The Administration Of Tongues

[Righttruth]

But will one scripture totally disproving what you say, keep you from speaking?
1 Corinthians 14:2 For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.

Truth cannot remain as a mystery. Nobody is bothered what you utter or pose you take privately. Also it is one's spirit that is involved, not the Holy Spirit as spuriously claimed by many!

 

[Hillsage]

I have never noticed this topic in which Paul speaks of; chapter 14 clearly testifies that my knowledge was indeed wrong (I assume the word "tongue(s)" thus is not accurate in all its placing, due to the fact that in the Bible it has two meanings: one in the section of Acts which I pointed out - that being simply a language other than what the speaker knows, while the other in what Hillsage pointed out: the ability to speak from your spirit to God, which God alone understands). Very interesting!

It is a very complicated topic IMO. There are several types of 'languages' spoken of in scripture all under the general category of 'tongues'. One is that of human language/tongue. Two is of the Holy Spirit and that can be human languages/tongues or spiritual ones. Three is where your spirit prays in a spiritual language/tongue which no man knows. Rightly dividing the difference of those tongues has been tough for almost all IMO.

*Note: Paul doesn't seem to be speaking in support of tongues in chapter 14 of 1st Corinthians

Are you really 'sure' on that point?
1CO 14:39 So, my brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues;

 

[Hillsage]

Truth cannot remain as a mystery.

But it can certainly be hidden to those who do not try to see something they've never seen before.

Nobody is bothered what you utter or pose you take privately. Also it is one's spirit that is involved, not the Holy Spirit as spuriously claimed by many!

But sometimes it IS the Holy Spirit, as it was on the day of Pentecost when those disciples yielded to the Holy Spirit and spoke as He manifested supernaturally through them.

 

[Biblicist]

I have never noticed this topic in which Paul speaks of; chapter 14 clearly testifies that my knowledge was indeed wrong (I assume the word "tongue(s)" thus is not accurate in all its placing, due to the fact that in the Bible it has two meanings: one in the section of Acts which I pointed out - that being simply a language other than what the speaker knows, while the other in what Hillsage pointed out: the ability to speak from your spirit to God, which God alone understands). Very interesting!

When either Luke or Paul speak of tongues they are always referring to how we pray to the Father through the agency of the Holy Spirit.

*Note: Paul doesn't seem to be speaking in support of tongues in chapter 14 of 1st Corinthians

When it comes to being able to pray in the Spirit (tongues); any cursory glance of 1 Cor 14 will reveal that he holds this particular Operation of the Holy Spirit in absolute high praise. His only real intent with chapter 14 is to ensure that the Corinthians (and the rest of the Church) do not permit the uninterpreted use of tongues within the congregational setting; where he contrasts the strength of tongues as a means of speaking to the Father, whereas prophecy has the ability of allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to the congregation.

 

[Righttruth]

Well done you got this part right.
And 'if it did' at least I'd understand WHY it looked like that, even thought I might not understand WHAT it was saying. You on the other hand would understand neither WHY OR WHAT. Because according to the bible it would just be gibberish to those who were "ungifted" or "unlearned"...but you can change that.

Fantasizing is not learning!

 

[Righttruth]

But it can certainly be hidden to those who do not try to see something they've never seen before.
But sometimes it IS the Holy Spirit, as it was on the day of Pentecost when those disciples yielded to the Holy Spirit and spoke as He manifested supernaturally through them.

On Pentecost they did not speak to God, they spoke to demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit to people, unaware of the language! Corinthian speaking was a bad imitation with their emotional spirits!

 

[Biblicist]

On Pentecost they did not speak to God, they spoke to demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit to people, unaware of the language! Corinthian speaking was a bad imitation with their emotional spirits!

If you read through Acts again you will discover that they were in fact addressing God, or that the Holy Spirit was addressing God on their behalf where they were "speaking of the mighty deeds of God." If your read the context, the nearby Jews were thoroughly confused which is why they had to ask the 120 what was going on which is hardly the outcome we would expect if the Holy Spirit had of been addressing the Jews and not the Father. If Peter had not provided the Churches first evangelistic message then the day would have been lost with the Jews being none the wiser as to what was happening.

 

[Righttruth]

If you read through Acts again you will discover that they were in fact addressing God, or that the Holy Spirit was addressing God on their behalf where they were "speaking of the mighty deeds of God." If your read the context, the nearby Jews were thoroughly confused which is why they had to ask the 120 what was going on which is hardly the outcome we would expect if the Holy Spirit had of been addressing the Jews and not the Father. If Peter had not provided the Churches first evangelistic message then the day would have been lost with the Jews being none the wiser as to what was happening.

OK, taking for granted that they were addressing God and praising Him, it was the Holy Spirit that was prompting them to speak, hence no interpretation was required. It was followed by Peter's message that was not in unknown tongue.

What was happening in Corinth after Paul left was totally a different story. It is like comparing an elephant to a dead mouse--possibly not even that!

 

[Hillsage]

Fantasizing is not learning!

And sometimes fundamentalism can become so rigid it's more of a mental condition than a theological position.

On Pentecost they did not speak to God, they spoke to demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit to people, unaware of the language! Corinthian speaking was a bad imitation with their emotional spirits!

You don't know what they were speaking when they first were baptized with the power from the Holy Spirit. All we know is that whatever language they were speaking, was spoken in "tongues other" than their own.

ACT 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now you may say they were speaking in the languages of all the people with the initial baptism, but you can't prove that scripturally. What can be proven scripturally is that they spoke in a 'bestial or artificial' language which was "noised abroad".

5456 phone; a tone (articulate, bestial or artificial); by impl. an address (for any purpose), saying or language

ACT 2:6 Now when this was noised abroad/phone, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

Those Jews from other nations weren't sitting there with the disciples when this first happened. They were distant and heard this 'bestial/artificial' language coming from a whole bunch of people. A "noise" which drew them closer to the disciples. At that point, I'm of the opinion that, they moved from praying in tongues/phone of their spirit which 'usually' accompanies our initial baptism, and began manifesting the "gift of tongues" from the Holy Spirit, which was the language of the men present. But that language is initiated/manifested only "as the Spirit wills." Tongues from our spirit is manifested was WE will. Two different Sspirits...one Holy Spirit/His, and one holy spirit/ours , and two different tongues...one from our spirit and one from the Spirit.

 

[Hillsage]

What was happening in Corinth after Paul left was totally a different story. It is like comparing an elephant to a dead mouse--possibly not even that!

Biblicist may have another take, but I'd say, what was happening at Corinth was Paul talking about three groups. One group was "unlearned" or as some translations say "ungifted" Christians. Which is your camp. The other was "unbelievers" or the unsaved. And the third was immature Charismatics who'd received the baptism and walked in a lot of supernatural manifestations, but did not do so in a manner like they should have, which apparently was a large group. Problems then the same as today IMO. So Paul instructed and rebuked them only to end by saying;

1CO 14:1 Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts,
1CO 14:39 So, my brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues;

That's where we differ from you. We earnestly desire the spiritual gifts including tongues, for all. We do not forbid tongues, but encourage them...in order, even as Paul admonishes. But it is still a poorly understood issue even among the 'tongue talking' churches.

 

[Biblicist]

OK, taking for granted that they were addressing God and praising Him, it was the Holy Spirit that was prompting them to speak, hence no interpretation was required. It was followed by Peter's message that was not in unknown tongue.

If we were to take a straw poll amongst a sizable number of rank-and-file Pentecostals and charismatics, I would imagine that a sizable percentage would still incorrectly believe that the Day of Pentecost, where the 120 were speaking in tongues, that the content of what they were saying was an evangelistic message initiated by the Spirit to the nearby Jews.

For the 120 themselves, we don’t know if they understood on the day that the sole purpose of tongues was as a prayer language between the individual and God or not, though we would expect that Jesus would have discussed this with the Disciples some time previously.

Going from the testimony of the nearby Jews, we know from Acts 2:11 that the 120 were “declaring the wonders of God (NIV2)” which has its direct parallel with 1Cor 14:16 “…when you are praising God in the Spirit (NIV2)”. We find a second parallel between Acts 2:11 with 1Cor 14:2 “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God…(NIV2)” where this is exemplified with Acts 2:11 in that even though the Holy Spirit enabled the 120 (or at least many of them) to speak in known human languages, as the words that the Spirit was generating were being directed to the Father and not to man, for the Jews, they were understandably confused as they were not hearing a purposeful message being directed to them but fragmented outbursts of praise being directed to the Father.

If this were to hypothetically occur during a congregational meeting (1Cor 14:2), where an unsaved visitor came in and heard someone or a number of people speaking of the praises of God in his native tongue, if there was no one else in the meeting who could understand what the visitor was hearing, then he would be just (or even more confused) as the Jews were. Whereas the Jews at least had the advantage with their religious upbringing, the unsaved visitor would be at a loss when he heard someone speaking the praises of God in his own language.

Now the visitor would not know if the person was a native of his own country but if he suspected that this was not the case, all that he could do would be to ask the person who was speaking why he was saying what he had, where the only reply could be, “undoubtedly I was speaking praises to God”. Even though this is only a hypothetical situation, if the Believer had the presence of mind to explain that it was the Holy Spirit speaking through him in praises to God, he could then (hypothetically) follow this up with an evangelistic word just as Peter had to do on the Day of Pentecost.

What was happening in Corinth after Paul left was totally a different story. It is like comparing an elephant to a dead mouse--possibly not even that!

Even though Paul’s primary concern with tongues in 1Cor 14 is with the uninterpreted use of tongues within the congregational setting, it does have a parallel with Acts 2 where even though the Jews could understand what was being said they were still totally confused. If those who understood the words being spoken were confused, how more confused would those be who had little or no understanding of the Gospel be. As Paul says, uninterpreted tongues will become a negative sign that will only confuse and further isolate the unbeliever from the Gospel, which in effect becomes a negative sign of judgment to the unbeliever, be they Jewish, Spanish, Italian or whatever.

Within the congregational setting, Paul is stressing that all our communications must be intelligible which is why he demands that every occurrence of tongues be immediately followed up with an intelligible articulation of the word of praise that someone had just offered to the Lord through the Holy Spirit.

 

[Righttruth]

And sometimes fundamentalism can become so rigid it's more of a mental condition than a theological position.

It is not a common sense to see that speaking gibberish is due to fruitless condition of mind or that of animal trait? No wonder Paul asked for seeking better gifts!

You don't know what they were speaking when they first were baptized with the power from the Holy Spirit. All we know is that whatever language they were speaking, was spoken in "tongues other" than their own.

Right.

Now you may say they were speaking in the languages of all the people with the initial baptism, but you can't prove that scripturally. What can be proven scripturally is that they spoke in a 'bestial or artificial' language which was

"noised abroad".

You are adding words that only blasphemy the Holy Spirit. This is the mindset of people uttering nonsense that they themselves are unaware of!

5456 phone; a tone (articulate, bestial or artificial); by impl. an address (for any purpose), saying or language

In that case the unknown tongue in Corinth was a devil's tongue!

Those Jews from other nations weren't sitting there with the disciples when this first happened. They were distant and heard this 'bestial/artificial' language coming from a whole bunch of people. A "noise" which drew them closer to the disciples.

At that point, I'm of the opinion that, they moved from praying in tongues/phone of their spirit which 'usually' accompanies our initial baptism, and began manifesting the "gift of tongues" from the Holy Spirit, which was the language of the men present.

A kind of hallucination thinking of trying to force in a round peg into a square hole!

But that language is initiated/manifested only "as the Spirit wills." Tongues from our spirit is manifested was WE will. Two different Sspirits...one Holy Spirit/His, and one holy spirit/ours , and two different tongues...one from our spirit and one from the Spirit.

There is only one Holy Spirit. You cannot order for a pocket sized personal holy spirits. My goodness what a blasphemy!

 

[Imagican]

Ok, I said I was through with this topic and I am. But I would like for any and everyone that is SERIOUS about the TRUTH to read this article I have found. If the truth doesn't really matter compared to your desire, ignore it. But if the TRUTH is what you seek, I think that you'll find this article interesting REGARDLESS of your beliefs.
Blessings,
MEC
http://www.yuriyandinna.com/ten-hard-questions-about-speaking-in-tongues-glossolalia-and-xenoglossy/