Featured The Early Church on Speaking In Tongues

Andrew Murray 1828-1917 South Africa, wrote extensively on prayer but you would have to dig because tongues did not come til later in his ministry. He wrote paperbacks before they were popular.

 

The context of that is in church worship. Each day I read my Bible for about one hour. I also take time to take to translate passages from the Greek and Hebrew. That would seldom edify anyone in a worship service in an English speaking congregation or very few in a small group conversation. If I did, the focus would be on self. What is done in a worship service must be done to edify the body not just one or a few.

That is the reason why Paul says there must be interpretation so all are edified.

 

Three times tongues speakers have tried and/or succeeded in messing up the church I pastor. This has happened to many, many churches. If the doctrine were of God it would not harm the church of Jesus Christ, but it quite often does.

 

The abuse/misuse of any gift harms the church. Many churches have been destroyed by poor leadership. It is estimated that 70-80 percent of the churches in America are plagued by one or more antagonists. A failure to exercise leadership is a failure to use giftedness properly. Many churches have been left behind in destruction by a preacher who did not properly use his giftedness to glorify God but glorified self.

 

I'm not talking about the abuse of a gift within a church. I'm talking about 3 times my church was attacked from outside by tongues speakers. This is the whole basis of the tongues heresy as evidenced in the Charismatic movement (as opposed to traditional Pentecostalism): turning non-tongues churches into tongues churches, often splitting or even destroying the church in the process.

 

Concerning the OP, the only evidence of non-linguistic glossalalia in the early church/church fathers is concerning the Montanist movement. That's it, period, until modern Christianity. If there were other instances the Charistmatic scholars would have found it and be touting it all over the Internet.

A book by Charismatic scholars I have on the history of their movement doesn't even mention the Montanists or church fathers, but starts with the 19th century Irvingites (Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins, ed. by Vincent Synan). Thus, modern glossalalia is virtually non-existent in the history of Christianity, and thus one more aberrant movement trying to put us back in 1st century Christianity, which is impossible, as witness the heretical Church of Christ and similar efforts.

Edited in: To be fair, in the book mentioned above there are four mentions in passing of the Montanists, but no examination of the movement.

 

Fascinating website the68, thanks for joining.

 

Good luck with that. Unless new manuscripts are discovered you'll not find any such evidence.

Synan is a genuine scholar, which is a rarity among the Charismatics IMO. So it is worth the effort to read his stuff as long as you are researching the history.

Synan is the editor of this work, so he only writes the intro. Larry Christenson mentions them twice in his article about the Irvingites, but only historically as a Charismatic movement opposed by traditionalists. Martin Marty (not a Charismatic that I know of) mentions them on two pages of his article on Pentecostalism, quoting the negative comment by Eusebius on Montanus, and then quoting from Donald Gelpi as a Catholic Charismatic who traced his lineage through the Montanists.

 

"Although reports of healing and other miracles are not uncommon in the corpus of surviving Christian literature, evidence for the appearance of glossalalia, at least from the late second century to the eighteenth or nineteenth century, is scarce and frequently obscure. Quite often, for example, speaking in tongues is not clearly differentiated from the gift of prophecy. After the first century until the modern period, there are only a few references to glossalalia in Christian discourse" (The New Charismatics, by Richard Quebedeaux, p. 20).

So my question is this. If tongues are so rare in church history, though there is an abundance of Bible-based church movements down through the centuries, why are we supposed to believe that glossalalia is a Biblical expression of tongues? It seems to me arrogant to say, "We speak in tongues, though almost no one did down throughout church history, but we are Biblical in this."

We're not talking about doctrine, but practice. Doctrine has periods of learning, but not practice. Down through the ages, churches have had worship services, have done evangelism, have sent missionaries, have prayed, have sung hymns, and done many other practices of the Christian life. But they haven't talked in unknown tongues. In other words, unknown tongues are unknown in church history!!! :saint:

 

1Co 14:10
10 There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.

Herein is the limit set.

The Evil one has no new tactics.
One does not have to do any exhaustive research to know that possession-enhanced babbling wasn't delivered to George Fox first.

Azusa St. was a re-run.

I am as curious as any, that we have actual written evidence, but that is selfish on my part. I have led several Azusa St. products, including a C.O.G.I.C. minister, to the Lord by simply walking them through Acts 2, and ICorinthians 12-14 slowly.
When asked plainly: "is this (what we read in Scripture) how it is practiced in your church, a product of the Holy Spirit, or is it a product of another spirit?" , The sincere answer is "No", and "another spirit".

Not trying to distract from the discussion, just give the thoughts that it triggered in me.

 

As long as Sullivan leaves room for the existence of unbiblical tongues -- I see him attempt to make distinction, then apologize for those who practice gobbledy-gook -- I can't accept anything he says as being a valid viewpoint. Sorry.

 

Please, I believe it would benefit you muchly to take a look at the source material Sullivan provides especially given your stance on the topic

Is "muchly" a word? jus sayin

 

If tongues speakers are causing division then they are using their gift as a means to cause division. Evangelists can cause division by the abuse/misuse of their gift. Gifts are for the edification of the body and that which does not edify is not of God. I know tongues speakers who do not cause division and they have never made it an issue. Those who cause division can possess any gift and use it to divide the church. The thief come to steal, kill, and destroy. Satan will use whatever means possible. 70-80 percent of the churches are plagued by one or more antagonists. That means the leaders and people are allowing division and doing nothing about it.

 

Really? By whose reckoning?

Continue to wait. The content of your last PM was too negative to bother replying.

There is nothing about any of those quotes from my posts that are in anyway antithetical to one another, so your question is irrelevant.

That may be the way it seems to you, but that is not the case. Sullivan defends gobbledy-gook, and does so by defending any use of tongues beyond the First Century. The gift died before John did, therefore any defense of the use of the gift in the post-apostolic church is invalid and unbiblical. I've never said anything less than that.

Followed by your color highlighted quote from Sullivan which fails to take into consideration his insistence elsewhere in his writing that tongues is not now, even today, a "dead gift," as is stated biblically to be the case. Sullivan believes "known language" use of tongues is still valid. I do not, and see biblical evidence to support that view.

This is the part of your conclusion I utterly fail to understand. He goes to great lengths in his Origen on the Dogma of Tongues -- interestingly, publicly and loudly renamed from the original Origen on the Gift of Tongues -- to conclude, illogically, that the great church father wrote extensively, not on the cessation of the gift of tonuges, but of the gift of knowledge, and goes to the greater length of retranslating Origen to prove his point. He utterly fails, primarily due to his short-sighted agenda.

As you cease addressing my concerns here, I will also cease addressing your concerns, though I believe you are reaching illogical conclusions equally severe as Sullivan's.

 

For the68:
Out of all the supernatural happenings I've witnessed or read about, it's usually healings that get reported. Tongues and interpretation while they were done, isnt usually at the top of the list or talked about much. It's when a terminal illness or a child gets healed that gets told. Mariah Woodworth was known as a trance evangelist. People would get knocked out for hours and it was quite a sight according to newspapers. Healings would also get reported, but tongues rarely did. Woodworths staff and followers spoke tongues all the time(pre1900). If a body spoke tongues as prayer all the time, it's kind of a given, normal operation to them. So in the study you are involved with you may or may not find much beyond healings, and if elders are against it, it will not be recorded at least in there reach.