Posted on 03/21/2018 8:45:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Here’s the rest of the pertinent teaching:
Corinthian 14:
15 What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also.
16 Otherwise if you bless in the spirit only, how will the one who fills the place of the ungifted say the “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not know what you are saying?
17 For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not edified.
18 I thank God, I speak in tongues more than you all;
19 however, in the church I desire to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue.
I have noticed that most real languages have a cadence and fluidity that most people speaking in tongues do not.
Many languages sound familiar although out in public, where I know it’s not a manifestation of a tongue, I have heard some pretty weird sounding languages.
I would expect any real language to have more vowels and consonants than I’ve heard people speaking in tongues use.
The interpretation can be from someone who is supernaturally gifted in that area, but just because there’s an interpretation does not mean it’s real, any more than the *tongues* is real. I have heard of several cases where the interpretation is no more genuine than the supposed gift.
RE: but his mind is unfruitful. I.e.: unless the tongue-speaker is gifted with interpretation, he/she doesn’t even cognitively know themselves what is being said.
OK, your answer then is :
1) It COULD be an earthly language ( e.g. African dialect ) or a heavenly language. We don’t know at this point and can only speculate.
2) The one speaking it does not know what is being said.
However, we have these:
1) The apostles speaking in tongues KNOWN TO THOSE WHO HEARD THEM at Pentecost.
Is that a different tongue-speaking phenomenon than the ones who do not cognitively know what they are speaking?
2) 1 Corinthians 14:27 requires that anybody who speak in tongues ( be it earthly or heavenly ) HAVE AN INTERPRETER.
That implies that regardless of its origin, There are people who UNDERSTAND the language and can interpret it.
Which tells me that we can LEARN such language by simply consulting the interpreter and asking him to help us.
Question: Has anybody ever even done that?
This is the main area that the Charismatic movement falls short.
They make claims about the gift that are simply not supported in Scripture in ANY way.
Nor is the gift usually practiced in the Scriptural way that the Holy Spirit through Paul admonishes.
I was careful to quote the Scripture, so that wasn’t my answer; it was Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
However, we know that there are at least two kinds of tongues: human and angelic. We see clearly that on the Day of Pentecost human tongues were spoken. It’s not a leap to infer that Paul is teaching the Corinthias how to use angelic tongues, since he clearly states that absent an interpreter, no one is edified in their minds.
1 Corinthians 13:1
[ The Excellence of Love ]
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
‘They make claims about the gift that are simply not supported in Scripture in ANY way.’
Could you elaborate?
‘Nor is the gift usually practiced in the Scriptural way that the Holy Spirit through Paul admonishes.’
The Corinthians exercised their gifts in exactly same way. It didn’t make their gifts any less valid in and of themselves.
RE: It’s not a leap to infer that Paul is teaching the Corinthias how to use angelic tongues, since he clearly states that absent an interpreter, no one is edified in their minds.
OK, let’s accept this then. Since there are interpreters, then humans should be able to learn this angelic language.
Also, it can be inferred that those speaking it do not know what they are saying because if they did, they would be able to interpret what they said themselves ( I am multi-lingual by the way and I can interpret myself when I speak in Chinese, Filipino or English ).
It can also be inferred that those who can interpret KNOW the angelic language. And if so, it can be inferred that there is a GRAMMAR associated with it that we can learn like linguists do.
The question then becomes — absent an interpreter, how do we differentiate between someone who is simply babbling and someone who is speaking in a heavenly language which can be made intelligible to others?
That tongues is a prayer language that is more effective than your native language.
That Satan cannot understand it because it’s a heavenly language and therefore, when you pray in it, Satan cannot use what you are praying about to attack you.
That it’s for every believer.
There’s the doctrine of the evidence, which is that speaking in tongues is evidence that you’ve been been baptized into the Holy Spirit and that if you don’t speak in tongues, that somehow your fullness of the Holy Spirit is somehow lacking. There ends up being class distinctions within churches between the haven’t and the have not’s and the have’s are more spiritual than the have not’s.
That believers should seek to speak in tongues.
I have no clue.
I have heard people who were "speaking in tongues" that sounded like nothing more than ticka-ticka-ticka-.........
That does not seem to resemble in any way what happened in Acts 2.
Therein lies a HUGE problem.
People seek the gift, and not the love that is vastly superior to the gift.
The Scriptures neither teach nor suggest the possibility of learning angelic languages. The gift of tongues, given by the Holy Spirit, is utterance. I.e.: He imbues the gift of giving utterance to this angelic language, and Paul says that the gift of interpretation should be sought through prayer.
If the prayer is answered, the interpretation would be like the tongue: a gift. Again, there’s no indication that this gift would amount to a lesson in angelic grammar [do we even know that our minds could grasp the equivalent of angelic grammar—providing there is one?]. It would be the gift of knowing the meaning of the particular utterances in question.
My advice is to assume the tongue is real. The New Testament mentions nothing about fake tongues, for one thing. For another, the penalty for witnessing a manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s power and failing to give Him the glory is eternally dire. It’s a risk none of us should willingly undertake.
There is very definitely a tendency for Christians with the gift of tongues to get carried away. Rather than arguing with them, prayers would likely be more effective. The Holy Spirit’s job is to convict people of sin and error. Whereas we are not (like, for instance, Paul to the Corinthians), the spiritual mentor of the tongue-speakers, they are more likely to listen to the Holy Spirit than to us.
There is little question that the Corinthian church was the least mature of the NT churches. They also enjoyed the widespread gift of tongues. Whether there’s a correlation, God knows. But this we know: immature Christians are error-prone. Rather than condemning them, we should pray for them. That is our response of love—and as you said, love is preeminent.
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“Messianic” is a very broad classification. Jewish, on the other hand refers specifically to Pharisee, and Karaites.
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According to Paul, tongues are only real if a translator is also present.
This tends to thin the herd considerably.
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Definition of Jew 1 : a person belonging to a continuation through descent or conversion of the ancient Jewish people 2 : one whose religion is Judaism 3 a : a member of the tribe of Judah b : israelite 4 : a member of a nation existing in Palestine from the sixth century b.c. to the first century a.d.
Definition of messianic 1 : of or relating to a messiah this messianic kingdom 2 : marked by idealism and an aggressive crusading spirit messianic zeal on a messianic mission
The enemy can counterfeit miracles and even appear as an angel of light.
Presuming the something is genuine unless proved fake can be dangerous ground to tread.
The gift of discernment is virtually never mentioned in the lists of gifts that people seek after. It's always the showy ones, tongues, interpretation to a much lesser degree, and more recently prophecy and words of knowledge.
But Satan can fake anything and discernment is needed to determine the source so one doesn't blindly fall into demonic deception.
Did you know that there are other religions that practice tongues speaking?
Some searching brought up this article about tongues speaking in other languages.
Speaking In Tongues Not Necessarily Christian: Widespread In Heathen Religions
Is that nit-pickiness the best you can do to find some problem with the article?
Is being grammar police the best you can do?
I think that's a bit of an assumption.
It is casting those who speak in tongues as being more spiritual or more in touch with the Holy Spirit than those who don't.
That is EXACTLY the kind of problem I have been seeing within Pentecostalism.
I agree they need prayer and I have some friends who I am praying for now about the issue.
Interestingly, we don't see people seeking the FRUIT of the Spirit as much as the gifts.
If people focused more on being Christlike and available for God to use as HE chooses, when He chooses, then we'd be getting further along and if God wants to give someone tongues for a particular purpose, then the person will be ready and willing to do so.
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