Tongues

Gwyneth, it depends on where this man is starting from. Is he a Pentecostal, or a Baptist? Is he starting from Acts as justification for speaking in tongues, or is the main foundation of his belief coming from 1 Corinthians?

Second, no, not everyone receives the same gift. Paul makes this abundantly clear in 1 Corinthians 12, where he talks about the difference between the hand and the eye and the feet. Paul even rebukes the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 14 for indicating that everyone must speak in tongues when he asks, "Why is it that when everyone comes in they all have a tongue?"

Finally, if you place emphasis on Paul being the apostle to the Gentiles while the other apostles were sent to the Jews, then you also find Peter reiterating in 1 Peter 4:11 what Paul said on this subject: "Let every man minister as of the ability which God giveth."

 

Hi, Gwyneth.

I think there are some questions that need to be
asked.

First, what does s/he use this gift for? What
language is s/he speaking, since the Bible, in the
readings about speaking in tongues, mentions
specific earthly languages? Has this person
testified of our God to another person who
speaks this language, in order to glorify our God?

Second, the Bible lists several gifts, as you know:
prophecying, teaching, healing, working miracles,
helping, interpreting languages, etc. I am
wondering why, among all these gifts, the one
that people most often seek for and claim to have
is the gift of tongues. Why? Why not seek the gift
of prophecy? What a benefit to the congregation!
Why not healing? This could benefit many! Why
not teaching--too much work? Why not working
miracles?

Could it be that tongues are the hardest for the
average person to disprove, therefore the easiest
with which to fool others?

As a child, I was taken about to many interesting
churches, and my best friend's church taught
the gift of tongues as necessary for salvation.
I saw many speaking, supposedly, in tongues.
They thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They were
ecstatic, they danced with joy, they shouted, they
ran. They looked like once they got used to it,
they had a lot of fun.

But not once did I see anyone use this "gift" to
glorify our God, to help another, to lift up the
congregation. It was a very selfish "gift"; it
focused on the individual, making them be the
center of their universe for their moment each
weekend. What I read in 1 Corinthians is that the \
gifts are to be used for our God.

I think that if someone wants the gift of tongues,
they should decide upon a language, go to school,
apply hard work, and learn it.

 

Hola mi hermana.....sorry, there goes the gift of tongues.

The gift has to be used to glorify God, edify the saints, and show light to the lost. The "gift" of tongues that I've seen every and I mean every pentecostal, charismatic Church display is nothing more than show boating for, as has been said, their own personal glory. It creates confusion and quite frankly scares the unsaved. At least in my case it did.

Has the gift of tongues ceased? I don't know. I know of only a couple of instances where the gift of tongues was seemingly sincere. On these accounts it was when a Christian was in the midst of unsaved people who did not speak the Christians language.

Of course, this is IMHO.

Kenneth

 

Only legitamate times I've heard of it being used alsoI also am not sure if some of the gifts have ceased, which is what I spoke wiht my pastor about when he wanted me woeking on the spiritual gifts study, but that I was going to leave on the study list every gift mentioned in the bible becasue I wanted to leave room for God to proove me wrong.(because I personally believe they have, but would nt teach that without proofe from God Himself).
Gifts are given to the church to edify and build up the church. If God chooses to use tongue in one church to accomplish what HE wants there does not mean He will use it in another church. God leads our different chirches into differen ministries, for those ministries we need differetn gifts.

 

First of all,the gift of tongues was a known language that someone could understand. Not gibberish...that is totally made up by man,it is called emotionalism and has nothing to do with spiritual giftedness. I believe there are gifts that have ceased....this being one of them. Even in Acts,it was a known language to someone there,just the person speaking it was given a power to speak a language they had not learned.

So,examine how this person or any person is *speaking* in tongues....you can rule out most all of them because they aren't even scripturally doing what happened in Acts.

[ January 22, 2003, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Molly ]

 

Biblically, when the Holy Spirit gives one person the gift of speaking in tongues, he gives another person the gift of interpreting it. If there's no interpreter, I doubt it's genuine.

 

Exactly right Johnv,
I cannot say for certain if the use of tongues were always a known language although I lean toward that line of thinking. I can however agree with John that the Bible is clear on there being an interpreter present. No doubt about it, no interpreter no tongues.
Murph

 

G'day Gwyneth

Your friend's beliefs you posted are un-Biblical from the start. (1 Corinthians 14:27-28 NIV) 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 God.

The gift (IF it has not ceased) is not for everyone. (1 Corinthians 12:30 NIV) Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues ? Do all interpret? (I had a couple of URLs explaining the cessationist view but have no idea where I put them)

The passing out/fainting thing you mentioned is what they call 'slain in the spirit.' I put together 5 or 6 posts of mine on topic from another thread HERE (apologies for the repetition, I have to get around to editing it)

Your friend is right (if "tounges" is still for today) that there should be interpretation. I have seen a bit of these churches though and never once saw any interpretation.

Amen to all other posters so far.

Pete

 

Gwyneth, I can see a role for speaking iun tounges in a biblical sense.

However if you believe in speaking in tounges, you are not supposed to post that opinion in this forum, as it is for Fundamentalist Baptists.

If you would like to raise it in another forum, I'll be happy to share with you what I feel the right way to use tounges, and other Spiritual gifts is. Otherwise maybe the PM system

In Christ Ben W

 

I feel that Biblically it is very simple, if you speak in an unknown tongue and someone in the room has been gifted by God to interpret it then wonderful, otherwise it is error.
Murph

 

Amen, Murph, Amen!

 

How does anyone know if the interpretation is real or right,many claim to be able to do that,so if a certain interpreter says the person in their ecstatic gibberish said,"God said,run around the church 3 times" and everyone did it because that person *could* interpret the gibberish,what kind of foolishness is that?...it is all totally unverifiable nonsense. No,I say,that word in the greek mean glossa,or known language and it was used to share the gospel to one that spoke in a different language...it was an apostolic gift,now we have a better word....the entire Cannon of God's word.

 

The gift of tongues (the sudden ability to speak in a language that you have not learned) has ceased. If you have anecdotal evidence that someone once did this on a specific occasion I won't dispute you because our God is able to do as He sees fit. He can and does work miracles, even today, but, that is not the same thing as a gift distributed to His church as a characteristic of His dealing with us. In the early church this was a such a common thing that churches had problems with so many people having so many gifts, but, now a days it is such a rare thing that we have to stretch our definitions of gifts to even think that maybe someone might have something like one of the gifts. Read I Cor 13-14 and ask yourself, "Is this the way it is being done here?". The answer will be "No" and you will know that they are wrong.

[ January 23, 2003, 11:57 AM: Message edited by: Artimaeus ]

 

I have a problem with saying that the gift of
tongues has ceased. I cannot see that in the
Bible. If the gift of tongues has ceased, why that
one and not the gifts of prophecy, helps,
knowledge, healing, etc.? I think that what has
really ceased is our understanding of the original
intent of the writers of the Scripotures.

Let me preface what I am about to write by saying
that I have no proof of the following, but I ask that
it be considered.

On that monumentous day mentioned in Acts 2,
the Lord did indeed give the people the ability to
speak in languages they had never learned--
earthly languages speaking the glories of our
God to people of many languages who understood
them. This was necessary in order for human
beings to spread the good news quickly and in
order to prove the power of our God to those who
did not know it.

In Acts 10, when the Spirit was poured out,
Gentiles also received and spoke in foreign
languages.

When the Spirit was given after this, Acts 19, it was
to believers who had been baptized unto
repentance only; they needed to also be baptized
in the name of the Messiah, then they received the
Holy Spirit and were able to speak in foreign
languages.

I could have missed some other incidents, but I
think the next mention of tongues is in 1 Cor. This
was around 54 ce. The disciples had been sent
out, but they were not scattered as they would be
later. Regardless, they still had the languages our
Lord had given them when they received the Holy
Spirit, but instead of using them to evangelize,
they were apparently playing with them, enjoying
the fact that they could speak in other languages.
That was not the purpose! Tongues are not a toy;
they are to glorify our God to the NATIONS! So
Paul reprimanded them as they stayed home and
he traveled about, doing his missionary work.

Paul also talked about the other gifts: healing, etc.
Luke had the gift of healing. He was called upon
to use it many times. He was Paul's companion
physician. How did he get this gift? He studied
and learned it. Did our God enhance his learning?
It is likely. Did Luke's previous knowledge make
him any less gifted in healing? Why would it?

Then, there is the gift of prophecy--speaking
forth the counsel of our God; declaring the
knowledge knowledge of God, learned by natural
means--by studying. Did our God enhance this
as well? I would think so! Did He expect his
preachers to not study but just wait for our God
to fill their mouths? No!

So what about tongues. Some people are gifted
to learn languages easily; some are not. Should
tongues be learned from a book which teaches
a specific language--like Spanish, Italian, or
French? Should the learner have to do the hard
work, take the exams, and receive a grade?
Why do we mystify this particular gift, when
we all know people who are gifted in known
languages?

Why do we mystify any of the gifts? Is our God
unable to use the gifts we have and those we can
learn?

I would challenge anyone to prove to me that
tongues in the Bible are only about a sudden
gift and never about doing the hard work. I
think they can be both.

 

Gwyneth, I can see that you are honestly and sincerely seeking the truth on this matter. That is commendable, but you have to remember that the only place you are going to get the truth is from the Word of God. Here is a link to a study on Tongues. I beg you to please go and read through it. The tongues movement is NOT Biblical, please read this study which shows you from the Bible what God has to say about speaking in tongues.

http://www.touchet1611.org/Tongues2.htm

 

As to Molly's question about it being just jibberish I must add that anything the interpreter may say must agree with scripture because if God did speak in an unknown tongue it would only be to edify the body and glorify Himself. I don't speak in tongues and I don't know what the percentage of those who do are doing so Biblically but if God could speak thru a donkey I suppose he could speak thru an unknown tongue. It would be startling if a person came into my SBC church and spoke in tongues but I fear sometimes that we as baptists have been so afraid of strange fire that we jump to exclude all fire.
Murph