5 Questions About Speaking In TonguesSample

QUESTION 4: Is it OK to seek personal edification by speaking in tongues?

Self-edification is a good thing!

You are reading this devotional in order to edify yourself. You attend a Sunday school class in order to edify your faith. You attend good Christian conferences hoping to be built up and strengthened in your relationship with God. And it’s good that you do. That is a good and godly motive.

Not only is self-edification a good thing, but for you to avoid what might enhance and deepen your walk with Christ is a bad thing!

Paul describes his own private prayer life in 1 Corinthians 14:18 as consisting, in large part, of speaking in tongues. If self-edification through speaking in tongues were inherently evil or dangerous, Paul would no doubt have labored to avoid it and would most assuredly not have spent any time in his private devotional life praying in this manner.

But self-edification is not the best thing.

It is good primarily so that you might be better able and equipped to build up others. That is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:7 that every spiritual gift has as its ultimate and primary goal “the common good,” that is, the spiritual benefit and blessing of others in the church.

Therefore, self-edification is only bad if it is done as an end in itself.