As a charismatic at the time I bought this book (1990), I was hoping to find a more biblical basis for speaking in tongues. Using a historical straw man, Graves tells us - without ever explicitly saying it - that those who speak in tongues like Aimee Semple MacPherson (a known drug addict who faked her own kidnapping), A.A. Allen (a proven huckster), and Kenneth Hagin (a proven plagiarist) are more "Spirit filled" than those who denied this teaching such as Spurgeon, Wesley, and Calvin.

This book was instrumental in my leaving the charismatic movement. He denies that biblical tongues are earthly languages, hints that Warfield is the first theologian to ever formulate a doctrine of cessation, and when confronted with the evidence of Church Fathers like Augustine and Chrysosotom - who EXPLICITLY denied the existence of tongues in the fourth century - he dismisses it as "their opinion." In other words, as long as a Church Father can be cited as proof that tongues occurred, the evidence against Graves' position is ignored.

As I said many years ago: if this is the best the charismatic movement can do, it will cease to exist.