The Cessation of the Gift of Tongues

A friend of mine recently asked me to state the case for the cessation of the gift of tongues. I found that this article by Brian Schwertley (entitled, "Pentecost and the Coming of the Holy Spirit") dealt quite well with the issue. Schwertley does an excellent job of proving that the texts that Charismatics point to in order to defend the continuance of tongues do not ultimately make their case.

I post this because I used to run in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches and wish I would have had better guidance regarding the gifts of the Spirit back then. After embracing the continuist position, I came to find that speaking in tongues was not all that it was cracked up to be. I realized that it had no real profit for my soul and it actually led other deeply loved brothers and sisters to suffer. I had friends who were much more spiritually mature than I was who prayed and prayed for God to grant them the gift (the mark of "real spirituality" and higher sanctification), but were continually frustrated that He didn't. Things just didn't add up.

For these reasons, and with my growing realization that I was just stringing syllables together to make gibberish rather than a language, I began to use my "gift" less and less. Later I came to realize the Biblical arguments for the continuation of the gift of tongues were, as Schwertley shows, not valid.