Recently I picked up a book to re-read that has graced our book shelf for the past 8 years. It is written by Guidepost author and editor John Sherrill, titled "They Speak In Other Tongues". It was first written in 1965 and re-published with an addition in 2004. I guess you could define this post as a book review with our personal story attached.
This book came into our home and changed our lives after Joel was healed overnight from Lyme and several other health problems. He was given a complete "divine overhaul" at 4 am on a January morning. With his healing came a gift that he was not looking for~ his own prayer language. Joel and I had watched two hours of a video from a pastor/teacher who spoke on "God wanting you well" the night before Joel was miraculously healed. He had mentioned speaking in tongues during his teaching so at that time I had asked Joel what he thought of the gift found in the New Testament and he told me, "I am Lutheran, I don't know what I would do with it." But God had other plans. With Holy Spirit showing up in a big way, I began to do some research for Joel on "what to do with it" and this book by John Sherrill came to my attention. I am so glad it did.
John Sherrill and his wife Elizabeth have both written several best sellers and started their own publishing company. They were also editors at Guideposts magazine in NYC. John began learning about speaking in tongues through his interactions with Ruth Peale whose husband Norman Vincent Peale is well known for his work as a pastor, author of "The Power of Positive Thinking", and creator of Guideposts Magazine. (we have gotten this monthly magazine for decades). When Sherrill began his research he was a skeptic who was writing a story and had no interest at all in the gifts of the Spirit, but his quest to find out what this was all about changed their lives forever. God interrupted their plans for His own. And the book he wrote changed our lives forever too. It gave us a deeper understanding of what a prayer language is and how God uses it to build us up and bring us closer to Him.
I have had people tell me with a dismissive air that "it is the least of the gifts, you know." Others have said they wondered if it was from the devil. Was it really real? We cannot deny that it is right there in our Bibles or that it existed then and still exists today. When Joel first spoke of it to our Synod here, they were disturbed by what he had to say. Later on we learned that 5 of Joel's pastor colleagues had this "gift" but did not talk about it to others. It certainly can stir things up when it is mentioned in our Lutheran world. And yet, there it is in Acts and in I Corinthians where Paul speaks about it.
I have been enjoying Sherrill's book once again as I read about his research, his experiences, his conclusions and how it all shaped their lives. God never leaves us where we are, He has bigger plans for us than we could ever imagine. We are both grateful for the gift of a prayer language as a way to worship and praise God, a way to pray when we don't know what to pray, a way to grow and "edify" ourselves as the scripture claims. It may seem a "little to the right of crazy" for some, but for us it is now just part of our prayer life. For us it is a time when "one's own spirit and the Holy Spirit are in communion and that is a good thing.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious or interested in what having the gift of speaking in tongues is all about. John Sherrill has passed away now, but he and his wife "Tib" have a firm faith and solid foundation behind them. They co-authored such books as Brother Andrew's "God's Smugglers" and Corrie TenBoom's book "The Hiding Place". They are the kind of people you wish you could sit down with for a long visit and listen to all they have experienced in their lives.
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