Speaking in Tongues a Cessationists’ View

[Dave L]

Well, if the early church fathers spoke in tongues then that was after the Apostles died. So much for the theory of Cessationism. POOF!

Nothing but hearsay. No scriptural support.

 

[swordsman1]

You can access Google? Great!

So there is no evidence of such a statement by Augustine. As I thought.

 

[Saint Steven]

That’s a very good one. Lol.

I do have a question. During your prayer groups and services do you know what the person sitting next to you is praying as everyone is speaking in tongues?

That's great question. Hopefully this will shed some light on the subject. Your question contains a common misconception that we can explore here and now.

The short answer, of course, is no. I can't understand someone else's tongues with an interpretation. But you are not correctly understanding the situation. I will explain.

The common anti-tongues view is to point at 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and claim that NO ONE should speak in tongues at church unless there is interpretation. This assumes that there is only one kind of tongues. This is not correct. See my list of five kinds of tongues at the bottom of this post.

The Apostle Paul was not prohibiting tongues without interpretation. He was saying that a word in tongues delivered to the entire congregation (#3 in the list below) is not edifying unless it includes an interpretation. The last thing he said in the chapter was not to forbid tongues. But what is Cessationism about? The forbidding of tongues.

Therefore, the person next to me in service is not delivering a prophetic word to the whole congregation, they are engaged in corporate worship. I have no need to understand WHAT they are saying. I am edified just knowing that the Holy Spirit is moving in the service.

Essentially, it all boils down to who is being spoken to. Is the worshiper speaking to God? Our is God speaking to the church?

I hope that helps. Continue with the respectful questions if you want to know more. Thanks.

Five Different kinds of tongues
1) Personal prayer language - Speaking to/with God
2) Intercessory prayer language - Praying for others in the Spirit
3) Prophetic prayer language - Addressing the whole church/preferably with interpretation
4) Singing in the Spirit - Singing in tongues/worship activity
5) Evangelistic language - Speaking the message of God to a people in their own language (not yours)

 

[swordsman1]

In actual fact, every believer since the Day of Pentecost received the Holy Spirit at conversion.

Many of your fellow Pentecostals say otherwise.

So, any born again believer can manifest the gifts at any time because they are already all resident in him. They don't need to receive something that was already given 2000 years ago at Pentecost. All they need to do is to release their faith to use whatever gift they already have for the situation that confronts them. Do you believe that you received the fullness of the Holy Spirit when you were born again? Then you have received the whole package and the Holy Spirit can manifest His power through you at any time, so that when you are confronted by a sick person needing prayer, you can expect the Holy Spirit in you to heal that person. (Of course if you have the faith to believe that. Wesley's horse had faith to be healed and it got healed as the result of Wesley's prayer, because when it got sick he didn't want to get another horse and train it all over again to enable him to write his journal and his sermons on its back. So he prayed and the horse exercised faith and was healed. I think that you are better than Wesley's horse, so if it believed that healing was for his day, so you can believe that healing is for your day too! )

What? All believers have already been given all the gifts of the Spirit, and they are just laying dormant? So I am already an apostle, a prophet, a miracle worker, a teacher, an evangelist, etc....I just need to muster up enough faith to activate them?

I am amazed that you can make such a wild unsubstantiated assertion when there are numerous scriptures that state precisely the opposite. Or were you joking?

1 Cor 12:29 "All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All are not workers of [t]miracles, are they? 30 All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they?"​

Romans 12:4-6 "For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us."

1 Cor 12:8-10 "For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. "

​

 

[Saint Steven]

Nothing but hearsay. No scriptural support.

I can't believe you are saying that again. Listen to yourself.
You are asking for scriptural support of tongues continuing after the Apostles died.

That would be like asking for evidence that WWII happened based on a book written during the Civil War in the United States. Hello?

 

[Dave L]

I can't believe you are saying that again. Listen to yourself.
You are asking for scriptural support of tongues continuing after the Apostles died.

That would be like asking for evidence that WWII happened based on a book written during the Civil War in the United States. Hello?

If history matches scripture it is good, if it does not it is bogus.

 

[Saint Steven]

With #3 that is not a preference but a requirement.

Explain why you think it is a requirement. Thanks.

Five Different kinds of tongues
1) Personal prayer language - Speaking to/with God
2) Intercessory prayer language - Praying for others in the Spirit
3) Prophetic prayer language - Addressing the whole church/preferably with interpretation
4) Singing in the Spirit - Singing in tongues/worship activity
5) Evangelistic language - Speaking the message of God to a people in their own language (not yours)

 

[Saint Steven]

If history matches scripture it is good, if it does not it is bogus.

I just demonstrated that your question was bogus.
"That would be like asking for evidence that WWII happened based on a book written during the Civil War in the United States. Hello?"

Try this on for size. (scripture below)
How many times have we presented this?
Yet you continue to ask for it.

Are you called? Or just "far off"? lol

Acts 2:38-39
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

 

[Dave L]

I just demonstrated that your question was bogus.
"That would be like asking for evidence that WWII happened based on a book written during the Civil War in the United States. Hello?"

Try this on for size. (scripture below)
How many times have we presented this?
Yet you continue to ask for it.

Are you called? Or just "far off"? lol

Acts 2:38-39
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

You are not using scripture to prove your claims. You are using history that is at the disposal of whoever writes it. Acts 2:38 doesn't say anything about the charismatic gifts.

 

[Saint Steven]

I don't attribute today's so called tongues to Satan myself. I've made it clear I beleive it to be the natural linguistic phenomenon of free vocalization or glossolalia that anyone, including non-Christians, can discover how to do. However those cessationists who do attribute it to Satan are not committing the unpardonable sin because they believe, and rightly so, that today's tongues is not a genuine work of the Spirit. Committing the unpardonable sin would require the accuser to be certain that it is a genuine work of the Spirit and then still attribute it to Satan.

And it works both ways. If people are speaking in glossolalia, and they learn that this is not the genuine NT gift of tongues, but continue with it...they are knowingly attibuting to the Holy Spirit something that they know is not of Him. An equally dangerous stance.

How did you arrive at the conclusion that "today's tongues is not a genuine work of the Spirit"?

- Are you 100 percent certain? Based on what?

- What would you say is

a genuine work of the Spirit ​

today?

 

[Sanoy]

Never heard of this but have prayed with people and some in the group knew the prayer requests of those who were not moving their lips or making any sounds.

Now that I think about it, if the body can communicate one's mind through body language, why wouldn't our spirits display what we are about to any spiritually observant person.

I read a article in one of my churches magazines that talked about this pedophile that walked up to a mother and daughter and started a pleasant conversation. The Mom was completely duped but the kid told her Mom that was a 'bad man'. She must have noticed the spiritual posture of the man. I imagine our prayers must have a spiritual posture, and they might even be able to pray without using Broca's and Wernicke's area of the brain where semantic language is processed. But we couldn't be conscious of it in a verbal sense, but maybe we could feel it.

 

[Saint Steven]

Apostles were directly appointed by Christ. This includes Paul and Ananias.

But you have zero biblical support to say the charismatic gifts came in any other way than through the apostles' hands after the two outpourings. You are creating doctrine out of this air.

Sorry, I disagree.
All you are doing is creating an ever wider circle to encompass your doctrine.

- First you claim that the gifts ceased with the Apostles. (the 12)

- Then you want to include the Apostle Paul. (as we should)

- Now you are hoping to in include Ananias, claiming he was "directly appointed by Christ" as an Apostle. Where is your scriptural support for that?

 

[swordsman1]

How did you arrive at the conclusion that "today's tongues is not a genuine work of the Spirit"?

- Are you 100 percent certain? Based on what?

- What would you say is

a genuine work of the Spirit ​

today?

Based on scripture.
Todays so called tongues does not match the biblical description of the gift. The only description of the gift is found in Acts 2, miraculously speaking a known foreign language that you never learned. Nowhere does it says it is an unintelligable non-human language.

 

[Dave L]

Sorry, I disagree.
All you are doing is creating an ever wider circle to encompass your doctrine.

- First you claim that the gifts ceased with the Apostles. (the 12)

- Then you want to include the Apostle Paul. (as we should)

- Now you are hoping to in include Ananias, claiming he was "directly appointed by Christ" as an Apostle. Where is your scriptural support for that?

Jesus personally told Ananias what to do. And he did it with apostolic authority.
“And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.” (Acts 9:10–12)

 

[Saint Steven]

... you have zero biblical support to say the charismatic gifts came in any other way than through the apostles' hands after the two outpourings. You are creating doctrine out of this air.

Try this on for size. Gifts from the elders. (not Apostles)

1 Timothy 4:14
Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

 

[Saint Steven]

Jesus personally told Ananias what to do. And he did it with apostolic authority.
“And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth, And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.” (Acts 9:10–12)

You are the only one on the planet with that opinion. You are grasping at straws.
Nowhere does Ananias appear on any list of Apostles.

If we extend that logic, shouldn't everyone who is called be considered an Apostle?
If that is the case, how is it that ALL the Apostles have died?

 

[Dave L]

Try this on for size. Gifts from the elders. (not Apostles)

1 Timothy 4:14
Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

Paul had already imparted Spiritual gifts to Timothy.

“Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.” (2 Timothy 1:6)

Elders laid hands on Timothy who was a young Pastor according to Paul's instructions for him.

 

[Dave L]

You are the only one on the planet with that opinion. You are grasping at straws.
Nowhere does Ananias appear on any list of Apostles.

If we extend that logic, shouldn't everyone who is called be considered an Apostle?
If that is the case, how is it that ALL the Apostles have died?

“Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,” (Acts 14:14)

 

[Saint Steven]

Based on scripture.
Todays so called tongues does not match the biblical description of the gift. The only description of the gift is found in Acts 2, miraculously speaking a known foreign language that you never learned. Nowhere does it says it is an unintelligable non-human language.

Seriously?
If you want to continue discussion with me, you need to speak something intelligible.
What was the Apostle Paul addressing in 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14?

1 Corinthians 14:2
For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.

 

[swordsman1]

Seriously?
If you want to continue discussion with me, you need to speak something intelligible.
What was the Apostle Paul addressing in 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14?

1 Corinthians 14:2
For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.

The first 3 rules of bibical interpretation are:
1. Context
2. Context
3. Context

The context of the whole of chapter 14 is Paul addressing the problem of the Corinthians speaking an unrecognized tongue in church meetings. The "no one" is not referring to no one on the face of the earth, but to no one in the meeting. So v2 should be read "For one who speaks in an [unrecognized] tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one [in the congregation] understands." That doesn't mean it was a non-human language. If someone was speaking say Persian in a small Greek church then it is no surprise that no one understands him. Only God, who understands all languages, knows what was spoken.