The Need to Speak in Tongues at Home

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 17, 2017

swordsman1 said:
I don't see there being two types of tongues in scripture, but there are certainly two purposes of tongues. One was as a confirming sign (Mark 16:17,20) as exemplified by all three accounts in Acts. The other was to edify the church when translated (1 Cor 14:5). No other purpose is given. There is no mention of speaking in tongues in private.

You are quite right, Paul did say he spoke in tongues outside of church. But where? At home where it would be contrary to the stated purpose of spiritual gifts? Or in public places where it would be a useful tool in evangelism just as it was at Pentecost?

"You are giving thanks well enough" was referring to tongues spoken in church "but the other person is not edified."

I don't think there can be any doubt that Paul disapproved of untranslated tongues in the church:

if I come to you speaking in tongues, what will I profit you....

So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken?

you will be speaking into the air.

I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me.

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.

Otherwise if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say the “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying?

For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified.

in the church I desire to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue.

Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?

Let all things be done for edification.

To dispel any doubt, Paul then forbids the practice:

If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret; but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church

Only if their tongues was translated.

Yes, so quietly in fact that the untranslated tongue was inaudible - "he must keep silent in the church".

The context of the whole of chapter 14 is "in the church" not private prayer meetings. In a private prayer meeting untranslated tongues would still not edify others and hence be against the stated purpose of spiritual gifts.

The praying in tongues in 1 Cor 14 took place in church and was to be translated - "Otherwise when you are praising God in the Spirit, how can someone else, who is now put in the position of an inquirer, say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since they do not know what you are saying?"

I think that you are limiting the use of tongues in a way that Paul did not intend. His teaching on tongues is limited for the Corinthians because he is seeking to correct the wrong use of tongues in that fellowship. He does not give corrective teaching to any of the other churches.

You contradict yourself and Paul when you say that Paul forbids the use of tongues, because he clearly tells the Corinthians not to forbid the speaking of tongues.

You say that Paul does not support the speaking of tongues outside of public church services, yet Paul says that he speaks in tongues more than them all, yet in the public church service he would rather prophesy than to speak ten thousand words in another tongue. So where did Paul speak in tongues "more than them all"? Because by his own words his speaking was not in public church services where he said he did not speak in tongues, preferring prophecy.

It does not take much intelligence to figure out that Paul spoke in tongues regularly away from public church services.

My daughter studied psychology at College. She told me that if a child has certain stories and ideas drummed into her all throughout her childhood, it is almost impossible to get her to believe otherwise when she grows up to adulthood. I found that quite interesting, because there are so many believers who have had Cessationist doctrine pumped into them over many years, and especially that tongues either was limited to the Apostolic Age, or must be spoken publicly accompanied by an interpretation, otherwise it is not genuine, that even though good logical arguments based on the right comprehension of Scripture, their prejudicial mind-set prevents them from seeing anything other what has been drummed into them by their Cessationist religious teachers.

Frankly, I don't really care that you don't believe in private praying in tongues. You see, I didn't have Cessationist teaching drummed into me during my formative years. Also, when I left the Charismatic church and decided to turn away from anything to do with it, one thing I couldn't do was to stop praying in tongues. The language just flowed out of me when I prayed, and it brought me into the presence of God. Also, I prayed in tongues one time in a church service, quietly; and a lady told me that God spoke to her through me in the Maori language words of encouragement that strengthened her faith during a difficult time in her life. That actual event disproves your theory.

Another event happened to a friend during a prayer meeting (which you say tongues should not be used), where he prayed in tongues which turned out to be the village dialect of a visiting brother from Ghana. My friend had never been to Ghana, and had absolutely no knowledge of the man's village dialect. The man told my friend what he said in tongues, and it was praise to God and encouragement from God to him. The miracle was that a man from the other side of the world comes to little old New Zealand and hears a simple New Zealand guy speak in his own village dialect things which God wanted him to hear.

I fear, like the Jewish Pharisees, who were so prejudiced that even though they witnessed a blind man being healed by Jesus and acknowledged that a miracle had taken place, they still refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah and plotted to kill Him. This is because they had religious stuff drummed into them all their lives and could not believe anything different.

So, if you want to limit the use of tongues to fit into with your particular religious ideas, that is your business, but as for me, I am going to continue to pray in tongues all the time and get the blessings that come from it. I enjoy it, love it, and wouldn't have it any other way. It makes prayer exciting and meaningful for me, and it brings me right into the presence of God and greatly increases my faith.

I have also witnessed my use of tongues in intercessory prayer bring a person from death's door to a stable medical condition. Also, a session praying in tongues brought me victory and a vision of Jesus on the throne high above my circumstances when I went through a difficult period of my life. The consequence of that was that I went from being a high school drop-out to gaining two College Mastorates over the succeeding years.

So, don't tell me that private prayer in tongues doesn't do anything for a believer. My experience tells me quite different!

swordsman1 · Feb 17, 2017

Oscarr said:
I think that you are limiting the use of tongues in a way that Paul did not intend. His teaching on tongues is limited for the Corinthians because he is seeking to correct the wrong use of tongues in that fellowship. He does not give corrective teaching to any of the other churches.

So are you saying that because Paul's instructions on tongues were addressed to the Corinthians they didn't apply to other churches? Does that mean we can ignore his other teachings in this and other epistles because they were only addressed to one specific church?

You contradict yourself and Paul when you say that Paul forbids the use of tongues, because he clearly tells the Corinthians not to forbid the speaking of tongues.

Paul did forbid untranslated tongues in church. It says it right there in 1 Cor 14:27:

If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret; but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church

The proper use of tongues (translated so that others could be edified) however was not forbidden.

So where did Paul speak in tongues "more than them all"? Because by his own words his speaking was not in public church services where he said he did not speak in tongues, preferring prophecy.

Good question. Paul doesn't say. I can only think of two options:
1) He spoke in private, but that would be contrary to the stated purpose of spiritual gifts (1 Peter 4:10, 1 Cor 12:7).
2) He spoke in public places as a miraculous confirming sign to help in his missionary endeavors.
Which do you think is more likely?

My daughter studied psychology at College. She told me that if a child has certain stories and ideas drummed into her all throughout her childhood, it is almost impossible to get her to believe otherwise when she grows up to adulthood. I found that quite interesting, because there are so many believers who have had Cessationist doctrine pumped into them over many years, and especially that tongues either was limited to the Apostolic Age, or must be spoken publicly accompanied by an interpretation, otherwise it is not genuine, that even though good logical arguments based on the right comprehension of Scripture, their prejudicial mind-set prevents them from seeing anything other what has been drummed into them by their Cessationist religious teachers.

I never had cessationism drummed into me at all. I came to the conclusion that cessationism was correct on my own volition after studying scripture to see if the practices and teachings of charismatics were biblical. I discovered that the gibberish sounding 'heavenly' language practiced today is not the tongues of the New Testament; that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a second blessing; that prophecy is not a fuzzy feeling; that people today do not heal and perform miracles as the disciples did; etc. I think anyone who studies scripture without any preconceptions, applying the correct techniques of hermeneutics, will come to the same conclusion.

Also, I prayed in tongues one time in a church service, quietly; and a lady told me that God spoke to her through me in the Maori language words of encouragement that strengthened her faith during a difficult time in her life. That actual event disproves your theory.

Another event happened to a friend during a prayer meeting (which you say tongues should not be used), where he prayed in tongues which turned out to be the village dialect of a visiting brother from Ghana. My friend had never been to Ghana, and had absolutely no knowledge of the man's village dialect. The man told my friend what he said in tongues, and it was praise to God and encouragement from God to him. The miracle was that a man from the other side of the world comes to little old New Zealand and hears a simple New Zealand guy speak in his own village dialect things which God wanted him to hear.

There are quite a few unproven claims of xenoglossy (speaking in foreign human languages) today. However academic research by linguists who have studied hundreds of examples of tongues speech over many years have never found a single example of a communicable language. For example Dr. William Samarin, professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto came to the following conclusions about modern tongues:

"There is no mystery about glossolalia. Tape recorded samples are easy to obtain and to analyze. They always turn out to be the same things: strings of syllables made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly but which nevertheless emerge as word-like or sentence-like units”

"The speaker controls the rhythm, volume, speed and inflection of his speech so that the sounds emerge as pseudo- language -- in the form of words and sentences. Glossolalia is language-like because the speaker unconsciously wants it to be language-like. Yet in spite of superficial similarities, glossolalia fundamentally is not language.”

"All specimens of glossolalia that have ever been studied have produced no features that would even suggest that they reflect some kind of communicative system.”

"When the full apparatus of linguistic Science comes to bear on glossolalia, this turns out to be only a facade language-although at times a very good one indeed. For when we comprehend what language is, we must conclude that no glossa, no matter how well constructed, is a specimen of human language, because it is neither internally organized nor systematically related to the world man perceives."

“And it has already been established that no special power needs to take over a person's vocal organs; all of us are equipped with everything we need to produce glossolalia”

"Glossolalia is not a supernatural phenomenon....It is similar to many other kinds of speech humans produce in more or less normal circumstances, in more or less normal psychological states. In fact, anybody can produce glossolalia if he is uninhibited and if he discovers what the "trick" is"

So it seems there is a natural human phenomenon where you can 'let go' of your tongue and it produces strings of syllables that sounds like a strange language. But this, despite what people are led to believe, is not the New Testament gift of tongues which is only ever described as miraculously speaking a foreign language you have never learned.

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 18, 2017

swordsman1 said:
So are you saying that because Paul's instructions on tongues were addressed to the Corinthians they didn't apply to other churches? Does that mean we can ignore his other teachings in this and other epistles because they were only addressed to one specific church?

I didn't say that. It is clear from the beginning of 1 Corinthians that Paul intended for his letters to be read to all the churches. What I am saying is that Paul's chapter on tongues is not the whole comprehensive manual on speaking and praying in tongues. We don't having any information about what Paul would have taught a believer who was seeking the gift of tongues and how to obtain it. It may very well be that believers spoke in tongues as a normal part of being filled with the Spirit. Who knows? Paul says that we see through a glass darkly and only prophesy in part, which means that we don't have the whole story, and we won't have it until we see the Lord in glory.

Paul did forbid untranslated tongues in church. It says it right there in 1 Cor 14:27:

If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret; but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church

The proper use of tongues (translated so that others could be edified) however was not forbidden.

I have no problem with that, and that is how I practice tongues.

Good question. Paul doesn't say. I can only think of two options:
1) He spoke in private, but that would be contrary to the stated purpose of spiritual gifts (1 Peter 4:10, 1 Cor 12:7).

He also spoke of "diverse tongues" which speaks to me of a range of different types of tongues for different purposes. I still think you are limiting the use of tongues to what you personally believe rather than what Paul believed. And we don't know exactly what Paul believed about how tongues should be practiced, except what he said for the church context.

2) He spoke in public places as a miraculous confirming sign to help in his missionary endeavors.

There is absolutely no record of him speaking tongues in public places anywhere in Acts, nor did he say anything like that anywhere else. The only place where tongues was heard in a public place was the Day of Pentecost where Jews from all the regions around and about heard their own dialects. This was the only Acts record where that actually happened. The other two accounts of people getting filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues were in private group environments and not in a public place.

Which do you think is more likely?

I think that Paul is saying that we can speak in tongues wherever we like, except when we speak out in tongues in church we need to have it interpreted or interpret it ourselves.

I never had cessationism drummed into me at all. I came to the conclusion that cessationism was correct on my own volition after studying scripture to see if the practices and teachings of charismatics were biblical.

Okay. That is your choice. I have no problem with that. But what are you going to do when you are confronted with someone with terminal cancer which the doctors have given up on him, and asks you to pray that God will heal them? Are you going to tell them that God does not miraculously heal today, and that even if you did pray for them, God will probably say to trust in chemotherapy and surgery, and if that doesn't work, then that person will have to die? Or will you pray that God will heal the person even though you believe that He will not? Challenging?

And what if you have a person manifesting a demon in front of you? Will you walk away because you believe that people do not cast demons out of people today? Wouldn't you feel gutted if another person who did believe in the casting out of demons came along and cast the demon out, and the sufferer rejoiced in his freedom, and then came up to you and asked you, "Why didn't you cast the demon out?" What could you say to that person?

This is a challenge to you because Cessationists do not believe in divine healing or casting out of demons in today's Church.

I discovered that the gibberish sounding 'heavenly' language practiced today is not the tongues of the New Testament; that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a second blessing; that prophecy is not a fuzzy feeling; that people today do not heal and perform miracles as the disciples did; etc. I think anyone who studies scripture without any preconceptions, applying the correct techniques of hermeneutics, will come to the same conclusion.

As before, you'd feel gutted if that person with terminal cancer, after receiving instant healing through someone else's ministry, came to you and asked you why you didn't pray for him.

If you have heard people speaking in tongues without interpretation in churches then I can understand your position, because that would clearly be a violation of what Paul taught. But if a person told you that they prayed in tongues at home and knew that God understand and appreciated what they were saying, would you tell that that they were speaking in false tongues because the gift of tongues is not given today? How can you be so sure that what that person was praying was not genuine?

What can you say to a person who was in a prayer meeting, praying in "gibberish" as you call it, and an African told him that he was praising God in the African's own village dialect? (Which actually happened to a friend of mine). Are you going to say that the African was lying?

Or what about the Maori lady who heard me praising God in the Maori language when I was speaking quietly in tongues near to her in a church service? Am I lying, or is she?

Would you say that those two instances were just gibberish? But if they were genuine tongues, how can you know that when others speak in tongues they are not as genuine?

Or are you looking at the telescope the wrong way around and thinking that you can see everything that needs to be seen?

There are quite a few unproven claims of xenoglossy (speaking in foreign human languages) today. However academic research by linguists who have studied hundreds of examples of tongues speech over many years have never found a single example of a communicable language. For example Dr. William Samarin, professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto came to the following conclusions about modern tongues:

"There is no mystery about glossolalia. Tape recorded samples are easy to obtain and to analyze. They always turn out to be the same things: strings of syllables made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly but which nevertheless emerge as word-like or sentence-like units”

"The speaker controls the rhythm, volume, speed and inflection of his speech so that the sounds emerge as pseudo- language -- in the form of words and sentences. Glossolalia is language-like because the speaker unconsciously wants it to be language-like. Yet in spite of superficial similarities, glossolalia fundamentally is not language.”

"All specimens of glossolalia that have ever been studied have produced no features that would even suggest that they reflect some kind of communicative system.”

"When the full apparatus of linguistic Science comes to bear on glossolalia, this turns out to be only a facade language-although at times a very good one indeed. For when we comprehend what language is, we must conclude that no glossa, no matter how well constructed, is a specimen of human language, because it is neither internally organized nor systematically related to the world man perceives."

“And it has already been established that no special power needs to take over a person's vocal organs; all of us are equipped with everything we need to produce glossolalia”

"Glossolalia is not a supernatural phenomenon....It is similar to many other kinds of speech humans produce in more or less normal circumstances, in more or less normal psychological states. In fact, anybody can produce glossolalia if he is uninhibited and if he discovers what the "trick" is"

So it seems there is a natural human phenomenon where you can 'let go' of your tongue and it produces strings of syllables that sounds like a strange language. But this, despite what people are led to believe, is not the New Testament gift of tongues which is only ever described as miraculously speaking a foreign language you have never learned.

Be that as it may, I have given you two authentic examples that makes nonsense of this. I have related to you two absolutely proved examples of people speaking in tongues ("strings of syllables" as you call it), and it has been an understandable language which the speaker could not have known.

You can call be a liar if you like, but the two examples that I experienced, and the African one was witnessed by more than 10 people in that prayer meeting, makes a complete monkey of your theory and shows the absolute limitation of your thinking on the subject.

I think that it is arrogance to say that all the people who have witnessed understandable languages by people speaking in tongues, and have written about it in many books and articles, are mistaken, or liars,

Why not write to those authors and tell them directly that you think they are lying when they testified to understandable languages being heard when people have spoken in tongues?

Because that is why you are doing here. What would you do if one of those authors decided to sue you in the civil court because you are branding them to be a liar? How will you defend yourself if that person brings multiple witnesses to convince the court that your accusation is totally wrong and unfair?

That's a bit of a challenge for you!

Deadworm · Feb 18, 2017

Paul urges us to "strive for spiritual gifts," of course, including tongues. Active striving implies a process and learning curve and the quest for private tongues helps that process. Among swordsman's many errors on this issue is his failure to contemplate what the process of active striving to speak in tongues might look like. I want to share 5 hard-won insights about this that would have helped me in my youthful quest for the baptism of the Holy Spirit:

(1) Any vital spiritual gift is counterfeited by Satanic inspiration or simply by wishful thinking that prompts one to speak or act "in the flesh."

(2) Beware of pastors who urge the wannabe tongues speaker to "just speak it out in faith." In fact, any effort "to help the gift along" is most likely to create inauthentic gibberish energized by wishful thinking.

(3) Instead, you must long for the gift of tongues, but then ignore this longing during your prayer vigil. In other words, your prayer vigil must long for the Giver more than the gift. The real thing comes powerfully and unexpectedly when you do this, usually over a long period of time!

(4) The key moment when you are "lost in praise" comes when your words seem repetitive, cheap, and unable to express the awe and reverence that is beginning to overwhelm your prayer vigil. When you linger on the feeling of inadequacy to express the awe you feel for God, your inadequate language will suddenly erupt into unknown tongues--the real thing.

(5) And how can you know that the tongues is real? In my own case, I'd estimate that most of my youthful glossolalia (= tongues speaking) was well-intentioned, but inauthentic because I succumbed to wishful thinking and was too impatient to pay the price in a prolonged prayer vigil longing for more of God. The real thing is authenticated at 2 very different levels:

(a) At a "lower' level, one experiences intense ecstasy as one speaks in tongues. One feels edified and bathed in joy. But later, when restored to skeptical left-brain dominance, one can look back and feel some doubt that this uplifting experience was real. Yet it was likely very real.

(b) At a higher level (usually after a long frustrating prayer and fasting vigil), you feel ambushed and possessed by the Spirit in a manner so powerful that you (wrongly) feel the experience might kill you! You are enveloped by wave after wave of ever intensifying liquid love until you almost feel you can take no more. Once, I even felt like my ego identity might even be totally absorbed in divine mind! This experience can be by far the happiest time of your life and the most powerful experience of transforming love ever! In retrospect, the authenticity of this level #2 experience can't be doubted! In fact, it ushers in a deeper sense of a guided life and even a receptivity to other spiritual gifts and enhanced mental functioning.

I am by nature very skeptical. Were it not for a level #2 experience of speaking in tongues at age 16, I no doubt would now be an agnostic. God knew this and wanted me to experience His majesty so dramatically that I would never forsake Him. I am so grateful for His astounding act of grace.

In short, I'd advise you to held out for level #2 glossolalia. The quest for it will probably be longer and more frustrating, but the payoff will be by far the most electrifying and treasured experience of your life.

To give you a feel for why I might offer this advice, I offer this reposted testimony. By far the most powerful and important turning point in my life was an experience of glossolalia at Manhattan Beach Camp in Manitoba. I was 16 at the time and felt I had lost my faith. I was determined to give it my best shot to find God real, but not to succumb to wishful thinking and emotionalism. That fateful, Tuesday, I went on a 7 mile walk towards Ninette, MB, pleading with God to make Himself real to me. That evening, I did something I'd never done before. I fasted for dinner and put my dinner money in the offering plate. After the service, I stayed at the altar and prayed to be filled with the Spirit as i had previously done in vain. After almost everyone (about 1,000) left the amphitheatre, my heart still felt like stone as I tarried in prayer. Then suddenly I felt a warm breeze, but it wasn't the wind from nearby Pelican Lake; it was the Holy Spirit first warming me and then possessing me. I was forced against my will to speak in tongues at the top of my voice. More importantly, wave after wave of liquid love surged through my being with ever increasing intensity until I feared it might kill me. My ego seemed on the verge of collapse into the divine presence.

A Lutheran pastor observed me, unseen, and quietly came and knelt beside me. He told me he was not Pentecostal and had only come to the camp meeting as an interested observer. He said he could tell God was doing a special work in me and he asked me to pray for him. The moment i touched his forehead, he exploded into tongues like me. Another lady was sitting in the now darkened amphtheatre and just staring at me. Self-conscious, I asked her why? She said, "Don't you know? Your face is glowing in the dark!"

When it was all over, I realized that God had said to me clearly: "Son, you long for answers to burning questions. But answers aren't good for you right now. They will make you live in your head, and i want you to live in your heart. I want you to live your questions until they lead you to the center of my heart." That message is the reason for my long educational pilgrimage from BA to MDiv to doctorate in NT, Cultural Backgrounds, and Intertestamental Judaism. Interestingly, the experience made me a much better student than I had ever been.

swordsman1 · Feb 18, 2017

Oscarr said:
I didn't say that. It is clear from the beginning of 1 Corinthians that Paul intended for his letters to be read to all the churches. What I am saying is that Paul's chapter on tongues is not the whole comprehensive manual on speaking and praying in tongues. We don't having any information about what Paul would have taught a believer who was seeking the gift of tongues and how to obtain it. It may very well be that believers spoke in tongues as a normal part of being filled with the Spirit. Who knows? Paul says that we see through a glass darkly and only prophesy in part, which means that we don't have the whole story, and we won't have it until we see the Lord in glory.

We can be sure that all of what God wants us to know about tongues or any other aspect of the Christian faith is revealed in scripture (2 Tim 3:16-17). So there is no point second guessing or reading our own ideas into the Bible's silence.

He also spoke of "diverse tongues" which speaks to me of a range of different types of tongues for different purposes.

I presume you are referring to 1 Cor 12:10 "to another various kinds of tongues". The Greek word for kinds is 'genos' which is kinds from the same family, not class or type. So kinds of flowers would be rose, tulip, daffodil; kinds of tongues would be Persian, Latin, Arabic, etc. The same word 'genos' appears in 1 Cor 14:10 "There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of languages in the world".

I still think you are limiting the use of tongues to what you personally believe rather than what Paul believed. And we don't know exactly what Paul believed about how tongues should be practiced, except what he said for the church context.

We know for sure that Paul (and Peter) believed that tongues, like all spiritual gifts, were meant be used to benefit others.

There is absolutely no record of him speaking tongues in public places anywhere in Acts, nor did he say anything like that anywhere else.

Nor is there any record of Paul speaking tongues in private. So we must take an educated guess as to where it took place. In private to benefit self, or in public to benefit others?

The only place where tongues was heard in a public place was the Day of Pentecost where Jews from all the regions around and about heard their own dialects. This was the only Acts record where that actually happened. The other two accounts of people getting filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues were in private group environments and not in a public place.

Public places are where Paul is most likely to have spoken in tongues, to convince others of his authenticity. The other accounts in Acts were new believers speaking in tongues to convince the apostles that new groups of people were to be added to the church.

But what are you going to do when you are confronted with someone with terminal cancer which the doctors have given up on him, and asks you to pray that God will heal them?

This might surprise you, but I would pray that God might heal them. Contrary to popular belief cessationists do believe in healing. God can, and does heal providentially and sometimes miraculously in response to prayer. We just don't believe that individuals have the gift of healing today. Praying for healing is not the gift of healing. If you have to pray for a person to be healed that is a sure sign that you do not have the gift of healing. The disciples never prayed for people to be healed, they simply commanded or touched the person and they were instantly and completely healed.

But if a person told you that they prayed in tongues at home and knew that God understand and appreciated what they were saying, would you tell that that they were speaking in false tongues because the gift of tongues is not given today? How can you be so sure that what that person was praying was not genuine?

We can only go by what scripture says. Scripture says that spiritual gifts are meant to be for the benefit of others.

What can you say to a person who was in a prayer meeting, praying in "gibberish" as you call it, and an African told him that he was praising God in the African's own village dialect? (Which actually happened to a friend of mine). Are you going to say that the African was lying?

How do you know the person praying didn't already know some words of the African language and that came out, perhaps even subconsciously (linguistic studies have shown that to happen). Or that the African just recognized a couple of words. I know someone who claimed he was miraculously speaking Italian because an Italian recognized the words. On closer inspection it turned out the only words they recognized were "ti amo" (I love you) which is exactly the kind of random syllable phrase that comes out in today's tongues. Or that the African was mistaken, or deluded, or embellishing.

At the end of the day these are all unproven 2nd hand stories. Am I likely to be convinced a doctrine is true because I hear a few fanciful unproven stories? Absolutely not.

If today's tongues are really foreign languages (even obscure tribal dialects), then why haven't the linguists who have academically studied modern tongues immediately spotted this? They can quickly tell if an utterance is really a language, even one they have never heard before by identifying its linguistic structure. But all their studies have never found a single proven case of xenoglossy, but always "strings of syllables made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly" and "fundamentally not a language".

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 19, 2017

swordsman1 said:
We can be sure that all of what God wants us to know about tongues or any other aspect of the Christian faith is revealed in scripture (2 Tim 3:16-17). So there is no point second guessing or reading our own ideas into the Bible's silence.

I presume you are referring to 1 Cor 12:10 "to another various kinds of tongues". The Greek word for kinds is 'genos' which is kinds from the same family, not class or type. So kinds of flowers would be rose, tulip, daffodil; kinds of tongues would be Persian, Latin, Arabic, etc. The same word 'genos' appears in 1 Cor 14:10 "There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of languages in the world".

We know for sure that Paul (and Peter) believed that tongues, like all spiritual gifts, were meant be used to benefit others.

Nor is there any record of Paul speaking tongues in private. So we must take an educated guess as to where it took place. In private to benefit self, or in public to benefit others?

Public places are where Paul is most likely to have spoken in tongues, to convince others of his authenticity. The other accounts in Acts were new believers speaking in tongues to convince the apostles that new groups of people were to be added to the church.

This might surprise you, but I would pray that God might heal them. Contrary to popular belief cessationists do believe in healing. God can, and does heal providentially and sometimes miraculously in response to prayer. We just don't believe that individuals have the gift of healing today. Praying for healing is not the gift of healing. If you have to pray for a person to be healed that is a sure sign that you do not have the gift of healing. The disciples never prayed for people to be healed, they simply commanded or touched the person and they were instantly and completely healed.

We can only go by what scripture says. Scripture says that spiritual gifts are meant to be for the benefit of others.

How do you know the person praying didn't already know some words of the African language and that came out, perhaps even subconsciously (linguistic studies have shown that to happen). Or that the African just recognized a couple of words. I know someone who claimed he was miraculously speaking Italian because an Italian recognized the words. On closer inspection it turned out the only words they recognized were "ti amo" (I love you) which is exactly the kind of random syllable phrase that comes out in today's tongues. Or that the African was mistaken, or deluded, or embellishing.

At the end of the day these are all unproven 2nd hand stories. Am I likely to be convinced a doctrine is true because I hear a few fanciful unproven stories? Absolutely not.

If today's tongues are really foreign languages (even obscure tribal dialects), then why haven't the linguists who have academically studied modern tongues immediately spotted this? They can quickly tell if an utterance is really a language, even one they have never heard before by identifying its linguistic structure. But all their studies have never found a single proven case of xenoglossy, but always "strings of syllables made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly" and "fundamentally not a language".

Well, when I am counselling a person who is seeking the gift of tongues, the first thing I say to them is they need to be sure in their minds that the gift of tongues is God's will for them. I will not go any further with them unless they are sure about that. I never teach that it is necessary for Christian salvation or growth in grace for a person to speak or pray in tongues, because Paul said, "Do all speak in tongues?" This implies that tongues is not for everyone, in the same way that woodworking tools are not for everyone. Woodworking tools are only for those who have a hobby that involves making things out of wood. As for me, I feel called to intercession, so I felt that the gift of tongues was a necessary tool for me to make me more effective in that ministry, so I received it and have been praying in tongues for 50 years. When I rejected the Pentecostal church at one stage, I found that I could not stop speaking in tongues because it continued to flow out of me when I prayed. It was around that time my friend and I had our experiences where our tongues were understandable languages to a couple of people. This has never happened before or since. I believe that it was a one-off miracle for God to show me that the gift I had was from Him and it was part of His will for me to have and to use it.

In the same way, God showed me that my gift of prophecy was true and correct through an experience in a home group where I gave prophecies to 30 people whom I didn't know personally, and they all acknowledged that what I said was absolutely accurate, and they marvelled how a stranger coming into their midst to minister to them prophesied so accurately. It seemed to them that I was reading their mail. This has happened only one in the whole 50 years that I have been a believer. It was a one-off event to show me that in my personal circumstances at the time, He was still there supporting me and my ministry.

Obviously, for you, tongues is not God's will for you; therefore He has not given you the revelation of it. The things of God are spiritually discerned, therefore God has not given you the spiritual discernment to know that tongues is an effective tool for personal prayer and ministry. That doesn't mean that you are inferior to anyone who does speak in tongues. It is just that God has not taken you in that direction as part of His plans and purposes for you.

But you have no right to teach that tongues is wrong for every believer just because it seems wrong for you. That is spiritual arrogance and gives the impression that you think you know God's will for other believers, or that your interpretation of Scripture is superior to that of others. I spent 11 years in a Charismatic church that believed that it was superior to all the other churches in the city, and yet it held false discipleship shepherding doctrines, many members gossiped, and an elder was caught in a homosexual encounter. That's what happens to those who assert that they know more about God's will than others. God does things to humble that person. That's what the Scripture says: God brings down the proud but gives grace to the humble.

I don't really care whether people accept my opinions or not. They seem to work for me, and that satisfies me. If others are helped by what I say, well, that is a blessing and a bonus for me.

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 19, 2017

swordsman1 said:
How do you know the person praying didn't already know some words of the African language and that came out, perhaps even subconsciously (linguistic studies have shown that to happen). Or that the African just recognized a couple of words. I know someone who claimed he was miraculously speaking Italian because an Italian recognized the words. On closer inspection it turned out the only words they recognized were "ti amo" (I love you) which is exactly the kind of random syllable phrase that comes out in today's tongues. Or that the African was mistaken, or deluded, or embellishing.

At the end of the day these are all unproven 2nd hand stories. Am I likely to be convinced a doctrine is true because I hear a few fanciful unproven stories? Absolutely not.

The friend I spoke about has been a close friend for many years. He has never been to Ghana, and before that prayer meeting has never met anyone from Africa, nor has he ever heard any African dialects. He spoke in very halting tongues which did not seem to be very articulate to me; yet that Ghanaian heard his own village dialect, and his village was deep in the African bush so no New Zealander could ever know it. Yet my friend spoke clearly and understandably in that dialect. This was witnessed by everyone in that prayer meeting. It wasn't an unproven claim because I spoke both to my friend and the Ghanaian afterward and they told me that story. No theory or objection can say anything different unless you want to call my friends liars.

The second even happened when I spoke the Maori language fluently and articulately when I prayed in tongues. The Maori lady knew I had never learned her language and that even if I had, I could never have spoken the things I did without a European accent. She heard her language fluently and without an accent. So, are you saying that I am a liar and the Maori lady was mistaken when she clearly heard her language coming out of my mouth as if I was a fluent Maori speaker? Come on!

I have another friend who fellowshipped with his parents in a Pentecostal church in Kenya. He personally witnessed some Africans coming in from the bush, where they had never seen a white man before, getting filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues. The remarkable thing was that one or two praised God in absolute Oxford English without an African accent, that no African could do even if he was totally fluent in English. My friend Derek demonstrated the characteristics of the African accept when they spoke English. There is a distinctive accent even with European Africans from Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It is just the same with English spoken with an American, Australian, or New Zealand accent. Even Northern American accents are totally different from Southern American. Yet these Africans spoke in English with a pure Oxford accent. My friend was an eye witness to it. Want to call him a liar?

I think that these real-life examples totally destroys your argument. You might be too prejudiced to accept these testmonies, even from me, but there are others who read this post who will be convinced and encouraged to seek the gift of tongues for themselves, and if they PM me, I am happy to assist them.

swordsman1 · Feb 19, 2017

Oscarr said:
The friend I spoke about has been a close friend for many years. He has never been to Ghana, and before that prayer meeting has never met anyone from Africa, nor has he ever heard any African dialects. He spoke in very halting tongues which did not seem to be very articulate to me; yet that Ghanaian heard his own village dialect, and his village was deep in the African bush so no New Zealander could ever know it. Yet my friend spoke clearly and understandably in that dialect. This was witnessed by everyone in that prayer meeting. It wasn't an unproven claim because I spoke both to my friend and the Ghanaian afterward and they told me that story. No theory or objection can say anything different unless you want to call my friends liars.

The second even happened when I spoke the Maori language fluently and articulately when I prayed in tongues. The Maori lady knew I had never learned her language and that even if I had, I could never have spoken the things I did without a European accent. She heard her language fluently and without an accent. So, are you saying that I am a liar and the Maori lady was mistaken when she clearly heard her language coming out of my mouth as if I was a fluent Maori speaker? Come on!

I have another friend who fellowshipped with his parents in a Pentecostal church in Kenya. He personally witnessed some Africans coming in from the bush, where they had never seen a white man before, getting filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues. The remarkable thing was that one or two praised God in absolute Oxford English without an African accent, that no African could do even if he was totally fluent in English. My friend Derek demonstrated the characteristics of the African accept when they spoke English. There is a distinctive accent even with European Africans from Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It is just the same with English spoken with an American, Australian, or New Zealand accent. Even Northern American accents are totally different from Southern American. Yet these Africans spoke in English with a pure Oxford accent. My friend was an eye witness to it. Want to call him a liar?

I think that these real-life examples totally destroys your argument. You might be too prejudiced to accept these testmonies, even from me, but there are others who read this post who will be convinced and encouraged to seek the gift of tongues for themselves, and if they PM me, I am happy to assist them.

If you wish to base your theology on yours or other peoples fanciful experiences and unproven stories rather than scripture that is your prerogative. But don't expect me or other evangelicals to affirm charismatic/pentecostal doctrines when they are contrary to or unsupported by scripture.

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 19, 2017

swordsman1 said:
If you wish to base your theology on yours or other peoples fanciful experiences and unproven stories rather than scripture that is your prerogative. But don't expect me or other evangelicals to affirm charismatic/pentecostal doctrines when they are contrary to or unsupported by scripture.

You've never had the revelation or the experience so you are talking from an absolute lack of knowledge. The Pharisees had total knowledge of Scripture yet they missed that Jesus was their Messiah. Luke had only the Old Testament Scriptures, the same as Paul, so they had to rely on the nature of the experience. Paul based his teaching on tongues through personal experience, because there were no references to it in Old Testament Scripture. There was no New Testament at the time. So your argument is totally without foundation and unreliable.

In effect, you are calling my friends, me and those who heard the tongues in their own languages fanciful liars. But I don't care about that because you have to stand before God one day and answer to Him. In the meantime I will just get on with enjoying the gifts of the Spirit and praying in tongues. Nothing you have said convinces me otherwise.

swordsman1 · Feb 20, 2017

Oscarr said:
You've never had the revelation or the experience so you are talking from an absolute lack of knowledge. The Pharisees had total knowledge of Scripture yet they missed that Jesus was their Messiah. Luke had only the Old Testament Scriptures, the same as Paul, so they had to rely on the nature of the experience. Paul based his teaching on tongues through personal experience, because there were no references to it in Old Testament Scripture. There was no New Testament at the time. So your argument is totally without foundation and unreliable.

In effect, you are calling my friends, me and those who heard the tongues in their own languages fanciful liars. But I don't care about that because you have to stand before God one day and answer to Him. In the meantime I will just get on with enjoying the gifts of the Spirit and praying in tongues. Nothing you have said convinces me otherwise.

Not so.

It wasn't their lack of experience that led the Pharisees to reject Jesus, it was the hardness of their hearts. They had FIRST HAND experience of Jesus's miracles so had no excuse. They knew he was from God, yet still rejected him.

We can take Paul's words as guaranteed truth because he was an Apostle of Christ writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I cannot say the same about the second hand and third hand stories you quoted. I only have your word that they are truth, and even then I can see holes in the stories to explain them differently. Should I base my theology on dubious second hand stories from people I have never met, or should I base it on scripture? And you do realise your stories of tongues being human languages doesn't just supposedly 'destroy my argument' but also those of all the charismatic/pentecostal teachers who argue that only on Pentecost did people speak in human tongues, and that all subsequent occasions, including those of today, are a non-human language?

You also said you only spoke in a foreign human language once in your life. So what about the hundreds of other times you spoke in tongues? What were they? Human or non-human?

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 20, 2017

It is really sad that because of the teaching you have received from false Bible teachers you have been robbed of an enhanced experience with God. I could carry on with you ad infinitem but I could never convince you that the modern Pentecostal/Charismatic use of tongues is genuinely from the Holy Spirit. My daughter studied psychology and she says that things that have been drummed into a person over a period of time could not be dislodged easily. It is not because they won't believe the alternatives, but they cannot because they are blinded by the constant repeating of the false teaching during their formative years.

I can only say that your foundation teaching on tongues has been peddled to you by vain scribblers who have been influence by the lies peddled to them by their cessationist teachers, and so on back through the generations of false teachers who have peddled their false, lying interpretations of the Bible.

The problem is that even though I can show you through Scripture and personal experience that tongues is genuine, all this is filter through your basic foundational beliefs which tell you that no matter what is said in support of tongues is false.

This is the error that Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses have. We can argue with them until the cows come home, but they will never see the truth of the gospel without a supernatural intervention from God.

I view these false teachers who say that tongues is false and from the devil on the same the level as Muslims, JWs and Mormons. All of these peddle rubbish and call it Christian doctrine.

Sorry about the way I say things. I am a Kiwi and we call a spade a spade. Fortunately for you I am not Martin Luther (who prayed in tongues by the way), or an Australian because my choice of language might get me kicked off the forum!

4x4toy · Feb 21, 2017

My testimony, I had had quite a conversion experience but didn't read and pray like I should even though I knew Jesus had saved me .. Fast forward a couple years , I was living pretty much backslid when Jesus dropped in .. I had two dreams in two nights, the 2nd where I was out of the presence of God .. The most horrible thing I've ever experienced x 1000.. I lived in torment and horror for weeks questioning my salvation, every day all day I was like God, when will I know, how can I know over and over even though I had started to church every time the doors were open . But one morning at work I was also at work with God "God when will I know ?" I heard an audible voice say "next year, January first the new year" . I turned around to see who was there speaking, nobody was there . This was probably April or May and I'm thinking "wow" .. Then 5 minutes later I'm back to torment when will I know . OK after being in church "Baptist" I gradually began to calm down and get right, after a few months I was back on track with Jesus and forgot about the incident . Some how I met up with a sheriffs deputy and we ended up talking about Jesus and speaking in tongues as an evidence of salvation among other things , he was a black guy and invited me to his church to be baptized in the Holy Spirit , anyway to shorten the story my wife and I ended up at his church on new years eve . the preacher laid hands on me and told me to start shouting hallelujah, then he said what would seem like a knot from my belly would move from my belly up and out of my mouth , I felt the knot and when it moved up out of my mouth I couldn't say hallelujah but I began speaking words , I sat there listening to myself speak for several minutes then it just cut off and stopped, OK two weeks later my son brought his globe in to show me some stuff he was learning in school, I noticed the international date line when suddenly it came to me that God said I'd know for sure New Year then realized though we were at a new years eve service that the New Year had actually dawned on Earth and that I had the evidence of speaking in tongues as God had said .. Nobody can tell me God is not in controll

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 21, 2017

4x4toy said:
My testimony, I had had quite a conversion experience but didn't read and pray like I should even though I knew Jesus had saved me .. Fast forward a couple years , I was living pretty much backslid when Jesus dropped in .. I had two dreams in two nights, the 2nd where I was out of the presence of God .. The most horrible thing I've ever experienced x 1000.. I lived in torment and horror for weeks questioning my salvation, every day all day I was like God, when will I know, how can I know over and over even though I had started to church every time the doors were open . But one morning at work I was also at work with God "God when will I know ?" I heard an audible voice say "next year, January first the new year" . I turned around to see who was there speaking, nobody was there . This was probably April or May and I'm thinking "wow" .. Then 5 minutes later I'm back to torment when will I know . OK after being in church "Baptist" I gradually began to calm down and get right, after a few months I was back on track with Jesus and forgot about the incident . Some how I met up with a sheriffs deputy and we ended up talking about Jesus and speaking in tongues as an evidence of salvation among other things , he was a black guy and invited me to his church to be baptized in the Holy Spirit , anyway to shorten the story my wife and I ended up at his church on new years eve . the preacher laid hands on me and told me to start shouting hallelujah, then he said what would seem like a knot from my belly would move from my belly up and out of my mouth , I felt the knot and when it moved up out of my mouth I couldn't say hallelujah but I began speaking words , I sat there listening to myself speak for several minutes then it just cut off and stopped, OK two weeks later my son brought his globe in to show me some stuff he was learning in school, I noticed the international date line when suddenly it came to me that God said I'd know for sure New Year then realized though we were at a new years eve service that the New Year had actually dawned on Earth and that I had the evidence of speaking in tongues as God had said .. Nobody can tell me God is not in controll

An interesting testimony!

swordsman1 · Feb 21, 2017

Oscarr said:
It is really sad that because of the teaching you have received from false Bible teachers you have been robbed of an enhanced experience with God. I could carry on with you ad infinitem but I could never convince you that the modern Pentecostal/Charismatic use of tongues is genuinely from the Holy Spirit. My daughter studied psychology and she says that things that have been drummed into a person over a period of time could not be dislodged easily. It is not because they won't believe the alternatives, but they cannot because they are blinded by the constant repeating of the false teaching during their formative years.

I can only say that your foundation teaching on tongues has been peddled to you by vain scribblers who have been influence by the lies peddled to them by their cessationist teachers, and so on back through the generations of false teachers who have peddled their false, lying interpretations of the Bible.

The problem is that even though I can show you through Scripture and personal experience that tongues is genuine, all this is filter through your basic foundational beliefs which tell you that no matter what is said in support of tongues is false.

This is the error that Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses have. We can argue with them until the cows come home, but they will never see the truth of the gospel without a supernatural intervention from God.

I view these false teachers who say that tongues is false and from the devil on the same the level as Muslims, JWs and Mormons. All of these peddle rubbish and call it Christian doctrine.

Sorry about the way I say things. I am a Kiwi and we call a spade a spade. Fortunately for you I am not Martin Luther (who prayed in tongues by the way), or an Australian because my choice of language might get me kicked off the forum!

As I said before, I never had cessationism 'drummed into me'. I came to the conclusion that cessationism was correct on my own volition after in depth study of scripture to see if the practices and teachings of charismatics were biblical. I discovered that the gibberish sounding 'heavenly' language practiced today is not the tongues of the New Testament; that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a second blessing; that prophecy is not a fuzzy feeling; that individuals today do not heal and perform miracles as the disciples did; etc. I think anyone who studies scripture without any preconceptions, applying the correct techniques of hermeneutics, will come to the same conclusion.

4x4toy · Feb 21, 2017

Oscarr said:
An interesting testimony!

I've also had word for word interpretation of tongues spoken in church, a couple times I think I should have stood up and give the interpretation but I wasn't sure so I remained silent, then someone else would stand up with the interpretation, but I always went to them after service to confirm their interpretation .. I think lot's of folks have messages and interpretations but are not confident enough to carry through to speak out ..

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 21, 2017

swordsman1 said:
We can be sure that all of what God wants us to know about tongues or any other aspect of the Christian faith is revealed in scripture (2 Tim 3:16-17). So there is no point second guessing or reading our own ideas into the Bible's silence.

I presume you are referring to 1 Cor 12:10 "to another various kinds of tongues". The Greek word for kinds is 'genos' which is kinds from the same family, not class or type. So kinds of flowers would be rose, tulip, daffodil; kinds of tongues would be Persian, Latin, Arabic, etc. The same word 'genos' appears in 1 Cor 14:10 "There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of languages in the world".

We know for sure that Paul (and Peter) believed that tongues, like all spiritual gifts, were meant be used to benefit others.

Nor is there any record of Paul speaking tongues in private. So we must take an educated guess as to where it took place. In private to benefit self, or in public to benefit others?

Public places are where Paul is most likely to have spoken in tongues, to convince others of his authenticity. The other accounts in Acts were new believers speaking in tongues to convince the apostles that new groups of people were to be added to the church.

This might surprise you, but I would pray that God might heal them. Contrary to popular belief cessationists do believe in healing. God can, and does heal providentially and sometimes miraculously in response to prayer. We just don't believe that individuals have the gift of healing today. Praying for healing is not the gift of healing. If you have to pray for a person to be healed that is a sure sign that you do not have the gift of healing. The disciples never prayed for people to be healed, they simply commanded or touched the person and they were instantly and completely healed.

We can only go by what scripture says. Scripture says that spiritual gifts are meant to be for the benefit of others.

How do you know the person praying didn't already know some words of the African language and that came out, perhaps even subconsciously (linguistic studies have shown that to happen). Or that the African just recognized a couple of words. I know someone who claimed he was miraculously speaking Italian because an Italian recognized the words. On closer inspection it turned out the only words they recognized were "ti amo" (I love you) which is exactly the kind of random syllable phrase that comes out in today's tongues. Or that the African was mistaken, or deluded, or embellishing.

At the end of the day these are all unproven 2nd hand stories. Am I likely to be convinced a doctrine is true because I hear a few fanciful unproven stories? Absolutely not.

If today's tongues are really foreign languages (even obscure tribal dialects), then why haven't the linguists who have academically studied modern tongues immediately spotted this? They can quickly tell if an utterance is really a language, even one they have never heard before by identifying its linguistic structure. But all their studies have never found a single proven case of xenoglossy, but always "strings of syllables made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly" and "fundamentally not a language".

It stands to reason that anyone who tries to demonstrate tongues to have it examined by a linguist would be misusing the gift and therefore what would be spoken would be of the flesh and not of the Spirit; so it would be clear the what the linguist would hear would be gibberish because that is what it would be if used for that purpose. But when a person is praying secretly in tongues with God being the only listener then He can be the only Judge of it. If a linguist went to a church service and heard the tongues there I am sure that the Holy Spirit would make sure that all he heard was gibberish as well because He would know that the linguist was not there to worship God, but just to examine the tongues. It would be like the miracle of Pentecost in reverse. Contrary to people hearing their own dialects by a miracle, even though the tongues were genuine in the church service, by a reverse miracle all the linguist would hear are disconnected sounds and not an articulate language while all the genuine worshippers would hear the articulate language which would be denied to the linguist.

Biblicist · Feb 21, 2017

Oscarr said:
It is really sad that because of the teaching you have received from false Bible teachers you have been robbed of an enhanced experience with God. I could carry on with you ad infinitem but I could never convince you that the modern Pentecostal/Charismatic use of tongues is genuinely from the Holy Spirit. . .

That was a good post Oscar, though it was probably a bit tame!!

When I came to the Lord as a teenager it was in a cessationist environment, though from memory I’m not sure if I ever came across that particular word as I suspect most within my fairly wide circle of association were simply this way for no other reason than it was “the way it was”. This was prior to the Internet and Satellite services so for many who lived even within a large metropolis it was very easy to uncritically accept the status quo so to speak.

For me, as I began to read the Bible I started to notice a disparity with what I was seeing around me with the church scene here in Melbourne as against that of the written record of the early Church. Within only months of my conversion, I quickly found myself heavily involved within the cessationist world with Youth for Christ and with a very active Christian Camp outside of our city; what I began to notice was a general disconnect with many youth (and probably adults) to the basics of the Gospel message, where the victorious Christian life was not something we seemed to speak proudly of, where for most part we relied on the stores of our missionaries to keep the spark going.

Once I left school and had my own finances along with a car which helped me to access the only Christian bookstore in our city, I then began to realise that I was in the middle of the worldwide Charismatic Renewal where I was reading book after book about what was happening in the world around me, which I quickly realised related more to what I was reading in the Scriptures.

So from what I have seen over the years, there are certainly ‘ministries’ out there that are probably little more than wolves-in-sheeps clothing where they seem to be hellbent on undermining the Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit and for that matter with the Fullness of the Ministry of the Father and Son as well; but there are also the majority who for probably no other reason were and are just as I was, where our human frailty and shortcomings simply allow us to accept the humanist status-quo that is so prevalent within many of our churches.

So even though there are 'ministries' out there that reflect more the attitude of the Sadducees, I would say that for most of those who are still within the cessationist worldview, that this has come around not so much from a conscious decision but that they have simply accepted the status-quo where they in most part uncritically take on what is around them.

Since the late 1970's there has risen a new component of the traditional Evangelical world, where this very sizable group which is known as those who are "open-but-cautious" are not so much experientially Continuist but their theology has them being theologically Continuist. Now I doubt if many of them could present a well constructed Full Gospel theology, but either they or their leaders have come to the realisation that cessastionism is a legacy worldview that cannot be supported from within the Scriptures, but for whatever reason their daily walk see's their ministry as being the way it has been for countless decades, but where they are still open to the Ministry of the Holy Spirit within their lives, just as we Pentecostals are.

I would be inclined to say that the cessationist worldview, which is of course the natural position of the atheist and the liberal church goer, is probably more the domain of the left-wing and fundamentalist elements within the Evangelical world; whereas the majority of enlightened Evangelicals are at least accepting of the Full Gospel message.

Biblicist · Feb 21, 2017

4x4toy said:
I've also had word for word interpretation of tongues spoken in church, a couple times I think I should have stood up and give the interpretation but I wasn't sure so I remained silent, then someone else would stand up with the interpretation, but I always went to them after service to confirm their interpretation .. I think lot's of folks have messages and interpretations but are not confident enough to carry through to speak out ..

There is definitely a lot of truth to this!

Presbyterian Continuist · Feb 21, 2017

Biblicist said:
That was a good post Oscar, though it was probably a bit tame!!

When I came to the Lord as a teenager it was in a cessationist environment, though from memory I’m not sure if I ever came across that particular word as I suspect most within my fairly wide circle of association were simply this way for no other reason than it was “the way it was”. This was prior to the Internet and Satellite services so for many who lived even within a large metropolis it was very easy to uncritically accept the status quo so to speak.

For me, as I began to read the Bible I started to notice a disparity with what I was seeing around me with the church scene here in Melbourne as against that of the written record of the early Church. Within only months of my conversion, I quickly found myself heavily involved within the cessationist world with Youth for Christ and with a very active Christian Camp outside of our city; what I began to notice was a general disconnect with many youth (and probably adults) to the basics of the Gospel message, where the victorious Christian life was not something we seemed to speak proudly of, where for most part we relied on the stores of our missionaries to keep the spark going.

Once I left school and had my own finances along with a car which helped me to access the only Christian bookstore in our city, I then began to realise that I was in the middle of the worldwide Charismatic Renewal where I was reading book after book about what was happening in the world around me, which I quickly realised related more to what I was reading in the Scriptures.

So from what I have seen over the years, there are certainly ‘ministries’ out there that are probably little more than wolves-in-sheeps clothing where they seem to be hellbent on undermining the Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit and for that matter with the Fullness of the Ministry of the Father and Son as well; but there are also the majority who for probably no other reason were and are just as I was, where our human frailty and shortcomings simply allow us to accept the humanist status-quo that is so prevalent within many of our churches.

So even though there are 'ministries' out there that reflect more the attitude of the Sadducees, I would say that for most of those who are still within the cessationist worldview, that this has come around not so much from a conscious decision but that they have simply accepted the status-quo where they in most part uncritically take on what is around them.

Since the late 1970's there has risen a new component of the traditional Evangelical world, where this very sizable group which is known as those who are "open-but-cautious" are not so much experientially Continuist but their theology has them being theologically Continuist. Now I doubt if many of them could present a well constructed Full Gospel theology, but either they or their leaders have come to the realisation that cessastionism is a legacy worldview that cannot be supported from within the Scriptures, but for whatever reason their daily walk see's their ministry as being the way it has been for countless decades, but where they are still open to the Ministry of the Holy Spirit within their lives, just as we Pentecostals are.

I would be inclined to say that the cessationist worldview, which is of course the natural position of the atheist and the liberal church goer, is probably more the domain of the left-wing and fundamentalist elements within the Evangelical world; whereas the majority of enlightened Evangelicals are at least accepting of the Full Gospel message.

Being an Aussie, you will appreciate that while Kiwis call a spade a spade, Aussies are more forthright about it! So I can understand that my comments might have been a bit tamer than you might prefer. I did PM a friend on the forum and I suggested what an Aussie might say about false cessationist doctrine, and I could not repeat it on the public forum! I was reading the account of a battle in the Western Desert during world war 2. There was a wounded German soldier caught in the barbed wire and he "was making a lot of noise". An Australian soldier with his rifle and bayonet was dancing around him, calling out, "What shall I do with this b*gg*r?" A voice from the Australian lines called out, "Stick it up his ar*e and get on with it!" There is no one in the world outside of Australia who would say it that way! Maybe we should say the same about cessationist doctrine - that they can stick it up their ar*e!. As a Kiwi, I would say that there is a black hole in the middle of his church auditorium where the sun don't shine and they can stick it in there!

Daniel Marsh · Feb 21, 2017

I am not sure if I agree or disagree with you, but I see some exegetical errors in this post.

Deadworm said:
For more coherent discussion, I have lettered and numbered the points of my case, so readers can refer to them in their response.

A. The tongues (glossolalia) in Acts 2 are neither definitive nor normative for succeeding manifestations of this spiritual gift.
1 Most commentaries agree that Peter's words "This is that" (Acts 2:16) identify the alleged drunken babble in Acts 2 as the prophesying foretold in Joel 2:28.

Joel 2:28Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
God Will Give His Spirit to All People
28 “After this,
I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will have dreams,
and your young men will see visions.

As you can see, tongues is not foretold there in context --- what is are prophesy, dreams and visions.

2. The tongues at Ephesus are distinguished from prophesying (19:5-6).

"5 When these followers heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 Then Paul laid his hands on them, and the Holy Spirit came on them. They began speaking different languages and prophesying."

From NET Bible, NET Bible Online
footnotes on highlighted above text.

16 tn The imperfect verb ἐλάλουν (elaloun) has been translated as an ingressive imperfect.

17 tn The imperfect verb ἐπροφήτευον (eprofhteuon) has been translated as an ingressive imperfect.

The Greek grammars the same for both sides of kai which in this context equates speaking different languages with prophesying. Look into exegetical not devotional Bible Commentaries and word studies.

3. At Ephesus and in Cornelius' house (10:44-47), the tongues are neither interpreted nor understood and are experienced as mysterious gibberish.

44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who were listening to his speech. 45 The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the Holy Spirit had been poured out as a gift also to people who were not Jews. 46 They heard them speaking different languages and praising God. Then Peter said, 47 “How can anyone object to these people being baptized in water? They have received the Holy Spirit the same as we did!” 48 So Peter told them to baptize Cornelius and his relatives and friends in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.

If the Jews could not understand the Languages that were being spoken, then would know know it was in different languages and would not be impressed by gibberish like mystery religions do.

Matthew 6:7
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

4. Paul does not restrict glossolalia to unknown human languages.
a. Paul uses the analogy of tongues as "indistinct notes" of a musical instrument (1 Corinthians 14:8).

The purpose of the analogy in I cor 14 is to demonstrate it is in fact known human languages to others.

1 Corinthians 12

25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.

26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

29 Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?

30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?

31 But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.

The series of questions Paul asks can only be answered NO.

In I cor 13, Paul speaks in hypothetical language using exaggerations.

1 Corinthians 13King James Version (KJV)
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.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

b. In Greek the word "glosses" means not only "language, " but "an expression which in speech or manner is strange and obscure."

Strong's Greek: 1100. γλῶσσα (glóssa) -- the tongue, a language

from the contexts of where speaking in tongues is used, one must employ all the texts involved to see that we are speaking of human languages that are unknown to the speaker.

Acts 2

5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

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

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.

12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?

For example, the female prophet (Pythia) at Delphi utters oracles in gibberish or a "secret language" which can be called "tongues," which need interpretation, not translation (For this and other Greek examples, see TDNT 1:720).

Is this reference online where everyone can read the full page for itself? because you are committing one of the well known word study fallacies that Carson speaks of in his book Exegetical Fallacies...

c. Paul can identify some glossolalia as "tongues of angels (13:1). Swordsman argues that this expression is a series of hypotheticals and therefore does not correspond with actual glossolalia at Corinth. 3 points refute this claim.
(i) Paul equates Corinthian glossolalia with being "zealous for spirits" (Greek: pneumata--14:12). Political correctness has prompted the mistranslation of pneumata as "spiritual gifts." In fact, Angels are "ministering spirits (Hebrews 1:14)" and are thus the referent here. Therefore, Paul believes that glossolalia can be angelic tongues.

This is just an amazing combination of exegetical fallacies. Swordsman is right because he read I Cor 13 in context.

(ii) There is Jewish precedent for Paul's believe that believers can speak in angelic tongues. Paul's revered contemporary, Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, had a reputation for being able to interpret angelic tongues; and people speak in angelic tongues in the later Testament of Job.

JOHANAN B. ZAKKAI - JewishEncyclopedia.com makes no such claim for him.

I did find such a claim here online for this rabbi, Google But there was no documentation given of any kind.

What is your primary source for this Rabbi?

Concerning Testament of Job, summary given here.

"
Job's Three Daughters.

After having distributed his property among his seven sons, Job gave to each of his three daughters, out of a hidden treasure-box, three-stringed girdles which God had given him that by their magic power he might be cured of his leprosy and be endowed with new physical and spiritual strength, so that he might forecast all the secrets of the future. As soon as his daughters put these girdles around their bodies they were transfigured, and, in the voices of angels, archangels (heavenly archons), and cherubim, sang hymns echoing the mysteries of heaven, all of which were written down by Nahor, the brother of Job.

Job, on seeing death approach, gave a cithara to his first daughter, Day ("Yemimah"), a censer to his second, Kassiah ("Perfume"), and a timbrel to his third, Amaltheas Horn ("Ḳeren ha-Puk"), that they might welcome the holy angels who came to take his soul; and while they played and glorified God in the holy dialect, He who sitteth upon the Great Chariot came and took the soul of Job away with a kiss and carried it eastward, where the Heavenly Throne is erected. Amid the singing of his daughters and the great mourning of the people, particularly the poor and the fatherless, his body was taken to the grave. The dirge is given at the close of the book (ch. xi-xii., ed. Kohler; xli.-lii., ed. James)."

JOB, TESTAMENT OF - JewishEncyclopedia.com

From the context, it is nothing like The Holy Spirit giving one the gift of languages in the Bible.

What is known that this proof section was added by cultists,

"A suggestion has been made that the Montanists, a second-century pneumatic-prophetic Christian group, may be responsible for the final section of the document (TJob 46-53), where praise of patient endurance gives way to the daughters of Job speaking the language of the angels and the Cherubim. In their contest with the Montanists, the orthodox Christians demanded biblical precedent for prophets who spoke in ecstasy (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V.17.1-3). Though proof is not possible, it is an attractive possibility to think that the TJob in its present form was furnished by the Montanists as a rigged pseudo-canonical precedent to legitimate their own ecstatic, and largely female, prophecy."

Testament of Job
Google

(iii) True, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 uses extreme hypotheticals, but these hypothetical examples correspond with real possibilities: e.g. mountain-moving faith (Mark 11;23--"mountain" is symbolic); sacrificing all one's possessions for the poor (10:21).
(iv) Thus, Paul's expression "various kinds of tongues" in 1 Corinthians 12:10) can include both human and angelic tongues.

what about burning your body?

B. Paul champions and encourages speaking in tongues during private prayer.
1. In 14:4 Paul encourages private tongues as self-edification (Greek: oikodoeo--14:4). The use of "oikodomeo" for edifying or building up believers is always positive in Paul. This point is not undermined by Paul's preference in 14:4 for edifying the church. Thus, swordsman point that 14:4 is critical, though true, misses the mark.

based on the errors you already did, I wonder who is right.

2. Paul draws a distinction between speaking in tongues at home to
God and "for oneself" (Greek: heautw"--14:28) and "messages" in tongues to be interpreted in church and obeyed (14:21-22, citing Isaiah 28:;11-12). Only such "messages" in tongues are "a sign for unbelievers."

It is only a sign if it is in their own language like in Acts 2, not gibberish.

3. Paul offers himself as our role model when he boasts that he speaks in tongues "more than you all (14:18)" He must be referring to private tongues here, because there is not a shred of evidence that blurts out in tongues when he is evangelizing his pagan audience. Besides, Greek is the language of the people he evangelizes. So if he spoke in uninterpreted tongues to them, they wouldn't understand him!

Paul also spoke in Hebrew. We are not told if he spoke Latin while in prison in Rome.

4. Praying in tongues at home takes 2 forms:
a. Praise and thanksgiving addressed to God (14:15-17)
b. Tongues as a means of intercession according to God's will (Romans 8:26)
Romans 8:26 deals with praying in the Spirit, that is, with the Spirit role in compensating for our ignorance about how to pray. The expression "groans too deep for words" or, better, "wordless groans" (Greek: "stenagmoi alaletoi") conveys the Spirit's intention in praying through us and a similar expression is used to describe the Pythia's unintelligible babble at Delphi, which must then be interpreted by a prophet (see e.g. Lucan, Civil War).

Romans 8 in context has to do with the HS praying a part from the believer, not though you. He uses words that can not even come out of your mouth.

I am curious about your mystry religion sources. I do not think Those of us with a Jewish background, nor the Jewish people in Jesus' day would be impressed by gibberish, since that would be associated with pagan religions.

C. You are grieving the Holy Spirit if you ignore Paul's prompting to diligently strive to speak in tongues.

IS one grieving the HS, if they do not seek to prophesy instead? or to gain any of the higher gifts?

1. Christians ignore this obligation because they misinterpret 12;28-29 to mean that tongues is a gift for a chosen few. Paul's point here is that not everyone exercises gifts of tongues, prophesy, and the other gifts listed. But in the case of tongues and prophecy, Paul wants us all to exercise these 2 gifts (14:5) and insists, "You can all prophesy one by one (14:31)."

I cor 14 is the context of discipline in the church thus the word all there would not mean everyone present is part of the all, just those who have a specific gift.

1 Corinthians 12:28-301599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
28 helpers, governors, diversity of tongues.

29 Are all Apostles? are all Prophets? are all teachers?

30 Are all doers of miracles? have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?

To see if others misunderstand above, please answer this one question.

Are you an Apostle, Prophet, teacher-pastor, do miracles, have the gift of healing and gift of servant and gift of administrator and gift of speaking in languages of both men and angels(as you claim exists) and have the gift of interpreting?

If you lack even one of those gifts or offices, then you must answer NO which is the grammar of the Greek.

2. Paul's instructs us" to strive for the best gifts (12:31; cp. 14:1)" and then in the next breath mentions 4 of the gifts listed in 12;8-10 (tongues, prophecy, faith, word of knowledge). When he repeats this injunction in 14:1, tongues is treated as just as "great" as prophecy, if the tongues are interpreted (14:5). Thus, it is a mistake to treat tongues as the least of the gifts because it is mentioned last in 12:8-10. It is mentioned last only because a failure to interpret tongues has made it a source of controversy in Corinth.

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

thus your interpretation creates a contradiction with verse five in the same chapter.

The Need to Speak in Tongues at Home

Senior Veteran

Well-Known Member

Senior Veteran

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Senior Veteran

Senior Veteran

Well-Known Member

Senior Veteran

Well-Known Member

Senior Veteran

Newbie

Senior Veteran

Well-Known Member

Newbie

Senior Veteran

Full Gospel believer

Full Gospel believer

Senior Veteran

Well-Known Member

Similar threads