As I was reading through your reply, I thought, hang-on, haven’t I just posted a fair amount of material that made a reasonably indepth reply talking about a particular Spanish student who was in an A0G Bible college and with how numerous people within “my ranks” have queried if they’re really speaking in tongues (so <Up Arrow> <Up Arrow> <Up Arrow>) yep I sure did! (<Down Arrow> x 3)
Okay, all you need to do is to undertake a quick Google search which will get you up to speed. Essentially the cessationist worldview was a natural consequence of the so called “enlightenment” where human rationalism began to remove the power of God from the Gospel. So when Pentecostals and charismatics speak of prophecy, healing, praying in the Spirit (tongues) and for many hard-core cessationists, when we even say that we can expect answers to our prayers, many cessationists will quickly go on the attack.
Sarcasm! Would an Australian ever employ such a
wonderful tool? In this case it was more along the lines of
situational irony where some could possibly deem this particular reply as maybe containing a hint of sarcasm. Some would also say that Australians have probably mastered (or that we think we have) the art of sarcasm and situational irony, but of course, it is definitely satisfying when others are not aware that they have been the target (umm…so I’m told). As for sarcasm, it can be defined as the ability to extract and point out the minutest points of weakness in a conversation.
Sarcasm is also aligned with satire which interestingly enough is generally protected by Law as it is a highly valued debating tool; anyway, most of us like a good laugh.
You know what, you’ve got this aussie on a role where I wonder, as this website is undoubtedly bound by US Law and that the US Law protects satire/parody, does this mean that the following is a protected right on the forum:
“Satire is an indirect form of critique, in that it mocks or attacks an individual or idea by proxy. Satirical speech and literature is generally used to observe and judge the "evils" or morally questionable ideals held by individuals, groups and sometimes entire cultures. The attack itself is derived from what is known as the satirist's social motive--these critiques illustrate what the satirist, within the context of their own world view, believes is "right" based upon what they ridicule as "wrong". Jean Weisgerber's Satire and Irony a Means of Communication states, "Satire is manifestly directed to people. It involves the victim it attacks and the public it tries to persuade, it restores to language its full status as a means of communication, its end is rhetorical."
Weisgerber, Jean. "Satire & Irony as Means of Communication", Comparative Literature Studies Vol. 10 No. 2 Special Issue in Honor of Chandler B. Beall (Jun, 1973), pp. 160.
Okay, I’ve now repented (sarcasm) and lit a few candles (satire) so back to some more serious discussion (situational irony). Rhetorically (rhetoric … no surprise here) its been a rather long day, but I’m tempted to post this in the CF assistance forum and see if I can ruffle a few feathers – it would be hilarious, especially if I were to place (very…mischievously) “mock or attacks” in bold type.
That’s the second sixty-four dollar question I’ve come across today. I was going to post the following paragraph to someone (and a Pentecostal at that!) who said that when we
pray in the Spirit that this can be in English (but he is a Kiwi). Anyway, this could be a good place to paste it and of course it might not ruffle his Kiwi (New Zealand) feathers (by the way, Kiwi’s have feathers).
Could you imagine what would happen when a home group is praying for one of its members “in the Spirit” due to some sickness. If (and I say if) the sickness was due to some unknown sin/s (James 5:14) then the prayer could go something along the lines of “Even though “Fred” has been in a long term adulterous affair with the senior ministers wife and just stolen money from his business partner who is a part of this home group …..Amen!” Okay folks, prayer time is over so now lets all have some coffee and biscuits.
Somehow I suspect that the meeting might suddenly take a turn for the worst where they just might need something a little stronger than coffee with maybe some first aid and a lawyer.
Even though we frequently hear where the Spirit is supposed to speak to the Father in a heavenly language that Satan does not know, it’s a pleasing concept but it is still conjecture as the Scriptures don’t give us any hint of this. The main problem that I have with this is that as Satan is still a reasonably finite being, I really doubt that he would have the capacity to understand what the Spirit would be saying simultaneously through maybe millions of Christians.
Now here’s the fun part; don’t forget, as Paul spoke both Aramaic and Hebrew and being a Roman citizen he would have had a good grasp of Latin where he probably also had a working knowledge of Greek. So here we have Paul
definitely having to speak at least one language Aramaic (otherwise his teaching sessions would be pretty boring). Paul goes to great lengths in 1Cor 14 to tell us that “no one can understand what the Spirit says”, how then can our ability to allow the Spirit to
audibly pray through us to the Father be in anything other than an inarticulate communication as no-one can understand what the Spirit is saying?
What most cessationist commentators tend to fail to address (or maybe they choose to ignore) is that Paul also tells us that the three tongues that we give in our congregational meetings must each be interpreted through the Holy Spirit. If tongues were given in known human languages, this would have demanded that Paul probably would have had to spend another chapter giving us some instructions as to how to deal with someone (particularly an unsaved visitor) who falsely claims that the Believers were cursing the name of Jesus – what a nightmare it would be.
You might be surprised with how much I (and others) will agree with you on these types of matters.
As much as I would like to say that this type of thing is an “American development”, who would I be kidding. It seems that even the elect can be prone to, shall I politely say, aberrations and distractions. For that matter, even Paul decided to record for posterity how he had to bring Peter back into line when he rebuked him for associating with those who wanted to return to the “old ways”. Paul would undoubtedly have a field day if he were here amongst us today.
I saw this with your reply to Hillsage and I must admit that it was certainly a sad event. I suspect that their emotional states were questionable for a long time where maybe anything could have been the trigger. Many atheists would undoubtedly blame the Gospel and others would lay blame elsewhere.