We don’t need a ‘prayer language’.
I'll let y'all be the one to tell
ALMIGHTY
OMNISCIENT
OMNIPRESENT
GOD
that HE made a big mistake.
Maybe He'll be thrilled to be corrected by such superior wisdom.
1 Corinthians 14
Tongues and Prophecy
2 For if you have the ability to speak in tongues,[a] you will be talking only to God, since people won’t be able to understand you. You will be speaking by the power of the Spirit,[b] but it will all be mysterious.
4 A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally, but one who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire church.
14 For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don’t understand what I am saying.
15 Well then, what shall I do? I WILL PRAY IN THE SPIRIT,[e] and I will ALSO pray in words I understand. I WILL SING IN THE SPIRIT, and I will ALSO sing in words I understand.
16 For if you praise God only in the spirit, how can those who don’t understand you praise God along with you? How can they join you in giving thanks when they don’t understand what you are saying? 17 You will be giving thanks VERY WELL, but it won’t strengthen the people who hear you.
18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than any of you.
A Call to Orderly Worship
26 Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one WILL speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.
39 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and don’t forbid speaking in tongues.
Scriptures above Quixicated because some seem to have mentally ripped them out of their Bibles for so long, it is as though they are not there.
Or maybe they are soooooooo uncomfortable and intolerant of those verses and phrases that they have to take a valium when reading I Cor 14.
Or maybe they REALLY ARE CONVINCED that Apostle Paul needed to submit his manuscript to them for editing before it was included in the Canon.
Or maybe they REALLY ARE CONVINCED that God just got HIS wires crossed when He transmitted I Corinthians to Paul.
Or maybe they just can't handle or refuse to handle God's way of doing things and so they have to rationalize it all away 12 ways to Sunday so they can sleep more smugly.
Or maybe they're just plain wrong and are toooo stubborn, self-righteous and proud about tongues to submit themselves to God and admit it.
If such Christians allowed satan to rob them of other Biblical truths on the basis of clunky demonstrations of such other Biblical truths in the flawed lives of other believers--they wouldn't believe a word in the Bible at all.
May God have mercy.
AMEN!! Good post!!
BOTH of these phrases go together.
If I speak in tongues and other can't interpret what I have said then I'm not speaking in tongues.
The idea of speaking in tongues means LANGUAGE, does it not?
Language means speaking to convey ideas and thoughts. I speak. Another listens. And in doing so, the listener has to understand what I say. Otherwise, there is no communication between the two of us.
God wouldn't have me speaking in gibberish as a freak-show. That wouldn't bring glory to Him. So this is speaking to another to convey a message.
I don't see the controversy, here. I believe it did happen as described in the NT. What am I supposed to be all worried about, Quix?
Not one word of that says it’s a special prayer language.
The charismatic movement has hijacked the term *in the Spirit* to mean something that is not supported in Scripture.
There is not one piece of evidence that *praying in the Spirit* or *singing in the Spirit* by default means a heavenly *prayer language*. All those verses in 1 Corinthians 14 can be equally applicable if the *tongues* is simply another foreign language, because you know what? I cannot understand any other language on this planet better than I can understand what is referred to as a prayer language.
If I was speaking in French, or Spanish, or Russian, or Chinese, I would not understand what I was saying, it would not edify anyone else around me unless they knew the language, I would be speaking into the air.
There is absolutely ZERO Scriptural support that this *prayer language* is anything other than a known foreign language.
If we’re going to be speaking some heavenly language that angels and God speaks, then we all ought to be speaking Hebrew.
So, WHY do we need a prayer language?
Where did Jesus tell us to pray in it?