Speaking in Tongues and Having The Ability to Interpret Them

Francis Drake

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I have seen first hand how a prophetic word can deliver a word of knowledge which brings emotional healing that then brings physical healing. I'll give an example, it doesn't come from me, but another minister, however it is a true story that perfectly illustrates this:

The minster is praying for a young woman and gets a word for her, the word is simply, "I (God) hate mommies and daddies"... The minster struggles with God about releasing the word because to the minster it makes no sense and seems to maybe even violate scripture. However the unction is so strong he finally relents and trusts God. He tells the girl, "God says He hates mommies and daddies". The girl breaks down crying. Turns out she had been sexually abused by someone close to her and this person would say it was a game called... you guessed it... mommies and daddies.

That was a word of knowledge delivered via prophecy. She knew this minister could not have possibly known this deep hidden secret. Just hearing those words that she knew came directly from God brought her tremendous emotional and spiritual healing. Also, many times physical ailments are connected to emotional/spiritual wounds, and that is what happened here, this girl was also healed of a chronic physical condition as well.

So the truth is this girl wouldn't have been healed if that prophetic word hadn't been spoken. So was what happened truly a prophecy? Was it a word of knowledge? A healing? Or, perhaps instead of trying to dissect and define and depower what happened (milk), one should look at the result; recognize the work of the Holy Spirit; glorify God, and not worry too much about which gift did what, but rather trust the gifts were in operation and be looking and ready for the next opportunity to minister to someone (meat).
About 30 years ago I was praying for a couple in their mid 50s, it seemed the husband's business attempts constantly ended in failure and they had become exceedingly frustrated.

As I prayed for them, I had a sense of something I couldn't really nail down, so I tried to describe the scenario in my head.
"I get the impression of something like a parents evening at school. You are there with your mum and dad sitting across the table from your teacher, and the teacher says something like 'David is a complete waste of time and nothing he ever does will succeed.......'".

Dave immediately replied with "Yes, yes, that's right" So I continued trying to expand on what I was sensing, but he kept interrupting me, finally telling me to shut up for a moment!

"When I said that's right" he said, " I was trying to tell you that you had quoted the exact words my teacher spoke over me at that parents meeting!"

I was quite shocked. I was simply trying to describe a vague scenario, quoting vague words to describe the feeling I was witnessing.

Of course, the teacher's words had operated as a curse on Dave's life, with demons constantly robbing him of fulfilment in all his business adventures. We broke the power of those words from his life and commanded various demons to flee and he was set free.

Who really cares whether I was operating in vision, word of knowledge, or prophecy?
 
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ARBITER01

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Despite our differences, iron sharpens iron Oscarr, and that also applies with our differences with Arbiter.
It's a pleasure to argue!:clap:

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the argument approach, but it has it's results at times. I don't think any of us will find complete fellowship on all topics, simply because we each have different spiritual maturity levels, and each of us has different experiences over the years.

You and I were able to find agreement in the spiritual warfare thread due to some shared experiences, while most of the rest wanted to argue book knowledge instead.

Above all, our closeness to GOD has to be paramount. We must want more than what we have. We can't be masters in prophesying or tongues when there are much greater gifts to edify the body of Christ with.
 
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ARBITER01

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Who really cares whether I was operating in vision, word of knowledge, or prophecy?

GOD said His people die for a lack of knowledge, why wouldn't you want to know?

There have been situations over the years where people used the gifts wrongfully in a church and caused some major issues, even to the point of churches closing their doors over financial problems that they didn't have prior.

With corporate type gifts, we don't want someone walking in and trying to fool people with false tongues or false prophesying. We want people to be trained correctly to know the difference and put a stop to it before it happens.

GOD desires discipline in what do before Him, He does not want a circus.
 
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Despite our differences, iron sharpens iron Oscarr, and that also applies with our differences with Arbiter.
It's a pleasure to argue!:clap:
It's what makes the forum interesting!
 
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About 30 years ago I was praying for a couple in their mid 50s, it seemed the husband's business attempts constantly ended in failure and they had become exceedingly frustrated.

As I prayed for them, I had a sense of something I couldn't really nail down, so I tried to describe the scenario in my head.
"I get the impression of something like a parents evening at school. You are there with your mum and dad sitting across the table from your teacher, and the teacher says something like 'David is a complete waste of time and nothing he ever does will succeed.......'".

Dave immediately replied with "Yes, yes, that's right" So I continued trying to expand on what I was sensing, but he kept interrupting me, finally telling me to shut up for a moment!

"When I said that's right" he said, " I was trying to tell you that you had quoted the exact words my teacher spoke over me at that parents meeting!"

I was quite shocked. I was simply trying to describe a vague scenario, quoting vague words to describe the feeling I was witnessing.

Of course, the teacher's words had operated as a curse on Dave's life, with demons constantly robbing him of fulfilment in all his business adventures. We broke the power of those words from his life and commanded various demons to flee and he was set free.

Who really cares whether I was operating in vision, word of knowledge, or prophecy?
I enjoyed reading this. It shows a good example of the Holy Spirit saying something definite to us that He knows, and then our mind kicks in and we try to interpret it. All the Holy Spirit wanted you to do is to say just what He said, and that was what hit the spot. When you went on to try and expand on it from your mind, the guy told you to shut up. It was great that because you have a teachable spirit you stopped and allowed him to respond in the way he did.

My friend and mentor was preaching in a conference in the UK, and he felt to call some out, and told him, "Be like a Morris Minor. Put your self into gear and move forward for God!" The erupted in laughter and praise to God. They told my friend that the person he called out was the local president of the Morris Minor club and had several models in his collection!

He was taking another meeting in Vanuatu (A Southern Pacific Island, North of New Zealand). At first there were only women in the meeting, and on the second day, a women stood up and prophesied: "It is time for the men to come in. It is time for the men to come in." Leading up to the evening meeting, men from all over the village felt they needed to attend the meeting, and at the evening meeting, the men of the village outnumbered the women!

We can't put the Holy Spirit into a box and say that He has to manifest in certain ways that suit us. He can give a vision, like He did for Paul showing the man from Macedonia saying, "Come over and help us!" Or He can pop a sentence in the back of my mind as He did in a youth conference I was leading: "This young woman is afraid of the opposite sex". Or He can give me a prophecy like I did in a house meeting, "God is going to give you a financial miracle", not knowing that the man was facing bankruptcy in his business.

Or He can use a preacher, who preached a message about people being hurt by their church, but only on the five random Sunday nights I attended the meetings at his church. I was just one person in a congregation of over 400 people, yet I felt that the preacher was speaking directly to me, and wouldn't have known that I left my last Charismatic church seven years before, because of the disappointments and hurts that disillusioned me and caused me to leave the movement altogether. As a result, I was totally healed of the bitterness I had toward Charismatics, and this prepared me to go back to my previous city 9 years later to meet up with friends from the Charismatic church and to put thing right for involvement in a Charismatic prophetic ministry a few years after that.
 
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GOD said His people die for a lack of knowledge, why wouldn't you want to know?

There have been situations over the years where people used the gifts wrongfully in a church and caused some major issues, even to the point of churches closing their doors over financial problems that they didn't have prior.

With corporate type gifts, we don't want someone walking in and trying to fool people with false tongues or false prophesying. We want people to be trained correctly to know the difference and put a stop to it before it happens.

GOD desires discipline in what do before Him, He does not want a circus.
During the 12 years I was actually a member of different Pentecostal churches, prophecies were generally not accepted from strangers. It was an unwritten rule that one had to be a well known member, bonded into the fellowship before encouraged to manifest a prophetic gift.
 
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topher694

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About 30 years ago I was praying for a couple in their mid 50s, it seemed the husband's business attempts constantly ended in failure and they had become exceedingly frustrated.

As I prayed for them, I had a sense of something I couldn't really nail down, so I tried to describe the scenario in my head.
"I get the impression of something like a parents evening at school. You are there with your mum and dad sitting across the table from your teacher, and the teacher says something like 'David is a complete waste of time and nothing he ever does will succeed.......'".

Dave immediately replied with "Yes, yes, that's right" So I continued trying to expand on what I was sensing, but he kept interrupting me, finally telling me to shut up for a moment!

"When I said that's right" he said, " I was trying to tell you that you had quoted the exact words my teacher spoke over me at that parents meeting!"

I was quite shocked. I was simply trying to describe a vague scenario, quoting vague words to describe the feeling I was witnessing.

Of course, the teacher's words had operated as a curse on Dave's life, with demons constantly robbing him of fulfilment in all his business adventures. We broke the power of those words from his life and commanded various demons to flee and he was set free.
Amen! Love this!

Who really cares whether I
Exactly. Clearly the Holy Spirit was moving and the gifts were flowing and God was glorified. Arguing about which gifts seems pretty silly after you seen the results.
 
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topher694

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During the 12 years I was actually a member of different Pentecostal churches, prophecies were generally not accepted from strangers. It was an unwritten rule that one had to be a well known member, bonded into the fellowship before encouraged to manifest a prophetic gift.
In our church the rule is not unwritten... lol. Order is key to these things, nevertheless there will always be messes to be cleaned up because people are involved. Leadership has to be convinced and committed to allowing the spirit to move and believe that the benefits far outweigh the messes. In fact, the messes often end up as opportunities for growth.
 
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Francis Drake

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GOD said His people die for a lack of knowledge, why wouldn't you want to know?
Lol. Applying that verse to the situation I described is taking it light years out of context.

There have been situations over the years where people used the gifts wrongfully in a church and caused some major issues, even to the point of churches closing their doors over financial problems that they didn't have prior.
In trying to blame church closures on not identify the dividing line between a word of knowledge or prophecy, you really are scraping the barrel!
With corporate type gifts, we don't want someone walking in and trying to fool people with false tongues or false prophesying. We want people to be trained correctly to know the difference and put a stop to it before it happens.
My testimony said nothing about corporate settings. The couple came to me directly, and although I knew nothing of his childhood, I had known them for maybe 20 years by then.
Yes, the prayer and deliverance was conducted during a church meeting, but people were being prayed for all over the place in couples or small groups. None of the groups having a clue what was going on in the next group.
ie. It was not corporate. Members of the body did what they chose to do, praying, or being prayed for.
The ekklesia of God is an organism, not an organisation.
GOD desires discipline in what do before Him, He does not want a circus.
You really are clutching at straws here trying to discredit what I said. Knowing the exact demarcation between the gifts is utterly irrelevant when compared to freely using the gifts.
You are trying to put a straight jacket on the Holy Spirit.
 
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Francis Drake

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Do you really believe that that was what I was doing?
I have great respect for you and @Oscarr, even if my replies may seem a wee bit abrasive.
So maybe "discredit" was a bit harsh, but your argument was getting more and more pathetic? erratic? disconnected?
You are normally far more incisive in your responses.
The examples you presented to support you reply had virtually no connection to what I had posted.
 
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ARBITER01

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Pray explain?

Well,....does the gifts of healings edify the body of Christ? What about the working of miracles? These are also ministries for the body of Christ,....

1Co 12:27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.
1Co 12:28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues.


What does the body of Christ really need right now? Does it need an army of prophesiers and tongue speakers, or shouldn't we see ministries in churches where people's diseases are removed and limbs restored during a service?

With the complications of sin setting in stronger with each generation, I think people would much rather see GOD operate in power to heal them instantly than it be hit and miss through prayer.

In my opinion, I think some people over the years have allowed themselves to get way too focused on the low end gifts, when GOD offers much greater gifts that can reached for, that can be operated on a regular basis as a ministry each service.
 
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Francis Drake

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Maybe by taking a section of your post you thought I was pinpointing you, but I wasn't.
Okeydokey. Point taken.
I was taking a more generalized view of the body of Christ over the years. I was sort of lamenting some of the ridiculousness that has happened over the years, such as the Toronto blessing crap, where people pursued a free-for-all in their services and it turned the body of Christ into an outright circus,.... all because people were not knowledgeable and spiritually mature enough to know better.
I heartily agree that lack of knowledge turned the Toronto issue into a bit of a circus. Nevertheless, despite the embarrassing silliness, it did stir many churches up and much good did come out from it.

When the Lord pours out his spirit, there will always be many different reactions.
1) It may be received with thankful hearts, giving a much higher level of anointing.

2) It may cause the recipient to fall to the ground and shake.

3) It may cause the demons within a recipient to react violently. Hence all the roaring and barking etc.

4) It may drive some Christians to abandon that church.

5) Some leaders may shut it down completely, seeing it as a threat to their own status over the congregation.

6) Some leaders may seize control of all prayer and laying on of hands to ensure the anointing of the Holy Spirit enhances their status above the members.

7)...8)...9) etc.

In my view, Toronto's problem was less linked to lack of knowledge of how the Holy Spirit works but a complete dearth of understanding of how demons work! Thus they labelled many demonic reactions as works of the Holy Spirit.
The leaders were forced into a rapid learning curve.

Should God have refrained from releasing His Spirit on Toronto?
 
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topher694

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Well,....does the gifts of healings edify the body of Christ? What about the working of miracles? These are also ministries for the body of Christ,....

1Co 12:27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.
1Co 12:28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues.


What does the body of Christ really need right now? Does it need an army of prophesiers and tongue speakers, or shouldn't we see ministries in churches where people's diseases are removed and limbs restored during a service?

With the complications of sin setting in stronger with each generation, I think people would much rather see GOD operate in power to heal them instantly than it be hit and miss through prayer.

In my opinion, I think some people over the years have allowed themselves to get way too focused on the low end gifts, when GOD offers much greater gifts that can reached for, that can be operated on a regular basis as a ministry each service.
All the gifts edify the body, but putting prophecy at or near the bottom demonstrates a huge, but unsurprising, lack of understanding of the gift. Prophecy is the greatest of the gifts, not the least.
 
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Okeydokey. Point taken.

I heartily agree that lack of knowledge turned the Toronto issue into a bit of a circus. Nevertheless, despite the embarrassing silliness, it did stir many churches up and much good did come out from it.

When the Lord pours out his spirit, there will always be many different reactions.
1) It may be received with thankful hearts, giving a much higher level of anointing.

2) It may cause the recipient to fall to the ground and shake.

3) It may cause the demons within a recipient to react violently. Hence all the roaring and barking etc.

4) It may drive some Christians to abandon that church.

5) Some leaders may shut it down completely, seeing it as a threat to their own status over the congregation.

6) Some leaders may seize control of all prayer and laying on of hands to ensure the anointing of the Holy Spirit enhances their status above the members.

7)...8)...9) etc.

In my view, Toronto's problem was less linked to lack of knowledge of how the Holy Spirit works but a complete dearth of understanding of how demons work! Thus they labelled many demonic reactions as works of the Holy Spirit.
The leaders were forced into a rapid learning curve.

Should God have refrained from releasing His Spirit on Toronto?

Well,....we will find disagreement over such activities my friend.

To me, they were carnal, fleshly activities that had nothing to do with The Holy Spirit. I've watched the videos of those events on youtube, and every single thing happening in that place was nothing different than the snake handlers of the Appalachians.

Self-control is a fruit of The Spirit, and we don't honor GOD by acting stupid.
 
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ARBITER01

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In relation to gifts,...

POWER GIFTS
1. The Gift of Faith
2. The Working of Powers/Miracles
3. The Gifts of Healings

REVELATION GIFTS
4. The Word of Wisdom
5. The Word of Knowledge
6. The Discerning of Spirits

INSPIRATIONAL GIFTS
7. The Gift of Prophecy
8. The Gift of the Interpretation of Tongues
9. The Gift of Tongues

Of all the gifts that Jesus operated in during His ministry here (and He operated in 7 of the 9), it seems that He operated the most in the gifts of healings. As a prophet, He did foretell events by The Holy Spirit that were documented as scripture, but it seems those moments were not nearly as frequent as the times that The FATHER operated deliverance and healings through Him.

Jesus is our perfect example to emulate when understanding the gifts of The Spirit. Every single time that The Holy Spirit operated a gift through Him is a teaching moment. If people are not doing it the way that Jesus did it, then they are wrong.
 
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topher694

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It is fascinating to me how those whose focus is on defining and depowering the gifts will just completely ignore real actual examples of the gifts actually working in favor of their doctrine and it's lists. Especially considering these amazing testimonies provide powerful teaching moments in the same manner as Jesus. Not that lists are bad, but they are severely limited in how much they can actually teach.
 
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Francis Drake

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Well,....we will find disagreement over such activities my friend.

To me, they were carnal, fleshly activities that had nothing to do with The Holy Spirit. I've watched the videos of those events on youtube, and every single thing happening in that place was nothing different than the snake handlers of the Appalachians.

Self-control is a fruit of The Spirit, and we don't honor GOD by acting stupid.
Many would call David stupid for dancing leaping and whirling in the street!

But I wasn't talking from hearsay or videos. I've been there on 2 different occasions years apart and on neither time were they acting stupid.
I agree there was considerable nonsense at the beginning because they were into completely new territory.
 
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Many would call David stupid for dancing leaping and whirling in the street!

But I wasn't talking from hearsay or videos. I've been there on 2 different occasions years apart and on neither time were they acting stupid.
I agree there was considerable nonsense at the beginning because they were into completely new territory.

If you remember a while back, a very similar thing tried to happen with old Todd Bentley, and that got shot down big time. In fact, it caused a major rift here on this site between those that wanted such a circus to happen, and the more biblically based group that started arguing against it. A lot of folks left this site because they were told they were wrong and got offended. I was quite surprised on how many were so quick to approve of such nonsense.

Again, it has to emulate how Jesus did things. If we are going to go by the biblical example, then there is no one greater to follow. His example is to be our example, and really, I don't see The Holy Spirit teaching any other way.
 
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