Here's the way I think we need to look at it. Tongues have IN EFFECT ceased. That is to say that while there may have been genuine experiences of it occurring over all the centuries since the Apostolic Age, there is no question but that they are rare at best. They no longer are a standard feature of the Christian experience.
So how do you explain the ongoing evidence of people empowered by the filling of the Spirit, doing signs and wonders, through to the Fourth Century in the Western Church and to the 12th Century in the Eastern Church. In fact, the Eastern Church still believes in the enduement of power, tongues, prophecy and healing right through to this day. How do you explain the 250 recorded and proven miraculous healings that took place during the ministry of John Wesley, including that of his horse! If his horse believed in healing and got healed as a result, it has more awareness of the Holy Spirit's power than you have!
Tell that to over 50,000 Pentecostals and Charismatics world-wide. They would all laugh you out of the room! Just because you don't experience it, or those in your limited church sphere don't experience it, doesn't mean that it is not routine for vast areas of the Church you know nothing about. You are like the cessationist who said, "If I haven't been baptised in the Spirit, then it doesn't exist." It probably doesn't exist for you and if you are happy for it to remain that way, then the best of British luck to you.
Certainly, but I was speaking of actual experiences of speaking in tongues. I thought we all were doing that on this thread.
Is that a popular line among Pentecostals to be used on any doubter who comes along? If you read back through earlier posts you will see that I never made any point based on my own experience--or lack of same--with tongues. It is a fact of history that the gifts of the HS, which were so much a part of early church history and critically important, all but vanished after awhile. So the reason for saying that tongues ceased is that they ceased...except for a claimed experience of some individual here or there. Then a couple of centuries ago, there was a move preached up by a few men that Christians ought to start mimicing tongues-speaking, and it caught on in some quarters.
I've "laughed" a few of them out of the room when they failed to back up what they claimed.
After being associated with the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements for the last 50 years, and also have a Mastorate in English and one in Divinity, I can say that I not only have an in-depth appreciation of the Pentecostal movement through years of experience, and a high level of academic learning both in English and theology, that I have never seen anything like you describe when people have spoken in tongues. Perhaps we down under in New Zealand have a much higher set of standards when it comes to worship and how we express it. All the ones I have heard speaking in tongues over the last 50 years have spoken clear, articulate languages in their intelligent worship of the Lord. At no time when I have prayed in private to the Lord has He ever told me that I was only flapping my lips when I prayed in tongues. But what He has said to me on a number of occasions when I asked Him was that He understands what I am saying and appreciates it.
Having studied Church history at mastorate level, and completed a research paper on the ministry of healing through history and the present time, I would just have a chuckle about that statement.
Well, I have, so that's what I was referring to.
Blah Blah Blah. Let me know if you want to return to our topic here.I guess all you have experienced when you have visited a Charismatic church once or twice, have been the lunatic fringe misusing tongues by rattling it off in public contrary to what Paul taught about it in 1 Corinthians 14. I guess there are more lunatic fringe folks in the United States than there are way down here. But then, we are British by heritage, and we all know that British people are more sensible and particular in the way they go about things.
It looks like the only ones you have met and have contact with have been the lunatic fringe of the movement. Must be a lot more of them over where you live than way down here in the more sensible country of New Zealand. In all my 50 years of being associated with Pentecostals, I have never met anyone like that, and if I did, I would laugh them out of the room too! It is certainly not the practice of Pentecostals and Charismatics in New Zealand. It is certainly obvious that most of the crack-pot ministries have come out of the United States than anywhere else, so it is understandable that the lunatic fringe are more prominent up there. You don't hear of many, if any, British, NZ, or Australian crack-pot ministries, and that is probably why I have never met anyone associated with them.
It just shows that New Zealand Pentecostals are more down to earth and sensible about the way they worship. Perhaps the Bermuda Triangle needs to move to the United States so the crack-pot ministries and people can disappear!Well, I have, so that's what I was referring to.
Blah Blah Blah. Let me know if you want to return to our topic here.
Master of Arts in English, and Master of Divinity. Both accredited College post-graduate degrees.
