1 Corinthians 14:39–40

Dear First name / friend,

This week's episode dives into a more controversial prayer topic: praying in tongues! Most Christians are familiar with the spiritual gift of tongues, which the Bible describes as the supernatural ability to speak a physical language (Acts 2:7–11). But what many believers don’t know is that charismatic church traditions believe tongues come in more than one form. That's right—the gift of tongues can be used in up to three different ways.

One of the best ways to summarize these different methods, or manifestations, of the gift of tongues is to sort them into categories: proof tongues, prophetic tongues, and personal tongues. Proof tongues are what we see in Acts 2. This supernatural gift of the Spirit is the “proof” of His presence in the early church and preaches the gospel to unbelievers. Prophetic tongues are described in 1 Corinthians 14, where the gift of tongues must be interpreted to build up the body of believers. But personal tongues are what charismatic/Pentecostal believers call a “prayer language.” Many Pentecostals believe these tongues are for communicating with God as Romans 8:26 describes: “The spirit interceding” with “groanings" beyond words.

I'm currently working on a Bible study about spiritual gifts, so this week's episode dovetails nicely with the research for that study. One of the primary themes in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and 1 Peter 4 (the main texts about spiritual gifts) is selflessness. Spiritual gifts are always for the upbuilding of the whole Church, not just for the individual who exhibits the gift. Our desire to have certain spiritual gifts should come second to our desire to exhibit a gift that will build up the whole Church. Certain gifts are not better than others; none are “more evidence” of the Spirit's presence than another one. 

In this week's episode, I break down the three ways the gift of tongues manifests in the life of a believer, confront the idea that tongues are evidence of salvation, and discuss whether praying in tongues is essential for the Christian life.

 

 

 

Using AI for sermon and homily development has become such a problem, even the pope addressed it. My direct messages regularly harbor questions from concerned congregants, each wondering how to talk to their pastors about AI usage in sermons. Some say the sermons transformed overnight—such an obvious change from usual preaching, the only viable explanations are supernatural empowerment or artificial intelligence.

 

Whenever I bring up my hesitations about AI and ministry, the response is always: “It’s a tool, like anything. It can be used for good or bad!” It’s true, AI is a tool—and as you’ll see in my ministry AI policy below, I believe it has some helpful uses, mostly within the realm of data analysis and SEO. I am not opposed to the use of AI for impersonal, administrative tasks. But calling it a tool as code for “morally neutral” and “usable in all settings and for all purposes” is undiscerning and irresponsible.

It is more work, and slower work, to write sermons and messages the old-fashioned way. But it’s work that forms you. It’s partnership with the person of God. There is no greater joy than to struggle and study a message, then to see the uplifted faces of women (in my case) rapt with attention on the Word of God. How could I compromise their trust? How could I let a machine outline a message, then attempt to stamp it with the Spirit? In our quest to make AI morally neutral for creative pursuits, we’ve forgotten that writing and preaching are forming practices.

 

Here you will find the AI policy of Every Woman a Theologian. It outlines the ways we use it for administration and the ways we don’t use it for creation and exegesis. You can trust that all studies and biblical resources produced by Every Woman a Theologian are written without artificial intelligence.