Featured manifestation vs gift

Pagans in the early centuries, pagans nowadays, Gnostics, possibly Sufis, heretical Charismatics who use means to start up their tongues--all of these speak in tongues and don't know what they are saying. And you speak in tongues and don't know what you are saying. And the only thing you can give me for the difference is that you are manifesting the Spirit, something I have to take on faith because you can't prove it. You have certainly not convinced me with anything you've said.

I don't think you will try, but prove to me that your tongues are a genuine language and I'll believe you. Here's a method: record a sample of your tongues, then do phonetic research. If yours is a genuine language that you simply don't know, there will phonemes (basic sounds) and morphemes (sounds with meaning) in it that we don't have in English. If there are no such sounds, yours is not a genuine language. For example, Japanese has a "tsu" phoneme that we don't have in English. And they have a phoneme between L & R that is not either one.

If you have such sounds in your tongues, sounds we don't have in English, you might be speaking a genuine foreign language. But linguists have researched Charismatic tongues and found them to be not a language, but really just babble. I doubt if your version is different. But it would be easy to prove.

William Samarin researched modern tongues extensively, finding that they had no syntax or semantics, that they were "characterized by strings of usually simple syllables that are not matched systematically with any semantic system" (The New Charismatics, by Richard Quebedeaux, p. 202).

Wayne Oates, in "A Socio-Psychological Study of Glossalalia" (in Tongue Speaking in Biblical, Historical and Psychological Perspective), concluded that "Distortions of speech characteristic of early childhood are submerged as a child matures, but these distortions reappear in glossalalia when an individual tries to verbalize long-repressed religious convictions for the first time; he reverts to an early stage of communicative development" (ibid, 201).

 

I am completely unconvinced that you did any deep, comprehensive study of the matter. I think your study was shallow. I don't say this lightly. But in your this thread you were so shallow as to say that "gifts" in 1 Cor. 12 was in italics, when it is only true in one and not so in five cases.

Fine. I challenge you to tell me where some Baptist churches have gone off. I don't think you know.

I never said you believed it. You said you disagreed with it and I believe you. But why don't you oppose this heretical doctrine instead of simply disagreeing?

This doesn't ring true. You said at one point you have been in Baptist churches for 40 years. Yet now you say you don't know enough about the incarnation to oppose false doctrine on it. Either your baptist churches have been pathetically poor at teaching fundamental, foundational doctrine, or...?

 

This is what your testimony sounds like:

http://www.answers2prayer.org/bible_questions/Answers/speaking_in_tongues/how.html

Note: "[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]I felt these sounds -- syllables and words -- just bubble up from inside."[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]
--There is no place in the Bible which teaches this. It is confusion, and chaos. God is a God of order, not of confusion. He communicates in a way that we understand, not in a way that we don't understand. A mixture of sounds and syllables run together comes from paganism. It is ecstatic speech, not a language such as was spoken in Biblical times, the gift of tongues or languages.

If you really had the gift you would know the language you speak in and be able to identify it. You would understand what you are saying. You would be able to think in it.
[/FONT][/FONT]

 

And once again you are twisting my words. I did not say that. I said prove that your tongues are a genuine language and I will believe you in that one thing.

So then, "the conclusion of the matter" is that you believe your tongues are the Biblical version, but you cannot prove it spiritually, linguistically or any other way, is that correct?

 

Oh, I know I'll never convince you. My purpose in opposing you on the BB is so that others will not be led astray. (And I believe in the Bible and my Lord Jesus Christ with all of my heart. I just don't believe you--and that is what you are calling my "unbelief."

And that includes the incarnation of Jesus Christ, is that correct? (I don't want to misrepresent you.)

 

Nowhere in Scripture does it say that tongues is a prayer language. That is your assumption. And your so-called proof is from a verse where Paul is rebuking the use of tongues. How ironic!
In Acts 2, they "called out" (kalew) the praises of God (proclaimed, preached, said, etc.) It is as close to preaching as one can get. They called out God's praises in a loud voice--no microphone, no loud speaker, no megaphone, nothing; but it had to reach a crowd larger than 100,000 people! They weren't talking in a whisper were they? It is as close to preaching as one can get.

In Acts 19:6 they spoke in tongues and prophesied. Here is what Matthew Poole says about tongues in this passage:

Commentator after commentator say similar things. The reason? Your position was unknown until 1905. You take 19 centuries of Christian scholarship and throw it out the window.

I just did. I keep telling you that that is the very reason why it was given to Paul--to edify believers in the different churches he went to of different language groups. Thus he says: "I thank God that I speak in languages more than you all."

God gave the ability to speak other languages to believers to do His work.
If he did that today, then I would not have to spend years of my life studying languages. You don't know how many times I have wished that I had that gift just to speak another language without having to study it. But I don't have it. I must spend hours of hard work studying foreign languages. It isn't easy, but it must be done.

No unbeliever was ever given that supernatural ability. Study your Bible.

Your esoteric meaning of "manifestation" doesn't work with me.
The gifts of the Spirit were given to early first century believers during the Apostolic Age.
They were never given to edify oneself. That is a selfish use of a gift given to the church.
All the gifts were given to the church to be used in the church. The entire letter was written to the church at Corinth.

Not true. It was a supernatural gift. He was writing to Corinth. Corinth was a port city on a well-known trade route that attracted all kinds of foreigners. Thus the need of tongues may have been greater there than at other places, as far as reaching others who didn't understand the local language. But that wasn't the only purpose of tongues. It was only one purpose.

Yes. Paul set down very strict rules for any person having a desire to speak in tongues. Apparently you don't know what those rules are, and don't care about them either.
1. One person at a time.
2. No more than two or three, and then they must be in order, turn by turn.
3. If there is no interpreter let them keep silence in the church.
As well as all of the other rules Paul set down. You don't like them.

I don't have any struggles at all.
You attach some meaningless esoteric definition to "manifestation" but in your own words are unable to give a cogent coherent definition.

Speak to God. That is called prayer. Take a look in First Samuel chapter one and learn from Hannah. Pray in your own language. To pray in an unknown language that you don't understand is not prayer.

Paul spoke in another language, a language that God miraculously gave to him. The only example of praying in that language was publicly in church, with interpretation, so that the church would know when to say "amen."

1Cor.13:8 says otherwise.

I have never admitted to praying without understanding. No such thing is ever encouraged in the Bible, but rather condemned.

That is an admission that you should change?

You don't understand Paul. You don't understand manifestation. You don't understand "the gift of tongues." Your complete understanding of all the gifts is totally lacking.

 

Well, duh. :tongue3: Since I would be the one proving it (since I'm a linguist), I would have to believe my own proof, wouldn't I?

The techniques of researching an unknown language were developed many years ago by missionaries translating the Bible into unknown languages, and polished in the 20th century by Wycliffe, SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), and other groups. I would (1) list the phonemes; (2) try to discover morphemes among the phonemes; (3) look for syntax markers (syntax is sentence structure; (4) look for semantic markers, or common words such as "and"; and so forth. I would be happy as a linguist to honestly investigate a lengthy session of tongues by you that is recorded and then transcribed.

But I have to warn you that to my knowledge, every single time that linguists have examined tongues, the tongues have been proven to be babble, and not a true language. William Samarin did extensive research proving tongues had no syntax (sentence structure) or semantics (word meanings), described in his book Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism. Wayne Oates said that tongues are the language of early childhood ("A Socio-Psychological Study of Glossolalia" in Tongues Speaking in Biblical, Historical, and Psychological Perspective, by Stagg, Hinson and Oates). And so forth.

Again, according to Dr. E. Mansell Pattison, tongues are similar to aphasic speech, the decomposition of speech due to a stroke, etc. ("Speaking in Tongues and About Tongues," in Christian Standard, 2/15/64 (cited in MacArthur, 296). This means tongues don't communicate, they don't make sense. They are not a language.

 

I've never said He does not manifest Himself today. I've even said the opposite, though not in those exact words. So you are twisting my words again. Or perhaps you are mixing me up with someone else. And you are clueless as to what my real position is, though I've referred to various parts of it at times during our discussions.

If you were sharp, you would have a pretty good idea by now of what I believe about the manifestation of the Spirit, but you are so full of your own beliefs you have no time for anyone for anyone with an opposing view. So you really don't know how I interpret the manifestation of the Spirit. You simply dismiss what I say as unbelief, even before I've said it.

Let me tell you, if I were in unbelief about the Holy Spirit, would I have prayed and read the Scripture for many hours 30 years ago in a park in Yokohama seeking the truth about the blessed Spirit of God? (You are really late in your life seeking the truth about the Holy Spirit, so don't even talk to me about it. I'm not impressed.) But you are full of your interpretation, gained late in life from Charismatics, and don't want to listen to anyone else who might have a differing view.

You've twisted my words and insulted me over and over (I'm in unbelief, I haven't deeply studied the Scriptures, the problems causesd by Charismatics in my church were from Satan not the Charismatics, etc.). Do you think that speaks well for your beliefs? Do you think that draws people to your beliefs? I think not.

 

That is because you refuse to accept the definition of what the Biblical gift of languages is. It is a supernatural gift to speak in another language which the speaker previously did not know. Now understand this. In order to speak in that language one has to be able to know what they are saying. For example if one is standing in front of the congregation and they need to explain the meaning of the "new birth" and "regeneration." How is he going to do it? He needs to think in the language that God gave him. He needs to know what "new birth" is in this unknown language. He needs to know what "regeneration" is and know how to explain it in this unknown language. He needs to know the language. It is an unknown language given to him to teach the people. It edifies the people. The gift of interpretation was not for the speaker's understanding. How could that be so? He had to understand what he was saying.

Ask John. When he speaks in another language he has to be able to think in that language. He must be able to know the language well enough to express himself. That is what God gave as a supernatural gift.

The interpretation came for others, a mixed crowd perhaps, or into Hebrew for the Jews. It, after all was a sign to the Jews. If he went to Spain, and there was no one there but Spanish people, there would be no need of an interpreter. But that was not the case. He always spoke in the synagogues first, and thus there were Jews. He gave some interpretation for the Jews in order for them to know this was a sign to them.

But in this letter, it was specifically written to the Corinthians. They probably always had visitors of another nation because they were on a major trade route. Thus the necessity of speaking in tongues. It was a miraculous gift where one could speak, and thus think in the language that they were given.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItLIUWPujg8&feature=related

Here is a man operating in the gifts, or you can call him simply "true believer" according to Mark 16. Believe it or not, the city of Redding CA has a 90% cancer cured rate! Praise God!

 

Beware of false teachers. You shall know them by their fruits. The fruit in the verse means doctrine. Here is some of his questionable doctrine:

Revelation doesn't come to anyone. Revelation is finished.

This kind of teaching is totally unbiblical. It is also cruel in that it blames the sick for not having enough faith. In James 5, the prayer of faith, is the pastor's prayer. If the person doesn't get well because of a lack of faith then the faith would be on the part of the healer according to James 5.

This man is totally out to lunch.
Ask him if he will heal outside of his own environment.
Ask him if he will go to a hospital and heal all that are in a hospital, especially in the ER room. Let him prove his gift there.