Opening the Gates of Heaven Perry Stone

I NTERPRETING THE P RAYER L ANGUAGE

One of the strengths of full gospel churches is their emphasis on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the need to pray in the Holy Spirit. One of their greatest weaknesses, in my opinion, is the lack of teaching on the importance of interpreting the prayer language. Based on 1 Corinthians 12:7–10, two of the nine spiritual gifts are different kinds of tongues and the interpretation of tongues. When I was growing up, it was common in a worship setting to hear someone give what was called a message in tongues and for someone to interpret it to the congregation, which is exactly what Paul taught should occur in a worship service (1 Cor. 14). However, a believer can interpret his own prayer language when he is alone in prayer in the same manner the gift operates in a public setting. At age eighteen I traveled to War, West Virginia, to ask my dad’s uncle, Rufus Dunford, to lay his hands upon me and pray for me to be blessed in my ministry. Rufus was healed of a brain tumor in the 1930s and received the gift of the Holy Spirit at the same time. He only had a third grade education, but he could speak in divers tongues through the Spirit—in at least nine languages fluently. People from the coal fields knew he could go up to foreigners working in the mines and actually witness to them in their own language—and he had never studied