If you haven’t already, please read Part One.
1 Corinthians 12:7-11 7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:
8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,
9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,
10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
Categories of the Manifestations
Howard Carter
One thing we notice is that although the Bible lists the manifestations of the Spirit, it does not give definitions for them.
This is an excerpt taken from a website by Mel Montgomery. It is a fascinating site where he has photos, articles, and actual recordings of many Pentecostal pioneers.
Born in England in 1891, Brother Carter was born again in 1909, and filled with the Spirit in 1915. He grew in the things of the Spirit and began ministering to others. When World War I broke out against England, as a minister of the Gospel, he did not feel that he could take up arms against others. England did not allow “conscientious objectors.” So Howard Carter was thrown into prison. This was no Country Club. His head was shaved. He was dressed in rough prison garb, and fed bread and water. And so he remained throughout the war years.
Prison was a difficult test and trial, but rather than causing him to lose faith in God, it drove him closer to God. And God honored Carter’s convictions, by visiting him in prison. God began revealing to Carter deep truths concerning the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Up to this time, many believed for instance, that the Word of Knowledge, was exemplified by the knowledge possessed by college professors. They believed that the Gifts of Healings were fulfilled by medical doctors. But God showed Brother Carter that the gifts were all supernatural, not natural, gifts. And He revealed to Carter the teaching outline of dividing the nine gifts into the three categories of Revelation, Utterance, and Power.
Carter came forth from prison, with his faith tried and refined like pure gold. He began teaching the truths God showed him, and his teachings have found universal acceptance throughout Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. He helped to found the Assemblies of God in Great Britain. He chaired national conventions at which his friend, Smith Wigglesworth, preached. He took a young Lester Sumrall under his wing, and travelled the world with Sumrall. Carter taught on the baptism in the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts, while Sumrall preached evangelistic sermons.
“Howard Carter’s Story”, by Mel C. Montgomery
When I was at Rhema Bible school in Oklahoma in 1983, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Lester Sumrall, who was at the school for a week long seminar. He was about 70 at the time. His book The Gifts and Ministries of the Holy Spirit was required reading.
These men were not just theologians at some seminary writing dissertations on the Holy Spirit – their lives read like the book of Acts.
The Three Categories
The nine manifestations of the Spirit fall into three categories:
Revelation Gifts – gifts that reveal something
- Word of Wisdom
- Word of Knowledge
- Discerning of Spirits
Power Gifts – gifts that do something
- Gift of Faith (special faith)
- Working of Miracles
- Gifts of Healings
Utterance Gifts – gifts that say something
- Prophecy
- Various Kinds of Tongues
- Interpretation of Tongues
Some of the gifts are interrelated and work in tandem – such as tongues and interpretation of tongues. It is not uncommon for more than one gift to be in operation to accomplish a task.
The Utterance Gifts
Gifts that say something
Prophecy
The gift of prophecy holds a special place amongst all the manifestations of the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 14:1 Desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
1 Corinthians 14:39 Desire earnestly to prophesy…
What New Testament prophecy is NOT
The gift of prophecy is not telling the future. That is actually the Word of Wisdom. The simple gift of prophecy has no predictive element to it, although prophecy and the Word of Wisdom often work together.
The gift of prophecy is not the office of the prophet, as listed in Ephesians 4:11 or 1 Corinthians 12:29. The office or ministry of the prophet is something that a person is called to. Just because you stand up and give a prophecy in the church doesn’t mean you are a prophet. In Acts 21:8-10, Philip had four daughters who prophesied, but Agabus was a prophet.
The gift of prophecy is not meant to hand out guidance to people. Guidance involves the plans and purposes of God for the future, and so comes under the Word of Wisdom. Even then, Christians are not to get their main guidance from prophecy. It can be used to confirm something the Lord is already speaking to you.
The purpose of prophecy is not to hand out criticism and rebuke. The problem is that people have looked at the Old Testament office of the prophet, which often involved the foretelling of judgment, and think that is what New Testament prophecy is about.
Prophecy is not just anointed preaching, although someone could switch over to prophecy in the middle of preaching. Like all the manifestations of the Spirit, the gift of prophecy is supernatural.
What Prophecy is
Prophecy is a forth-telling (not foretelling) from God. A person prophesying acts as God’s spokesman, God speaks through him or her. They relay a message from God to people.
Definition: Prophecy is an inspired utterance in a known tongue.
Purpose of New Testament prophecy
1 Corinthians 14:3-4 3 But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.
4 He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.
Edification. Means to build up, to charge like a battery. The effect of a prophecy should be to strengthen us, to encourage. Those that constantly “prophesy” gloom and doom for the church are missing it. He who prophesies edifies the church.
Exhortation. A call to encouragement. A kind of spiritual pep talk. To motivate us to move on in God. Very often it will include an admonition – an encouragement to take action and do something. To bring hope.
Comfort. Consolation, to heal the hurts. To lift burdens. To let people know that God loves and cares. When people are suffering, they need to be comforted.
New Testament prophecy can involve correction, but it will never be condemning. The way out will always be shown. As for examples, take the words of Jesus to the seven churches in Asia in Revelation 2 and 3.
Prophecy, instead of being a harsh gift, is actually a tender one. It is God speaking through a person to His people to edify, encourage, and comfort.
There are many who have written about prophecy, being prophets themselves, that know more than I do. I recommend Shawn Bolz’ book Translating God. In it he says the purpose of New Testament prophecy is to find and reveal the treasures inside a person, that they might not even know about.
It requires faith to prophesy.
Romans 12:6 … let us prophesy in proportion to our faith.
You rarely get the whole prophetic message all at once ahead of time, but just the first few words. You have to step out and give those few words and believe God will give you more as you go. They come from your spirit, you don’t have to think them up.
Sometimes prophecy comes forth in rhyme, and that takes even more faith, because if you start it in rhyme, you figure it needs to continue in rhyme.
When a congregation or individuals are first stepping out in prophesying, you might get a lot of what I call “postcard prophecies” – i.e., “O My children, I love you, I want to be with you”. These should not be despised. (1 Thessalonians 5:20) Do not despise prophecies”. People nowadays think the word “despise” means to hate. But to despise in the Bible means to treat lightly or of little importance. People should be encouraged when they prophesy. As an individual matures in these things, their messages will become “deeper”.
Instructions on Prophecy
1 Corinthians 14:29-33 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.
30 But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent.
31 For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.
32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.
Note vs. 31, “for you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and be encouraged.”
Paul already mentioned how prophesy was meant to encourage earlier in the chapter. But we see here that prophesy can also be used to teach, that people can learn from a prophetic utterance.
The theme for Paul’s instructions for prophecy and tongues in a public service is in the last verse of 1 Corinthians 14 – let all things be done decently and in order.
Limitation on number – let two or three prophets speak. Notice it doesn’t say “two or three prophecies”, but two or three prophets (not necessarily people in the office of a prophet, just people prophesying), so if you happen to have 4 prophecies in a service it doesn’t mean you’ve disobeyed God’s word. But, there is to be a limit – a whole service isn’t supposed to be taken up with people prophesying and giving messages in tongues.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t interrupt Himself. Prophecies (or messages in tongues) must be given at an opportune time – i.e., don’t interrupt the pastor during his message, etc. “Oh, when the Spirit comes on me, I just have to give it out”. That is not true. Vs. 32 says “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets”. That means the how, the when, or even the if is in your control. The Holy Spirit gives the message, but it is up to us to exercise judgment as to when to give it.
One person is not to monopolize that part of the service. If someone else starts getting something, the first should let them go ahead. Then again, the second person should not be interrupting the first, either.
Judging Prophecy
In the Old Testament, the people were not to take for granted that just because someone said “Thus saith the Lord”, it was really from God – they had to judge. The criteria was two things: if the prophet said “Let’s go after other gods”, or what they said did not come to pass, they were not from God.
The predictive element was actually Word of Wisdom, and to establish a prophet’s credentials God would give them something that would be fulfilled in the short term, as well as the long term. The penalty for being a false prophet was death by stoning.
In the New Testament, prophecy and the office of the prophet is not meant for guidance as it was in the Old Testament. All believers have the Spirit inside them and can be led by Him, whereas only the prophets, priests, and kings did in the Old Testament. Therefore there was a more stringent requirement back then. New Testament prophesy still needs to be judged, however.
By their fruits you will know them, not by their gifts.
Matthew 7:15-20 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
If a person’s life is all off base, chances are his prophecy is from himself. That does not mean you have to be “perfect” before you can prophesy – remember the Corinthians. God will use imperfect vessels.
God will also usually use someone known and trusted by a congregation to speak to them. Someone coming in off the street and standing up and telling a congregation everything that is wrong with them is not the right spirit.
Does is glorify Christ?
The beginning of 1 Corinthians 12 gives us some guidance in this line:
1 Corinthians 12:3 3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.
It is talking about someone speaking under the inspiration. You can give a drunk $10 to say “Jesus is Lord” and they will say the words, but the only inspiration they are speaking from is the money.
Does the prophecy glorify Christ, or some man?
Is it for edification, exhortation, or comfort?
God does not come up with scathing messages of condemnation. There may be some admonitions and corrections involved, but it will always provide hope.
It is possible that God could have a word for an individual, that may have some correction in it. That should not be given out publically so as to embarrass and humiliate them. Go to them privately. And always remember the motivation for any spiritual gift – love. You want to help the person, not condemn them.
Is it scriptural?
That’s pretty obvious. God will not contradict Himself.
If it is predictive, does it come to pass?
Also related to this are words that come to you that have some sort of guidance with it. Never take action on something solely on the word of some prophet, even one you know and trust. If God is using them to confirm something He has already said to you, that is well and good. If God hasn’t said anything along those lines, put it on the shelf. It may be that sometime down the road it will come to pass, and then you can say, “Remember when so and so prophesied over us?
Does your spirit bear witness with it?
1 John 2:20 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.
1 John 2:27 27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
We all have the Holy Spirit inside of us. When a message is from God, your spirit on the inside will jump up and down and say, “Yeah! Yeah!” On the other hand, if something is amiss, you will sense it on the inside.
Bringing Correction
Kenneth Hagin tells the story of a lady that delivered a “prophecy” many years ago in Texas: “My little children, don’t be a-feared. But even if you are a-scared, that’s okay, sometimes I get a-feared Myself”.
Now that definitely has some problems, and seems funny. But it’s not as far off as you would think, if you make one correction – the tense. Jesus, tempted in all things as we are, definitely would have had to deal with fear. Certainly in the garden of Gethsemane He was battling a sense of dread over what was about to happen to Him on the cross.
You are much more likely to have some dear saint who loves the Lord give something that is a little off, than you are someone spouting off in totally the wrong spirit. For the former, if correction is necessary, it should be given in love and the person encouraged. You can turn it into a teaching experience.
Various Kinds of Tongues
Definition: A supernatural, inspired utterance given by the Holy Spirit in a language unknown to the speaker, and may be known or unknown to the hearers.
There has been more controversy surrounding the gift of tongues than any of the other eight manifestations of the Spirit. It is the most prolific of all the gifts, and actually requires the least amount of faith. We have already discussed how it is the doorway into the other manifestations.
Public vs. private use
We have to differentiate between the public versus the private use of tongues. The private use of tongues, which has been called by many names – prayer language, praying in the spirit, devotional tongues, personal tongues, heavenly language – has two characteristics that distinguish it from the public use. Firstly, it is totally under the speaker’s control. They can start and stop it any time they wish; the inspiration or utterance – where the words come from – is within the person baptized in the Holy Spirit at all times. Secondly, the direction or destination is from the speaker to God.
It is public tongues which is the manifestation of the Spirit as listed in 1 Corinthians 12:10. The key characteristic is that the direction of the gift is from God to men – i.e., it is a message from God to people.
The second point – are the tongues under the speakers control? In one way, yes.
1 Corinthians 14:26-28 26 How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret.
28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God.
There is nothing supernatural about the delivery of a message in tongues. By that I mean that the speaker has to use their own tongue, lips, vocal chords, and breath to utter the words. The Holy Spirit doesn’t take you over. And because of that, you have control over when or if you speak.
The content of the message – the utterance or inspiration – is not under your control, because the message is from God. You don’t just decide you’re going to pop up and give a message from God in tongues to the congregation.
Since it is a message from God to people, it should be understood – else what good is it? Paul devotes some time in 1 Corinthians 14 to bring that point across. As such, a message in tongues is incomplete by itself. It needs to be coupled with the Interpretation of Tongues to give it meaning so people are edified. That’s why Paul says if there is no one around to interpret, keep quiet, and speak to yourself and God.
Tongues as a Sign
1 Corinthians 13:1 begins with, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels….” There are various types of languages that can be spoken. The “tongues of angels” would be a language spoken in heaven. The “tongues of men” would be a human language, but not necessarily one that is in use today. I mean, what language did Adam and Eve speak?
It could also be a language that only God understands. The devil would understand any tongue of men, or tongue of angels, because he was an angel himself. If God didn’t want the devil to be able to “eavesdrop”, the Holy Spirit could give you a language that God made up on the spot.
Let’s get back to the tongues of men. This is what was used on the Day of Pentecost. The people doing the speaking did not know what they were saying, but there were people listening that understood their own native dialects. And they knew the speakers didn’t know their languages, so it was a thing of amazement – a sign – to them.
Harold Hill back in the early days of the Charismatic renewal tells the story of another minister who was skeptical about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Harold got him to reluctantly attend one of his meetings. In the meeting, Harold gave a message in tongues, and then the interpretation. After the meeting, the other minister came up to him all excited and told him, “That was Portuguese! I am Portuguese and you were speaking fluent Portuguese and then you translated it! I know you don’t know Portuguese! This is from God!”
Interpretation of Tongues
Definition: showing forth the meaning of a message in tongues.
A message in tongues coupled with interpretation of tongues is equivalent to prophecy, in the same way that two nickels are equivalent to a dime. As such, they are governed by the same rules as prophecy – i.e., it should be given at an opportune time (decently and in order), the purpose is to edify, exhort, and comfort, and the message should be judged.
We read in 1 Corinthians 14:28 that if there was no interpreter present, to keep silent in the church. Who could be an interpreter, then?
1 Corinthians 14:13 13 Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.
The person who gives the message in tongues can pray for the interpretation. That doesn’t mean that you have to give it; you can wait for someone else to give it, and if no one else speaks out, you can give the interpretation. Sometimes people “chicken out” when the Holy Spirit is moving on them. Rather than let the message go un-interpreted, He’ll give the interpretation to someone else. If no one steps out, it will usually go back to whoever is in charge of the service.
Notice that it is interpretation of tongues, not translation. The interpretation will be colored somewhat by the vessel it comes from. If two people were to interpret the same message, the words and phraseology would be different, but the gist of the message would be the same.
Do all utterances in tongues in a public service need to be interpreted? For example, the congregation singing in the spirit during the worship part of a service, or everybody praying in tongues during a prayer meeting?
The answer is no. Singing in the spirit is an example of the congregation coming together in corporate worship and praise to God – so the direction is from us to God. In the same way, at a prayer meeting, the direction is once again from us to God. God doesn’t need a translation.
If the pastor or whoever is in charge senses that there are those who are “uninformed” or unbelievers like it says in 1 Corinthians 14:23, he (or she) may give a few words of explanation.
The sound of a congregation singing in the Spirit together is usually quite beautiful, and less confusing to a non believer than if they walked into a “Spirit filled” prayer meeting where everyone is walking around and loudly praying in tongues all at once. Then again, a non believer is less likely to attend a prayer meeting than a regular service.
If, in a public service, a person speaks forth loudly in tongues by themselves so as to command people’s attention, that should be interpreted.
Interpreting your own tongues
We saw from 1 Corinthians 14:13 that a person can pray that they can interpret their own message in tongues. This can be used in a public service, but it can also be used for your own private tongues. You can pray for the interpretation, and the Holy Spirit may give it to you if He wants to. If He doesn’t, just go ahead and keep praying in other tongues to God.
Notice 1 Corinthians 14:28 – let him speak to himself and to God. God can use your own tongues, coupled with interpretation, to speak to you.
Oral Roberts said this was how he received the bulk of his guidance – by interpreting his own tongues.
For more on tongues in general, see That Tongues Business Part One and Part Two.
Biblography
Translating God by Shawn Bolz
Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry by Kris Vallotton
School of the Prophets (Advanced Training for Prophetic Ministry) by Kris Vallotton
