Recent Cessationist Arguments: Has the Storm Center Moved?

Cessationists also studiously avoid 1 Cor 14:18-19:

18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you;

19 nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue.

That Paul is referring here to a private use of tongues seems really plain: the “nevertheless” in this verse marks a change in venue, so what could the original venue in these verses possibly be if not a private one? And where could Paul possibly be speaking in tongues more than “all” the Corinthians if not in private? If the Corinthian congregation was as rife with an improper mode of glossolalia as 1 Corinthians 14 leads us to believe, then the only way for Paul to speak in tongues even more and to do it all in a congregational context would be to imagine that Paul spoke in tongues during the church service almost nonstop. Everything that Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 14 (esp. v. 19) leads us to assume that that is not the case.

The cessationist understanding of 1 Cor 14:15 is part of a program of denying that the gifts of the Spirit could even work in private contexts. According to the cessationists, the gifts were given for use in the congregation, and that is the only legitimate context in which they can operate. As Yarnell writes, “Spiritual gifts, as Paul repeatedly indicated, are for mutual edification” (2006: 6). In other words, the cessationists have a double problem with the idea of a private prayer language: they not only oppose the idea of glossolalia continuing to be practiced, but they also disagree rather sharply with the idea of any of the gifts being used in private. In one paper (2007a: 12), Yarnell even refers to “belief in a private prayer language” as “existentialism”! One wonders, of course, what could possibly be existentialist about it. Does Yarnell think that all private prayer is “existentialist” and, if not, what makes the difference in the case of praying glossolalically? Emir Caner (2006: 8) notes that, if 1 Cor 14:15 refers to a private use of tongues, then

tongues in the form of a private prayer language would be singled out as the only spiritual gift listed that has a personal use outside the body of Christ. Can anyone imagine prophesying privately? Or, teaching privately? Or, giving privately? Or, leading privately? Or, helping privately? Or, evangelizing privately?

Caner does not notice that this argument cuts both ways: since it is an element structurally present within glossolalia that makes the idea of its private use comprehensible, why should we think it strange that only this gift can be practiced in private contexts? Caner essentially admits (without realizing it) that it is something inherent in the nature of tongues-speech, rather than some sort of exceptional allowance on the part of Paul, that makes its use in private sensible, and which therefore makes Paul’s approving discussion of its private use not at all strange.

Tags: arguments, center, cessationist, featured, moved, storm

Category: Spirit, Winter 2008