My favorite verse on the truth of the Trinity is as follows:
"The one true God exists eternally as three distinct persons each person possessing within Himself all of the attributes required that He might rightfully refer to Himself as the one true God."
I can't remember exactly where it says that or the equivalent of that. Can you help me out? I wouldn't want to incur your wrath for building a doctrine on the systematic consideration of several different passages as you have taken others here to task for doing.
Another favorite is where it says:
"Jesus Christ in the incarnation of God and is fully God and fully man in hypo static union."
I'm sure we both see that in the scriptures. But could you please provide the verse for me where it says exactly that?
Can you provide for us the verse that says exactly that as per your examples above?
But --- assuming for a moment that that is true --- perhaps that would explain the explosion of success in evangelism being experienced by Pentecostal groups in areas of the world where all other groups are in decline for the most part.
Nonsense - the verse says no such thing.
No they were not clearly speaking in foreign tongues. They were being heard as speaking in foreign tongues. Big difference.
The idea that John spoke spontaneously in, say, French just as a couple of Frenchmen walked close to him and heard him so speaking; and Andrew spoke in, say, Latin just as a few Latin types walked close to him and heard him so speaking; and Matthew spoke in, say, German just as a couple of Germans walked close to him and heard him so speaking; etc. etc. is simply preposterous.
The emphasis in the passage is that God allowed certain people (the elect if you will) to hear the disciples in their own language and understand what was being said about Jesus while others were not provided that personal understanding and thought them drunk and just babbling.
I've spent many a day at a Seattle market where many languages are routinely heard as people walk by. Very similar, I suppose, th Jerusalem environment on the day of Pentecost.
While God has never given me the ability to understand what they were say in my own language - neither have I ever once thought that the people I heard speaking in Japanese or Chinese were drunk at 9 o'clock in the morning.
People often read into passages what they want to read into them when it really make no sense to do so. Acts 2 is one of those instances where it is often done.
People who want to refute tongues of various kinds often say that all of the instances in the Bible are of people speaking in known languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. There is no scripture that tells us that and, frankly, the idea that the family of Cornelius for instance necessarily started spontaneously speaking in Bulgarian or even Hebrew rather than a language that would sound to many as merely babbling as at Pentecost is preposterous as I see it.
Nor does the OP.
Amen.
Me too - but I'm giving my two cents worth anyway. Probably not a wise thing to do. But then I don't need to answer back to any who may comment on this post and may not.
I agree with you.
Which is why more people here should consider the fact that Pentecostalism and others who speak in tongues and preach about a 2nd experience with the Holy Spirit beyond simple regeneration - are the fastest growing branch of Christianity today. While most of Christianity is in decline - charismatics and those who value tongues for today are multiplying around the world.
There are many areas where evangelism is being done by various groups where the success of these tongue speaking evangelism simply dwarfs all of the other outreach successes combined.
