Glossolalia

TX_Matt said:

In that video, it sounds like she's/they are just repeating the same syllable over and over again.



Right. Personally, I am skeptical of those that claim to speak in tongues. It's always just sounded like babbling to me, and linguistic researchers, while it does resemble language (vowels, consonants, accent, intonation, syllables), however those are always taken from languages known to the speaker and it lacks key aspects of language like words and grammar. I don't think this was the case in early church, and we know the first recorded instance of tongues was at Pentecost, but it was human languages. If these tongues are truly from God, I don't understand why they would not include things like grammar and words. Historically, it seems that this gift became extremely rare after the apostolic age until the Pentecostal movement.

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I think that much of what we see or hear in churches is confusion or babble. I do agree with you that if tongues is a heavenly language it should contain order and structure. I believe that real tongues do have order and structure. We may not have all the grammar or structure figured out, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. I do personally believe in spiritual gifts for today, including tongues, but I feel uncomfortable with most demonstrations of it. God is not the author of confusion and I don't think it makes any sense that an infilling of the Holy Spirit (an experience that most Pentecostals/Charismatics believe in ) would lead to insanity or foolish noises/sounds. My thoughts are that most people who claim to have had this experience and the gift of speaking in tongues are not genuine. I'm not saying that these people are deliberately being deceitful. In many cases, I think that people believe they should have these gifts and end up trying to manufacture the experience. I think they would believe that their experience is genuine. I believe that a lot of the strange noise or foolish sounds we equate to tongues are due to that. This is very similar to any other spiritual experience. Just as there are true and false conversions, there are false manifestations of spiritual gifts. I have heard people give "prophecies" or interpretations to messages in tongues that flat out contradicted doctrinal points in scripture. Obviously, no one is receiving a true word from God that contradicts what is written in scripture.

As for personal prayer and speaking in tongues, I would see that as a deeper way to commune with God. I think of the verse in Romans 8:26, "for we know not what what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings too deep for words."

YankeeGirl said:

I think that much of what we see or hear in churches is confusion or babble. I do agree with you that if tongues is a heavenly language it should contain order and structure. I believe that real tongues do have order and structure. We may not have all the grammar or structure figured out, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. I do personally believe in spiritual gifts for today, including tongues, but I feel uncomfortable with most demonstrations of it. God is not the author of confusion and I don't think it makes any sense that an infilling of the Holy Spirit (an experience that most Pentecostals/Charismatics believe in ) would lead to insanity or foolish noises/sounds. My thoughts are that most people who claim to have had this experience and the gift of speaking in tongues are not genuine. I'm not saying that these people are deliberately being deceitful. In many cases, I think that people believe they should have these gifts and end up trying to manufacture the experience. I think they would believe that their experience is genuine. I believe that a lot of the strange noise or foolish sounds we equate to tongues are due to that. This is very similar to any other spiritual experience. Just as there are true and false conversions, there are false manifestations of spiritual gifts. I have heard people give "prophecies" or interpretations to messages in tongues that flat out contradicted doctrinal points in scripture. Obviously, no one is receiving a true word from God that contradicts what is written in scripture.

As for personal prayer and speaking in tongues, I would see that as a deeper way to commune with God. I think of the verse in Romans 8:26, "for we know not what what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings too deep for words."

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I completely agree. I do also think that manufacturing it also applies to praying in the spirit; I remember a few months ago having a conversation with a couple of people on here who could not fathom the idea of praying silently because you didn't know what to say.

I would tend to disregard anything written in Acts because the whole idea of tongues is based on what Paul wrote in his letters. "Tongues of angels" would have referred to eloquent speakers, as opposed to just an ordinary person of humble speech who had a loving attitude about him.

I know this is an unorthodox interpretation, but after reading Paul's letters many many times, I have come to the conclusion that he was talking about a general form of religion that is common to all peoples. He just used different words and names to represent the same things found in other religions. So in other words, a native man in a primitive tribal ritual wearing a loincloth, is really no different than a "formal" suit-wearing man in a modern church with a poisonous snake and a Bible. They are both performing the same basic ritual, the same dancing and chanting.