Many years ago now, when I was a teenager, I went to visit a girl I knew in Texas over Thanksgiving. She had a brother at Oral Roberts University, so we took the bus from Lubbock, Texas to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit him and the campus. I did not know much about Oral Roberts, but I was sweet on the girl. At some point in the weekend, there was a gathering of all the visiting high school students and Oral Roberts came to address us. He asked how many of us spoke in tongues. A great number of students put up their hands. They were asked to leave the auditorium. Then he asked how many wanted to speak in tongues. Another large number of students put up their hands. When they, too, left the auditorium, I looked around and realized that apart from myself there were only a handful of other visiting students left, and not particularly viewed as the righteous remnant. I did not want to speak in tongues; it scared me. Then Oral Roberts spoke to us in tongues, which left me spiritually unmoved but nervous. So the first reading is a challenge to me: “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim” (Acts 2:1-4). Why did I not want the Holy Spirit? Of what was I scared? Some people, Pentecostals especially, but other charismatic Christians too, place a surprising amount of emphasis on glossolalia as a sign of the Spirit. There is no question that Luke sees the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as a gift to the Church and a sign of its unity. People from all around the ancient world respond to hearing their own languages and it is a sign also that the Gospel will soon spread to these far-flung regions. Paul, also, spoke of glossolalia, especially in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and he, too, sees it as a sign of the Spirit. There is no question the phenomenon existed amongst the early Christians and that it was a mark of Christian worship, unity, and love. Yet, Paul also warns of tongues, and their misuse, in 1 Corinthians 14: 6-25, especially of their potential to be a moving spiritual experience that does not aid the community as a whole. But Paul never warns of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in general. Those who can say “Jesus is Lord” have the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). Paul speaks of the many gifts, workings, and forms of service that come through the Holy Spirit. “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit” (1 Cor.12:4-7). There are many gifts, but the same Spirit: I have loved this passage ever since I can remember hearing it. Whatever our gifts, “we were all given to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). Maybe my fear of speaking in tongues is explicable at a personal level – it is not my gift – but if I fear the gifts God has given of me, or my brothers and sisters fear those given to them, we are in danger. Our gifts are for the benefit of the whole Church, whatever they may be, and since the Holy Spirit is with us, we need to be bold enough to share them with others. And to those who say they have no gifts to share, Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13 that the greatest gift is love. John W. Martens

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.