Only in the meeting

1 Corinthians 12:29 & 30
"Do all speak in tongues"
By Drew Dixon

'Yes we all speak in tongues, but no, not in a meeting'
Further problems with the meeting context explanation

There is another sizeable problem with the whole meeting only argument as stated in the 1983 VOR. The article states:-

"We know from our own experience that all true believers speak in tongues when they receive the Holy Spirit (Act 2: 10:19) but not all give a message in tongues in the Church (1 Cor 14:27). THIS IS WHAT THE APOSTLE PAUL IS REFERRING TO".

Besides the fact their argument is incredibly circular, they also have the problem of context in relation to time and experience. The fact is, the RCI experience in the year 1983 / 2002 AD, has nothing to do with what was going on in the Corinthian Church in around 55 AD. One of the main points of Paul's letter, was to correct spiritual difficulties that were taking place at Corinth. At this stage of the letter, Paul is still trying to increase their knowledge of spiritual matters to help remove their lack of understanding (1 Cor 12:1). In the scriptures under question in 1 Cor 12, Paul had still not given them the instruction for only two or three to speak in tongues in the meeting, this comes later in chapter 14. It would seem that in chapter 12, there was still a lack of understanding regarding these matters and still plenty of ignorance.

In our current day and age, outside the RCI, there are a number of churches zealous for spiritual gifts and manifestations, where tongues is not a pre-requisite for salvation, yet in some of these groups, most, if not all members of the assembly can and do speak in tongues. One does not need to 'preach tongues for salvation' to have an assembly where this is a reality.

In my time in the RCI, it had been offered (including by myself), that most, if not all at the Corinth church, probably were speaking in tongues in the meeting due to their zeal for spiritual manifestations. Also, some of the corrections Paul gives in chapter 14 (see vs. 23,27), would also point in this direction. In the RCI, we would sometimes accuse our Pentecostal brothers of engaging in the very thing Paul told the Corinthians to stop doing i.e. all speaking together in tongues in a meeting.

So then, hypothetically, if we were to hold to the one possible RCI view that all the Corinthian church were speaking in tongues in the meeting (not an official view btw, but not an unrealistic one), then the whole RCI meeting context argument again falls apart. Instead of the Corinthians giving the correct answer of no to Paul's rhetorical question of "do all speak in tongues", the Corinthian church would actually be inclined to answer 'yes' because they were, according to one possible view, all speaking in tongues in the meeting! In fact, I was listening to one of Pastor Lloyd's talks on tape, where he recounted that in one of the RCI assemblies, a number of years ago, he had the problem where everyone was speaking in tongues together in the meeting (prior to the two or three ruling). It would seem that at least one RCI assembly, based on their own 'meeting experience' would have given the incorrect answer of "yes" to Paul's question, and all this in the twentieth century.

There are other interesting hypotheticals I could draw on from the broad experiences in the body of Christ in this current day and age, but I think the above is sufficient for the current discussion to show both the subjective and untenable approach inherent in the meeting context (amongst all the other scriptural problems).

All that said, the reality is, almost 2000 years removed we do not know exactly what was happening at Corinth, but it seems that whatever was happening, it was not appropriate and needed correction, hence chapter 14 of Paul's letter, to bring order and edification to the meeting.

Earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul described the Corinthians in the following manner:-

"yet carnal, babes in Christ, walking as men, divisive, not able to take the meat of the Word, envious, full of strife"

Paul also discusses some of the problems in the Corinthian church:-

"open tolerance and pride regarding sin, disorderly meetings, losing their simplicity in Christ, divisions, drunkenness, questioning the validity of the resurrection to come, questioning Paul's authority etc"

It seems to me, that due to the Corinthians lack of spiritual maturity, Paul had to get them to look outside themselves to be reminded of the true reality of the situation in God's church and how He had set it up. This principle also seems to be identified in Ephesians 4:1-13. The Corinthian church had become unbalanced, particularly with regard to tongues. I would propose that the RCI are closer to the Corinthian church than they would care to admit.

Due to the nature of the Corinth church and the detail and context given, there is simply no way the RCI can justify the above statement as they do in the article.

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