1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Praying in the Spirit

Discussion in 'Other Christian Denominations' started by plain_n_simple, Jan 30, 2015.

Top Posters
  1. plain_n_simple

    plain_n_simple Active Member

    Joined:
    Oct 18, 2011
    Messages:
    1,887
    Likes Received:
    6
    If you think you are praying in the Holy Spirit and can understand the words as you pray, whether vocally or mentally, think again

    1st Cor 14

    "For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful."

    "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful."

    Praying in the Holy Spirit and praying using the mind or intellect, are two separate events. Each has it's method and purpose. One cannot replace, join, or interchange with the other. They can however be done one after the other.

    Praying with the intellect is done vocally and mentally using English. Most Christians do it often. The prayer can be understood in the mind of the one praying and others who might hear it. The understanding is fruitful to the mind.

    Praying in the Spirit cannot be done with the human mind as the source, it will not understand it and cannot audibly or mentally reproduce the meaning of what the Spirit says: "my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful".

    "So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding"

    Paul has defined two separate ways to pray, one in the Spirit, and another with the mind.

    Spirit-unknown tongue.........Human Mind-known tongue

    You cannot conclude with Spirit = known tongue

    You cannot conclude with Human Mind = unknown tongue

    He has not joined the two for a single method, but included both separate events as beneficial for a believer, one not above the other.

    He identifies what Praying in the Spirit is, Tongues.

    The only other way to pray is from your intellect.

    Your mind is not the same entity as your spirit.

    They have been in opposition since you got saved. Your Spirit is how you connect with God, who is spirit.

    Your mind is being renewed with continual repentance (changing your mind) until you have put on the full mind of Christ. Your mind goes out the window totally. This tells us until then, we ought to pray more in the spirit that is connected, than with a mind that is still open however small, to Satan's influence.

    There is no other definition available. Praying in the Holy Ghost is the same as Praying in Tongues. He further identifies the separations with singing in tongues, and singing from the mind.

    Paul did not write that the Holy Spirit would make him understand the prayer in Greek or Hebrew, so that he could then pray it with his mind or mouth.

    Romans 8

    "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans."

    The Spirit does the praying, using groans that are not words we recognize, but vocalize. Groans are audible sounds. Holy Spirit prayers are a language made of utterances, groans, and unknown syllables that we sound out, and cannot understand.

    To say you can pray in the Holy Spirit without tongues, is saying your mind understands what the Holy Spirit prays when He intercedes. You would then be able to vocalize it with the mouth and others could understand in English, or German, or Spanish etc.

    That is in opposition to the biblical definition of Praying in the Holy Ghost.

    To presume silent prayers from the intellect in English are Holy Spirit prayers is a misunderstanding of scripture.

    If you say you can pray in the Holy Spirit using your mind or heart, you have taken the place of the Holy Spirit praying for you.

    Why?


    We should always pray with the mind, vocally and in silence, the prayers instructed by Jesus and in the New Testament. They use the mind and mouth in known languages. But inspired by the Holy Spirit is not the same as in the Holy Spirit.

    We are told to pray in the Holy Spirit. The unknown language is the only way. Jesus said He would send a helper. He helps our prayer life because we do not know what to pray.

    Jude

    "But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."

    Some have a fear of tongues, that if they pray some jibberish it might be from the Devil. You will have to trust the Holy Spirit more than you fear Satan. Remember, Satan lies to the mind, he cannot speak to your spirit because your spirit is joined to the Holy Spirit, which is the Fathers Spirit. Satan cannot tempt God. There is for those who step out in faith great rewards.
     
    #1 plain_n_simple, Jan 30, 2015
  2. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Feb 18, 2006
    Messages:
    52,013
    Likes Received:
    3,649
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Good luck with that
     
    #2 Revmitchell, Jan 30, 2015
  3. JohnDeereFan

    JohnDeereFan Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2009
    Messages:
    5,360
    Likes Received:
    134
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Sounds like a bunch of Word of Faith bovine skubulon.
     
    #3 JohnDeereFan, Jan 30, 2015
  4. DHK

    DHK <b>Moderator</b>

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2000
    Messages:
    37,982
    Likes Received:
    137

    Paul has identified one way to pray.
    He prays with his spirit and with understanding, which is with his mind.
    One cannot pray without understanding. That makes no sense at all. In fact that is what Paul was rebuking. Prayer is communication with God. If one prays in an "unknown language" there is no communication. You don't know what you are saying and neither does God, for it noncommunicable. Even God cannot communicate in random syllables put together. He communicates with understanding. The best way to communicate with God is through your own native language where you can make your requests known unto God with thanksgiving and he will hear you.
     
    #4 DHK, Jan 30, 2015
  5. Getting it Right

    Getting it Right Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2014
    Messages:
    154
    Likes Received:
    0
    Wow. What a thread.

    How difficult is it to understand that we were born with a sinful, evil nature; that when we were reborn, born again Spiritually, we became occupied by the Holy Spirit with a fully functioning Spiritual Nature?

    Thereafter, the Spiritual Nature stands as a fortification against the cunning of the evil, sinful nature; the mind, will and emotions. The latter slips into the lead when we give way to the temptation of sin. It retreats when we go to 1 John 1:9. Then, once again, the Spiritual Nature is on the Throne.

    This is at the center of what Paul is telling us. It has nothing to do with approaching God or any one of us with a strange, nonsensical babble, humanly speaking. But how else are we to identify it? That human babble has no Spiritual context or interpretation.

    plain-n-simple comes soooooo close to clarifying it in his presentation, insofar as the two natures are concerned, but he leaves us in the human domain: nonsensical babble applied to biblical interpretation and application.

    Yes, the 12 were granted the ability to speak to others in their language. That was part of their missionary endeavors as they sought to present Jesus as Messiah, the author and finisher of the promises God made to the Hebrew folk, He their fulfillment (Law, the law, and the prophets.)

    In Acts 13:44 and in 18:6 Paul, who had been seeking to convict the Hebrew folk of the Amazing Grace of Jesus, departed from them, "hencefort" taking the Grace message to the Gentiles (goyim) and to those Jews who would listen. By 70 a.d. so-called "tongues" had vanished from the earth.
     
    #5 Getting it Right, Jan 30, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 30, 2015
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)
Loading...