The gift of Tongues

Biblicist said:

If tongues were ever meant to be in a human language then why would we need to have someone interpret the tongue and obviously there was no need for interpretations on the Day of Pentecost.

What most cessationists fail to note is that if a tongue was able to be given to the Father in a human language, that Paul would have had to address this very serious issue as it would be easy for any atheist to pretend that someone was cursing the name of Jesus - it would be an absolute nightmare!


And you never will as tongues are never spoken in a human language . . . simplezzzz!

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So how was the Gospel spread to someone who spoke a different language then?Do you not see the flaw in what you just said?
How then did God bridge the gap between languages?
Acts 2 Clearly states in verse 4"And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
Verse 6 then states"Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language"
Verse 7 to 11 Clearly states"(7)And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
(8)and how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
(9)Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
(10)Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
(11)Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

The Gift of Tongues is to speak in Human languages.I don't know where you are getting your information from because i just quoted scripture that proved it was the ability to speak in human languages.

Shane658 said:

So how was the Gospel spread to someone who spoke a different language then?Do you not see the flaw in what you just said?
How then did God bridge the gap between languages?

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To say that your question surprises me would be an absolute understatement. The first clue would be with what particular language the New Testament was originally written in - which would of course be Greek. As Alexander had spread the Greek language across most of the known world, which also included parts of India by the 4th century BC; as the Greek language had become the lingua franca of most of the known world then this certainly made the spread of the Gospel much easier.

In addition, as the Apostle Paul was both a Jew and a Roman Citizen, this meant that as Latin was the language of Roman government, that he also had the ability to speak to those government officials who were sent from Rome to the more outlying regions who may have not yet been able to speak Greek.

Acts 2 Clearly states in verse 4"And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
Verse 6 then states"Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language"
Verse 7 to 11 Clearly states"(7)And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
(8)and how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
(9)Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
(10)Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
(11)Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

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When it came to the inauguration of the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church, which was also accompanied by tongues of fire and the sound of a rushing wind, then you would be correct! But this was only with the Day of Pentecost where this event was never repeated in Acts and of course in First Corinthians Paul absolutely rejects the notion that praying in the Spirit (tongues) is spoken in anything else but an inarticualte (angelic) utterances - that's Bible 101!

The Gift of Tongues is to speak in Human languages.I don't know where you are getting your information from because i just quoted scripture that proved it was the ability to speak in human languages.

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As my special interest is with Pnuematology and where I currently own 14 contemporary commentaries on First Corinthians, it would be a very brave (and probably a very foolish) theologian who would ever dare say that praying in the Spirit has any connection with human languages. Though Craig Keener in his monumental work on Acts does make the claim that tongues can be used in this way (in addition to angelic tongues) to reach the unsaved; but as this is a very odd thing for such an intelligent person to say (as he should no better) then I am still trying to source some more information to work out his rather strange reasoning on his position.

Since before the early 80's the notion that tongues is supposed to given in a known human language has gone the way of the Do-Do bird where it is seems to be only found primarily within non-academic sources. It's one thing for a cessationist theologian to still claim that tongues have ceased (without any evidence) but most cessationist theologians would recognise that tongues "were once" given in an inarticulate form of utterance.

Biblicist said:

To say that your question surprises me would be an absolute understatement. The first clue would be with what particular language the New Testament was originally written in - which would of course be Greek. As Alexander had spread the Greek language across most of the known world, which also included parts of India by the 4th century BC; as the Greek language had become the lingua franca of most of the known world then this certainly made the spread of the Gospel much easier.

In addition, as the Apostle Paul was both a Jew and a Roman Citizen, this meant that as Latin was the language of Roman government, that he also had the ability to speak to those government officials who were sent from Rome to the more outlying regions who may have not yet been able to speak Greek.


When it came to the inauguration of the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church, which was also accompanied by tongues of fire and the sound of a rushing wind, then you would be correct! But this was only with the Day of Pentecost where this event was never repeated in Acts and of course in First Corinthians Paul absolutely rejects the notion that praying in the Spirit (tongues) is spoken in anything else but an inarticualte (angelic) utterances - that's Bible 101!

As my special interest is with Pnuematology and where I currently own 14 contemporary commentaries on First Corinthians, it would be a very brave (and probably a very foolish) theologian who would ever dare say that praying in the Spirit has any connection with human languages. Though Craig Keener in his monumental work on Acts does make the claim that tongues can be used in this way (in addition to angelic tongues) to reach the unsaved; but as this is a very odd thing for such an intelligent person to say (as he should no better) then I am still trying to source some more information to work out his rather strange reasoning on his position.

Since before the early 80's the notion that tongues is supposed to given in a known human language has gone the way of the Do-Do bird where it is seems to be only found primarily within non-academic sources. It's one thing for a cessationist theologian to still claim that tongues have ceased (without any evidence) but most cessationist theologians would recognise that tongues "were once" given in an inarticulate form of utterance.

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You seemed confused.
First, lets go back to the Tower of Babble.
As a curse God caused confusion within the languages. They were unable to speak and understand each other in there own language. They were speaking languages that we are familiar with today,such as Greek,Latin, Aramaic,English, Spanish.A person speaking Greek to some who only speaks and understands English is speaking in an unknown Tongue. "Tongue" translated means "Language". In order to bridge the Gap between Languages God had to provide a Gift to help spread the gospel since the Cannon of scripture was not complete and had not been translated to other languages.
On Pentecost , we clearly see that the Gift was to speak in other languages.Do you know why the Paul is writting to the Corintians?It is because they were a church in ERROR and without UNDERSTANDING, they misused the Gifts of Acts 2 which is Tongues, the ability to speak in another HUMAN LANGUAGE not originally known to the speaker.That is why is is making points throughout the whole book on different subjects.Whether he was talking about Love,Tongues,Women speaking in the church and many moral issues they had.He addressed the issues. They asked and he answered"Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me" Corinthians 7:1.
Paul addresses The Gift of Tongues to correct them. When he is addressing the Corinthians it is in a negative way, they are not doing something that one should be proud of.
When you read Corinthians 13 the Topic is about love,not tongues.You would see that if you continue to read the rest of the verses following the very first verse of Corinthians 13.
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." Heres that major verse that is used to justify a so called angelic language.The Word Though is Hypothetical. Now read it as "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
If you take this as a factual statement about Paul speaking with the tongues of angels then you have just said that Paul doesn't have Charity either.
Say Paul did speak in the language of angels.The language they would speak ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE would be human languages.Where did anyone in the Bible who came in communication with an angel have a hard time understanding them?No where, because they spoke in which ever language was understood.
How does one create a list of languages in the bible?You study the individuals of choice and you will develop an idea of what language that spoke .Same thing with every time an angel communicated with someone.It was always a human language.If Paul spoke English , would it not make sense to in English as well. Did you catch what I did there? I gave you a hypothetical situation.Did Paul speak English,no but the point of me saying this was to show that it would make sense for one to communicate in the same language as the hearer.

Biblicist said:

To say that your question surprises me would be an absolute understatement. The first clue would be with what particular language the New Testament was originally written in - which would of course be Greek. As Alexander had spread the Greek language across most of the known world, which also included parts of India by the 4th century BC; as the Greek language had become the lingua franca of most of the known world then this certainly made the spread of the Gospel much easier.

In addition, as the Apostle Paul was both a Jew and a Roman Citizen, this meant that as Latin was the language of Roman government, that he also had the ability to speak to those government officials who were sent from Rome to the more outlying regions who may have not yet been able to speak Greek.


When it came to the inauguration of the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church, which was also accompanied by tongues of fire and the sound of a rushing wind, then you would be correct! But this was only with the Day of Pentecost where this event was never repeated in Acts and of course in First Corinthians Paul absolutely rejects the notion that praying in the Spirit (tongues) is spoken in anything else but an inarticualte (angelic) utterances - that's Bible 101!

As my special interest is with Pnuematology and where I currently own 14 contemporary commentaries on First Corinthians, it would be a very brave (and probably a very foolish) theologian who would ever dare say that praying in the Spirit has any connection with human languages. Though Craig Keener in his monumental work on Acts does make the claim that tongues can be used in this way (in addition to angelic tongues) to reach the unsaved; but as this is a very odd thing for such an intelligent person to say (as he should no better) then I am still trying to source some more information to work out his rather strange reasoning on his position.

Since before the early 80's the notion that tongues is supposed to given in a known human language has gone the way of the Do-Do bird where it is seems to be only found primarily within non-academic sources. It's one thing for a cessationist theologian to still claim that tongues have ceased (without any evidence) but most cessationist theologians would recognise that tongues "were once" given in an inarticulate form of utterance.

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Do you know the history of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement?
Do you know that the Endtimes is full of deception and false signs and wonders?
Explain to me why Mormons speak in the same Tongues you support as well as Charismatic Catholics?
Why is it that not one supporter of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements can speak in real Tongues of the Bible(human languages) neither can they interpret another human language with out learning to do so?
The burden of proof is not on the cessationist but is on the continuationist.
Why is it that Many of the Pentecostal/Charismatic leaders have been exposed as frauds?
Do you really think God is handing out the Gift of Tongues in the presence of False teachers like Benny Hinn. Todd Bentley,T.D. Jakes, T.D Joshua. A bunch of frauds who claim to have the gift of Tongues and more ,yet are all involved in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements.Yet all those who are followers of them seem to claim to have the Gift.
Why do all ya have the least of gifts?
Very Interesting.Anyone Care to answer these questions?

Shane658 said:

You seemed confused.

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As you have been unable to engage with the material that I have presented, is this maybe your standard reply to things that you do not understand?

First, lets go back to the Tower of Babble.
As a curse God caused confusion within the languages. They were unable to speak and understand each other in there own language. They were speaking languages that we are familiar with today,such as Greek,Latin, Aramaic,English, Spanish.A person speaking Greek to some who only speaks and understands English is speaking in an unknown Tongue. "Tongue" translated means "Language". In order to bridge the Gap between Languages God had to provide a Gift to help spread the gospel since the Cannon of scripture was not complete and had not been translated to other languages.
On Pentecost , we clearly see that the Gift was to speak in other languages.Do you know why the Paul is writting to the Corintians?It is because they were a church in ERROR and without UNDERSTANDING, they misused the Gifts of Acts 2 which is Tongues, the ability to speak in another HUMAN LANGUAGE not originally known to the speaker.That is why is is making points throughout the whole book on different subjects.Whether he was talking about Love,Tongues,Women speaking in the church and many moral issues they had.He addressed the issues. They asked and he answered"Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me" Corinthians 7:1.
Paul addresses The Gift of Tongues to correct them. When he is addressing the Corinthians it is in a negative way, they are not doing something that one should be proud of.
When you read Corinthians 13 the Topic is about love,not tongues.You would see that if you continue to read the rest of the verses following the very first verse of Corinthians 13.
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." Heres that major verse that is used to justify a so called angelic language.The Word Though is Hypothetical. Now read it as "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
If you take this as a factual statement about Paul speaking with the tongues of angels then you have just said that Paul doesn't have Charity either.
Say Paul did speak in the language of angels.The language they would speak ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE would be human languages.Where did anyone in the Bible who came in communication with an angel have a hard time understanding them?No where, because they spoke in which ever language was understood.
How does one create a list of languages in the bible?You study the individuals of choice and you will develop an idea of what language that spoke .Same thing with every time an angel communicated with someone.It was always a human language.If Paul spoke English , would it not make sense to in English as well. Did you catch what I did there? I gave you a hypothetical situation.Did Paul speak English,no but the point of me saying this was to show that it would make sense for one to communicate in the same language as the hearer.

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I know that I am being less than polite, but I really could not make any sense out of what you have provided.

The bottom line is that Paul said he would rather speak 5 intelligible words of prophecy than 10,000 non-intelligible words in tongues. That should teach us something. What fraction of 10,000 is 5?

Shane658 said:

Do you know the history of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement?
Do you know that the Endtimes is full of deception and false signs and wonders?
Explain to me why Mormons speak in the same Tongues you support as well as Charismatic Catholics?

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Oh dear . . . so it seems that the old wives tale about Mormon's supposedly speaking in tongues has risen again. May I suggest that you do a bit of research (it really won't be all that difficult) where you can check what the Mormons have to say on this question. Once you have then I have little doubt that you will no longer make such a silly remark.

Shane658 said:

You seemed confused.
First, lets go back to the Tower of Babble.

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They weren't exactly babbling, but you've made your point.

Job8 said:

The bottom line is that Paul said he would rather speak 5 intelligible words of prophecy than 10,000 non-intelligible words in tongues. That should teach us something. What fraction of 10,000 is 5?

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You are absolutely spot on with this; though undoubtedly it seems that you have failed to understand what Paul was referring to.

Now, if I (or anyone) were to go into either a Pentecostal or charismatic meeting where all that I could hear were people constantly speaking in tongues, then I would very quickly walk out thinking that they were indeed a very odd bunch. If I were to walk into a Pentecostal or charismatic meeting that was maybe being held next door, where all that I heard were five words (well of course Paul meant at least a handful) where someone was to say "God is love and he desires that his children worship him in Spirit and in truth" (a bit more than five words), then I have at least been edified to some degree.

We can paraphrase Paul's words by saying, "I would sooner hear 10 minutes in English than three to four hours in tongues" which is something that hopefully every Pentecostal would agree with.

Biblicist said:

Oh dear . . . so it seems that the old wives tale about Mormon's supposedly speaking in tongues has risen again. May I suggest that you do a bit of research (it really won't be all that difficult) where you can check what the Mormons have to say on this question. Once you have then I have little doubt that you will no longer make such a silly remark.

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Are you going to answer my questions or continue to dodge them?

Shane658 said:

Are you going to answer my questions or continue to dodge them?

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As you have been completely unable to engage with the material that I have presented, where I have already answered your questions then what's the point. As I said, with most of your post #283 I really could not work out what you were saying due to the disjointed nature of your remarks - sorry!

Edit: If you could maybe provide one point at time this might help!

Biblicist said:

As you have been completely unable to engage with the material that I have presented, where I have already answered your questions then what's the point. As I said, with most of your post #283 I really could not work out what you were saying due to the disjointed nature of your remarks - sorry!

Edit: If you could maybe provide one point at time this might help!

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Did you not read my post number 284?, because you seem to have quoted it but never answered it in 287.

Shane658 said:

Are you going to
Okay, let's do your post #284.

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To make life a bit easier for you let me do some of the homework that you obviously need to do.

If you were to check the official Mormon sources, you will discover that their understanding of tongues has absolutely nothing to do with Biblical tongues. Their understanding is that this "gift" is given to some people so that they do not have to spend as much time learning the language of those who they are about to be sent to as missionaries. Mind you, that would be the sort of "gift" that I wouldn't mind having as I continue to learn Biblical Greek.

Biblicist said:

To make life a bit easier for you let me do some of the homework that you obviously need to do.

If you were to check the official Mormon sources, you will discover that their understanding of tongues has absolutely nothing to do with Biblical tongues. Their understanding is that this "gift" is given to some people so that they do not have to spend as much time learning the language of those who they are about to be sent to as missionaries. Mind you, that would be the sort of "gift" that I wouldn't mind having as I continue to learn Biblical Greek.

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The point is both Pentecostal/Charismatics, Mormons and Catholics claim to have the ability to speak in tongues but neither of you guys match up with whats written in the bible.

Shane658 said:

Do you know the history of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement?

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I would say that my knowledge on the history of both the Pentecostal and charismatic movements would equal that of anyone on this website, which if you do a search under Biblicist and Biblicist2 that this should be plain enough.

Do you know that the Endtimes is full of deception and false signs and wonders?

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In part, this would include the 19th humanism and rationalism of the hard-core cessationist mindset. But there are certainly elements within both the Pentecostal and charismatic movements that can be included in the "false signs and wonders" aspect of the end-days.

Explain to me why Mormons speak in the same Tongues you support as well as Charismatic Catholics?

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This very old and tired fallacy with the Mormons has already been put to rest with my earlier post.

Why is it that not one supporter of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements can speak in real Tongues of the Bible(human languages) neither can they interpret another human language with out learning to do so?
The burden of proof is not on the cessationist but is on the continuationist.

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As I said, as Paul is adamant that tongues are always given within inarticulate communications then your point is moot.

Why is it that Many of the Pentecostal/Charismatic leaders have been exposed as frauds?

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Why . . . because they are!
Of course you may need to be careful with your use of 'fraud' as there have been many Born Again Pentecostals (and cessationists) who having once started in the Lord, they have eventually gone off the rails in some way; so this does not always mean that they are frauds.

Do you really think God is handing out the Gift of Tongues in the presence of False teachers like Benny Hinn. Todd Bentley,T.D. Jakes, T.D Joshua. A bunch of frauds who claim to have the gift of Tongues and more ,yet are all involved in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements.

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I could also ask, is it possible that the Holy Spirit can reach out to someone who is unsaved in a hard-core cessationist church; which is a fair question to ask as this particular world-view stands squarely against both his Person and Ministry. But the answer to my question is YES, as the Holy Spirit can work in the strangest of environments, which includes that of Benny Hinn's odd meetings and evern more amazingly, within a hard-core cessationist meeting.

Yet all those who are followers of them seem to claim to have the Gift.
Why do all ya have the least of gifts?
Very Interesting.Anyone Care to answer these questions?

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Can anyone "answer these questions", where have you been all these years? As our ability to pray in the Spirit (tongues) is a vital ability that the Holy Spirit works through us, where it is certainly applicable during times of private devotions, it has little benefit within the corporate meeting as the Spirit will always direct his words of praise to the Father. Even with interpretation there are only so many articulations-interpretations of words of praise that are necessary. As these words of praise do not really edify the congregation as would prophecy, this is why Paul said that prophecy is a greater Manifestation of the Spirit than is tongues.

Edit: Typo

Shane658 said:

The point is both Pentecostal/Charismatics, Mormons and Catholics claim to have the ability to speak in tongues but neither of you guys match up with whats written in the bible.

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Not again . . . did you happen to read my earlier post? By the way, Pentecostals, charismatics, Mormons and Roman Catholics often wear hats as well - and they don't always match up either, so what's your point?

Biblicist said:

Not again . . . did you happen to read my earlier post? By the way, Pentecostals, charismatics, Mormons and Roman Catholics often wear hats as well - and they don't always match up either, so what's your point?

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The Point is none of you guys match biblical Tongues, you all make the claim to be able to speak in Tongues ,yet none of them can show proof.You all believe you all have the Holy Spirit. I can easily walk in a Pentecostal church and speak in babble and everyone would believe me.
Do you not realize that Babbling is a form of confusion and that God is not the author of confusion and yes they are frauds.If your teaching something other than whats in the bible you are a fraud/false teacher.If theses church leaders are teaching stuff that don't match up with the bible they are false teachers.
So far I have made the point that no one has provided proof and that that church is full of false doctrine and teachers.
You see a bunch of delusional people in that movement rolling on the floor,shaking,speaking speaking all at once.
There are many people that have been involved in this movement and have exposed that it does not match with the bible.
Let me ask you something about these healings that supposedly go on in these churches?What have you experienced and what was healed?

Shane658 said:

The Point is none of you guys match biblical Tongues, ya all make the claim to be able to speak in Tongues ,yet none of them can show proof.Ya all believe ya all have the Holy Spirit. I can easily walk in a Pentecostal church and speak in babble and everyone would believe me.
Do you not realize that Babbling is a form of confusion and that God is not the author of confusion and yes they are frauds.If your teaching something other than whats in the bible you are a fraud/false teacher.If theses church leaders are teaching stuff that don't match up with the bible they are false teachers.
So far I have made the point that no one has provided proof and that that church is full of false doctrine and teachers.
You see a bunch of delusional people in that movement rolling on the floor,shaking,speaking speaking all at once.
There are many people that have been involved in this movement and have exposed that it does not match with the bible.
Let me ask you something about these healings that supposedly go on in these churches?What have you experienced and what was healed?

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With this type of reply you are really doing yourself a major disservice - it was embarrassing to read.

Biblicist said:

With this type of reply you are really doing yourself a major disservice - it was embarrassing to read.

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What was the issue with my post? Explain

Biblicist said:

If we were to hypothetically place ourselves within the crowd who were probably walking within the Temple precinct, where they then come across about 120 Galileans speaking about the wonders of God then we have to look at what dynamics would be at play.

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So you are reading into the text...

Biblicist said:

Being someone who has spoken in tongues for 40 years, where I have been in small meetings and massive meetings where thousands have been corporately (and incorrectly) praising God in tongues during times of praise and worship; this means that I have a pretty good understanding of what occurrs during these times.

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And from your own personal experience no less...

Biblicist said:

The only way that the Holy Spirit could have had the 120 on the Day of Pentecost each employing the correct syntax and where they also employed the right tonal inflections and stopped for a breath break is by placing them in a fully ecstatic and catatonic state, which of course thankfully never occurs.

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Or we could just take the text as what it's overtly saying: they were speaking in tongues and there were Jews from all over the diaspora hearing their native languages proclaiming the Jesus movement...