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Considering how much this subject has come up in recent discussions with friends, I'm starting to think God's trying to tell me something. But I'm curious as to what others have to say about the spiritual gifts.

Now, first, let me start by saying ... I'm not just talking about the speaking or understanding different tongues, or prophecy, or healing. I mean, yes, those are important ... but there might be more. Some people look to Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 to expand the list a bit. And I think there's one that most people overlook ... but I'll get to that in a moment.

And, of course, I know not everybody believes in them these days. People tend to look askance at "holy rollers", and some even think that what they do is an embarassment at best, or blasphemy at worst.

So, I'm curious as to what the rest of you think. In your opinions, are the "spiritual gifts" in effect today? Is the list from 1 Corinthians 12 complete, or are there more (and what are they)? If you yourself are Pentecostal, what gift(s) do you believe you possess? Or is the whole Pentecostal movement just one giant display of emotionalism?

Wow I can tell this is going to be a hotbed topic on so many fronts.

First I would really like to know what you mean by "I don't like how the Pentecostals handle it." Seems your painting with a pretty broad brush here......

Second: I operate in my Spiritual Gifts as the Lord wills. But I did not receive those gifts at the time of my confession of faith, but many many years later. (I know many denminations teach contrary to this) It was later during a really intense prayer meeting (for other reasons) that I had a second major experience with God (in which I believe I was filled with the Holy Spirit (also contrary to what many faiths teach) that these gifts became manifest. This happened at a time when I knew very little about the Holy Spirit, knew NOTHING of the Spiritual gifts (or that I was supposed to have them), or the controversy surrounding the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

But I can tell you that that experience changed my life over night. People in the traditional church I was attending began commenting that they had never seen someone grow in their faith so quickly. (It was a sudden, dramatic, overnight transfomation) It was as if I was suddeny walking the Truth of the Bible and knew "instinctually" what it said(even debating areas of it with people), and I had never even read my Bible. It was only later as I began to search out Scripture in an effort to find out what was happening to me, that I found confirmation that what had happened was Biblical, and the truths I was speaking lined up with Scripture..

First let me talk about the dancing so we can get that out of the way and get back on subject. We know that David was a man after God's heart. When the Ark (the presence of God) was brought back he not only danced but danced almost naked. (now I am in no way suggesting that we do the naked part LOL). His wife made fun of him for doing so (and you know what...she was made barren). I believe that this has spiritual implications for us now as to how we are supposed to worship.
In Psalms it tells us to "dance in the sanctuary". Psalm 149 says "to praise His Name in dance." And in Acts when the lame man was healed he entered the temple leaping and praising God.
Those are just a few of the examples used in the Bible to describe this type of behaviour being appropriate. However these examples were all the resultant behavior of God doing something (a miracle, an answered prayer and that type of thing). So in my personal opinion a church that does not worship with this type of freedom before God is really the stumbling block....not the other way around. It is basically a Spiritually dead church that hasnt seen a major move of God in a long time/if ever. And I have been in Pentecostal churches where this also applied.

Now on to tongues: I will conceed that there are abuses and misuses in many churches, just as there are fase prophets there are those that fake having one gift or another, and are clearly not lead by the spirit. There are also those that fake having been led and gifted to preach and teach, when it wasnt the spirit leading them at all, they are either self led or appointed by church hiearchy. BUT there are also those that have legitimate gifts. When we just assume something isnt of God and it is we are in effect Blasphemying the work of the Holy Spirit. So we need to tread VERY carefully here and make sure we arent "throwing the baby out with the bathwater"

In both of the cases (dance/tongues) it is not so much the actions we should judge it is the motives and how the actions line up Scriptually. It is the church leaders who are to address those issues through teaching and discipline. And as you said it is the responsibility of the believer to operate in his/her gifts in a way that does not bring confusion to the body.But we are also to do this with all of our behavior so as not to become a stumbling block to others. Wer all know that this isn't the case in EVERY church.

Also I will quickly add that I think there may be more than the 2 types of tongues you mention. Paul uses the example in "though I speak in the tongues of ANGELS and have not love."

Ok we are in agreement. I have never been to a church where people dance while the message is given and I have been to a lot of Pentecostal churches. But if that had happened I would also deem that as inappropriate.

Okay, moderator time ... which is funny, since that should technically be Xi's job, but what the heck. Better yet, I'll play "mediator"; it's more fun.

Okay, having heard the David argument ad infinitum et nauseam, let me point out ... to the best of my knowledge, Paul didn't mention "dancing in church" too often. If he did, it doesn't get repeated a lot. But that's okay; that's okay. We get the message: the Pentecostals want to dance.

Well, go for it. I'm not saying it should be removed, nor am I calling it important. All I'm saying is, it's overdone, blown out of proportion. So some Pentecostals like to act like they're in a mosh pit; big deal. That's not the center of their worship; it is, in fact, an individual thing. Not that important.

So, all anti-dancing denominations out there ... please, give it a rest. We know you disapprove; we got that. They're doing it anyway. Let's move on.

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Tongues ... as best I can tell, there's three basic types in Scripture.
1. The original was "speaking a foreign language", as happened on the day of Pentecost. That's a flat-out miracle.
2. The personal is a sort of "prayer language" between the speaker and God; as Deidra quoted, it builds up the speaker.
3. The public is basically the same as the "prayer language", but it's meant to be understood by at least one other present (the interpreter/translator/whatever), who'll share the basic gist of the message with everyone else, so they can get a little spiritual benefit, too.

Now, along the lines of tongues, let me say this: I have accidentally and secularly been an interpreter. When I was in college, I was invited with some friends to attend a Pentecostal church in Atlanta. Big church; about the size of two shopping malls. Shame I can't recall the name right now ... anyway, during the service, a woman stood and spoke in tongues. Then immediately, another woman stood and interpreted the first.

And my eyes got wide, because I'd understood what the woman had said. But I claim no gift of interpreting here; the woman had spoken in Latin, and I'd taken three years of it in high school. She'd just run through conjugations of the verb "to love" (I love, you love, we love, he/she/it loves ... ). And the woman who interpreted (or claimed to interpret) certainly never mentioned the word "love" in her interpretation.

I gotta call that one bogus. I don't know, I'm no expert ... but that's bogus.

However, I'm not convinced that what I experienced is the norm. I've been in other churches, observing, and not seen anything like that. I also haven't heard any languages I recognized ... except that one time in Atlanta. So I'm assuming that the Atlanta incident was a fluke.

I respect your opinion, but if that person didn't have an interpreter, then there's not much to really discuss. If there was, then that's great. Please tell us more.

I get it, but I've never won the lottery so I can't say I would or wouldn't dance or that would just stand there. I would be happy though.. Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets..

You're right, none of us know everything; however I don't necessarily consider other parts to be other denominations. I have an open mind to an extent, but I also try to be careful about things.

God knows our hearts, our minds, and everything about us. He gave us His Word to know Him more. Everything we need to really know is in there. Most imporant is that God does love us and sent His Son to die for us and raised Jesus from the dead shortly after.

It has been brought to my attention via an outside source that I seem to be biased against Pentecostals.

Um ... no. Not biased against Pentecostals, not against the Holy Spirit, not nothin' of the sort. And my apologies to any and all who might have misread me; obviously, my communication skills need work.

Hmmm... I really believe there's a fine line between having it already and just discovering it, or actually recieving it in the middle of your life. 1 Corinthians 7 says that everyone has at least one "manifestation of the Spirit", but as for when you have them:

That could be defined as 1.) it's already part of God's plan, or 2.) you already have them.

I tend to lean toward interpretation #2, just because the way I naturally am "just so happens" to perfectly coincide with my faith: I'm very musically/artfully driven, and I try to use those gifts to serve the church by playing the piano.

As for denominations: Paul didn't even like them. It's not what God had in mind: in Galatians 5:19-21, "factions" are in the list of "acts of the sinful nature", leading me to believe that all these denominations we have aren't in the slightest what God wanted. God wanted a single, unified church.
For further proof, there are records of a French girl (whose name escapes me) who was possessed by Beelzebub. Protestants and Catholics basically were both trying to exorcise her, a symbolic war for superiority. Beelzebub eventually demanded a bishop to be removed from the girl, leaving Protestants out of the "battle" and leaving Catholics the only faction to exorcise her (which they eventually did). The literal meaning of "catholic" is "universal", which leads me to believe there should only be one, universal body of the church.