Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 126:504 (Oct 1969)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

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BSac 126:504 (Oct 69) p. 345

Book Reviews

Tongues: To Speak Or Not To Speak. By Donald W. Burdick. Chicago: Moody Press, 1969. 94 pp. $.95.

Although there have been a number of books on the tongues question, this one is definitely a good addition to the literature. It is a book that will have to be reckoned with for its arguments are biblically based and soundly reasoned. The author has covered the subject thoroughly and yet simply.

His conclusions include these: tongues are foreign languages which had not been previously learned (p. 16); their primary purpose is evidential; 1 Corinthians 13:8 refers to the end of time; present-day tongues are not identifiable as languages; and that the current outbreak is chiefly an abnormal psychological occurrence (p. 75).

In the reviewer’s judgment, the discussion of 1 Corinthians 13:8 is skimpy while the treatment of Hebrews 2:3–4 is one of the best I have ever read. Although the author mentions the possibility of Satan being involved in tongues, he does not link that to Satan’s general work of counterfeiting. Concerning apparent benefits some seem to experience with tongues, the author notes that “none of these benefits is the product of tongues as such. All can and should be experienced apart from tongues” (p. 83). The book is highly recommended.

C. C. Ryrie

Ecumenism…Free Church Dilemma. By Robert G. Tolbert. Valley Forge: The Judson Press, 1968, 127 pp. $3.95.

The real dilemma, which this volume completely avoids, is how can churches, which claim to be completely independent of denominational control and which purport to be thoroughly evangelical in doctrine, align themselves with the modern ecumenical movement represented in the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.

The author is the Executive Director of the Division of Cooperative Christianity of the American Baptist Convention and is also an observer-consultant for the American Baptist Convention to the Consultation of Church Union. In eight chapters, Torbet seeks to trace the dilemma of free churches caused by their adherence to, what he calls, the radical Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century. He traces the emergence of the free church tradition, the reaction of the free churches to Christian unity, and then he offers solutions to the free church dilemma.

Throughout, the author

BSac 126:504 (Oct 69) p. 346

completely ignores the existence of the historic splits within the free churches. Too, he writes as though theological...

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