THE COMMUNION

Chapter Two

We got to the chapel fifteen minutes earlier and as expected some were there already, some were seated and some were lurking around in the premises. The program started shortly after six with the entire congregation divided into five groups. The topic of discussion is "spiritual gifts" and a particular question has kept us for weeks "discuss each spiritual gift mentioned in I Corinthians 12:7-10" and "... to another various kinds of tongues..." has kept us for more than two weeks. It was as if the fellowship had been keeping this bottled up and waiting for the appointed time to vomit everything out and this period became the perfect opportunity. It was questions after questions.

I was surprised when only one brother (brother James) asked a question after the Study today.

"Thank you sister Amina. My question goes like this: there was this program I attended two months ago. The guest minister made an utterance during the closing charge he said "tongues is a cardinal sign of a true believer and if you don't pray in tongues, you are not a true believer" someone should please help me, I don't pray in tongues, does that mean that I am not a true believer?"

There were murmurs all over the congregation, everyone was voicing out his/her thoughts concerning the question asked.

"Amen!" Amina tried to control the audience

"Amen!!!" We chorused

"Please let's not forget Habakkuk 2:20, the Lord is still in our midst alright?"

And that's it, everywhere became silent.

"Please if you have something to share do it to the hearing of everyone so that the entire church will be edified. That's what we've been going on about this whole while, everything should be done in an orderly manner in a way that everyone would be edified even an unbeliever that enters would also be a part of the edification. Anyone to answer this question? Papa? Mama?" She turned to me.

No of course I am not a "Mama" I'm just a member of the fellowship that got the opportunity and privilege to serve as the vice president. In our fellowship we made the habit of calling the president Papa if he's a guy and the vice president Mama if she's a lady.

"Praise the Lord" our Papa, Ezra Haruna started.

"Hallelujah" the audience answered.

"I've never in my entire Christian journey heard of anything like cardinal signs of a true believer, this is my first time, but then again, is there anything cardinally greater than salvation? Greater than accepting Christ as one's personal Lord and Savior? See brother James don't let anyone confuse you, don't let any pastor lead you astray because nowadays pastors preach only what the ears of people are itching to hear. Paul said that years ago and that's exactly what is going on in our modern churches today. Now back to tongues being a cardinal sign of a true believer, when Christ was to ascend to the heavens what did he say to his disciples, he said and I quote from NIV Acts 1:4 and 5 "...Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit" Jesus did not say "you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit and you will speak in tongues" but he said "you will receive power and you will be my witnesses..." Equally Paul added in I Corinthians 12:11 "All these are the work of one and the same spirit, and he gives them to each one just as he determines" there are different gifts but the same spirit. Let me stop here, I trust the spirit to finish this explanation through another servant" he finished causing all of to laugh at his closing statement.

"Yes of course the spirit gives as he determines. He gives each one for the edification if the church. Different kinds of gifts, different kinds of service but into the same Lord. How do you see it if all of us have just the gifts of tongues, teaching, and healing, who do you think will prophecy, who will lead, who will interpret our tongues and so on. That cannot even happen because if that does happen then there will be no edification and the body of Christ will remain as it is, there will be no growth. There are a lot of things concerning 'tongues' that will take us very long time to unveil. Papa maybe we should organise a special weekend and use it to teach ourselves more on 'tongues'. Brother James hope this speech of mine edified you, don't neglect your spiritual gift that the Holy Spirit has given you and focus on that which is not your gift though the Bible said "Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts" I added.

And as if on cue, so many hands went up into the air.

"Ok, ok, ok, please we all agreed that only brother James has a question before, and also if we check our time we are past our closing time, I really apologize for that. For each one of us having a question, papers will be distributed, please write down your question so that you will not forget and submit them to me, we'll answer them gradually in the subsequent studies" Amina concluded.