Speaking in Tongues a Cessationists’ View

[Anto9us]

lol

"Until then, into the theological dustbin it goes"

"The most insightful thing I think I've heard from you"

but I don't remember the original context - if reminded, I may come up with an application

 

[Saint Steven]

But the speaker is edified. And Paul mentions nothing besides understanding what is said as the basis for edification.

Looks like a case of circular argument to me. Why should the tongue-speaker pray that they may interpret if they already understand?

1 Corinthians 14:13
For this reason the one who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what they say.

 

[Anto9us]

I am trying to get a hold of your CAPITALIZATION point, Hillsage, obviously I will have to re-read many posts.

It is my understanding that the earliest NT manuscripts were Uncials -- ALL CAPS - and the later miniscules were more numerous, I can't vouch for or deny your numbers of manuscripts of each, sounds about right...

The miniscules rarely used any capital letters -- the first letter of a paragraph, the first letter of a proper name -- that was about it for capital letters.

So what is your point of an English translation using a capital or not for hagion pneuma?

I will try to catch up, I am also interested in Oscarr's mentioning that William Branham may have been responsible for the 'Oneness Pentecostals'. United Pentecostal Church meets about a hundred feet from the door of my apartment - I went there twice - the pastor gave me a book of their beliefs...

I could not swallow their "non-view" of the Trinity and didn't go anymore. I am hardcore Trinitarian. I wish it was an Assembly of God church in that building instead of oneness pentecostals, I may be checking AoG out. IT's only an eight-minute walk to my Methodist church but in triple-digit weather I usually wuss out. As far as I know, AoG is Wesleyan/Arminian in theology, might be a perfect fit for me.

I fear a split in the United Methodist Church over the homosexuality issue -- it seems surreal that my local church would be affected, but they are part of the denomination -- it is disturbing to me -- I used to go to a charismatic Episcopal church in Dallas and loved it -- but when some gay guy was elected Bishop in New Hampshire, things got weird and ugly; I don't know that I want to go through that again with United Methodist Church...

 

[Saint Steven]

Wouldn't the "Uncials -- ALL CAPS - and the later miniscules" be in reference to translations into western languages, rather than original manuscripts?

 

[Anto9us]

Why should the tongue-speaker pray that they may interpret if they already understand?

I agree that is odd. I always understood the passage that if you ONLY have a prayer language or only can give a message in Tongues but cannot interpret it -- you should seek the gift of Interpretation so that you can give a message to the body and not count on someone else to interpret -- it would be awkward indeed if I spoke a message in Tongues to the church, could not interpret it myself, and no one else did either.

I have never seen any of these "bad things" involving tongues, fakery and what-not; the only bogus thing I encountered was Word of Knowledge

 

[Hillsage]

lol

"Until then, into the theological dustbin it goes"

"The most insightful thing I think I've heard from you"

but I don't remember the original context - if reminded, I may come up with an application

It came from #793 and it was concerning Jeremiah 8:8 in application, though I never quoted that verse. I believe the application Jeremiah was exhorting the people of Israel with concerning the "lying pen of the scribes" was this.

PRO 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.

Since WE all are called to be "KINGS AND PRIESTS" I believe one is a bit dull to throw a 'thing searched out' into the dustbin only to hang on to the scribes lie. In all honesty here, I don't think the modern day scribes were doing so purposefully. They actually believed what they wrote, but tweaked was the truth, just like the fundamental translators of today, which is really where much of our present day theology is still rooted from. Even modern Charismatic theologians still cling to lies sold before the Charismatic outpouring of the Spirit so mightily influenced the church.

But the advice to me in that post is really just parallel to saying don't ever leave the Catholic church to follow the condemned heretic Martin Luther. Hmmm maybe I should follow his dustbin advice and 'return to my Catholic roots'???? Nah, I think I'll just stay where I am, and keep searching things out.

 

[Anto9us]

Wouldn't the "Uncials -- ALL CAPS - and the later miniscules" be in reference to translations into western languages, rather than original manuscripts?

No -- we are still talking Koine Greek for the ORIGINALS (the "autographs" as called) and the copies of them in Koine Greek -- I think the numbers of manuscripts are above 5,600 for the New Testament or PARTS of the New Testament in Koine Greek. Nobody has any 'autographs' -- like THE letter Paul wrote to Ephesians on the original parchment or papyrus -- but with over 5,600 manuscripts, we can pretty well discern what 'the originals' said

 

[Saint Steven]

I agree that is odd. I always understood the passage that if you ONLY have a prayer language or only can give a message in Tongues but cannot interpret it -- you should seek the gift of Interpretation so that you can give a message to the body and not count on someone else to interpret -- it would be awkward indeed if I spoke a message in Tongues to the church, could not interpret it myself, and no one else did either.

I have never seen any of these "bad things" involving tongues, fakery and what-not; the only bogus thing I encountered was Word of Knowledge

In my experience, ninety to ninety-five percent of tongues addressed to the congregation are interpreted by someone other than the tongues-speaker. It's rare that someone in the congregation can't interpret. It has never really been an issue.

And frankly, tongues addressed to the whole congregation is rare for us. It doesn't happen unless the Spirit moves on someone to speak. We aren't trying tp meet a quota, or do it for show. New people have had to ask me, "Do you guys speak in tongues?"

 

[Saint Steven]

No -- we are still talking Koine Greek for the ORIGINALS (the "autographs" as called) and the copies of them in Koine Greek -- I think the numbers of manuscripts are above 5,600 for the New Testament or PARTS of the New Testament in Koine Greek. Nobody has any 'autographs' -- like THE letter Paul wrote to Ephesians on the original parchment or papyrus -- but with over 5,600 manuscripts, we can pretty well discern what 'the originals' said

Right. By originals, I meant ancient copies in the original language.

 

[Hillsage]

Wouldn't the "Uncials -- ALL CAPS - and the later miniscules" be in reference to translations into western languages, rather than original manuscripts?

Not according to the book I got that information from.

He went on to say;
1. "It is clear therefore that we can get no help from the manuscripts as to when to use "S" and when to use "s".
2.We can get no help from the PRINTED EDITIONS of the GREEK TESTAMENT.

He then goes on to list 14 of the 'then' most commonly accepted Greek texts starting in 1515- The Complutensian Polyglot, and ending with Westcott and Hort 1881-1903.

This book I'm referencing was first printed a hundred years ago. It is still being printed because, as Warren Wiersbe says in the forward of my 1979 edition of a book first printed in 1905;

"The emphasis in recent years on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has helped to produce a great number of books on that subject. Some of these books are immature and will not last. Their theology is like a bad photograph, over-exposed and under-developed. But a few books have made a definite contribution to the subject and will surely last. ....This is one of the older works that is sure to last."

 

[Anto9us]

I'm still lost about my own dustbin comment, Hillsage

It came from #793 and it was concerning Jeremiah 8:8 in application, though I never quoted that verse.

#793 was your post

 

[DennisTate]

They didn't have the NT when God sent the Charismatic gifts. They expired when he stopped sending them.

So what about this video.........
do you believe that a man of G-d might just be able to command the spirit of a child to go back into their body?

This can be useful if you are ever on the scene of an accident.......

 

[Hillsage]

So what is your point of an English translation using a capital or not for hagion pneuma?

My point is this, approximately 50 times in the NT interpreters added a capital "h" and "s" or just a capital "s" with 'spirit', when they never should have. It simply makes a huge difference in the theology we've inherited since they started trying to figure out when to do so. On the back cover of the book I even started my own list of different translations which are split concerning this. Translations that never existed when the book was written. You'll even find modern translations that will disagree on multiple verses. And then you have the KJV which even says "holy Spirit" in eph 1:13.

But just a couple of examples from my personal file;

Joel 2:28-29 Capital S = YLT, NAS, NIV small s = KJV, RSV
1Cor 14:2 Capital S = RSV, AMP small s = KJV, NAS, NIV YLT
Philip 3:3 Capital S = RV, YLT, NIV, NAS small s = AV KJV RSV

I've found 14 such verses, pretty much accidentally. I'm not searching for them, but I take note when I find them in a study search.

 

[Hillsage]

I'm still lost about my own dustbin comment, Hillsage

#793 was your post

Don't worry about it. Like I told someone in a PM a few days back, this thread is moving faster than the fires in California. I can't keep up either. And I'm taking a break now too.

 

[Saint Steven]

My point is this, approximately 50 times in the NT interpreters added a capital "h" and "s" or just a capital "s" with 'spirit', when they never should have. It simply makes a huge difference in the theology we've inherited since they started trying to figure out when to do so. On the back cover of the book I even started my own list of different translations which are split concerning this. Translations that never existed when the book was written. You'll even find modern translations that will disagree on multiple verses. And then you have the KJV which even says "holy Spirit" in eph 1:13.

But just a couple of examples from my personal file;

Joel 2:28-29 Capital S = YLT, NAS, NIV small s = KJV, RSV
1Cor 14:2 Capital S = RSV, AMP small s = KJV, NAS, NIV YLT
Philip 3:3 Capital S = RV, YLLT, NIV, NAS small s = AV KJV RSV

I've found 14 such verses, pretty much accidentally. I'm not searching for them, but I take note when I find them in a study search.

What was Dave saying about the Bible being "PERFECT"?

 

[Anto9us]

As to REAL LANGUAGE -- I have one Interlinear based on Nestle-Aland 27th Greek Text -- into English NRSV; and an older one based on Stephens 1550 sometimes called Textus Receptus, rendered into KJV English. Also an Analytical Concordance of Textus Receptus.

I have one AUTOGRAPH - a signed copy of my Greek Text Book - A Beginning Grammar of Classical and Hellenistic Greek, Richard Cutter, Baylor University Press, Waco, 1976.

We translated Mark and Luke, as well as the trial of Socrates by Plato. Dr Cutter was my second Greek Professor, I did two semesters at a very small Methodist University (Southwestern) in Georgetown Texas where I was one of six Methodist guys taking Greek. I talked to Dr Cutter as I transferred to Baylor, he was trying to feel me out for how I would fit into 3rd semester Greek in the fall...
"Whose textbook yall use down there, Metzger? Machen?

I said Machen, he nodded, and he came upon the wonderful idea that I would AUDIT the first two courses in the summer, which was not much tuition and turned out to be a piece of cake -- so that by September I was ready and up to speed to be THE ONLY METHODIST in a class of NINETY Baptists in the Fall.

I was frequently called on to translate BAPTIZO, and always translated it SPRINKLED (or whatever the tense and stuff was) and as long as the tense was correct, Dr Cutter would just nod, Baptists looked at me as if I had horns and a tail. Once I was shot from behind with a water gun in class - it was the ringleader of the Baptists and his crew laughing their heads off - from then on I always went before class for coffee with these Baptists.

None of us were perfect, Greek was not the only thing in our life, and all of us at one time or another were called on to translate and we had not done our homework.

"Sir, I didn't get mine last night."

And the silence seemed to be eternal as Dr Cutter got out a certain ledger, took his time writing our name and date in there, and finally called on someone else. Gift of Tongues did not help in Greek class if you didn't get your homework. Fortunately that only happened to me twice in two semesters.

 

[Anto9us]

What was Dave saying about the Bible being "PERFECT"?

The AUTOGRAPHS are perfect, but we don't have them -- just thousands of copies -- we arrive at a theoretical 'autograph', or the closest we can get to it, by comparing all manuscripts -- I say WE but I mean THEY -- THEY being ones who went way farther than Dr Cutter's fourth semester class in studying Koine Greek, and the Old Testament - holy or Holy smoke, that Hebrew stuff goes upside down and backwards

 

[Saint Steven]

The AUTOGRAPHS are perfect, but we don't have them -- just thousands of copies -- we arrive at a theoretical 'autograph', or the closest we can get to it, by comparing all manuscripts -- I say WE but I mean THEY -- THEY being ones who went way farther than Dr Cutter's fourth semester class in studying Koine Greek, and the Old Testament - holy or Holy smoke, that Hebrew stuff goes upside down and backwards

Doesn't that agree with Dave though? (horrors) lol

 

[Silly Uncle Wayne]

If they all had same Spirit by which they were speaking , then the speaking would come out naturally and nobody would need to learn how to do it , moreover it would be God who made HS speak though you by tongues , not you yourself .

All gifts are under the control of the believer (14:32). And Paul tells them that they must restrict themselves to 2 or 3 speakers, which means that potentially more could have words.

Finally I should point out that the gift is given to the believer... it is hardly a gift if it is forced on a person.

 

[Silly Uncle Wayne]

But the speaker is edified. And Paul mentions nothing besides understanding what is said as the basis for edification.

No he doesn't, he says the opposite: No-one except God can understand someone speaking in tongues (14:2); the speaker in tongues edifies himself (14:4) unless there is an interpretation (14:5) in which case others are edified.

So no-one understands a tongue (verse 2) and yet is edified... contrary to your insistence that the speaker must understand their tongue in order to be edified.

So either Paul is wrong when he tells us that no-one understands a tongue, or you are wrong when you insist that the speaker must understand the tongue.

I know where I'd put my money.