak of “prosperity gospel” with scorn, when asked outright, many pastors will deny they believe in the prosperity gospel, even when they preach prosperity from the pulpit. One such pastor from Florida said, “I’m not one of those who would be called a prosperity preacher . . . I believe in prosperity. I believe in the blessing of God. But typically, a prosperity preacher [makes it] their life’s message. I don’t feel like it’s my life message, but it’s part of the Message, the Word of God.”1
Even when people are hesitant to identify themselves with the prosperity gospel, you can often recognize prosperity teachers by their words. Typically, you will notice an emphasis on health or wealth. For example, one prominent author claimed, “When you are walking in the Word of
God, you will prosper and be in health.”2 Another famous preacher emphasized, “You are destined to reign in life. You are called by the Lord to be a success, to enjoy wealth, to enjoy health, and to enjoy a life of victory. It is not the Lord’s desire that you live a life of defeat, poverty, and failure. He has called you to be the head and not the tail.”3
Not everyone who teaches the prosperity gospel will be quite so explicit and easy to recognize, however, in part because different preachers will emphasize prosperity in varying degrees, and they may emphasize only one of the central themes: either health or wealth. Nevertheless, you can listen for key phrases to help you recognize if you might be in the presence of a prosperity teacher. People who follow this teaching sometimes speak of releasing their faith, speaking their faith, and believing God for things. As an expression of these ideas, they might also speak of declaring or confessing certain things over their lives. For example, if you are asked to “declare that this will be your year of . . . (fill in the blank),” there is a good chance you are in the presence of someone who either teaches or has been strongly influenced by those who hold to the prosperity gospel.
Historians often point to Kenneth Hagin Sr. (1917– 2003) as the father of the faith movement, although the teachings clearly go back to men like E. W. Kenyon (1867–1948), A. A. Allen (1911–1970), and Oral Roberts (1918–2009). You can find some prosperity preachers, often only tolerated, within denominations, usually Pentecostal or Charismatic, but most are found in independent churches or in loose networks of churches that share the prosperity message as an important theme. Although they all present the properity gospel in their own way and include their own distinct emphases, famous pastors and speakers who are often identified as prosperity teachers include Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Guillermo Maldonado, Paula White, T. D. Jakes, Charles Capps, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Paul Morton, Eddie Long, Jesse Duplantis, Jerry Savelle, Miles Munroe, Morris Cerullo, Jim Bakker, Joyce Meyer, and Joseph Prince. Other well-known personalities could also be named, not to mention those in smaller churches without fame.4
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
I have mentioned names so that you can be aware of some places where prosperity teachings are found, but not to discredit everything that takes place in the ministries these teachers lead. To the contrary, I’m sure all the people listed above have been used by God in various ways, from seeing people healed to helping people come to faith in Christ. And at least some aspects of their preaching and teaching are worth commending. Kenneth Hagin, for example, rightly encourages readers to “meditate on the Word. Dig deeply into it. Feed upon it.”5 And those who promote the prosperity gospel do well to actually expect that God is going to work in their lives, whereas many Christians today really don’t expect much from God. As Gordon Fee, a critic of the health and wealth gospel, observed, “Most Christians’ expectation level, when it comes to the miraculous, is somewhere between zero and minus five.”6
Yet overall, the health and wealth gospel is problematic and even dangerous. Prosperity preachers generally take Scripture out of context when attempting to build a biblical case for the health and wealth gospel. I point readers to Gordon Fee’s book, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels, for a helpful analysis. With healing in particular, those who proclaim the health and wealth gospel are correct to emphasize that Jesus healed many people and that God still heals people today. It becomes problematic, however, when teachers claim that (1) there is some sort of an automatic connection between our level of faith and receiving healing from God, and (2) one way to exercise your faith is by claiming your healing through positive confession.
Faith and Healing
A friend of mine lost her husband to cancer when they were still young in their marriage. Some people accused them of lacking faith when he wasn’t getting better. Aside from their poor understanding of Scripture, this wasn’t a loving response to a suffering couple.
And yet, faith is instrumental in healing. There were a few times that Jesus said to someone, “Your faith has healed you” (Mark 10:52). So, sometimes it is the faith of the sick person that is instrumental in healing. Sometimes, however, it is the faith of the person praying that seems to matter more. James 5:15 highlights how “the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.” If the people who were discouraging my friends had followed their own logic that a certain amount of faith was necessary for a person to be healed, then, to be fair, they also should have been apologizing that they didn’t have enough faith when they were praying for my friend’s husband and that it was, perhaps, their own fault that he wasn’t being healed. Of course, people who think that a certain amount of faith is necessary for healing are usually quicker to point their fingers at others than to point back at themselves.
The fact of the matter is that no person’s faith—neither the faith of the sick person nor the faith of the person praying—guarantees healing in this life. Even those who do experience healing will eventually no longer be healed, at which point they will die. Those with faith will—praise the Lord—all experience ultimate healing, or “the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23), in the future at the resurrection. But in this life, healing is never a guarantee. The Bible instructs us to pray for healing and, because God is compassionate and all-powerful, we can expect God will heal some people. Nevertheless, regardless of how holy a person is, how hard a person prays, or how much faith one may have, miracles do not always come. Realizing this would save many people a lot of grief.
Surely the apostle Paul was a man of great faith. Paul not only did miracles, but the Bible says that “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul” (Acts 19:11). And yet, Paul himself was not always healed. Paul reminded the Galatians that “it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you” (Galatians 4:13). And he also had sick friends for whom he had no doubt prayed. To Timothy, he wrote that he left “Trophimus sick in Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20), and in Philippians we learn that Paul’s friend Epaphroditus was so sick that he “almost died” (2:27). Paul nowhere suggested that these people were sick because he or they were lacking faith. And he didn’t tell Timothy that Timothy needed to exercise more faith because of his “frequent illness” (1 Timothy 5:23). Instead, he suggested a medicinal remedy. Suffering through sickness is not a sure sign of a lack of faith. Indeed, as Larry Hart rightly observed, “It takes greater faith to continue trusting, thanking, praising, and serving the Lord when the healing doesn’t come as we desire.”7
Faith and Prosperity
If you stop and think about faith more widely, you will realize that faith does not guarantee a life of prosperity, for faith does not guarantee a good life in general. You can probably think of someone from your church who is a great example of faith, yet who has had to endure significant experiences of suffering. Aside from Jesus, who was murdered despite his close relationship with the Father, the book of Hebrews contains a faith “hall of fame” celebrating the lives of many faith-filled people who endured much hardship. Hebrews 11 presents people like Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as people who “were still living by faith when they died,” and yet, we are reminded that “they did not receive the things promised” (v. 13). The writer added stories of people like Joseph, Moses, and Rahab. Some of these heroes were people “who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again” (vv. 33–35). Yes! The life of faith!
We can be tempted to stop reading the chapter there, but Hebrews 11 continues, “There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by th
e sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated” (vv. 35–37). These outcomes don’t sound desirable. This is certainly not a life of prosperity. And, yet, these hardships happened to people of great faith, and the book of Hebrews says, “the world was not worthy of them” (v. 38). And so we see that sometimes, people of faith can experience great blessing, but at other times, they may experience suffering. Thankfully, regardless of what comes our way, we can be assured that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even death (Romans 8:37–39).
What Is Faith?
Some people think there is some sort of automatic connection between faith and healing because they don’t really understand what faith is. They seem to think faith is something we stir up in ourselves, like stirring up excitement. It is as if we can close our eyes tightly, clench our fists, and yell “Argh!” and our faith will get stronger.
If you are like many Christians, you have probably already thought of Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” How helpful do you think this verse would be to explain what faith is to the average person who didn’t grow up in church? If I say, “An apple is red,” or, “An apple is round,” or, “An apple is something that can fill you up,” that isn’t a definition of an apple as such. And while Hebrews 11:1 does describe faith when it says “faith is,” it doesn’t offer a definition of faith.
So what is Hebrews 11:1 saying? When the author tells us that faith is “assurance about what we do not see,” the author does not mean, as someone might wrongly suppose, that faith is being certain of the existence of an invisible God. And having “confidence in what we hope for” does not mean that faith equals being sure that God is going to give you everything you ask for in prayer. Rather, later in the same chapter the author clarifies that the people in the faith hall of fame “were still living by faith when they died” because, although “they did not receive the things promised” in their lifetime (Hebrews 11:13), due to their faith they had confidence in and were hoping “for a better country—a heavenly one” (v. 16). So we might paraphrase Hebrews 11:1 as teaching that faith in God gives us certainty regarding what we hope for in the future, after death, because God has made promises to us. And the author of Hebrews illustrates this by teaching us about the heroes of faith who had deep trust, or reliance, on God, regardless of their sometimes horrific circumstances, and even though they hadn’t yet received what God had promised.
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