"Forbidding Is Forbidden!”

1 Corinthians 14: 39: “Therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues.” For centuries, the reaction of the Church to spiritual gifts of the tongue run amok has been terminal: “Not in this Church!” But this approach makes these words of St. Paul, along with those of Jesus concerning self-denial (Mark 8: 34), among the most denied in the Bible (Matthew 10: 33). St. Paul’s direction is not to ban them, but to practice them, so that the Church has both form and power (2 Timothy 3: 5).