From Frank Thielman, Presbyterian professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, in The New Application Commentary: Philippians:
The biblical approach to claims that he Spirit is at work in unusual ways will, of course, try to avoid the disobedient conservatism of the “circumcision party” on one hand and the gullible permissiveness of Montanism on the other. Philippians 1.19 will not provide all of the guidelines we need to test the spirits, but it does provide tow important ones.
(1) We should expect the Spirit to come upon Christians with surprising power. The Spirit’s work is not limited to creation, to producing the miracles of the apostolic age, and to the inspiration of those who wrote the Word of God. The Spirit comes upon believers today for surprising purposes and sometimes in ways that do not fit comfortably into Western notions of superiority of the empirical and rational. Some Christians, for example, speak in tongues, and an entire library of books by people dedicated to the belief that the Bible is the infallible Word of God has appeared to claim that this ecstatic speech cannot really be from God’s Spirit.
Ever argument that tries to exclude ecstatic utterances such as speaking in tongues from present-day manifestations of the Spirit’s power, however, crashes against the plain reading of the relevant passages. When those who speak in tongues follow the rule and adopt the attitude expressed in 1 Corinthians 12-14, then the church neglects the lucid command of 1 Corinthians 14.39 at its own peril: “Do not forbid speaking in tongues” (pgs. 87-88).
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