Speaking in Tongues a Cessationists’ View

[Anto9us]

I don't know that it is fair to Apollos to call him a Cessationist
He knew only of the baptism of John for a while, and it was Priscilla and Aquilla that "showed him the way more perfectly"...

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

So I take it you've changed your mind with regard to your statement that every believer has all the spiritual gifts already given to him, and just needs to have sufficient faith to activate them?

It depends on how you look at it. There is the difference between potential and actual. If the potential for using any of the ministries and gifts that come with the Holy Spirit is there, then God is not limited in how He wants to use us at any time. Perhaps the word "any" is a better way of explaining it than "all".

All gifts and ministries are resident in the Holy Spirit with in us. It doesn't mean that all are instantly available to us on demand. But if God leads us into a particular ministry, and the particular gifts for that ministry will be available to us. Therefore it is quite true and not all are apostles, prophets, teachers, or evangelists, or have the ability to speak in interpreted tongues and not all are able to interpret those tongues. If the whole toolbox is not there, then we have an incomplete Holy Spirit in us.

Now, we may be used in a particular ministry at a time in our life, and then God can say, "Stop doing that because I want you to do something different." So a travelling evangelist, Like Aimee Macpherson, can get to a stage of life where the demands of being on the road are too great and her children need stable schooling, so God may say, "Your time of itinerant evangelism is over, and now I want you to plant and church and be the pastor of it (as He did with Aimee Macpherson).

I have felt called to be a preacher, but when I joined my present church, He said, "Join the choir and teach Sunday School." That was it for some years. Then, I was invited to be a member of our Board of Managers (a deacon), then a couple of years later I became an elder. For the first fifteen years of being in that church I had really no opportunities to preach at all. Then, because I have accounting training, God told me to become the church treasurer. That meant number crunching and paper work. It has been only in the last five years that because we no longer have a minister, and a preaching team was formed, that I was invited on it, and preach just once a month. Then the "Session Clerk" (senior elder) stood down and I took his place. So I have adopted a pastoral role in the church. So, now I am the senior elder, part of the preaching team, and treasurer. I have to attend two meetings a month, and because we now have a "mission enabler" which we employ, I have to do the payroll and the tax payments, which is extra work. And all I wanted to do is be a preacher! So, I have entered into a pastoral/helps ministry. So I cannot be an apostle, prophet, teacher, tongues speaker and interpreter because I have not been equipped to perform those ministries in my present church.

But what if God said, "Now stop doing all that and became the church janitor and clean the toilets"? I'd have to do that, because God said so. But if I tried to continue doing all the other things, they would all fall on their sides, because God would no longer be equipping me for those roles and I would burn out, lose my health through stress and the burden of doing things in the flesh and not the Spirit; but I would be cleaning the toilets in the Spirit because the ministry of helps is just as much a spiritual service as all the rest.

Now that takes faith to do that, because faith is basically trusting God that this is what He wants me to do and He will be happy with me doing it, and will equip me, mentally, spiritual, humility-wide, and tool-wise to do the job well.

 

[Traveling teacher]

What does it mean when you say....."Power had left the church"?

The power of the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of believers and not in the concrete building. How could ALL the believers in a church have lost the power of the Holy Spirit as He is the "Seal of approval of God to believers"

division results in the quenching of the Holy Spirit every time......
on both sides of the fence......
it shows a lack of love.......

when we let doctrinal divisions result in a falling out...
Gods Spirit is quenched....
in a household or a local church......same

 

[Anto9us]

OK - it's not kosher and against the rules to say another poster is not a Christian - so now -- as Don Pardo on the old Jeapardy show would say :

Let us pause to collect our thoughts.

I am going to post some disparaging statements about charismatics which were said by Cessationists in the first TWENTY PAGES of this thread, and include some of my own comments about them which were never in the thread.


*********

Cessationist - 'Many cultures speak in tongues and receive a "high" from it.'

http://www.dana.org/News/Speaking_in_Tongues__Glossalalia_and_Stress_Reduction/

From that article above:
" But Lynn and others theorize that a proclivity for glossolalia may involve variability in dopaminergic genes believed to also mediate susceptibility to hypnosis. "

Cessationist - "I think the experiment will show that your best friend is just jibbering"

Cessationist - "But I do agree Dave that people do the tongues for the "high", which it is, if you ask them it is physically pleasing and overwhelming. It is more relatable to sex then to Holy works, because that is all it is. People seek this "pleasure", and by doing so they are inviting evil spirits to enter them."

Anto9us said:
"Tongues have indeed NOT CEASED. People do indeed speak in Tongues today."
Dave L. responded:
"They only think they do."

Cessationist - "What people do today is not speaking in tongues as scripture describes it, but rather they have discovered the natural phenomenon of the flesh known to linguists as free vocalization or glossolalia, where the human speech organs go into 'autopilot' and produce strings of random syllables."

---------
Me -- When I described my experience in college in early 70's and the many people who got the Baptism in the Holy Ghost all around me, it was responded:

Cessationist - You and your fellow students 'got' something, but I'm afraid it wasn't the Baptism of the Spirit nor was it the gift of tongues - according to the biblical descriptions of those things.
----------

-----
Cessationist - "Tongues were a warning sign of doom to the wicked Jews. After 70 AD they no longer had a purpose."


Me - Wha?? warning sign of doom? Here is what the visiting Jews said:

Act 2:8
And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
Box Act 2:9
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
Act 2:10
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
Act 2:11
Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

wonderful works of God doesn't sound like a warning sign of doom
-----


Cessationist - "How about this? The whole of Revelation is the record of a VISION. It is not meant literally. The Angels were seen by John to be doing X and Y; but to say, then, that they spoke languages as we understand them, especially since Angels do not have voice boxes, is silly (or at least presumptuous)."


Cessationist - "The gifts ceased with the Apostles. You do not have the real thing. Example: Those who spoke in tongues in Acts did so spontaneously. You had to be coached and told what to do. Those who spoke knew what they said. You do not. You just make noise."

Cessationist - "We have many claiming the same bogus gifts today."

****
Me -- IN OUR EVER-SHIFTING GOALPOSTS of WHEN tongues 'ceased' -- we have yet other different views than heavenly-language-Dave and human-language-Swordsman...

Cessationist - "I agree that they gradually disappeared. I have not sided with the claim that they ceased upon the passing of the last Apostle or that it happened for that reason."

Cessationist - "It was at about that time that the church finalized and consolidated its beliefs, became the established church of the Roman Empire, and disposed of the greatest heresy or rival Christian movement of the ancient period, Arianism."

Me - A hard blow to Arianism was indeed struck in 381 with final version of Nicene Creed, but those who know church history know that in some parts of Europe, Arian Christianity went on for centuries more! The ever-shifting goalposts, or 'ever-widening circle' as Steve calls it, is a shifty target indeed:
death of last apostle
completion of New Testament/penning of Revelation
disposition of Arianism
this really NAILS IT DOWN to somewhere between 66 AD (if the minority view of Revelation's date is true) and 7th century AD, when last Arians died out and last resistance to Revelation's canonization were about over
****

This excerpt from the first 20 pages of this thread is for the viewing pleasure of those recently coming into the thread, and also serves as a summary of Cessationist mishmash for those who have been in the thread from the beginning. A similar compendium will be forthcoming for statements from pg 21 on.

 

[swordsman1]

doctrinally...yes
but what really convinced me was going to charismatic churches and seeing these gifts operate then going back to the scriptures...
acts 19:1-20
paul came into a church full of believers but cesationist(in our terms)
as Apollos had started the church and had not been babtized in the HS.....we can see that from
acts 19:26...had to be taught more correctly

and in acts 19:2....his converts had not been babtized in the HS....
and asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.

so here was a non charismatic church in the NT that had little power...
after Paul taught them the way correctly they spoke in tongues and prophesised
acts 18:6
then signs wonders, miracles healings, deliverence....
and many believed....
acts 19:18

The 12 disciples of John the Baptist were not Christians when Paul found them as they had not received the Holy Spirit and Paul had to explain who Jesus was.

Rom 8:9 "And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ."

 

[Traveling teacher]

Welcome to the thread.
I can appreciate your perspective.

We have mostly been wrestling with this as a doctrinal issue.
Thanks for sharing your personal testimony. Can you add anything from a doctrinal perspective?

The Cessationist position that has come up time and time again is that:
The charismatic gifts came only through the two outpourings and through the apostle's hands.

However, they keep expanding the definition of "apostles" to include more and more events. For example, they have given Ananias apostleship due to him being called by Christ to pray for the apostle Paul.

bro
gotta go back to the scripture
revelation 22:19 cant add to or take away from the word...

if it says that the HS came only thought the apostles laying on of hands and it ceased after the apostles died...then OK

but it doesnt say that anywhere in the Bible....
so it cant be a doctrine....

but for the sake of doctrine:
1. acts 2...
outpouring of the HS came on all the 100 in the room...
doesnt say the apostles had to lay hands on all 100...
so you cant asume it...
2.Paul
recieved the HS from Ananias...not an apostle
acts 9:17 layed his hands on Paul....
3. cornelius
peter was preaching but did not lay hands on them
Acts 10:44
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message.
4. timothy
recieved the gift of the HS..or at least some impartation by 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.

so this and other scriptures show that the babtism of the HS did not have to come through the Apostles only although they were apointed as leaders of the church with full authority.......

the HS is poured out by God so although he chose the 12 to lay on hands the 12 coudnt get to everyone.....

 

[swordsman1]

It depends on how you look at it. There is the difference between potential and actual. If the potential for using any of the ministries and gifts that come with the Holy Spirit is there, then God is not limited in how He wants to use us at any time. Perhaps the word "any" is a better way of explaining it than "all".

All gifts and ministries are resident in the Holy Spirit with in us. It doesn't mean that all are instantly available to us on demand. But if God leads us into a particular ministry, and the particular gifts for that ministry will be available to us. Therefore it is quite true and not all are apostles, prophets, teachers, or evangelists, or have the ability to speak in interpreted tongues and not all are able to interpret those tongues. If the whole toolbox is not there, then we have an incomplete Holy Spirit in us.

Now, we may be used in a particular ministry at a time in our life, and then God can say, "Stop doing that because I want you to do something different." So a travelling evangelist, Like Aimee Macpherson, can get to a stage of life where the demands of being on the road are too great and her children need stable schooling, so God may say, "Your time of itinerant evangelism is over, and now I want you to plant and church and be the pastor of it (as He did with Aimee Macpherson).

I have felt called to be a preacher, but when I joined my present church, He said, "Join the choir and teach Sunday School." That was it for some years. Then, I was invited to be a member of our Board of Managers (a deacon), then a couple of years later I became an elder. For the first fifteen years of being in that church I had really no opportunities to preach at all. Then, because I have accounting training, God told me to become the church treasurer. That meant number crunching and paper work. It has been only in the last five years that because we no longer have a minister, and a preaching team was formed, that I was invited on it, and preach just once a month. Then the "Session Clerk" (senior elder) stood down and I took his place. So I have adopted a pastoral role in the church. So, now I am the senior elder, part of the preaching team, and treasurer. I have to attend two meetings a month, and because we now have a "mission enabler" which we employ, I have to do the payroll and the tax payments, which is extra work. And all I wanted to do is be a preacher! So, I have entered into a pastoral/helps ministry. So I cannot be an apostle, prophet, teacher, tongues speaker and interpreter because I have not been equipped to perform those ministries in my present church.

But what if God said, "Now stop doing all that and became the church janitor and clean the toilets"? I'd have to do that, because God said so. But if I tried to continue doing all the other things, they would all fall on their sides, because God would no longer be equipping me for those roles and I would burn out, lose my health through stress and the burden of doing things in the flesh and not the Spirit; but I would be cleaning the toilets in the Spirit because the ministry of helps is just as much a spiritual service as all the rest.

Now that takes faith to do that, because faith is basically trusting God that this is what He wants me to do and He will be happy with me doing it, and will equip me, mentally, spiritual, humility-wide, and tool-wise to do the job well.

Ok. So long as you're not saying that all beleivers have the same gift, let alone every gift.

 

[swordsman1]

OK - it's not kosher and against the rules to say another poster is not a Christian - so now -- as Don Pardo on the old Jeapardy show would say :

Let us pause to collect our thoughts.

I am going to post some disparaging statements about charismatics which were said by Cessationists in the first TWENTY PAGES of this thread, and include some of my own comments about them which were never in the thread.


*********

Cessationist - 'Many cultures speak in tongues and receive a "high" from it.'

http://www.dana.org/News/Speaking_in_Tongues__Glossalalia_and_Stress_Reduction/

From that article above:
" But Lynn and others theorize that a proclivity for glossolalia may involve variability in dopaminergic genes believed to also mediate susceptibility to hypnosis. "

Cessationist - "I think the experiment will show that your best friend is just jibbering"

Cessationist - "But I do agree Dave that people do the tongues for the "high", which it is, if you ask them it is physically pleasing and overwhelming. It is more relatable to sex then to Holy works, because that is all it is. People seek this "pleasure", and by doing so they are inviting evil spirits to enter them."

Anto9us said:
"Tongues have indeed NOT CEASED. People do indeed speak in Tongues today."
Dave L. responded:
"They only think they do."

Cessationist - "What people do today is not speaking in tongues as scripture describes it, but rather they have discovered the natural phenomenon of the flesh known to linguists as free vocalization or glossolalia, where the human speech organs go into 'autopilot' and produce strings of random syllables."

---------
Me -- When I described my experience in college in early 70's and the many people who got the Baptism in the Holy Ghost all around me, it was responded:

Cessationist - You and your fellow students 'got' something, but I'm afraid it wasn't the Baptism of the Spirit nor was it the gift of tongues - according to the biblical descriptions of those things.
----------

-----
Cessationist - "Tongues were a warning sign of doom to the wicked Jews. After 70 AD they no longer had a purpose."


Me - Wha?? warning sign of doom? Here is what the visiting Jews said:

Act 2:8
And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
Box Act 2:9
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
Act 2:10
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
Act 2:11
Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

wonderful works of God doesn't sound like a warning sign of doom
-----


Cessationist - "How about this? The whole of Revelation is the record of a VISION. It is not meant literally. The Angels were seen by John to be doing X and Y; but to say, then, that they spoke languages as we understand them, especially since Angels do not have voice boxes, is silly (or at least presumptuous)."


Cessationist - "The gifts ceased with the Apostles. You do not have the real thing. Example: Those who spoke in tongues in Acts did so spontaneously. You had to be coached and told what to do. Those who spoke knew what they said. You do not. You just make noise."

Cessationist - "We have many claiming the same bogus gifts today."

****
Me -- IN OUR EVER-SHIFTING GOALPOSTS of WHEN tongues 'ceased' -- we have yet other different views than heavenly-language-Dave and human-language-Swordsman...

Cessationist - "I agree that they gradually disappeared. I have not sided with the claim that they ceased upon the passing of the last Apostle or that it happened for that reason."

Cessationist - "It was at about that time that the church finalized and consolidated its beliefs, became the established church of the Roman Empire, and disposed of the greatest heresy or rival Christian movement of the ancient period, Arianism."

Me - A hard blow to Arianism was indeed struck in 381 with final version of Nicene Creed, but those who know church history know that in some parts of Europe, Arian Christianity went on for centuries more! The ever-shifting goalposts, or 'ever-widening circle' as Steve calls it, is a shifty target indeed:
death of last apostle
completion of New Testament/penning of Revelation
disposition of Arianism
this really NAILS IT DOWN to somewhere between 66 AD (if the minority view of Revelation's date is true) and 7th century AD, when last Arians died out and last resistance to Revelation's canonization were about over
****

This excerpt from the first 20 pages of this thread is for the viewing pleasure of those recently coming into the thread, and also serves as a summary of Cessationist mishmash for those who have been in the thread from the beginning. A similar compendium will be forthcoming for statements from pg 21 on.

I bet I could compile a list twice as long with insults from continuists on this thread. And they would be proper insults, not just uncomfortable truths that can be backed from scripture (in the case of many in your list).

 

[Anto9us]

"Some of these ecstatic babbling were reported in the “Report of Wenamon” (about 1100 BC), Plato’s Dialogues (5th century BC), and Virgil’s Aeneid (1st century BC)."

Virgil's Aeneid, I believe, has discussions of a MANTIS and a PROPHAETIS -- I shudder with terror to even relate such a paganistic horror.

This is where the Greek word PROPHET comes from, people.

In the perfidious and hideous pagan cults - the MANTIS was a female figure who breathed in the fumes coming from a volcanic fissure -- she went AFAR OFF in her mind, way out there, like the Cessationists accuse the charismatics of doing.

Under the influence of these fumes, the Mantis babbled incoherent mumbo-jumbo that only the PROPHAETIS could understand! The Prophaetis interpreted the words of the Mantis to the hoi polloi and maybe they all donated a few bucks.

Talk about a Cessationist Witch-Hunt! This is simply how the Greek word for PROPHET originated. Sheesh.

 

[Anto9us]

"Insults" was not a term I used, Swordsman, I said "disparaging statements".

And if you want to compile your own list, knock yerseff out.

 

[Anto9us]

The demonic Greeks must have hypnotized the Apostle Paul when he was in Athens, he quoted "certain of your own poets" in the passage about "in Him we live and move and have our being".

I don't know if it was Aratus, Menander or Epimenides he was quoting, but good ole Paul was determined to be "all things to all men" -- and the Mars Hill effort was NOT a flop - some of his hearers became believers, and these were tough nuts to crack.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Ok. So long as you're not saying that all beleivers have the same gift, let alone every gift.

No I'm not, because the Scripture is quite about that. This is why some pastors end up with burnout, because they are trying to do all the five fold ministries at once, instead of having a ministry team in their churches. William Seymour, the man in charge of the Azusa Street revival church (let's put aside any disagreements about that church for the moment m), knew that the ministry was just too much for one man, so he had a ministry team supporting him, and through that the spiritual ministries were spread around a group of people instead of one man. In my church, we have a worship committee - a team of men and women who share the ministry. This means that not one person is burdened with the whole job of running the church and doing the ministry.

Now about faith - I need to address this. The Scripture says that the just shall live by faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God. But this is not blind faith to believe anything. Christian faith is based on the promises in the Bible. Therefore, if we seek God, (the Bible says we will find Him if we seek for Him with all our hearts), and ask for His direction and guidance (the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord), which are acts of faith in God's Word in themselves, He will give us direction in which ministry and gifts He wants us to have. Then we use them by faith - faith in what God has said to us. So, if God tells me that I am to fulfill a pastoral role in my church, then by faith, I will use the gifts that equip me for that job. But if I tried to be a prophet, then I might be using faith, but it is a presumptive faith because God has not told me to do that ministry, and so it will fail and possibly cause harm and damage to good people.

Take the example of William Branham (and we are not commenting on his ministry or gifts because we will disagree), but he was called to be a healing evangelist, and he was very successful in that role because God equipped him. But then he stepped out of the role and tried to be a Bible teacher, which God had not equipped him for. Consequently he started teaching that he was Elijah returning to the Church and that there was no Trinity only Jesus. This strengthened the "Jesus only" movement, and we have the Oneness Pentecostal churches now. This brought a serious and ongoing division in the Pentecostal churches. This was the effect of a man stepping out of what God equipped him for into the presumption that God would support a Bible teaching ministry. But God was not with him in it.

These are examples from my side of the tracks, and you may have equivalent examples from yours, but the principle remains the same. It takes faith to enter into a ministry that God has called us to, but if we try to do something different, we move into presumption (blind faith).

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

The demonic Greeks must have hypnotized the Apostle Paul when he was in Athens, he quoted "certain of your own poets" in the passage about "in Him we live and move and have our being".

I don't know if it was Aratus, Menander or Epimenides he was quoting, but good ole Paul was determined to be "all things to all men" -- and the Mars Hill effort was NOT a flop - some of his hearers became believers, and these were tough nuts to crack.

I don't think he was hypnotized at all. He was emphasing that the "unknown God" they knew existed, and that their own poets acknowledged His existence, thereby giving reinforcement that their "unknown God" was the God of the Bible who raised Jesus from the dead.

 

[Anto9us]

Oscarr, I was just JOKING that Paul was hypnotized - it was a joke about him speaking in tongues more than ye all and his proclivity for glossolalia involving variability in dopaminergic genes causing susceptibility to hypnosis...

I know it was very clever of Paul to pick up the "unknown god" theme and quote their own poets, theologians at one time talked about what a MISTAKE Paul's Mars Hill episode was - I call it a success, like he had gone to an atheists' convention and made several converts.

Don't mind my bizarre sarcasm.

 

[Traveling teacher]

how about this to add to the cessationist view....
\
tongues are from planet vulcan....
and only those who Spock lays his special neck grip on
are really speaking in tongues/vulcan language.......

and since leanard nimoy died a few years ago...
tongues have ceased.....

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Oscarr, I was just JOKING that Paul was hypnotized - it was a joke about him speaking in tongues more than ye all and his proclivity for glossolalia involving variability in dopaminergic genes causing susceptibility to hypnosis...

I know it was very clever of Paul to pick up the "unknown god" theme and quote their own poets, theologians at one time talked about what a MISTAKE Paul's Mars Hill episode was - I call it a success, like he had gone to an atheists' convention and made several converts.

Don't mind my bizarre sarcasm.

The unsuccessful Scottish hunter went out into the fog and mist. Now THAT is a joke!

Do you know how to hypnotize a chicken? Draw a long line of chalk on a concrete path and put its beak on one end so it looks along the line and it will stay there all day. I know, because I tried it many years ago when my parents had chickens!

 

[Anto9us]

On Vulcan, Leonard Nimoy STILL LIVES!!

 

[Anto9us]

Mar 16:20
And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.

 

[Traveling teacher]

On Vulcan, Leonard Nimoy STILL LIVES!!

so then we agree

that means you are not a cessationist anymore...
thats TOTALLY LOGICAL

 

[Saint Steven]

But Jesus personally appointed Ananias to minister the Holy Spirit to Paul. And one of the requirements for Apostleship was seeing the Lord personally. Paul calls Barnabas an Apostle. The elders laid hands on Timothy who already had the gifts imparted to him by Paul. And Paul was an Apostle who distributed the gifts through his hands.

What proof do you have that Ananias of Damascus ever saw the Lord personally?
Or the apostle Paul, for that matter.