Tounges

[SnowyMacie]

Tried that. My ex-MIL laid hands one me once for that reason, or rather she grab me by the wrists and threw my hands up in the air demanding that I hold my hands up "for it to work". It was the single-greatest experience of spiritual abuse in my 28 years in the church.

I never tried that, at first I pray to receive my tongue, and when nothing happen he asked if I had asked to receive and be baptized with the Holy Spirit (apparently I didn't receive the Holy Spirit when I accepted Christ and was baptized), and so I did that and was then led in prayer, exactly word for word, in order to receive my tongue, which I firmly believed I wanted. It didn't occur, and was told it could take a while but I should have it by the next day and would know because there was a chance I would lose the ability to speak English for a little while, but not more that a few days, claiming one student (who remained unnamed) received Mandarin as his tounge and could only speak Mandarin for three days.

 

[SnowyMacie]

To follow up on the question you asked God knows and knew us before we knew ourselves and I agree with that let me ask this, do you pray for you loved ones who aren't saved to come to Christ? Or to have a great day? Why pray at all because He already knows the situation right?

Prayer isn't about us and what we want. There's nothing wrong with asking God for things and to do certain things, but the point of prayer is to align our hearts with God and to be open with God. Not to mention that prayer takes many forms beyond "Heavenly father, ..., In Jesus' name, Amen."

 

[Tom Mix]

I remember that Jesus told us how to pry and what He told us is known as "The Lords Prayer".

I find this interesting and feel this is a good place to share it. Why a person feels they need to make sounds that they do not understand has baffled me for years as Jesus as told us how to do it but yet we chose to seek other ways to make us look more important.

I copied and pasted this so maybe we can all learn and be on the same page instead of 20 different sects clamming their weird way is the correct way and that everybody must master it.

From some web page.......

The disciples of Jesus had the incredible opportunity to learn how to communicate with the Father in a very personal way. In truth, this was unprecedented among average men. There were only a handful of individuals named throughout the Old Testament who dared to approach God in personal prayer. Jabez, Daniel, Jonah, Habakkuk, Abraham, Isaac, Nehemiah, Samuel, David, Solomon, Hannah, and Hezekiah are some of the very few that are recorded, compared to the millions of Israelite children who lived throughout the generations.

God’s people had come to rely on a mediator, a priest, to intercede on their behalf. Among God’s people, prayers to God almost always took place collectively in public and were facilitated by whoever was presiding over the gathering. But when Jesus, the Word made flesh, came to dwell among men, His intimate connection with God became sought after by His disciples.

The disciples had watched Jesus approach God on numerous occasions. Early morning private prayer sessions were a regular occurrence for the son of God. He had even prayed all night before selecting his 12 Apostles. And now they desired to meet face to face with God the Creator. This desire motivated them to ask Jesus to teach them how to pray. “Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’” (Luke 11:1)

Jesus’ response to them was very direct. Without hesitation He stated, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Luke 11:2-4)

Jesus knew the disciples’ destiny as Apostles. He also understood that the success of their future ministries would be directly related to their connection with their Heavenly Father. It was for this reason that he simply said, “When you pray.” There was no question in His mind; they were going to pray.

Yet it was vitally important to Jesus that His disciples knew how to pray. The gospel of Matthew also records Jesus teaching His disciples about prayer. In Matthew’s account, Jesus states, “In this manner, therefore, pray.” (Matthew 6:9) The record of what is called the Lord’s Prayer is often misunderstood. Jesus was not telling His disciples to simply memorize this prayer and repeat it every day. In fact, in the verses preceding the account in Matthew, Jesus is quoted as saying, “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” (6:7)

God never intended His people to approach Him in prayer and simply repeat words without thought. Prayer was intended to be an opportunity for His people to maintain an ongoing relationship with Him. It is something that should be alive and fresh every day. God’s mercy and grace are new every morning, and the prayers of His people should be also. For this reason, Jesus instructed His disciples to pray “in this manner.” In other words, “follow my example.” Abide by this guideline. Don’t just say the same things over and over every day.

The disciples learned that the God of the universe was to be addressed with reverence. And the words of His people were to reflect their recognition of His sovereignty. Just any old prayer would not suffice. Jesus showed by the example of this prayer how to reverently enter the presence of God and daily build a relationship with Him.

 

[High Fidelity]

Most if the time it just bugs me as I feel it's fake that they think they have to prove something in actually want too weep for them that they feel they have to prove anything....

That's my biggest problem with it.

A lot of Christians use 'gifts' as a measurement of personal faith and if you don't have them you 'don't have enough faith' or 'don't have the Spirit'.

I think for a lot of people it can be an unnecessary stumbling block and an over-complication of faith. I've met several people that struggled with faith because they couldn't 'get the get gifts' and thought they were doing something wrong or were a bad Christian. It's really saddening.

 

[redblue22]

I don't know what I think of tongues. I do know that when one is brought down to the worst that many will scream out to God, "Nooooo!!!!!!!!" and "WHY??????!!!!!!!!" After that, there is nothing left but to scream. Everyone knows the meaning. If one never has prayed on knees before, usually a time like that will do it--if of course you still have knees.

 

[Messy]

Tried that. My ex-MIL laid hands one me once for that reason, or rather she grab me by the wrists and threw my hands up in the air demanding that I hold my hands up "for it to work". It was the single-greatest experience of spiritual abuse in my 28 years in the church.

Then there's the host of other experiences which ranked pretty close to that, both my own and those that I witnessed happening to others.



That has been my observation as well.

Oh my, one preacher had a joke a lot of people got offended about but I thought it was funny. Why did Peter deny Jesus?
Because He healed his mother in law.
I've even heard demonic tongues. Sorry you had such a bad experience.
I went to the front row in a good church and a good pastor laid hands on me, explaining that it was okay if you only got one word first. Babies also start with dada. He said he first got one word when he got prayed for and was so happy with it, he said it the whole day. If you didn't speak in tongues, no problem, don't give up, just come back for prayer.

 

[Orange Crow]

I Tried it. I asked God for it. Never happened yet.

IMO not everyone is able to recieve the gift of speaking in tongues, there are many other gifts for one to obtain.

 

[Ubuntu]

Here is an interesting quote:

A vastly experienced Pentecostal minister, now retired, had a very interesting conversation with me about two years ago. According to this man, tongues can take three forms and he had witnessed all three during his ministry:
a. Emotionally-induced tongues. (No, I don't have a clue what that means, I am simply quoting the man).
b. Tongues due to demonic activity.
c. The genuine Spirit-led activity.

This man was able to recount a clear example of class 'b'; during a service, a man had yelled out on odd occasions in a 'tongue'. It was assumed that it might have been a shout of joy or a praise of God in a tongue. When the service had finished and the man had left, another man approached the minister and said, 'I think you should know that that man was yelling out in my own native language and he was cursing God for all he was worth!!'

Such instances should caution all of us to be careful. The very fact that tongues are not unknown in other religions should warn us that they could be due to demonic activity - yes, apparently even during a Christian service! The above example also shows that a tongue in a recognizable human language is not necessarily of God!

source: http://www.ukapologetics.net/tongues.htm

I just googled this real quick and found the story above. The reason I did so is because I've heard similar stories from people I know. For instance my pastor told me a couple of similar stories (he used to be a member of a congregation where it was common to speak in "tongues"). He personally knew a foreigner (I don't remember exactly which country he came from) who happened to visit a church where they spoke in tongues. The foreigner was shocked when he found out that the congregation spoke his native language - and that they all were cursing God!

My pastor had another story that he personally had experienced, but I'll keep that story to myself since it's quite unusual and personal. I'm not sure if he would want me to post his story on the internet, haha. But it was similar to the story above, and it's something that he himself experienced.

 

[SnowyMacie]

Here's an interesting thing I read last night on Tounges in relation to linguistics...

This linguist from the University of Toronto studied private and public practice of glossolalia in Italy, Jamaica, The Netherlands, U.S., and Canada. He found that it does resemble human language in some respects. The speaker uses accent, rhythm, intonation and pauses to break up the speech into distinct units. Each unit is itself made up of syllables, the syllables being formed from consonants and vowels taken from a language known to the speaker. However, this resemblance was only on the surface, and that speaking in tounges is "only a facade of language". While it does have syllable strings, it does not form words, is not internally organized, and there was no systematic relationship between between concepts and units of speech. He called glossolalia "meaningless but phonologically structured human utterance believed by the speaker to be a real language but bearing no systematic resemblance to any natural language, living or dead".

 

[SnowyMacie]

Furthermore, on prayer...

That's deeply disturbing, I feel like that's warping Christianity into a type of tribal shamanism.

It is disturbing and they warped the Gospel and Christianity into a prosperity gospel, which is grotesque. On one hand it is basically religious syncretism and on the other religious snobbery, when it came to tongues. In my family members' churches if you could speak in tongues you were better than those who could not. They also bought into the "name it and claim it" mentality. If you were poor, sick, whatever it was your fault because God was willing to give you anything you ask if you just claimed it in Jesus name.

What you guys said here reminded me a lot of what I experienced in Charismatic Christianity, more in college than in high school. While it wasn't necessarily your fault for being poor or sick, God would heal or give you anything you asked for if you said the right thing. In turned prayer into some kind of spell-like thing where if you said the right words in the right way, you would get the out come that you desired. It really was if you basically asked for in Jesus' name, God would grant it. If that didn't happen, it was was due to your heart not being quite right. Wording was strangely important, I remember once I was at Wal-Mart buying last minute items for a camping trip and I was talking to a friend of mine doing a fast, and he said "Yeah, we're doing this for a time...er...a season." To this day, I wonder why he corrected himself. They weren't quite as into speaking in tongues or other spiritual gifts like the group I went to school I went to in high school.

Back in high school, I was surrounded by people that believed there spirits behind everything, and everything was a spirit I even though back then "This is some weird kind of Christian animism". If you were struggling with anger, you had a spirit of anger controlling you. As someone with depression, I had a spirit of depression on me, which did nothing but make my condition worse and I'm still living with the scars from what they told me. Furthermore, I firmly believe that charismatic style of worship are dangerous. I use to love it, I thought I was connecting with God, I was sort of going into this trance-like state. One day, I realized that I was worshipping, not to worship God, but to achieve that state. I was getting high off of worship. Looking back on it, it's an incredibly powerful high. I actually aggravated a stress fracture during one of these worship sessions, and that while I realized it right away (by the way, those there prayed for my foot to be healed immediately, which didn't happen), the pain slowly became worse as I "came down" .

 

[Travelers.Soul]

Furthermore, on prayer...

What you guys said here reminded me a lot of what I experienced in Charismatic Christianity, more in college than in high school. While it wasn't necessarily your fault for being poor or sick, God would heal or give you anything you asked for if you said the right thing. In turned prayer into some kind of spell-like thing where if you said the right words in the right way, you would get the out come that you desired. It really was if you basically asked for in Jesus' name, God would grant it. If that didn't happen, it was was due to your heart not being quite right. Wording was strangely important, I remember once I was at Wal-Mart buying last minute items for a camping trip and I was talking to a friend of mine doing a fast, and he said "Yeah, we're doing this for a time...er...a season." To this day, I wonder why he corrected himself. They weren't quite as into speaking in tongues or other spiritual gifts like the group I went to school I went to in high school.

Back in high school, I was surrounded by people that believed there spirits behind everything, and everything was a spirit I even though back then "This is some weird kind of Christian animism". If you were struggling with anger, you had a spirit of anger controlling you. As someone with depression, I had a spirit of depression on me, which did nothing but make my condition worse and I'm still living with the scars from what they told me. Furthermore, I firmly believe that charismatic style of worship are dangerous. I use to love it, I thought I was connecting with God, I was sort of going into this trance-like state. One day, I realized that I was worshipping, not to worship God, but to achieve that state. I was getting high off of worship. Looking back on it, it's an incredibly powerful high. I actually aggravated a stress fracture during one of these worship sessions, and that while I realized it right away (by the way, those there prayed for my foot to be healed immediately, which didn't happen), the pain slowly became worse as I "came down" .

That is basically it. Now that I think about it that is a good way to describe the kind of charismatic Christianity that I saw in my Uncle's church. Wording was very important to them as well and they also thought an evil spirit was behind every bush, sickness, disaster, etc. If you were sick it was either because of an evil spirit, because you hadn't named and claimed your healing, you didn't have enough faith, or you had "spoke" your sickness into being (ex. telling someone you had a cold). I would dare say their form of Christianity is closer to animism than anything else. Animists have a fear of spirits, rituals they perform to get what they need or want, special "power words" and the like...

I am sorry that you had such an experience and that you are still living with the scars. My first experience with the charismatic church was when I was visiting my Uncle and Aunt...I was 12. It was overwhelming and slightly frightening. People were yelling, running the aisles, convulsing, people were laying hands on others, the minister was walking the aisles calling people out on sins revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, others were speaking in tongues, and the list of chaos could continue. It is not a memory I shall soon forget.

 

[SnowyMacie]

That is basically it. Now that I think about it that is a good way to describe the kind of charismatic Christianity that I saw in my Uncle's church. Wording was very important to them as well and they also thought an evil spirit was behind every bush, sickness, disaster, etc. If you were sick it was either because of an evil spirit, because you hadn't named and claimed your healing, you didn't have enough faith, or you had "spoke" your sickness into being (ex. telling someone you had a cold). I would dare say their form of Christianity is closer to animism than anything else. Animists have a fear of spirits, rituals they perform to get what they need or want, special "power words" and the like...

Exactly, and that's what I was talking about in the Syncretism thread when I said "It feels like Charistmatics are of an entire different religion"

I am sorry that you had such an experience and that you are still living with the scars. My first experience with the charismatic church was when I was visiting my Uncle and Aunt...I was 12. It was overwhelming and slightly frightening. People were yelling, running the aisles, convulsing, people were laying hands on others, the minister was walking the aisles calling people out on sins revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, others were speaking in tongues, and the list of chaos could continue. It is not a memory I shall soon forget.

What was that Paul said about order in worship?

 

[Travelers.Soul]

What was that Paul said about order in worship?

"But all things should be done decently and in order." 1 Corinthians 14:40

 

[JohannaSK]

I come from a background where speaking in tongues is very rarely mentioned. I've actually never talked about this subject face-to-face with another Christian. Only through Christian media I've sometimes heard people talking about this charisma.

About a month ago I woke up one morning and felt exceptionally good, joyful and comfortable. Suddenly I whispered two words that were completely foreign to me, almost funny sounding. When I got to my laptop I googled those words and got results – it's an expression that means 'dear father' in english.

My heart jumped, and I felt so much gratitude to God for this miracle.

I didn't even know this language existed, let alone being familiar with those words.

I was happily in faith in Jesus already before this happened, but for some reason God wanted to give me this miracle, and I'm greatful for it.

 

[HopeS746]

1 Corinthians 14
5 I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.

6 Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction? 7 Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? 8 Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle

You do not have to speak in tongues, different people praise God in different ways. Most of all speaking in tongues doesn't make you holy only just a mere fraction closer to God

 

[HopeS746]

Just so you now 1 Corinthians 14 has some really good advice from God on this if you want advice from the text

 

[Jack of Spades]

Do you pray in tounges ?

Yeah I do. It's no biggie really, at least not for me. I think it's a bit like having a spiritual toy, fun at first but it gets old fast. There are far more fun and powerful gifts than that.

I have no idea is it real language or just some nonsense. I could actually post a sample of me speaking in tongues, just for the 0,01% chance that someone could recognize the language (if it is a real language). But I'm not sure what CF rules say about that doing kind of thing here?

What exactly are you referring to? I thought glossolalia was supposedly involuntary.

It's pretty close to phenomenon when some song is stuck in your head. You can let it out and start singing it, or ignore it. Or at least that's how it works for me.

 

[Goodbook]

You are magnifying the Lord when you speak in tongues.
For those that dont, no big deal, i think tongues are a sign for unbeleivers asit says in the bible, so you must already believe...when I was given this gift, i was unbelieving and the sign that followed was so supernatural that I couldnt deny it. So God showed me he could come dwell inside me and even give me the words to speak, not something anyone who was raised a christian would have a hard time about, because He doesnt need to show someone who already has a faith in him.

Thats what i think anyway. If you really want this gift you can ask and Im sure He will give to you.