Tuesday: On Dividing What God Has Joined
WEEK 12
TUESDAY
ON DIVIDING WHAT GOD HAS JOINED
Acts 6:1-6
One more comment on speaking in tongues. My conviction is the Pentecost type of tongues—the power to speak effectively in other languages without an interpreter—has disappeared; but the Corinth type of tongues—needing an interpreter—appears here and there. They are not the same. Many come to India hoping to reproduce the miracle at Pentecost and speak in the languages of India without an interpreter or learning the language. It hasn’t happened. The wreckage of those hopes is strewn across India. You learn the language or use an interpreter, or you don’t get your message across.
This special miracle at Pentecost, for this special purpose, served that purpose and disappeared. God performs miracles, but just enough, not too many. Too many would make us lazy. Too few would make us hazy. The miracle in the material pointed to the miracle in the spiritual and then passed away. The spiritual abides.
There is another incident in the Acts that offers a lesson regarding the relationship between the material and the spiritual. The apostles tried to separate the material and the spiritual, and God canceled the attempt and kept them together. The apostles called together the main body of believers and said,
“It isn’t right for us to set aside proclamation of God’s word in order to serve tables. Brothers and sisters, carefully choose seven well-respected men from among you. They must be well-respected and endowed by the Spirit with exceptional wisdom. We will put them in charge of this concern. As for us, we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the service of proclaiming the word.” (Acts 6:2-4)
This was done—the twelve appointed the seven. It seemed a highly wise and spiritual act. But sometimes a dangerous and disastrous thing can come in under the cover of spirituality. It did here. The apostles drove a dangerous wedge between the material and the spiritual. They would give themselves to the severely spiritual, and the seven would give themselves to the severely material. They separated what God had joined. In the incarnation, the material and spiritual were one—the Word became flesh. Here the Word became word. The material and the spiritual were separated.
O Jesus, in you all life is a living whole. In you we can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. For all life lives in you and is resplendent there. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Serving tables and serving the Lord will be the same today, for it is all unto him.