BY DAVID MARSHALL

T THE OPPOSITE END of the street where I was born was a builders' yard with the heading "T. B. Parks & Son" for all the world to see. There were lorries, vans, and cement mixers. Inside a hangar-like building were piles of planks, heaps of piping, and coils of electrical cable. Outside were stacks of every type of brick, partially covered by a tarpaulin. Since "T. B. Parks" was my uncle Ben and "Son" was my cousin Malcolm, during my boyhood I gave myself a roving commission in that yard.

It was the subject of some pride when Uncle Ben won the contract to build a row of council houses within walking distance of home. Again I gave myself roving commission-this time on the building site. (Yes, I know it could have been dangerous, but nobody's perfect!) I seriously doubt if my uncle himself took more of an interest than I did in the progress of the buildings. A bulldozer cleared the site. I watched them prepare the footings. How brickies split the bricks was fascinating. The way mortar was mixed and laid was sheer poetry. How the carpenters put in the roof timbers had, sadly, to be watched from ground level.

Even when the tiles were on, the houses were far from ready. The glaziers, plumbers, and electricians had to be brought in. After I'd watched the plasterer at work I knew what I wanted to be!

The end result represented the combined skills of scores of people-from my uncle and his blueprints to the team that put in the fitted kitchens.

Here's Where the Spirit Comes In
Where did the early believers obtain the requisite skills to build a church that, within three centuries, created a situation in which the Roman Empire was nominally Christian?

It was not through education. Educated men such as Paul and Luke were a tiny minority. Christ's training of the eleven should not be minimized. In the main, of course, it was down to the gifts of the Spirit. The New Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit qualifies each believer to do service for God. Each believer represents a unique combination of spiritual gifts and developed skills, which God invites them to use. Whether they use them or not is their own choice.

"Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. . . . There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. . . . Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good" (1 Cor. 12:1-7, NIV). Then Paul adds: "All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses" (verse 11, NRSV). Paul makes it sound like a businesslike arrangement, and so it was.

The purpose of the gifts was not unlike the divergent skills possessed by the workers who contracted their labor to T. B. Parks & Son. The analogy is not a perfect one, of course, because in addition to developed skills, Christians are also given supernatural gifts. The gifts of healing, prophecy, the working of miracles, and speaking and interpreting different languages (verse 28)-among others-were supernatural. But these Spirit-given gifts, together with the developed aptitudes, all had the same purpose: "To prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up" (Eph. 4:12, NIV).

You get the picture? Gifts are given to members of the body of Christ, His church, that it may be "built up." And like organs in a body, the gifts of each believer interrelate with the gifts of every other believer to make a whole (1 Cor. 12:14-26). Each of us is a unique collection of gifts and abilities, and each of us has a part to play in God's great building enterprise.

Uncle Ben was a tall, impressive-looking man, with a mane of white hair-clearly I don't take after him!-who had been an officer in the British Army in World War I. Uncle Ben would not have taken it kindly if one of the members of his building team had perceived his function as sitting on top of a brick stack having "ecstatic utterances" or lying around in a half-built house "slain in the spirit." Tongues of ecstasy or states of ecstatic stupor are not a lot of good in the building trade.

What on Earth Went On in Corinth?
True enough, anthropologists have seen such phenomena in the religious exercises of different tribes in various parts of the world. True enough, there were such manifestations on the edges of eighteenth-century revival movements and at the center of the twentieth-century charismatic movement. But how do they fit into God's scheme "for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:12, NASB)?

It is in many ways unfortunate that most versions of the Bible have stuck with the sixteenth-century word "tongues" instead of the modern word "languages." It is particularly unfortunate that The New English Bible has translated the word for languages, in some instances, as "ecstatic utterance."

Any evidence of "tongues," as the modern charismatic movement understands it, in the early church is limited to Corinth. However, the evidence is entirely derived from 1 Corinthians 14, the chapter in which Paul diminishes the importance of this gift. Even then the word translated "tongue" or "tongues" should have been translated "language" or "languages." It is still an open question whether verse 2 refers to an ecstatic utterance or simply to someone in the cosmopolitan port city of Corinth who was speaking in church and at length in a language that no one else understood. The King James translators inserted the word "unknown" before "tongue." People who speak in a tongue edify themselves, but those who prophesy edify the church (verse 4). Paul is clearly trying to put what had become a fashionable "gift" into perspective. "He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified" (verse 5, NIV). Prophesy literally means to forth-tell the truth.

The verse in 1 Corinthians 14 that, above all, might suggest that there were people in Corinth who worked themselves up into an ecstasy and poured out an uncontrollable torrent of sounds in no known language is verse 6: "Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction?" In verse 7 Paul goes on to draw a parallel with music. He seems to be saying that there would be no point if each instrument of the orchestra played a different tune-and at that, a tune in which notes clashed with the tunes played by all the other instruments. In verse 8 Paul calls for the trumpet to give a clear sound. In verse 9 he asks people to "speak intelligible words"; otherwise "you will just be speaking into the air" (NIV). In verse 10 he appears to be making a distinction between the worthless utterances of some Corinthian members, and the real value of speaking a language that other members present could understand.

Paul's argument reaches a crescendo in verse 12: "Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church" (NIV).

Having traveled widely, Paul could speak a number of languages (verse 18). But, he says, what would be the point of his speaking obscure foreign languages in a church where there was no one who could understand them? "I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue [foreign language]" (verse 19, NIV).

Between verses 26 and 30 Paul makes a strong case for orderly worship in which only one person speaks at a time, and in a language understood by the others. However, he stops short of forbidding speech in a foreign language (verse 39). Clearly, in a place such as Corinth, with people coming from all corners, instances would be bound to arise in which individuals were quite incapable of communicating in any but their home-country language.

To sum up: The gifts of the Holy Spirit were intended to build up the church. These gifts were especially necessary in the church's early centuries. However, the gifts of the Spirit are offered to the church for all time. Yes, take Paul's advice to "test everything" (1 Thess. 5:21, NIV). But, as important, use the gifts God has given you for the upbuilding of the church. Don't be so sidetracked by condemning the counterfeit that you fail to make full use of the true. Remember that the foundational gift is love
(1 Cor. 13).

With the church as a microminority in a materialistic, secular society, may I suggest that the most needed gift is a gift of language--the language in which to communicate the gospel to people who simply do not understand our Adventist jargon.

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David N. Marshall is the editor of Stanborough Press in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England.