Speaking in Tongues - Are we all wrong?

[Blade]

Tongues.. you know.. its times like this I praise my Father that there was no Internet, mobile phones blah blah (closer and closer we want to know you (song playing YES!))

Still reading where some explain what some verses are REALLY saying.. praise GOD. We read where they received the word of God. You then get some debate on what "received" really means lol. Then how they came and prayed for them to receive the holy Spirit. Both times "receiving"

Not here to have you agree or debate or to prove anything. The way it happen to them in the bible was exactly how it happen to me. Some day you will have to talk about this between YOU and JUST Him. As long as WE think know we are right... what do you expect Him to say now? Hes NOT going to go against your will. Father for the record let it be written.. ANYTHING I am wrong in.. you have the right to change me. He is the only one that is right.

YOUR PRESENCE IS HEAVEN TO ME... LOVE THAT SONG.. playing now.. sorry..

You know I was just asked.. do you want to receive the holy spirit? I said yes. They then prayed then stopped and said "you got it". NEVER did they say I would get tongues..or that was why your asking. Do you see? Thats just one part of this unending full package from the Father. I got up went to sit down NEVER thinking about anything and it just came out. And for me its like this body needs air for me. I cant even think what life would be with out Him. Saved I was before I asked. But.. WOW something happened. OH JESUS OH JESUS..your presence is heaven to me..

So when I pray in tongues.."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.". Yes I read where they understood in their own language. I also read what I posted before this. And God will never ever talk to you by fear worry doubt or the like. We know Him by " But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

So when I do pray in tongues.. a boldness a hunger wow .. I just want more and more and more and more and more of HIM HIM HIM! It ALWAYS grows.. it ALWAYS points to HIM. When I dont.. I find I fight so much more with this flesh. Not wanting to do ANYTHING for Him. I am NOT good with words forgive me. See it ALL goes together. Its NOT just tongues. Cant speak for anyone else.. I want ALL of HIM. I read I listen to man but in the end.. its ONLY His word I believe and if I get stuck I ask Him and HE always tells me .. always backing it up by His word. Always for the good always to help. Its HOW He works. To bring YOU closer to HIM. To protect you from this world...which is not your home.

Don't believe.. praise GOD. This is how I believe

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

You are wrong:
[9] Par'thians and Medes and E'lamites and residents of Mesopota'mia, Judea and Cappado'cia, Pontus and Asia,
[10] Phryg'ia and Pamphyl'ia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyre'ne, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
[11] Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." Acts 2:9-11 RSV

If that was so that the tongues were the preaching of the gospel, then why did Peter have to preach it again in his own language? Surely they heard it already in their own languages. And the speaking in tongues, however it amazed and puzzled them, did not evoke the response they had after Peter preached Christ to them. Also, because they were God fearing Jews anyway, hearing the mighty works of God would have been nothing new to them, so what they heard was not the gospel of Christ. What amazed and puzzled them was that a group of people whom they knew could speak only Armaic, because they were "uneducated" Galileans, were speaking in their own languages which these people could never have known and understood. It was Peter, when he preached the gospel of Christ that caused the crowd to cry out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

 

[Saint Steven]

….
Where in scripture does God give a message to a congregation in tongues? Tongues was always prayer and praise to God. …

1 Corinthians 14:26-28
What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28 If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.

 

[dreadnought]

Can worship also exclaim the mighty works of God?

I think worship means loving the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls, which would include exclaiming his mighty works.

 

[swordsman1]

1 Corinthians 14:26-28
What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. 28 If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.

Nothing in that passage about God giving a message to a congregation in tongues.

 

[dreadnought]

If that was so that the tongues were the preaching of the gospel, then why did Peter have to preach it again in his own language? Surely they heard it already in their own languages. And the speaking in tongues, however it amazed and puzzled them, did not evoke the response they had after Peter preached Christ to them. Also, because they were God fearing Jews anyway, hearing the mighty works of God would have been nothing new to them, so what they heard was not the gospel of Christ. What amazed and puzzled them was that a group of people whom they knew could speak only Armaic, because they were "uneducated" Galileans, were speaking in their own languages which these people could never have known and understood. It was Peter, when he preached the gospel of Christ that caused the crowd to cry out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

Obviously it's true - I quoted you the scripture saying so. As far as Peter goes, Peter and the other disciples needed to go out into the world and preach the gospel to those who hadn't heard it yet.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Each one of those regions had its own language, eg Egyptians spoke Egyptian, Romans spoke Latin, Arabians spoke Arabic, etc. There is no indication in the text that hundreds of different languages were recognized. That is pure speculation, unless you have some historical evidence that shows that each region had dozens of languages that were completely foreign to others within the same region. If each of the disciples (whether 12 or 120) were spread out among the temple courts then there was easily enough space to prevent them drowning each other out.

In any case scripture is clear - it was "them" (the disciples) who were speaking in the foreign languages of the crowd, not a voice in their heads.

Acts 2:6 "And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. "​

The plain reading of that verse cannot be interpreted in any other way. If someone said "I heard a Frenchman speaking English", no one would ever understand that to mean the Frenchman was speaking gibberish but a voice in my head miraculously translated it into English. It means what it says - the Frenchman was speaking English.

There are testimonies of Africans coming from isolated areas, receiving Christ, receiving tongues and then speaking in clear Oxford English, a language they had never heard before. What was convincing is that when Africans learn English they have a distinctive accent, and African Europeans speak their native English with a distinct South African or Zimbabean accent, just like Americans speak American English, and New Zealanders and Australians have their distinctive accents.

So, if these Africans were bilingual, they would have spoken English with the African accent, but these had never seen a white person before, and when they received tongues they spoke in clear Oxford English which is reputed to be the most clear English one can speak. This was what totally convinced others that these Africans had genuinely received the gift of tongues and were speaking the great things of God in pure English.

This is not hearsay. This testimony was told to me by a personal friend who was brought up in Kenya in the 1950s, whose parents lived in Kenya and attended a Pentecostal church there and actually heard these Africans speaking English when they spoke in tongues. My friend is a very committed Christian who is very strict on personal holiness, and a stickler for sound and accurate doctrine, and, incidentally, does not like modern Pentecostalsim. He believes that the Kenyan Pentecostals were head and shoulders above any western Pentecostals he has encountered.

 

[Marvin Knox]

....is it possible that we are all wrong and have overlooked that one key element?

Of course it's possible that everyone in the church has had it wrong.

But until we read the book and weigh it's dogma we cannot know if the author is right or, like the rest of the church supposedly, wrong.

I'm pretty sure that many in the church are wrong. In some cases it's possible that they may well be right in their opinions but their opinions are going beyond what is written. These folks, as I see it, are the ones who state dogmatically that tongues were and are only known languages as spoken somewhere on the earth. The scriptures never say that and people should not dogmatically go beyond what is written. It's OK to think that that was and is the case and I suppose their guess may turn out to be correct. But it simply does not say that in the scriptures.

I'm also quite sure that some of those who maintain that because they are not known languages tongues are "gibberish" - without defining in what sense they are calling them gibberish are wrong.

"Gibberish" is defined by Websters as "unintelligible or meaningless language".

Everyone should agree with the scriptures when they tell us that tongues are (until the interpretation is given by God) "unintelligible".

However - anyone saying that they are "meaningless" either with or without interpretation have gone beyond the scriptures and in fact against the testimony of the scriptures.

This shouldn't be a new teaching for anyone as it is logically correct in light of what the scriptures say and don't say.

There is no way to "prove" what I will now say that I believe is indeed correct. Nor will I state it dogmatically.

But I do not believe that tongues, as spoken by the people in Acts 2, or later on in the Book of Acts, or in the church at Corinth were any of the known languages of the earth.

However I do believe that tongues as HEARD by different people (at least in the case of Acts 2) were known languages.

That, IMO, is a pertinent and very scriptural distinction.

I also believe that both those who deny that tongues are for today and also those who practice them in certain ways in the church today are both clearly wrong.

 

[Saint Steven]

Nothing in that passage about God giving a message to a congregation in tongues.

You had decided that it wasn't there prior to even reading it.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I couldn't agree more. Let's have a 'linguist' disect a computer and see if he can agree that the binary language of a computer falls into his 'tongues of men' parameters for the truth for proving a language. Same goes for the spirit. Those thinking they understand what we experience is both sad....and laughable as I listen to their twistings of scripture to try and make it fit their "ungifted" walk.

I watched a document about the WW2 codebreakers at Bletchley Park, how they intercepted coded messages made up of seemingly meaningless numbers. When they got hold of an Enigma machine and in conjunction with their large computer, they were able to decode the messages.

So, if a linguist got hold of a coded message like that, he would not be able to make head nor tail of it, because he would not have the expertise to decode it. Therefore it would be meaningless to him. But a expert mathematician and trained code breaker who knew the key, would be able to decode the message.

When you relate this to tongues, then you have another way of looking at it, and therefore would know why even professional linguists would not be able to see any language pattern in it. But there is One who is well able to "decode" what is said in tongues, because He is the only One who can.

Unless, of course, He decides to allow a person to speak in an understandable language for a particular purpose where such a miracle is vital for showing His power in that particular way.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Speaking tongues in private would be an abuse of a spiritual gift. The purpose of spiritual gifts is to benefit others, not self:

1 Cor 12:7 "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good."

1 Peter 4:10 "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others,"​

Contradicts the clear indication that I have regularly received from the Holy Spirit that my prayers, especially in tongues, is more important to God than anything else I do.

There is a difference between the ministry gift of tongues and the personal prayer language. The gift of tongues is listed among the nine gifts of the Spirit, along with interpretation of tongues. But "various" tongues is part of another list. It does not specify exactly what those various tongues are, so to say that private tongues is not part of "various tongues" is guesswork based on something 1 Corinthians 12 doesn't specify.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

It is not blasphemy of the Spirit if today's 'tongues' is not the work of Holy Spirit, but rather a natural phenomenon of the flesh. In fact it is defending the Holy Spirit against those who are wrongly attributing to Him something which is clearly not of Him. It is they who are treading on thin ice.

But you can't really know that for sure, because when a person is exercising faith that when they have asked for the gift of tongues, they would have received the genuine article. It goes along with the Scripture, "If God's children ask for bread, would God give them a stone...etc.?"

It would be saying that a person who receives Christ and believes he is born again, that his religion is false. If that person has received Christ in faith, when who is to say that their profession is false? If that person says that he has received the assurance of salvation, who is to say that the assurance is false?

So, if a person, believing that 1 Corinthians 14 is the accurate teaching concerning tongues and that God will give the ability upon request, and he makes that request in faith and is able to speak a language he has never learned, who is to say that he has not received the genuine article?

 

[Goodward]

I am new to these Christian forums and I saw your post of tongues. Very few here seems to be commenting on my original post. What do you think of the claims on the description page at of the book The Doctrine And Teaching Of Speaking With Tongues: Bible Concepts To Completely Define Explain And Understand What It Means To Speak In Tongues. Is it possible that everyone is wrong about tongues and everyone is only caught up in their own understanding not considering that there may be a truth out there that can clear up all our confusion and end all our debates.

When reading some of the post here it reminds me of the movie the Ten Commandments when the people thought Moses was dead they lapsed into all manner of idolatrous living: everyone out of control until Moses appeared again to them.

If the world has lost the true meaning of tongues and it can be proven and shown we are wrong, then something great has come to the Christian world; and yet no one here seems to be able to see this! Everyone seems to be satisfied with their knowledge and caught up in their own understanding, even though it might not be true!

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

"The mighty works of God" is the gospel, my friend.

From the Christian perspective, true. But it was the non-Christian Jewish crowd who described what they heard as "the wonderful works of God". Christ was not mentioned in what they heard, but they acknowledged the wonderful works of God from their Jewish perspective. It took Peter to stand up and to remind them that the Jesus whom they crucified God made Him Lord and Christ. That is the gospel and Peter used the miracle of tongues as his springboard to preach the gospel. So, even though the wonderful works of God were spoken through the tongues, these did not include the gospel of Christ. It was up to Peter to preach it.

 

[Saint Steven]

I am new to these Christian forums and I saw your post of tongues. Very few here seems to be commenting on my original post. What do you think of the claims on the description page at of the book The Doctrine And Teaching Of Speaking With Tongues: Bible Concepts To Completely Define Explain And Understand What It Means To Speak In Tongues. Is it possible that everyone is wrong about tongues and everyone is only caught up in their own understanding not considering that there may be a truth out there that can clear up all our confusion and end all our debates.

When reading some of the post here it reminds me of the movie the Ten Commandments when the people thought Moses was dead they lapsed into all manner of idolatrous living: everyone out of control until Moses appeared again to them.

If the world has lost the true meaning of tongues and it can be proven and shown we are wrong, then something great has come to the Christian world; and yet no one here seems to be able to see this! Everyone seems to be satisfied with their knowledge and caught up in their own understanding, even though it might not be true!

If you took a trip to Paris France, would you need to read a book about it, upon returning home, to confirm that it was a real place? Furthermore, if you found and read a book that explained that it was not a real place, that we were all wrong about Paris, would you believe it, or stick with your eye witness experience?

 

[swordsman1]

There are testimonies of Africans coming from isolated areas, receiving Christ, receiving tongues and then speaking in clear Oxford English, a language they had never heard before. What was convincing is that when Africans learn English they have a distinctive accent, and African Europeans speak their native English with a distinct South African or Zimbabean accent, just like Americans speak American English, and New Zealanders and Australians have their distinctive accents.

So, if these Africans were bilingual, they would have spoken English with the African accent, but these had never seen a white person before, and when they received tongues they spoke in clear Oxford English which is reputed to be the most clear English one can speak. This was what totally convinced others that these Africans had genuinely received the gift of tongues and were speaking the great things of God in pure English.

This is not hearsay. This testimony was told to me by a personal friend who was brought up in Kenya in the 1950s, whose parents lived in Kenya and attended a Pentecostal church there and actually heard these Africans speaking English when they spoke in tongues. My friend is a very committed Christian who is very strict on personal holiness, and a stickler for sound and accurate doctrine, and, incidentally, does not like modern Pentecostalsim. He believes that the Kenyan Pentecostals were head and shoulders above any western Pentecostals he has encountered.

So we are expected to dismiss the findings of the linguistic experts who have studied hundreds of samples of modern glossolalia, and on the basis of unsubstantiated pentecostal rumours conclude that today's tongues are real human languages? We cannot cross-examine these witnesses or examine any supporting evidence. We must simply accept their dubious stories as being undeniable truth. There is a reason such unsubstantiated stories are never accepted as evidence by courts. It is hearsay.

hearsay
noun
1. Unverified information heard or received from another; rumor.

2. Law Evidence that is not within the personal knowledge of a witness, such as testimony regarding statements made by someone other than the witness, and that therefore may be inadmissible to establish the truth of a particular contention because the accuracy of the evidence cannot be verified through cross-examination.​

It's funny how these tall Pentecostal stories are never verified by independent experts and documented in any academic journals.

 

[Marvin Knox]

......Very few here seems to be commenting on my original post. ....................

I thought I addressed the OP in a pretty straight forward manner in my post #108.

The guy could be on to somethings we've all missed. We'd have to read the book to know for sure. Since it's a paperback it can't cost much.

But I doubt many people will read it. He seems to be saying that there was a knowledge concerning tongues in the Hebrew or Greek culture which was lost until he discovered it again.

I doubt that very much and I'm not likely to give him money to find out. But I may break down in the future - we'll see.

I probably feel like most folks that I have looked at every possible way of looking at the subject. That being the case - unless he really did dig up some long forgotten new stuff from back then (outside of the scriptures) there's not much new to say about it.

I.e. the scriptures say what they say and that's likely got to be the end of it.

........... When reading some of the post here it reminds me of the movie the Ten Commandments when the people thought Moses was dead they lapsed into all manner of idolatrous living: everyone out of control until Moses appeared again to them.

Yea - most of the threads dealing with the subject of tongues and those dealing with soteriology are jumping off places for folks to vent their opinions. Sometimes a new way of viewing the subjects is shared by someone. But usaully there's nothing new for those who have been around the block a few times.

..... If the world has lost the true meaning of tongues and it can be proven and shown we are wrong, then something great has come to the Christian world; and yet no one here seems to be able to see this! Everyone seems to be satisfied with their knowledge and caught up in their own understanding, even though it might not be true!

I do see that that would be something great. I have said so.

I also doubt very much that some newbie is on to some extra biblical data all of the scholars have missed for 2000 years. I might spend money to find out. I just doubt that I will.

Now as to new "biblical" data - that just aint gonna happen now is it?

I think what I said in my first post pretty much covers where most of the folks spouting off dogmatically about the tongues issue are going wrong.

I know there is no place where it is taught in the scriptures that the people speaking in tongues were "speaking" known languages.

I also covered where the chargers of "gibberish" are either wrong or right depending on what they mean by the term.

But I'd have to go into detail about where I see many in the church practicing things unbiblically to cover my other objections.

 

[Saint Steven]

So we are expected to dismiss the findings of the linguistic experts who have studied hundreds of samples of modern glossolalia, and on the basis of unsubstantiated pentecostal rumours conclude that today's tongues are real human languages? We cannot cross-examine these witnesses or examine any supporting evidence. We must simply accept their dubious stories as being undeniable truth. There is a reason such unsubstantiated stories are never accepted as evidence by courts. It is hearsay.

hearsay
noun
1. Unverified information heard or received from another; rumor.

2. Law Evidence that is not within the personal knowledge of a witness, such as testimony regarding statements made by someone other than the witness, and that therefore may be inadmissible to establish the truth of a particular contention because the accuracy of the evidence cannot be verified through cross-examination.​

It's funny how these tall Pentecostal stories are never verified by independent experts and documented in any academic journals.

So, are you a Cessationist doctrinally?

 

[swordsman1]

Contradicts the clear indication that I have regularly received from the Holy Spirit that my prayers, especially in tongues, is more important to God than anything else I do.

So your subjective experience trumps scripture?

There is a difference between the ministry gift of tongues and the personal prayer language. The gift of tongues is listed among the nine gifts of the Spirit, along with interpretation of tongues. But "various" tongues is part of another list. It does not specify exactly what those various tongues are, so to say that private tongues is not part of "various tongues" is guesswork based on something 1 Corinthians 12 doesn't specify.

There is no difference in the tongues in either of those lists (1 Cor 12:8-10 and 1 Cor 12:28). They are both referred to as "various kinds of tongues".

 

[AlexDTX]

Whose voice did the crowd hear speaking in their own languages? Was it a voice inside their heads, or was it the disciples speaking their languages? Scripture tells us plainly:

Acts 2:6 "the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language"​

It was the disciples who were speaking in the languages of the crowd. There is no mention in of any kind of 'miracle of hearing' taking place in Acts 2. If there was this great miracle of automatic translation in the ears of the hearers Luke would have told us, not remain silent on such an important fact. Verse 4 says the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples giving them the miraculous ability of speaking other languages they hadn't learnt - "they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them" - before any of the foreigners heard them. There is no mention of the Spirit falling on anyone else. Notice the plural tongues in that verse. The disciples spoke in multiple languages, not a single 'heavenly' language

You can emphasize the syntax that way, for sure. But as one who does speak in tongues, I can tell you that you are wrong. Do you speak in tongues? I doubt it.