What do you think about Pentecostals?

[Albion]

Why don't you believe that modern pentecostal tongues is the same gift as in the early first century church?

Those died out after accomplishing their purpose, and they don't operate in the same way. Beyond that, the question asks about Pentecostals, not the gifts...and there is much to regret about the way many Pentecostals act and think, quite apart from discussions of the gifts themselves.

 

[sonny1293]

Standing with you there!

me too

 

[Albion]

Now that is just crazy thinking!

I was referring, of course, to the claims that some preacher raised someone from the dead. If the 'deceased' appeared to have been dead and then rose...he wasn't dead.

 

[The realist]

Those died out after accomplishing their purpose, and they don't operate in the same way. Beyond that, the question asks about Pentecostals, not the gifts...and there is much to regret about the way many Pentecostals act and think, quite apart from discussions of the gifts themselves.

First of all we can't have a civil conversation about pentecostals without talking about speaking in tongues. This is what separates them from others.

You said "Those died out after accomplishing their purpose, and they don't operate in the same way." Got any scriptural support?

 

[The realist]

I was referring, of course, to the claims that some preacher raised someone from the dead. If the 'deceased' appeared to have been dead and then rose...he wasn't dead.

How so? Wasn't lazuras dead and was raised from the dead

 

[The realist]

I was referring, of course, to the claims that some preacher raised someone from the dead. If the 'deceased' appeared to have been dead and then rose...he wasn't dead.

Oh, sorry about that, you must meant that if the person "appeared" to be dead and really wasn't and was supposedly raised again then he really wasn't raised from the dead. He wasn't really dead from the start.

Again sorry about that.

 

[Albion]

First of all we can't have a civil conversation about pentecostals without talking about speaking in tongues. This is what separates them from others.

OK

You said "Those died out after accomplishing their purpose, and they don't operate in the same way." Got any scriptural support?

I said that they died out.

Do you have any support of any sort that they continued to be part of the ordinary life of the church, uninterrupted, as they were in the early years? That's the usual claim of Pentecostals, even though it flies in the face of the facts of history.

 

[The realist]

OK


I said that they died out.

Do you have any support of any sort that they continued to be part of the ordinary life of the church, uninterrupted, as they were in the early years? That's the usual claim of Pentecostals, even though it flies in the face of the facts of history.

First you must excuse my spelling I'm typing on my phone. Sometimes my fingers get the best of me.
But Sure, I can give you evidence concerning the historicity of tongues. And that the church still operated in them long after the first century. Starting with him:

"Now, it is possible to see amongst us women and men who possess gifts of the Spirit of God. (Justin Martyr, c. 150)[27]

The Fathers also recount the lists of gifts of the Spirit recorded in the[bless and do not curse]New Testament.This is He who places prophets in the Church, instructs teachers, directs tongues, gives powers and healings, does wonderful works, often discrimination of spirits, affords powers of government, suggests counsels, and orders and arranges whatever other gifts there are of charismata; and thus make the Lord’s Church everywhere, and in all, perfected and completed. (Novatian, c. 200–c. 258)[28]

For God hath set same in the Church, first apostles…secondly prophets…thirdly teachers…next mighty works, among which are the healing of diseases… and gifts of either speaking or interpreting divers kinds of tongues. Clearly these are the Church’s agents of ministry and work of whom the body of Christ consists; and God has ordained them. (Hilary of Poitiers, 360)[29]

In like manner we do also hear many brethren in the Church, who possess prophetic gifts, and who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages, and bring to light for the general benefit the hidden things of men, and declare the mysteries of God. (Irenaeus, c. 180)[30]

Let Marcion then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both predicted things to come, and have made manifest the secrets of the heart; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer -- only let it be by the Spirit, in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him; let him show to me also, that any woman of boastful tongue in his community has ever prophesied from amongst those specially holy sisters of his. Now all these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty, and they agree, too, with the rules, and the dispensations, and the instructions of the Creator; therefore without doubt the Christ, and the Spirit, and the apostle, belong severally to my God. Here, then, is my frank avowal for any one who cares to require it. (Tertullian"
Glossolalia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are many cases of tongues existing after the first century.
And for a person to deny this is ridiculously inconceivable.

Now I'm not saying that some fathers and early Christians did not believe that the gift of tongues was no longer in existence anymore. But to dissect that premise evolves two understandings
1. They were only reffering to their own experiences and not the universal church.
Because, they wouldn't even know everyone in the universal church. Obviously they could not be so dogmatic about their objections.
2. Unless their objections was based on their own theology. And their
understading that the gifts no longer operated anymore. This theoretical view point would have most assurdly substantuated their universal church understanding concerning gifts of the spirit.

Which leaves us to this:
The true dabate should not evolve around the philosiphical dogmas of church fathers because of bias doctrine reasons:
Hence it should evolve around,
1. What is the biblical view point concerning the passing away of tongues and not mans dogma?
2. Did anyone speak in tongues after the first century
3. Is tongues being spoken to day?

These three questions are very important! But it's most important that we ask these questions in the order i presented.

Lets tackle these three questions shall we?
What is the biblical view point? There is no where in scripture that even suggest that tongues will cease BEFORE the return of the lord.
And the simple fact that tongues was manifesting after the first century proves this wasn't the case. Those who spoke in tongues after the first century verifies and confirms the continuation of this Gift. And even today tongues are still being spoken through almost a billion Christians around the world! Hundreds and hundreds of millions of Christians each day varifies that Paul was not referring to the cessation of tongues. This gift was a very epic doctrine in the church that Paul devoted an entire chapter to it. But yet if this gift was to cease why doesn't Paul just plainly tell us this. Why not other teachings on this subject? I mean this was a very important gift in the church for him not to adress this more then he did. Why the apostles never mention it? They had this gift too. Jesus talked about tongues. How come he didn't mention it? Not one word about this but one shady scripture and yet we make an entire doctrine on it. That's biblicaly irresponsible.

You have two conclusions.
That either almost all of protestant believers and a good amount of Catholic Christians are controlled by lying decieving foul devils.
Or the holy spirit of God is still moving in the Gifts of the spirit like he did in the first century church. Its either one or the other there's no middle ground.

 

[The realist]

OK


I said that they died out.

Do you have any support of any sort that they continued to be part of the ordinary life of the church, uninterrupted, as they were in the early years? That's the usual claim of Pentecostals, even though it flies in the face of the facts of history.

Do you have any support of any sort that they continued to be part of the ordinary life of the church, uninterrupted, as they were in the early years? That's the usual claim of Pentecostals, even though it flies in the face of the facts of history.[/QUOTE]

There are three facts any serious person must explain and I mentioned these in my other post
1.The lack of biblical foundational (scriptures) in both the old and new testaments of the bible concerning the cessation of tongues.
2.historical evidence that tongues was still in use long after the first century.
3.The confirmation of the existence and continuation of tongues from almost the entire protestant Community and hundreds of millions of speaking in tongues Christians from around the globe today.

These three essential facts must leave us with one hypothesis.
The only reasonable explanation is that the gifts of the spirit
has never left the church. Until one can explain these three facts then there's no more room for debate. God bless

 

[Albion]

Do you have any support of any sort that they continued to be part of the ordinary life of the church, uninterrupted, as they were in the early years? That's the usual claim of Pentecostals, even though it flies in the face of the facts of history.

There are three facts any serious person must explain and I mentioned these in my other post
1.The lack of biblical foundational (scriptures) in both the old and new testaments of the bible concerning the cessation of tongues.

Yes, but neither is it correct to say that scripture promises no letup. And then we have the historic fact that they DID cease. So how is that to be explained away?

2.historical evidence that tongues was still in use long after the first century.

We have to be completely honest about that. There is evidence of an occasional episode. But that is not what the Pentecostals insist must be. It is claimed that tongues are so essential to the fullness of the faith, so much a part of the life of the church, that they must be commonplace. Clearly, that is not what happened.

3. Confirmation of the existence and continuation of tongues from almost the entire protestant Community and hundreds of millions of speaking in tongues Christians from around the globe today.

Well, the fact that "hundreds of millions" of Pentecostals speaking in tongues today--even if true--doesn't prove in the least that tongues didn't cease. We all know that this is because of a movement a couple of centuries ago to RE-INTRODUCE the practice.

These three essential facts must leave us with one hypothesis.

Yes. Tongues ceased or at least became rare and intermittent and it stayed that way for most of church history.

 

[The realist]

.

Yes, but neither is it correct to say that scripture promises no letup. And then we have the historic fact that they DID cease. So how is that to be explained away?

We have to be completely honest about that. There is evidence of an occasional episode. But that is not what the Pentecostals insist must be. It is claimed that tongues are so essential to the fullness of the faith, so much a part of the life of the church, that they must be commonplace. Clearly, that is not what happened.


Well, the fact that "hundreds of millions" of Pentecostals speaking in tongues today--even if true--doesn't prove in the least that tongues didn't cease. We all know that this is because of a movement a couple of centuries ago to RE-INTRODUCE the practice.


Yes. Tongues ceased or at least became rare and intermittent and it stayed that way for most of church history.

These were my three facts every critic must explaine
1.The lack of biblical foundational (scriptures) in both the old and new testaments of the bible concerning the cessation of tongues.
2.historical evidence that tongues was still in use long after the first century.
3.The confirmation of the existence and continuation of tongues from (almost) the entire protestant Community and hundreds of millions of speaking in tongues Christians from around the globe today.

Here's your rebuttal for my first hypothesis
"Yes, but neither is it correct to say that scripture promises no letup."
This is an unfair asessment. Because the lack there of doesn't mean you create a" let up" either. If it doesn't say so in the bible then shouldn't we leave it at that? Should we add something to scripture that was never there from the begining? Is this a safe way to interpret scripture?

Your second rebuttal
"And then we have the historic fact that they DID cease. So how is that to be explained away?"
There is no historical FACT that tongues ceased or vanished away. You have a few church fathers that said this. But it's impossible for them to know the state of the entire church at the time.They only spoke from their own experiences and should not have been dogmatic about it. By the end of the 4th certury there were possibly thousands of Christians in the world and now the entire western civilization was christianized. So it's impossible to say that no one spoke in tongues. They couldn't prove that. You yourself said "There is evidence of an occasional episode."Now you can say they wasn't common like it was in the early church. But still this doesn't prove that they "ceased". The early church fathers could not have confidently known this and shouldnt have been so dogmatic.


Your third rebuttal
"Well, the fact that "hundreds of millions" of Pentecostals speaking in tongues even if true--doesn't prove in the least that tongues didn't cease.
We all know that this is because of a movement a couple of centuries ago to RE-INTRODUCE the practice."
This just isn't true. Pentecostals wasnt the only ones who spoke in tongues since the 4th century. They didnt" re-introduce"tongues to the world. In fact there are records stating that Christians spoke in tongues a thousand years before the pentecostal movement! Some goes as far back to the 5and6th century! And pentecostals aren't the only ones speaking in tongues. There's Catholics, plymouth, methodist, and( almost) every branch of christiandom on the globe who spoke in tongues before 1907.

This is the problem that I run into when I state my three hypotheses concerning the cessation of tongues. The results are inaccurate biblical facts or no biblical facts at all, false historical unvarifiable evidence by impossible assumptions from a few Christian leaders(and thats all they were, assumptions), and they nullify and make void the millions of Christians around the world who experiences speaking in tongues today.

I still haven't read the best explanation of my three hypothesis
Here's the criteria you must base your hypothesis on
1.The lack of biblical foundational (scriptures) in both the old and new testaments of the bible concerning the cessation of tongues: There must be biblical evidence for your hypothesis.
2.historical evidence that tongues was still in use long after the first century: There must be historical evidence that proves tongues CEASED( and not wained or trickled)after the first century and beyond.
3.The confirmation of the existence and continuation of tongues from (almost) the entire protestant Community and hundreds of millions of speaking in tongues Christians from around the globe today: This needs to be explained why is there more Christians from all back grounds, denonminations, and over almost every continent on planet earth in history whose speaking in tongues.

If this cant be explained then the only probability that can be explained is that tongues never ceased. And that it is still vital and well operating in the lives of millions of Christians in the world today.

 

[Albion]

.

These were my three facts every critic must explaine
1.The lack of biblical foundational (scriptures) in both the old and new testaments of the bible concerning the cessation of tongues.
2.historical evidence that tongues was still in use long after the first century.
3.The confirmation of the existence and continuation of tongues from (almost) the entire protestant Community and hundreds of millions of speaking in tongues Christians from around the globe today.

Well, considering that your "three facts" are not factual, there is nothing we can do with them.

Tongues 'ceased' for all intents and purposes. You are unwilling to admit that, so we are at an impasse. I state what happened; you state what you wish had happened instead.

Incidentally, if you wish to continue discussing, I would appreciate it if you'd simply use the quote function in order to keep your comments and mine separate.

 

[thesunisout]

I came into this whole thing a skeptic and came out of it convinced by the Holy Spirit that the gifts have not ceased. If someone really wants to know if the gifts have ceased or not, the Spirit will have to reveal it to them.

What is happening is that those who are skeptical see the extremes and think, rightly, that there is no way this is from the Holy Spirit. The failure in their reasoning is to then immediately jump to the conclusion that the gifts have ceased. The evidence that must be considered before this conclusion could be reached is both from the bible, which overwhelmingly and emphatically states that the spiritual gifts should be operating in every believers life in some fashion, and from the operation of the gifts we see today that fall within biblical boundaries.

The extremes are everywhere, because Satan is an imitator. However, the norm, at least in most pentecostal churches, are gifts operating within biblical boundaries. 2000 years ago the skeptic would have recognized these as being the gifts of the Spirit. Now in modern times they are calling these gifts the work of Satan. There is something wrong with that picture. It is because of the presupposition of the skeptic that the gifts have ceased that they fail to see that gifts operating within biblical boundaries should be called the work of the Holy Spirit and not the work of Satan.

Doctrinally, there is no justification for the cessation doctrine. It is built on the very weakest foundation possible, which is a bad interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13 that really strains credulity, and refutes itself within its own context. On that basis, we are supposed to ignore the direct commands of the Holy Spirit to seek the spiritual gifts, and cut out entire swaths of the bible that speak about the Spirit filled life. It is a strange kind of unbelief that denies the work of the Spirit and ignores the bible to justify a denial of the miracle working power of the living God whom raised Christ from the dead.

The doctrine of that was then this is now just doesn't cut the mustard. The skeptics stress doctrine but apparently that doesn't apply to cessationism itself. I stress doctrine too which is why I must reject the cessationist position as being without merit due to a lack of any biblical foundation what so ever. The expectation of the New Testament believer in this century should be the same as any century; that we have a mighty, miracle working God who still speaks to His people and still pours out His Spirit for the sake of bringing glory to His name.

 

[The realist]

Ambrose (340-98), bishop of Milan, taught that all the gifts of I Corinthians 12 were part of the normal Christian experience.[bless and do not curse]

Well, considering that your "three facts" are not factual, there is nothing we can do with them.

Tongues 'ceased' for all intents and purposes. You are unwilling to admit that, so we are at an impasse. I state what happened; you state what you wish had happened instead.

Incidentally, if you wish to continue discussing, I would appreciate it if you'd simply use the quote function in order to keep your comments and mine separate.

You haven't yet given me any scriptural support for your theories. So yes the lack thereof concerning the cessation of tongues is a fact scriptural wise. You just can't admit it.

You didn't state any facts concerning the cessation of tongues. Because there are no FACTS concerning the cessation of tongues! This would be humanly impossible to know, especially during those times. And the simple fact that people have been speaking in tongues for almost every century since the first century and millions are still speaking in tongues today proves that your theory is false. You stated nothing but your own assumptions. You stated no scriptures, no historical evidences, and no criteria in which you based your theories on.

Here are a few facts for you: there's historical evidence that speaking in tongues still occured throughout every century from the first thousand years of Christianity.

Evidence of the gifts of the spirit in 2century:
Clement of Rome (died 100?) reminded the Corinthians that "a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit was upon you all."[bless and do not curse][174]Ignatius (died 107?) wrote to the church at Smyrna: "Ignatius… to the Church of God the Father, and of the beloved Jesus Christ, which has through mercy obtained every kind of gift, which is filled with faith and love, and is deficient in no gift, most worthy of God, and adorned with holiness… Be ye strong, I pray, in the power of the Holy Ghost."[bless and do not curse][175][bless and do not curse]He also admonished Polycarp to pray so that he might "be wanting in nothing, and… abound in every gift."[bless and do not curse][176]The[bless and do not curse]Didache[bless and do not curse]says, "For the Father desireth that the gifts be given to all" and also describes prophets who speak "in the Spirit."[bless and do not curse][177]Justin Martyr wrote, "For the prophetical gifts remain with us, even to the present time… Now it is possible to see amongst us women and men who possess gifts of the Spirit of God."[bless and do not curse][178]Irenaeus (130?-202?), Bishop of Lyons, wrote, "[T]hose who are in truth His disciples, receiving grace from Him, do in His name perform (miracles). It is not possible to name the numbers of the gifts which the Church (scattered) throughout the whole world, has received from God, in the name of Jesus Christ."[bless and do not curse][179][bless and do not curse]He taught the necessity of receiving the Spirit and specifically described speaking in tongues as evidence of the Spirit:"[T]he perfect man consists in the commingling and the union of the soul receiving the spirit of the Father… For this reason does the apostle declare, 'We speak wisdom among them that are perfect,' terming those persons 'perfect' who have received the Spirit of God, and who through the Spirit of God do speak in all languages, as he used [h]imself also to speak. In like manner we do also hear many brethren in the Church, who possess prophetic gifts, and who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages… whom also the apostle terms 'spiritual,' they being spiritual because they partake of the Spirit."[bless and do not curse][180]Celsus, a pagan, wrote near the end of the second century that Christians in his day spoke in tongues. The theologian Origen (died 254?) preserved his testimony without denying the existence and validity of tongues, and accepted the gifts of the Spirit for his day.[181]

Third century:
Tertullian "Let Marcion then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God… let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer - only let it be by the Spirit, in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him… Now all these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty."[bless and do not curse][183] tertullian wasn't the only who taught this in the third century. Sebellius claimed that it happened.

4fourth and 5th centuries:
Hilary bishop of Poitiers, also spoke on tongues describing them as "agents of ministry" ordained of God.[bless and do not curse]

Ambrose bishop of milan taught that all gifts of corinth 12chp were still in operation.

There's ample evidence that Christians still spoke in tongues in the 4th and 5th centurys.
But the church labled them heretics mainly because they wasn't apart of the catholic church. Granted there were groups who really were heritics but there were others who wasn't.

What about the 6th century through the 10th century?
Robert Sungines in his article on the gifts of tongues states that "In the subsequent development of western Christianity in the 6th through the 10th centuries...Evidence shows that the experience still occured... "

Doctor Harold hunter on an artical of the cessation of tongues says and I quote"My research done elswhere has concluded there may NOT be a century without tongues-speech apearing somewhere among Christians."

11thand 12 century:
The waldenses in Europe spoke in tongues.
Albegenses also spoke in tongues in Europe.

This idea that tongues ceased is ridiculously absurd and full of rubbish assumptions.
My foundation is in the word of God. The scriptural support is what I stand on. And if there's no scriptural support to back up your claims then your claims are biblicaly unstabled.

Here's another fact: there are over 600million Christians in the world who believe in speaking in tongues and its growing even more. This is (almost)all of protestant believers. This must be explained.

 

[Cappadocious]

There is a plausible explanation, for the popularity of Pentecostalism/Charismatic practices in the Global South, that functions without recourse to the supernatural.

 

[The realist]

I came into this whole thing a skeptic and came out of it convinced by the Holy Spirit that the gifts have not ceased. If someone really wants to know if the gifts have ceased or not, the Spirit will have to reveal it to them.

What is happening is that those who are skeptical see the extremes and think, rightly, that there is no way this is from the Holy Spirit. The failure in their reasoning is to then immediately jump to the conclusion that the gifts have ceased. The evidence that must be considered before this conclusion could be reached is both from the bible, which overwhelmingly and emphatically states that the spiritual gifts should be operating in every believers life in some fashion, and from the operation of the gifts we see today that fall within biblical boundaries.

The extremes are everywhere, because Satan is an imitator. However, the norm, at least in most pentecostal churches, are gifts operating within biblical boundaries. 2000 years ago the skeptic would have recognized these as being the gifts of the Spirit. Now in modern times they are calling these gifts the work of Satan. There is something wrong with that picture. It is because of the presupposition of the skeptic that the gifts have ceased that they fail to see that gifts operating within biblical boundaries should be called the work of the Holy Spirit and not the work of Satan.

Doctrinally, there is no justification for the cessation doctrine. It is built on the very weakest foundation possible, which is a bad interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13 that really strains credulity, and refutes itself within its own context. On that basis, we are supposed to ignore the direct commands of the Holy Spirit to seek the spiritual gifts, and cut out entire swaths of the bible that speak about the Spirit filled life. It is a strange kind of unbelief that denies the work of the Spirit and ignores the bible to justify a denial of the miracle working power of the living God whom raised Christ from the dead.

The doctrine of that was then this is now just doesn't cut the mustard. The skeptics stress doctrine but apparently that doesn't apply to cessationism itself. I stress doctrine too which is why I must reject the cessationist position as being without merit due to any biblical foundation what so ever. The expectation of the New Testament believer in this century should be the same as any century; that we have a mighty, miracle working God who still speaks to His people and does mighty miracles to bring glory to His name.

Your post is very true. There are things that must be explained.
So I came up with three hypothesis that is very problematic for cessationism:
1.The lack of biblical foundational (scriptures) in both the old and new testaments of the bible concerning the cessation of tongues.
2.historical evidence that tongues was still in use long after the first century.
3.The confirmation of the existence and continuation of tongues from (almost) the entire protestant Community and hundreds of millions of speaking in tongues Christians from around the globe today

 

[Albion]

I came into this whole thing a skeptic and came out of it convinced by the Holy Spirit that the gifts have not ceased.

Obviously, you can point to a lot of people giving forth in unintelligible sounds and deeming them to be some sort of gift, even though they do not meet the test of being the tongues described in the New Testament. But that aside, they are only the product of a movement to reintroduce them into Christianity a couple of centuries ago when Christianity was being swept by the idea of recovering lost knowledge and ancient wisdom. It's the same impulse that gave rise to Mormonism and golden plates, Adventism, and "Restorationist" Christianity in general.

The more important point is that the tongues known to the early church did cease and we know this because---get ready for this--they didn't happen (except for a reported case here or there) for over a thousand years of Christian history. That's "cessationism," even if some folks started up trying to make sounds in the 1800s.

What is happening is that those who are skeptical see the extremes and think, rightly, that there is no way this is from the Holy Spirit.

It really doesn't matter. If it isn't from the HS, it's delusional. But if it IS from the Holy Spirit, it's still a resumption of something that was not part of the church for most of its history. Yet the true believers in Pentecostalism are bent upon pretending otherwise because they think it's essential to their credibility.

The failure in their reasoning is to then immediately jump to the conclusion that the gifts have ceased.

Wrong. The mention of them having ceased is nothing but the recognition of the unavoidable truth. The notion that masses of Christians were receiving the gifts in an unbroken stream for over a thousand years--but that NO ONE WITNESSED IT--is simply fantasy. No history or historian supports it. There are no records to verify it. Yet we are expected to believe everyone is wrong about that and something of this magnitude went on for centuries unnoticed.
You might as well claim that people were regularly travelling between earth and Mars, but the Medieval Church was able to hush it up for some reason.

Now, at this point, I remind us all that this conversation cannot bear fruit. The most that can be accomplished is for each side to progressively become more exasperated at the unwillingness of the other to bend, until it moves to the level of name-calling. I don't want that to happen and, what's more, IT IS NOT THE TOPIC here!

The topic concerned what people think of PentecostalS, i.e. Christians who are Pentecostalites or Charismatics. It is not about Pentecostalism itself, its practices or interpretations of Scripture, etc.
So, I hope the discussion now turns in the direction is should have followed from the start: "What do you think about Pentecostals?"

 

[rockytopva]

You haven't yet given me any scriptural support for your theories. So yes the lack thereof concerning the cessation of tongues is a fact scriptural wise. You just can't admit it.

No kidding... No where in the bible does it even suggest that tongues will cease. If tongues were for a time frame I think Christ or one of his Apostles would have told us so.

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. - Mark 16:17-18

Unfortunately the only signs you see in church today are the exit and restroom signs!

 

[Albion]

No kidding... No where in the bible does it even suggest that tongues will cease.

Why would there have been any need to tell us that? Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us that men would stop wearing togas and cloaks. Are you going to take that as a proof that you are commanded to wear such yourself instead of pants?

 

[rockytopva]

Why would there have been any need to tell us that? Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us that men would stop wearing togas and cloaks. Are you going to take that as a proof that you are commanded to wear such yourself instead of pants?

He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church. - 1 Corinthians 14:4

I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all: - 1 Corinthians 14:18


Tongues are for self edification, in which Paul apparently done more than any other. Yet in church he would rather speak in their language and edify the church.