WHY DID PAUL BOAST ABOUT HIS TONGUES God gave the speaking in - TopicsExpress

WHY DID PAUL BOAST ABOUT HIS TONGUES God gave the speaking in tongues to His Church and Paul properly grabbed this gift. 1Cor 14:18 I THANK God that I speak in strange tongues MUCH MORE than ANY of you. (Good News Bible) We will seldom hear that preachers use this scripture for a sermon topic and therefore we cannot blame the believing masses if they were not aware of this scripture. Paul thank God for the wonder of his heavenly language, but he did more than that, he actually boast about it. He could just as well have wrote something like this: 1Cor 14:18 I thank my God that I spend more time in my prayer closet than any of you 1Cor 14:18 I thank my God that I spend more time reading my bible more than any of you 1Cor 14:18 I thank my God that I spend more time fasting than any of you 1Cor 14:18 I thank my God that I pay more tithes than any of you The question what we must attempt to answer is; why is tongues so important that Paul boast about this? What we do know, is that tongues were so important that Paul gave the following exhortation to the church leaders in Corinthians . 1 Cor 14 39 My friends, be eager to prophesy and DON’T STOP ANYONE from SPEAKING LANGUAGES that others don’t know The main reason why many people do not accept this practice, is because no one in their church speaks in tongues. They think the idea of speaking in tongues is strange and unknown. The Pentecostal and Charismatic believers on the other hand, find these remarks in turn just so strange, because speaking in tongues are a common phenomenon in our churches. 1 Cor 12:1 But about the things of the spirit, my brothers, it is not right for you to be without teaching Although the Apostle Paul encouraged us to further our knowledge concerning the dynamics and workings of the Holy Spirit, many of us are still in spiritual darkness as we never received scriptural teachings on this subject