Thursday 16 September 2010

Tongues in Kenya

I am preaching on Acts 2 on Sunday.  As I prepared I was reminded of the following story David Blevins tells.

“. . . I was rather sceptical about the gift of speaking in tongues. In April 2002, God took me to Kenya for the first time. You’ve heard me speak about Tuum. It’s incredibly remote, two days Land Rover trek from the nearest road and traditional Samburu. Most people, especially the girls only speak Samburu, the local dialect. They don’t even speak Swahili, the national language. On our last morning, before the sun rose, I heard people worshipping in the little church so I got up to join them. We joined hands and stood in a circle to close in prayer. Suddenly, a teenage Samburu girl with no education (she herded goats for a living) began to pray quietly to herself in the most articulate English I had ever heard before and have ever heard since. Her worship of her Creator was too beautiful to communicate in this story. Suffice to say, I repented of my scepticism and thanked the Lord for every gift He gives.”

5 comments:

nickdmcknight@gmail.com said...

David must have been in Kenya before the last Apostle died and they closed the cannon of scripture.

Mr Veale said...

I'm not sure that you can link Tongues speaking, or the Aposotolic office, with the closure of the canon in this way.
For example, most of the Apostles did not write books of Scripture. There are books of Scripture not written by Apostles (Luke, Mark, Hebrews,James, Jude). We have no evidence that Luke, Mark, James and Jude were recognised as prophets. There is no evidence that the gift of tongues was used in the inspiration of scripture. The bulk of Agabus' prophesies do not make it into the body of Scripture.

As for the gift of tongues, are we sure that they were always or mainly recognisable languages?

To whom it may concern said...

Graham
My guess is that Mr Nick McKnight is being facetious. I think that the tongues of 1 Cor 12-14 were generally non human languages (and hence the need for the gift of interpretation). Don Carson's 'Showing the Spirit' is really excellent on all this. I will lend either of you a copy if you guys want.
Guys, thanks for your comments to the blog. I must intorduce the two of you some time, you would enjoy each other.
Paul

Mr Veale said...

Durn. I thought I was getting a debate there!
I don't suppose that Nick could *pretend* he was serious?? (-:

Graham

Anonymous said...

Mr McK's point re David...It must be pointed out that, undeniably, David will be very, very old on Dec 16th this year...