Will Vaus

My first experience of what Christians call “speaking in tongues” was in a large worship service in San Diego where Pastor John Wimber was preaching. Wimber was known far and wide for his healing ministry. Suddenly, in the middle of the worship service, it seemed like the entire congregation began singing in tongues. I stood and watched prayerfully and with great fascination. The words they were singing were not the words of any recognizable human language. In a way, it sounded like babbling. But it was beautiful babbling as they all sang together in a heavenly harmony. It felt like waves washing over the entire auditorium.   My next experience of tongues came during my time at Princeton Seminary. During my first year in seminary, I visited several churches. In an Assemblies of God church in Princeton I witnessed speaking in tongues once again. This time one person in the congregation spoke in tongues. Again, it sounded like babble. But this time it was followed by another person i...

This passage has been called “one of the most strikingly original things Paul ever wrote.” It may be the greatest chapter in all of Scripture. Listen for God’s word to you from 1 Corinthians 13… 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.  If I have the gift of prophecy   and can fathom all mysteries   and all knowledge,   and if I have a faith   that can move mountains,   but do not have love, I am nothing.   If I give all I possess to the poor   and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,   but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient,   love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.   It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,   it is not easily angered,   it keeps no record of wrongs.   Love does not delight in evil   but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always tr...

  Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by  one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye...