SHOULD A BAPTIST CHURCH EMBRACE PENTECOSTALISM?

THANKS FOR YOUR KIND reply and worthy exhortation.

I do find my clay feet far too much always with me . . . that helps in that regard.

Your candor is refreshing and edifying Quix!

I started reading the Bible as an atheist.Religion has been to me (and my entire family)an alien thing,and it still is!If this is all actually real then I don't want to hear it all cloaked in religious speak.I keep imagining those who are seeking wandering onto some of the religion threads and throwing up their hands in exasperation!Like a 3 mile high ganite wall that has little or nothing to offer those who want the simple truth that will impact their very innermost being.It sometimes seems like trying to wade through neck deep mud.

Sadly,I get the impression many like it that way.

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

If you don't KNOW you are saved you can pretty much forget the above.

However,if you do know..."Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.......for the tesimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy"

You are a precious treasure Bro.

Thanks for your kind reply and fitting exhortations.

God’s best to you and yours.

My students like my candor, too.

The Administration far less so. LOL.

Now what is this thing called ‘wisdom???’

Sigh.

Paul said

“I THANK GOD I SPEAK IN TONGUES MORE THAN YOU ALL”

***He said “Forbid not to speak in tonuges” for a reason.

Naysayers tend to behave and talk as though those verses were not in the Bible for the New Testament Church age/era/dispensation.***

St Paul could speak Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, possibly Latin and Sythian. This is what he meant by tongues. He could preach to a Greek audience with Hebrews present and speak to both. No miraculous “tongues” needed. He insisted that TRANSLATORS be present in the congregation so all could understand the preaching in the vernacular.

What the Translators to the Reader 1611 KJV had to say about TONGUES.

TRANSLATION NECESSARY

But how shall men meditate in that, which they cannot understand? How shall they understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue? as it is written, “Except I know the power of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh, a Barbarian, and he that speaketh, shall be a Barbarian to me.” [1 Cor 14]

The Apostle excepteth no tongue; not Hebrew the ancientest, not Greek the most copious, not Latin the finest. Nature taught a natural man to confess, that all of us in those tongues which we do not understand, are plainly deaf; we may turn the deaf ear unto them.

The Scythian counted the Athenian, whom he did not understand, barbarous; [Clem. Alex. 1 Strom.] so the Roman did the Syrian, and the Jew (even S. Jerome himself called the Hebrew tongue barbarous, belike because it was strange to so many) [S. Jerome. Damaso.] so the Emperor of Constantinople [Michael, Theophili fil.] calleth the Latin tongue, barbarous, though Pope Nicolas do storm at it: [2::Tom. Concil. ex edit. Petri Crab]
So the Jews long before Christ called all other nations, Lognazim, which is little better than barbarous. Therefore as one complaineth, that always in the Senate of Rome, there was one or other that called for an interpreter: [Cicero 5::de finibus.] so lest the Church be driven to the like exigent, it is necessary to have translations in a readiness.

Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most Holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water, even as Jacob rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, by which means the flocks of Laban were watered [Gen 29:10].

Indeed without translation into the vulgar tongue, the unlearned are but like children at Jacob’s well (which is deep) [John 4:11] without a bucket or something to draw with; or as that person mentioned by Isaiah, to whom when a sealed book was delivered, with this motion, “Read this, I pray thee,” he was fain to make this answer, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” [Isa 29:11]

Again, it was not gibberish, as Matthew Henry called it. It was real languages.

I had to go out after I posted. I just got in for the night. I use to have the Faith data base software. This would show the verses in the original greek or hebrew along side the english. it was wonderful. It was for windows only. I now have a mac os. It’s not made yet in snow leopard yet. I will get back to you.

Praying in tongues is more like the latter two, for me. I’d feel exceedingly bereft of a robust way to communicate deep inner stuff and even routine stuff in a satisfyingly thorough way, without tongues.

I believe one of the huge errors in the charismatic movement is the insistence that a spirit-filled Christian should "pray in the Spirit" (which according to the charismatic is speaking in tongues) and that to not do so is to miss out on all that God wants for us. What is overlooked here is that we are all to pray in the Spirit but according to Scripture not all Christians received the gift of speaking in tongues. We are told that the Spirit prays for us "in groanings that CANNOT be uttered" (unspoken). Tongues was also called a "lessor gift" and we were to earnestly seek the gifts that edified the church (all believers in Christ).

I also do not accept that somehow the unknown "languages" used are a "heavenly" language or the languages of angels. The reason is angels always spoke in a language that was understood by the person to whom the message was intended. They heard it in their own language. As far as the language we will all speak one day in Heaven, we do not know, but why would God only allow some to have it now and not others? Besides, the gift was not intended to edify the believer, it was for the unbeliever (we are told) so that they could hear the Gospel.

I do not deny that God certainly still works miracles today because I have personally experienced them in my life and if God wanted me to tell the Gospel to someone who did not speak English, he could certainly give me the power to speak their language or to allow them to hear the gospel by my English. Charismatic evangelists I have known told me they had to have translators at their revivals in a foreign country. Why if they have the gift of tongues would that be needed? What is being done under the name of the gift of the Holy Spirit is not the same that was given to the disciples and believers in the early church. They were sign gifts used to demonstrate authority from God. But we have a more sure word of prophecy today - the completed Bible. That is the authority and source of truth for today not a fabricated, worked up, flashy, showy, self-invented demonstration where the true Gospel is often not even preached.

Finally, I do not agree with everything Dr. MacArthur teaches but I believe he is correct in his observations and thoughts about what is being passed off today as from God. It was not posted to scorch anybody's feelings but to bring into the conversation another view that should be considered.

THANKS THANKS.

NO sweat. When convenient.

I care for you a lot.

I respect you a lot.

I don’t care to haggle over those issues much further with you.

I think I’ve stated my convictions on the matter mostly clearly.

I will note again that the one with merely an argument has a great disadvantage trying to convince one with a bona fide experience.

Thank you, Quix, you know I care for and respect you greatly as well. Please understand that I am not trying to challenge you in any way. This post dealt with a subject that I have given much thought to for many years and I have had many friends and even relatives involved. My sincere intent is not to condemn anyone's experience but to test and try them according to the truth of God's word. We should judge our experiences by the Bible and not the Bible by our experiences.

I accept you as a brother in the Lord regardless and I will continue to pray for you. God bless you as you live the life he has design especially for you!

Rather than attack the man (messenger) because of not liking what he says, why not speak about what he says that you think is wrong? What “lies” do you feel he tells? Why are they lies?

The utube video prior to the one I posted spoke about an ABC report on the brain scans of people that change when they “speak in tongues” versus when they speak in their own language. My immediate thoughts were:

1. How can they just turn it off and on at will? Isn't it supposed to be a manifestation of God's power as a sign?

2. Why didn't they also test a person who intentionally “fakes” the tongues part? I think the area of the brain that activates when we use a known language and doesn't when we jabber on might probably be identical with a person's who is speaking in tongues. Why wasn't that included?

3. What is passing as a legitimate manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the speaking of tongues can quite easily be faked, and I don't doubt it has been to make the person appear “spiritual” to others. In the early church it was a sign that the person was filled with the HS and I certainly believe that they could tell the difference between one who really had the gift and one who was pretending to.

4. I think MacArthur makes a legitimate point about the similarities with what happens in a lot of Charismatic churches today and what happened in pagan worship. The church at Corinth, which was a major pagan center, had serious problems with the abuse of the gift and Paul was inspired to write them to correct the abuses. Many of those same behaviors are going on today. How many recent examples have we had of pastors and evangelists from the Charismatic movement getting into serious trouble over carnal sins including adultery, rape, embezzlement, fraud, etc.?

I do not intend to cast doubts or aspersions on anybody’s spiritual relationship with the Lord. But like I said, we should judge our experiences by the Bible and not the Bible by our experiences.

, I also know that in his ministry, he does well present the Gospel to his flock.

That does not seem apparent in his youtube videos attacking Mr. Graham or comparing the pentecostal/charismatic movement to an erotic orgy. He cannot present the Gospel well if he uses it out of context, places half-truths next to each other (to draw incorrect conclusions) and twists the words of scripture to prove his own incorrect conclusions

The best Pentecostal/Charismatic churches I’ve been a part of and/or aware of have been indistinguishable from Acts 2.

The problem may be for some that the not-so-good seem to stand out.

on another note -- has anyone ever tried baking pork in beer (Guiness or another stout)? I tried it years ago in Wales and the taste was delicious. I tried it again yesterday and while it was good, it wasn't quite so special. I just used garlic, salt and pepper and oregano for seasoning and marinated the pork for an hour and cooked in the oven at 350 F for about 1.5 hours.

Any tips, anyone?

Scythian? You mean the Irani dialect? Or was it standing for pure Irani (Avestani or Persian or even Mede/BAluch)

THIRD TRY . . . thankfully, I saved it this time . . .

Wellllllll, that reply got zapped by the FR glitches. Trying again.

---

Thank you, Quix, you know I care for and respect you greatly as well. . . . I accept you as a brother in the Lord regardless and I will continue to pray for you. God bless you as you live the life he has design especially for you!
.

LIKEWISE, for sure.

Please understand that I am not trying to challenge you in any way.
.

Feel free to challenge me. The deliberately personally assaultive ones do 24/7! LOL. I much prefer it from a warm friend/Bro/Sis.

This post dealt with a subject that I have given much thought to for many years and I have had many friends and even relatives involved. My sincere intent is not to condemn anyone's experience but to test and try them according to the truth of God's word. We should judge our experiences by the Bible and not the Bible by our experiences.
.
----

1. I have always found it a grossly false, misleading, irrational notion that there's (A) The Bible and (B) experience.

2. We could have ABSOLUTELY NO AWARENESS of, cognitions about The Bible APART from our EXPERIENCE of the Bible.

3. It's as though there's this magical thinking that we have these pages and ink in our hands [1st--irrationally as though we had the original autographs of such] and that this perfect text 1,000% flawlessly just jumps into our being and consciousness magically with 1,000% perfect understanding etc. etc. etc.

THAT'S UNMITIGATED NONSENSE.

We EXPERIENTIALLY approach the Bible every time we pick it up, recall it, listen to it, think about it, feel it, smell it. There are no other options (unless, maybe, one is into eating the pages).

Being mortals in this sphere, we CANNOT apprehend the Bible in the least degree apart from our EXPERIENCE of the Bible.

And our EXPERIENCE of the Bible is colored, distorted, corrupted, flavored, shaded, tweaked, screened, altered, . . . by our
--genetic personalities,
--our trained, experience derived personalities,
--our language training and experiences;
--our family perspectives,
--feelings,
--habits;
--our cultural mind sets;
--our family mind sets;
--our other reference groups;
--whether we have gas or cancer;
--our unforgiveness of others;
--our sins;
--our snotty or gracious attitudes;
--the pastors et al that we look up to & those we dislike;
--the resources we read and agree with as well as those we reject;
--our ecstasies or lack thereof;
--the miracles we've experienced, or not experienced;
--our associations with those claiming to manifest such expreiences or who reject such experiences;
--our EXPERIENCES of seeking OR NOT SEEKING such experiences;
--etc.

Certainly it is irrational to pretend that we EXPERIENCE the Bible purely and everything else impurely. It is irrational to pretend that the Bible, for us as individuals, is outside of our EXPERIENCE of it. Of course, we can say that the Heavenly Bible on God's coffee table is outside the experience of, at least, most of us. But that's not the issue here.

The notion that we can TEST OUR

OTHER-THAN-THE-BIBLE-EXPERIENCES

by our flawless perfect BIBLE EXPERIENCES is grossly false and misleading.

More, it's simply impossible. It's Not within the realm of possibility for mortals in this sphere.

Add a couple of fennel bulbs, pack the inside with rosemary, cloves, 4 garlic bulbss; top the roast exterior with Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Magic Rub and about 1/8” of Kosher Salt; sautee in 1 cup of a sweet white wine, slow roast 225 for 5-6 hrs. Won’t hurt to seal it up in tin foil to keep it moist. If gamey, add a piece of citrus.

The utube video prior to the one I posted spoke about an ABC report on the brain scans of people that change when they “speak in tongues” versus when they speak in their own language. My immediate thoughts were:

People’s brains show different areas when they speak their native tongue vs a later learned one. People who learn 2 native languages early at the same time have different areas of their brain devoted to each language. However, the point of the video, as I understood it, was that the normal known language processing area was quieter when speaking in tongues than when speaking a known learned language.

I think the research was a bit anemic. There’s a wide range of experiences when speaking in tongues. Certainly some mimic and pretend with no great detectable difference in terms of Holy Spirit’s involvement at all.

And, most folks’ initial experiences are quite dramatic, forceful, anointed, intense, with little or no conscious control of speech muscles etc. After a while, the “Holy Spirit goose bumps” sensations tend to go away for most people and there’s more conscious control of the speech muscles, most of the time. And, there’s the praying in tongues more or less under one’s breath and consciousness as in ‘praying always’ . . . very easy to do in tongues as it does not require much conscious thought and could be construed as a kind of idling along prayer wherein the brain center WOULD BE QUIETER.

As far as I saw, the research on youtube did not have such a wide range of examples under the brain scans. There were NO scans of someone’s initial BEING BAPTIZED IN HOLY SPIRIT speaking in tongues. I saw NO examples of a brain scan when someone was under an obviously intense anointing when speaking in tongues. The Pastor and the black woman were both more or less in the mode of willfully and consciously praying in tongues. I’m NOT saying they were pretending or mimic-ing. I’m just saying they were MORE in a mode of consciously praying in tongues than they were in a state where Holy Spirit came over them in a heavy anointing and flowed through them with great intensity. Those are different experiences and manifestations.

Therefore, I don’t know how much can be made of that research, really. It’s interesting and more than no data. Still, it’s very limited, imho, in its implications.

1. How can they just turn it off and on at will? Isn't it supposed to be a manifestation of God's power as a sign?

As I’ve noted with the Scripture above, the individual is in charge of starting, stopping, flowing (from his side) etc. That’s A MAJOR DISTINCTION which McArthur et al seem to fail to understand AT ALL. Holy Spirit is a gentleman.

It is satan and his crew who possess folks and control them in a heavy handed way.

That is NOT Holy Spirit’s way. His way is a mutually agreed moment by moment dance. Yes, he leads. He likely will withdraw if He cannot lead. Folks can then shut up or get off into the flesh.

I would not 100% rule out 100% of the time—that is, it may be that Holy Spirit would on rare occasions—TAKE A GENUINELY SUBMISSIVE, SUBMITTED BELIEVER who’s sought 100% to be used as Holy Spirit sees fit—it may be on very rare occasions that Holy Spirit needs to accomplish something so precise and crucial that for all intents and purposes, Holy Spirit is in very intense control of the person’s speech muscles. However, I’d say that even then, the person COULD stop, IF they so chose. They would just never choose to do so in such a state—it is too glorious. One wants it to go on forever.

God manifesting as a sign does NOT mean that individuals become robots. That is NOT God’s way. That’s satan’s way.

Moses before Pharaoh was not a robot.

2. Why didn't they also test a person who intentionally “fakes” the tongues part? I think the area of the brain that activates when we use a known language and doesn't when we jabber on might probably be identical with a person's who is speaking in tongues. Why wasn't that included?

Why? Because I wasn’t the psychologist doing the research. LOL.

There has been research with deliberate fakers. Most pastors and more experienced tongues speakers could tell the difference. Interestingly, Pastors and experienced tongues speakers could tell the difference when linguists sometimes could not, IIRC.

Deliberate deception also involves a different part of the brain.

I believe there would be a difference between:
.
1. faking
2. normal idle-ing, routine prayer in tongues with more or less more conscious control out of the person’s own desire to pray etc.
3. super intense, super anointed times when Holy Spirit obviously has some very specific and intensely important business to transact.

Each of those states is markedly different.

3. What is passing as a legitimate manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the speaking of tongues can quite easily be faked, and I don't doubt it has been to make the person appear “spiritual” to others. In the early church it was a sign that the person was filled with the HS and I certainly believe that they could tell the difference between one who really had the gift and one who was pretending to.

Yes, as I noted above, most Pastors can as well as most experienced tongues speakers can. A smidgen of discernment may be all that’s needed.

4. I think MacArthur makes a legitimate point about the similarities with what happens in a lot of Charismatic churches today and what happened in pagan worship. The church at Corinth, which was a major pagan center, had serious problems with the abuse of the gift and Paul was inspired to write them to correct the abuses. Many of those same behaviors are going on today. How many recent examples have we had of pastors and evangelists from the Charismatic movement getting into serious trouble over carnal sins including adultery, rape, embezzlement, fraud, etc.?

Nonsense, on the whole, McArthur’s full of himself on the topic.

Sure, there’s abuses. There was in Corinth and are now. So what. That’s not the point. That’s a straw dog.

I do not intend to cast doubts or aspersions on anybody’s spiritual relationship with the Lord. But like I said, we should judge our experiences by the Bible and not the Bible by our experiences.

I’ve already responded to that issue.

I appreciate your attitude. However, functionally, you ARE casting aspersions on folks’ spiritual relationships with The Lord.

Good points, imho.

***The best Pentecostal/Charismatic churches I’ve been a part of and/or aware of have been indistinguishable from Acts 2.

The problem may be for some that the not-so-good seem to stand out.****

Again, a quick examination of ACTS 2 shows the Apostles preached in their own language, but the hearers heard in their own language. No “speaking in tongues” at all!

Does this work in your churches today?

With regard to my statement about judging our experiences by the Bible versus judging the Bible by our experiences let me give an example of what I am trying to say.

I go to a "faith healer" to be cured of my debilitating back injury and intractable pain. I am prayed over, hands have been laid upon me and I have been anointed with oil but I do not get any better. Now if I was judging the Bible by my experience I would say:

1. God must not love me.
2. God is lying when he says "by his stripes we are healed".
3. God cannot or does not answer my prayers or the prayers of others.
4. The people who prayed for me could not have had the "gift of healing".
5. God must enjoy my suffering.

On the other hand, if I judged my experience by the Bible I would instead understand that

1. God loves me and that can and will never change.
2. "By his stripes we are healed" doesn't mean physical healing but spiritual.
3. God does incline his ear to our prayers and the prayer of a righteous man avails much but sometimes God allows suffering for a higher purpose.
4. Although the gift of healing as a "sign gift" that was given to the apostles has ceased, it does not mean that God cannot or will not miraculously heal.
5. God does not permit suffering in his kid's life because he enjoys it but that my suffering can have a higher purpose for his glory. His strength is made perfect through my weakness.

Again, let me say I am NOT casting aspersions or criticizing Christians, I am instead asking my brethren in the Lord to question the reasons why they experience what they do and to measure those experiences by what God's holy word says. It seems as though there is some hostility towards anyone who may not see things exactly the way we do and all I want to communicate is that we can sit down and reason together without condemnation and hard feelings. I am not judging, but rather I am asking for objective consideration of what God reveals to us through his word.