Speaking in tongues

paul1149 said:

Many time tongues is emphasized, but not all. Just one example - the 3000 that came in on Pentecost, no mention is made of them speaking in tongues. Undoubtedly, many did. But it is not mentioned.

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In the light of the fact that when Paul wrote his letter to churches he was dealing with specific issues that were reported to him. 1 Corinthians 12 13 and 14 were written because of the Corinthian's ignorance of the gifts, a lack of love, and the inappropriate use of the tongues in public services. So, if there are no specific issues, Paul would not have seen the need to write about them because the members of particular churches were doing things correctly. Why fix something that ain't broke? So, it could very well be that praying in tongues and using tongues and interpretation in churches was so normal and widespread that Paul saw no need to write about them to churches other than the Corinthians who were misusing them to the detriment of the decency and order of their meetings.

topher694 said:

A. The church you are referring to exists, granted it is not common these days.
B. My point was that such talk doesn't seem to answer or help the OP, but that ship has probably already sailed.

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I think it gives an understanding of why there is so much falsehood and misuse of the gifts, and the genuine manifestations seem to be far and few between and hard to find.

I wonder, what ideas do you have to try and address the problem?

Oscarr said:

I think it gives an understanding of why there is so much falsehood and misuse of the gifts, and the genuine manifestations seem to be far and few between and hard to find.

I wonder, what ideas do you have to try and address the problem?

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I am addressing the problem to the degree I can, but that's more than can be put in a single post. I've been teaching a class every Monday night for 18 weeks now on the Holy Spirit, the gifts, the fruit. The answer is just what the Bible says, to equip, demonstrate, activate, empower and send. And, that isn't done overnight.

topher694 said:

I am addressing the problem to the degree I can, but that's more than can be put in a single post. I've been teaching a class every Monday night for 18 weeks now on the Holy Spirit, the gifts, the fruit. The answer is just what the Bible says, to equip, demonstrate, activate, empower and send. And, that isn't done overnight.

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Well, we are on the same page there! Before I relocated to Christchurch, I was involved in a ministry that promoted training in the Spiritual gifts, which involved in bi-monthly prophetic days in which the morning was taken up with teaching, and the afternoon spent in workshop groups. All prophecies were recorded for accountability purposes. This was all done in a safe, non criticising environment where people could take chances, stepping out in faith without the fear of being criticised for being a "false prophet" if they made an error. These prophetic days were led by those with many years experience in the prophetic and so were able to give sound guidance. The emphasis is on Scripture and that any manifestation of the prophetic had to be consistent with the teaching and spirit of the Scripture.

Revealing of sin in a person, prediction of the future, "new" revelation not already written in Scripture, dealing with "hatches", "matches" and "dispatches" was not permitted.

Along with the bi-monthly prophetic days, I attended a bi-weekly prophetic equipping evening which followed the principles used in the Prophetic Days.

These sessions promoted sound teaching and practice and weeded out any wacky stuff that might infiltrate. Any pelican who tried to introduce inappropriate personal prophecies were soon shut down and they tended not to continue attending.

The people who attended came from a wide range of Pentecostal, Charismatic and Evangelical churches. Denomination was never an issue; in fact those labels were left outside the door.

Oscarr said:

Well, we are on the same page there! Before I relocated to Christchurch, I was involved in a ministry that promoted training in the Spiritual gifts, which involved in bi-monthly prophetic days in which the morning was taken up with teaching, and the afternoon spent in workshop groups. All prophecies were recorded for accountability purposes. This was all done in a safe, non criticising environment where people could take chances, stepping out in faith without the fear of being criticised for being a "false prophet" if they made an error. These prophetic days were led by those with many years experience in the prophetic and so were able to give sound guidance. The emphasis is on Scripture and that any manifestation of the prophetic had to be consistent with the teaching and spirit of the Scripture.

Revealing of sin in a person, prediction of the future, "new" revelation not already written in Scripture, dealing with "hatches", "matches" and "dispatches" was not permitted.

Along with the bi-monthly prophetic days, I attended a bi-weekly prophetic equipping evening which followed the principles used in the Prophetic Days.

These sessions promoted sound teaching and practice and weeded out any wacky stuff that might infiltrate. Any pelican who tried to introduce inappropriate personal prophecies were soon shut down and they tended not to continue attending.

The people who attended came from a wide range of Pentecostal, Charismatic and Evangelical churches. Denomination was never an issue; in fact those labels were left outside the door.

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That's pretty much what we have been doing for years. Then, we put it into practice every week for church. I firmly believe the way to truly change things is to focus on demonstrating the authentic as opposed to constantly calling out the inauthentic (I acknowledge that there is a time in place for that, but it shouldn't be the focus)

topher694 said:

That's pretty much what we have been doing for years. Then, we put it into practice every week for church. I firmly believe the way to truly change things is to focus on demonstrating the authentic as opposed to constantly calling out the inauthentic (I acknowledge that there is a time in place for that, but it shouldn't be the focus)

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I agree.

I guess the reason why I talk about Constantine corrupting the church with his pagan ideas, and the invasion of the occult in the Charismatic churches is to counter those to maintain that God's purpose was to cease the gifts after the last Apostle, which it wasn't. Francis MacNutt wrote a book about the church being its own worst enemy concerning the gifts of the Spirit, and I enjoyed reading it because it put a lot of good things into focus about how the church itself shot itself in the foot concerning the gifts.

I agree that the more folk we are able to show the right way of manifesting the gifts, the more influence can be made to get the genuine gifts into the mainstream.

Oscarr said:

I agree.

I guess the reason why I talk about Constantine corrupting the church with his pagan ideas, and the invasion of the occult in the Charismatic churches is to counter those to maintain that God's purpose was to cease the gifts after the last Apostle, which it wasn't. Francis MacNutt wrote a book about the church being its own worst enemy concerning the gifts of the Spirit, and I enjoyed reading it because it put a lot of good things into focus about how the church itself shot itself in the foot concerning the gifts.

I agree that the more folk we are able to show the right way of manifesting the gifts, the more influence can be made to get the genuine gifts into the mainstream.

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Yeah, I get it.

coffee said:

1 Corinthians 12:30 asks the question "Do all speak in tongues?" implying that this is not and should not be true. However, in Acts salvation was always followed by the newly saved being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues (and the Bible contains the exhortation "Be filled with the Holy Spirit" in Ephesians 5:18). How do you reconcile these?

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1 Cor.12 clearly mentions various ministry classifications. Therefore, not all are prophets or teachers so of course not all non ministry believers who do speak in tongues will operate in the "various kinds of tongues". See chapts 13, 14 teachings of believers that speak in tongues. Regarding them, the words "various kinds of tongues" are not used.

What is being implied? God's name isn't on every page but the Bible is all about Him.

Tongues are a sign - To unbelievers By believers (I Cor 14:22 and Mark 16:17) So that means any believer can speak in tongues which is given by the Holy Spirit.

-The words divers isn't stated but they're there:
--Prayer language I Cor 14:2: "For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries." "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself..." I Cor 14:4

--Tongues with interpretation for the church '"...he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying." I Cor 14:5

coffee said:

1 Corinthians 12:30 asks the question "Do all speak in tongues?" implying that this is not and should not be true. However, in Acts salvation was always followed by the newly saved being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues (and the Bible contains the exhortation "Be filled with the Holy Spirit" in Ephesians 5:18). How do you reconcile these?

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You are misreading the book of Acts. No tongues among these thousands of new believers.

Acts 2:40-47 Good News Translation (GNT)
40 Peter made his appeal to them and with many other words he urged them, saying, “Save yourselves from the punishment coming on this wicked people!” 41 Many of them believed his message and were baptized, and about three thousand people were added to the group that day. 42 They spent their time in learning from the apostles, taking part in the fellowship, and sharing in the fellowship meals and the prayers.

Life among the Believers
43 Many miracles and wonders were being done through the apostles, and everyone was filled with awe. 44 All the believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their belongings with one another. 45 They would sell their property and possessions, and distribute the money among all, according to what each one needed. 46 Day after day they met as a group in the Temple, and they had their meals together in their homes, eating with glad and humble hearts, 47 praising God, and enjoying the good will of all the people. And every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.

Handmaid for Jesus said:

There are Christians who do not believe our Father still gives the gifts of the Spirit, tongues is one. There are Christians who believe certain gifts have "ceased" because some theologian said so.But, the Word of God says this.
Romans 11:29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.KJV
Romans 11:29 for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. NIV

So if God ever gave the gift of tongues to the Church, He has not taken that gift back. But it is because people are believing the gift has "ceased" that tongues are so controversial today.Not everyone who is filled with the indwelling Holy Spirit believe they CAN speak in tongues so they don't. I imagine there were these type in Paul's day.

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Romans 11:29 used out of context. It does not apply to spiritual gifts at all.





Romans 11 Good News Translation (GNT)
God's Mercy on Israel
11 I ask, then: Did God reject his own people? Certainly not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people, whom he chose from the beginning. You know what the scripture says in the passage where Elijah pleads with God against Israel: 3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me.” 4 What answer did God give him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not worshiped the false god Baal.” 5 It is the same way now: there is a small number left of those whom God has chosen because of his grace. 6 His choice is based on his grace, not on what they have done. For if God's choice were based on what people do, then his grace would not be real grace.

7 What then? The people of Israel did not find what they were looking for. It was only the small group that God chose who found it; the rest grew deaf to God's call. 8 As the scripture says, “God made their minds and hearts dull; to this very day they cannot see or hear.” 9 And David says,

“May they be caught and trapped at their feasts;
may they fall, may they be punished!
10 May their eyes be blinded so that they cannot see;
and make them bend under their troubles at all times.”

11 I ask, then: When the Jews stumbled, did they fall to their ruin? By no means! Because they sinned, salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make the Jews jealous of them. 12 The sin of the Jews brought rich blessings to the world, and their spiritual poverty brought rich blessings to the Gentiles. Then, how much greater the blessings will be when the complete number of Jews is included!

The Salvation of the Gentiles
13 I am speaking now to you Gentiles: As long as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I will take pride in my work. 14 Perhaps I can make the people of my own race jealous, and so be able to save some of them. 15 For when they were rejected, all other people were changed from God's enemies into his friends. What will it be, then, when they are accepted? It will be life for the dead!

16 If the first piece of bread is given to God, then the whole loaf is his also; and if the roots of a tree are offered to God, the branches are his also. 17 Some of the branches of the cultivated olive tree have been broken off, and a branch of a wild olive tree has been joined to it. You Gentiles are like that wild olive tree, and now you share the strong spiritual life of the Jews. 18 So then, you must not despise those who were broken off like branches. How can you be proud? You are just a branch; you don't support the roots—the roots support you.

19 But you will say, “Yes, but the branches were broken off to make room for me.” 20 That is true. They were broken off because they did not believe, while you remain in place because you do believe. But do not be proud of it; instead, be afraid. 21 God did not spare the Jews, who are like natural branches; do you think he will spare you? 22 Here we see how kind and how severe God is. He is severe toward those who have fallen, but kind to you—if you continue in his kindness. But if you do not, you too will be broken off. 23 And if the Jews abandon their unbelief, they will be put back in the place where they were; for God is able to do that. 24 You Gentiles are like the branch of a wild olive tree that is broken off and then, contrary to nature, is joined to a cultivated olive tree. The Jews are like this cultivated tree; and it will be much easier for God to join these broken-off branches to their own tree again.

God's Mercy on All
25 There is a secret truth, my friends, which I want you to know, for it will keep you from thinking how wise you are. It is that the stubbornness of the people of Israel is not permanent, but will last only until the complete number of Gentiles comes to God. 26 And this is how all Israel will be saved. As the scripture says,

“The Savior will come from Zion
and remove all wickedness from the descendants of Jacob.
27 I will make this covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”

28 Because they reject the Good News, the Jews are God's enemies for the sake of you Gentiles. But because of God's choice, they are his friends because of their ancestors. 29 For God does not change his mind about whom he chooses and blesses. 30 As for you Gentiles, you disobeyed God in the past; but now you have received God's mercy because the Jews were disobedient. 31 In the same way, because of the mercy that you have received, the Jews now disobey God, in order that they also may now[a] receive God's mercy. 32 For God has made all people prisoners of disobedience, so that he might show mercy to them all.

Praise to God
33 How great are God's riches! How deep are his wisdom and knowledge! Who can explain his decisions? Who can understand his ways? 34 As the scripture says,

“Who knows the mind of the Lord?
Who is able to give him advice?
35 Who has ever given him anything,
so that he had to pay it back?”

36 For all things were created by him, and all things exist through him and for him. To God be the glory forever! Amen.

Bob Carabbio said:

TRUE!!

I've Spoken in "tongues" personally since 1973. However, I have NEVER been burdened to speak a "MESSAGE IN TONGUES" in a congregational setting. I HAVE been burdened to Interpret, and occasionally to speak Prophetically. So I would be one of those who DOES NOT SPEAK IN TONGUES in the "message category".

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Then why bother to pray to interpret?

Oscarr said:

The problem with all this is that our churches are nothing like the Early Church of the First Century. After the 5th or 6th Century, the church became formalized, ceremonial and ritualistic, and was taken over by bishops who took the pre-eminence and asserted their authority, putting ordinary believers into a state of audience passivity. Also because of the reforms that Constantine introduced into the church in the 4th Century, many pagan ceremonies and beliefs were mixed in. As the true believers in the gifts of the Spirit died out, the gifts declined, because those who replaced them did not want ordinary believers using them because that would undermine the authority of the bishops, and ultimately the Bishop of Rome who became the head rooster of the church pyramid. He took on the role as the vicar of Christ and his "revelations" were accepted as equal to Holy Scripture. So the Church remained like this for 1000 years until the reformation.

There were movements throughout that time that believed in the gifts of the Spirit, including prophecy and tongues, but they were brutally suppressed by the established church and their literature destroyed.

In these days, our churches have not yet fully recovered from many of the issues that remain with the established church. In most churches, there is still the one-man band at the front performing to a passive audience. This is happening even in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, where there is much hero worship of "big-name" ministries that advertise themselves as being closer to God than the common "herd" and are getting special revelation that the ordinary believer is not.

There are many who are trying to exercise the gifts of the Spirit, but largely are misusing them because they are doing them because it is "the doctrine of our church" rather than being genuinely moved by the Holy Spirit.

Also, because of the invasion of the occult and pagan mind-control into the Charismatic movement, many godly people, seeing the wacky and non-Scriptural stuff going on, prefer to keep right away from anything to do with tongues and prophecy, which is understandable.

1 Corinthians 14 is the only clear teaching on how to use the gift of tongues, privately and in public meetings. But there is no teaching on exactly how to receive these gifts, and there is certainly no instruction manual on how to use the other spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12.

So, it is quite true that the spiritual gifts declined markedly after the 4th Century when Constantine took control of the early church. Some groups, mainly Pentecostal, teach that the Holy Spirit has restored these gifts to the church, but I'm not sure whether the gifts have been fully restored, because it seems quite clearly, that the church itself has not been fully restored to what it was in the First Century when the gifts were more widely manifested, and the gifts of prophecy and tongues were not a sideline to normal worship and private prayer.

So, perhaps in order to be assured that those who claim to have the gift of prophecy and to be able to pray in tongues, need to seek God about how to restore where they fellowship to be more aligned to what the early church was; But I really think that this won't happen, because most people are resistant to change and would feel more comfortable in their churches they way they are.

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stop reading at bold text, because



Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 387), Catechetical Lectures
John and the rest of the apostles spake every tongue of those of Gentile
extraction…What teacher can be found so great ast o teach men all at once
things which they have not learned? So many years are they in learning by
grammar and other arts to speak only Greek well; nor yet do all speak this
equally well; the Rhetoritician perhaps succeeds in speaking well; and the
Grammarian sometimes not well; and the skilful Grammarian is ignorant of the
subjects of philosophy. But the Holy Spirit taught them many languages at once,
languages which all their life they never knew. This is in truth vast wisdom, this
is power divine. What a contrast of their long ignorance in time past to their
sudden, complete and varied and unaccustomed exercise of these languages.

CHURCH FATHERS: Church History, Book V (Eusebius)

topher694 said:

That's pretty much what we have been doing for years. Then, we put it into practice every week for church. I firmly believe the way to truly change things is to focus on demonstrating the authentic as opposed to constantly calling out the inauthentic (I acknowledge that there is a time in place for that, but it shouldn't be the focus)

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Galatians 1:6-8 Good News Translation (GNT)

6 I am surprised at you! In no time at all you are deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ,[a] and are accepting another gospel. 7 Actually, there is no “other gospel,” but I say this because there are some people who are upsetting you and trying to change the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is different from the one we preached to you, may he be condemned to hell!

read to here, thanks fro friendly discussion.

"In post-Biblical times St. Irenæus tells us that "many" of his contemporaries were heard "speaking through the Spirit in all kinds (pantodapais) of tongues" ("Contra haer.", V, vii; Eusebius, Church History V.7). St. Francis Xavier is said to have preached in tongues unknown to him and St. Vincent Ferrer while using his native tongue was understood in others. From this last phenomenon Biblical glossolaly differs in being what St. Gregory Nazianzen points out as a marvel of speaking and not of hearing. Exegetes observe too that it was never used for preaching, although Sts. Augustine and Thomas seem to have overlooked this detail."CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Gift of Tongues (Glossolalia)

Daniel Marsh said:

Galatians 1:6-8 Good News Translation (GNT)

6 I am surprised at you! In no time at all you are deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ,[a] and are accepting another gospel. 7 Actually, there is no “other gospel,” but I say this because there are some people who are upsetting you and trying to change the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel that is different from the one we preached to you, may he be condemned to hell!

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Cool scripture bro.

A Pentecostal church couldn’t get me to speak in tongues, guess it ain’t my gift.

Since I Cor 14:1 states for us to desire spiritual gifts, there's nothing wrong with asking God to give you His gift of tongues.

Daniel Marsh said:

stop reading at bold text, because

View attachment 270894

Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 387), Catechetical Lectures
John and the rest of the apostles spake every tongue of those of Gentile
extraction…What teacher can be found so great ast o teach men all at once
things which they have not learned? So many years are they in learning by
grammar and other arts to speak only Greek well; nor yet do all speak this
equally well; the Rhetoritician perhaps succeeds in speaking well; and the
Grammarian sometimes not well; and the skilful Grammarian is ignorant of the
subjects of philosophy. But the Holy Spirit taught them many languages at once,
languages which all their life they never knew. This is in truth vast wisdom, this
is power divine. What a contrast of their long ignorance in time past to their
sudden, complete and varied and unaccustomed exercise of these languages.

CHURCH FATHERS: Church History, Book V (Eusebius)

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By 387AD Constantine had introduced paganism into the church bringing corruption and a general decline in holiness, so the genuine gift of tongues was rarely manifested at that time.