Featured The Early Church on Speaking In Tongues

I'm going to revise this statement. I was checking out Charismatism: Awakening or Apostasy?, by O. Talmadge Spence (a former Pentecostal preacher), and he gives quotes from Synan gushing like a teenage girl over Catholic Charismatics. So Synan can only be read as a full-fledged defender of all the excesses of the movement.

 

This is a sad bit of news...

.... and it shows that those who came in and tried to use the gift to bring about divisiveness were not using the gift as intended. NO Gift should ever cause division among the body! If people came in and used this git wrong, they were not using the gift as God intended.

There is no need to utilize tongues in a worship service, especially if the church is not for it. And for people to come in and use that gift, knowing it is not acceptable, is a sinful and disrespectful use of the gift, and they should be removed, and treated as heretics.

P_n_S and myself use our gift for private prayer, It would be wrong to go into a church that does not practice or hold to the gift of tongues for any reason, to speak and cause others to stumble!

It is clear you were doing as you were told to do, and I pray that this never happenes again. If it does, please do not hold their rude, sinful attempts to push tongues as how others use the gift. Most of us are quite responsible, and that in itself, is Biblical!

Again, sorry you had a bad experience, not once but three times! :tear:

 

Thank you for your post. I'm glad to know you would never do this. If people want to speak in private, personal tongues I certainly can't control that. But the problem with the Charismatic movement in general is that it started not in the Pentecostal churches per se, but as an ecumenical movement with the goal of bringing non-tongues churches into the tongues camp.

So I disagree that most tongues-speakers are harmless. There is a breed like you and P-n-s who keep things private, but by and large Charismatics try to spread their tongues and teach that it tongues are normative for Christians. That is dead wrong. And every single contact in Japan with tongues speakers that I've had have been those who "evangelize" their tongues, including the three with my own church people:

First time: two of my men, twins, went to a tongues prayer meeting in another church and were persuaded that our church was wrong.

Second time: tongues speakers moved next door to my leading believers (a couple), and tried to teach them tongues. Fortunately we came home from furlough just in time to nip it in the bud.

Third time: a couple who came to our English service just for the English, and were thus not members of our church or even attenders at our morning service, baptized a whole family in their bathtub and taught them tongues. I had been working with this family for years, saved their marriage through counseling, saw their two kids profess Christ. We lost them.

Witness for Christ. Don't witness for tongues. Don't try to teach your tongues to others, even here on the BB; don't try to say tongues are for everyone; don't try to say that tongues are more spiritual than non-tongues. All of these approaches and views split churches.

 

As with Paul, preaching the cross and the love of God is and will always be the focal point of the church! I am aware of what youo are talking about. Pentecostals are not out to change the world to their way or the highway. But on the other hand, Charismatics are the root of the problem.

I have had my dealings with these folks. From name it claim its, to prosperity teaching, and I have spent a lot of my ministry in helping those hurt by these people, to come back to the REAL Christ of the cross!

The ecumenical movement has been at the heart of many errors being taught world wide, and I think it is causing large numbers of believers to walk away from the church because of their rigid teachings and demands!

I once was involved with a charismatic church, and I left when they put the guilt trip on me for not being healed as a result of me having a Deep seated sin that needed to be confessed. I also got tired of hearing them come up and say, "God told me to tell you, such and such!" First of all, not everyone is going to be healed in this world, and that is okay, because true healing comes when we reach heaven. Like Paul, His grace and strength is MORE than sufficient!

Secondly, if God wants to tell me something, He surely didn't need some fanantical mouth piece putting their arm around my shoulders, and work to make me more like them and less like what the potter has molded me to be!

You have tough John, and know you are right. These folks may mean well, but there are going to be many well meaning, good intentioned folks in hell! Any movement of God that forces another to be just like the rest of the bretheran, is not the church of God but more or less, a brain washing cult!

God bless.:thumbs:

 

With a change of a few specifics I could tell the same story. The 'Christian gossip' was once that we were the church that didn't believe in the Holy Spirit.

 

the68 ...

We could go back and forth affirming or denying what I've said for eternity, but I don't want to engage in that kind of six-year-old's methodology of argument: "Yes, you did," "No I didn't but he did," etc., etc., ad infinitum. I'm not interested in the research of tongues anymore. I've exhausted my interest in it long ago, having reached the conclusion through many, many studies, articles and commentaries that led me to my stance today: Tongues of any kind, known or unknown languages, died out near the end of the First Century and it is an unbiblical practice today, even if undertaken as Paul prescribed to the Corinthians 1,952 years ago, give or take a year or two.

I've read Sullivan extensively, not just online. His research and scholarship on the subject is impressive and prolific. It is his life's passion. But, in my opinion, he comes to erroneous conclusions. You've read his take on unknown languages only, at least that is what I gather from what you've posted and said. Branch out. Read more. What I've expressed to this point is my recollection of his work, and I don't care to reenter into research of him or anyone else on the subject. The subject is of no interest, beyond occasionally discussing it with those who may have a mistaken concept of the dead gift. Thanks.

 

19th century – Edward Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church. Edward Irving, a minister in the Church of Scotland, writes of a woman who would "speak at great length, and with superhuman strength, in an unknown tongue, to the great astonishment of all who heard, and to her own great edification and enjoyment in God". Irving further stated that "tongues are a great instrument for personal edification, however mysterious it may seem to us."

 

The "early" church is not in the 1800's. That is an erroneous use of that term.

 

What ungodly garbage.

 

Rev, the person wanted this info as pre 1906, read prior posts. It is not a debate but for the68's reference info only.

 

Uh excuse me but the phrase "early" church has been used several times in this thread. Place "pre 1906" before it only makes it more wrong. The 1800's is not the early church.

And if you do not want debate then you need to post somewhere else other than this "debate" forum. There are places down below for such discussions.

 

Glad to know you got out of that unholy mess.

I believe it is no accident that Christ specifically teaches that some folk who are extremely similar to many in the modern Charismatic movement will face eternal punishment (Matt. 7:21-23).

 

The idea that a Baptist doesn't believe in the Holy Spirit is ridiculous. And our sad stories are repeated all over the world. The Charismatic "renewal" is doing awful damage to the churches of Jesus Christ.

 

Since the OP does mention the late 1800s, I feel free to make this post. Down through the years up until (and including in my mind) the "Azusa Street Revival," every group that has spoken in tongues has been aberrant and weird and even heretical, beginning with pagan religions in the 1st century. Note the following groups mentioned by O. Talmadge Spence (who was from a leading Pentecostal family) in his book Charismatism: Awakening or Apostasy?--

The Montanists in the 2nd century had prophetesses who were leaders. Spence quotes Charles Smith (Tongues in Biblical Perspective, pp. 13-14) about one of them: "she 'in an ecstasy of the spirit...conversed with angels, and, sometimes with the Lord Himself" (p. 57).

"Celcius reported that among the Gnostics there was some form of ecstatic utterances around 180 A. D." (ibid).

The "Cevenol prophets" had prophetic tongues in the 1600s (ibid). They were Catholic priests and thus by definition taught works salvation and worshiped Mary.

Some Protestants in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes claimed the gifts of prophecy and tongues (ibid). Spence gave no more information.

The Catholic Jansenists in the 1700s spoke in tongues (ibid). Again, they taught works salvation and worshiped Mary. Elsewhere in his book (p. 35) Spence quotes Synan as saying about the Catholic Charismatics that well, yes, they worshiped Mary and emphasized theso forth but they'd grow out of it.

In 1776 the Shakers were founded who spoke in tongues (ibid). They had too many heresies and immoral practices to list in this post.

In the 1800s came the Irvingites (pp. 57-58). Mary Campbell, the first of them to speak in tongues, later revealed that she had lied and faked it.

Surprisingly to me the Mormons speak in tongues. This is a dirty little secret among tongues speakers. "In the 1800s the Mormons commenced their movement. They have always held to tongue-speaking as a phenomenon; and when the Salt Lake City Temple was dedicated, hundreds of elders are said to have spoken in tongues. It is perpetuated and revered that Brigham Young prayed in the "pure Adamic language" (Spence, p. 58).

Now I ask you, why is tongues supposed to be so spiritual and good if the Catholics and cults do it along with some of the most bizarre groups in church history? We could go on with many other groups in the 20th and 21st century. What Baptist wants to be identified with so many heretical groups?

 

For further study about non-Christian tongues in the mystery religions of the first century, here is an excellent article by well-known scholar H. Wayne House: http://www.seeking4truth.com/tongues_corinth.html

I ask you: if heathen mystery religions spoke in unknown tongues, what is the spiritual benefit for a 21st century believer? I say there is none.

 

Now, allow me to help you too!

http://www.revival-library.org/pensketches/am_pentecostals/seymourazusa.html

http://www.guidedbiblestudies.com/library/asusa_street_revival.htm

http://www.pbministries.org/Theology/Laurence Justice/embrace_pentecostalism.htm

You may find this blog interesting - http://donclarks.blogspot.com/2007/06/originally-i-was-ordained-baptist.html

 

There are two things these articles do not mention.

1. The failure of tongues in Pentecostal missions. "Pentecostal believers went from America in 1906, believing that the gift of speaking in tongues which they had received would enable them to preach the gospel to the heathens in their own languages. A source from January 1908 reports eighteen cases from China, Japan, and India, all of which were unsuccessful" (Azusa Street and Beyond, ed. by L. Grant McClung, Jr., p. 13, quoting Nils Bloch Howell in The Pentecostal Movement).

2. The early rise of aberrant tongues-speaking groups which the Pentecostals rejected. Chief among these was the Latter Rain movement, which was rejected by the classical Pentecostalists. Unfortunately, the vast majority of modern Pentecostals have accepted the Charismatic Movement which has as part of its theological base the Latter Rain heresy. O. Talmadge Spence (former Pentecostal) delineates this in his book mentioned above. The leaders of classical Pentecostalism have basically surrendered to the excesses and heresies of the Charismatics and Neocharismatics.

Then I must point out that we do not need tongues to do God's work, contrary to a couple of the links given. Many who have strongly emphasized the power of the Holy Spirit have seen wonderful results from God without tongues. D. L. Moody saw a million come to Christ without tongues. (A number of sources document this.) John R. Rice saw over 200,000 come to Christ without tongues (my figure, derived from his biographies). Jonathan Goforth saw great revivals happen in China and Korea with 1000s saved without tongues. (See By My Spirit, an account of those revivals by Goforth.) Lee Roberson built the 2nd largest church of his day without tongues. (See his book of sermons Power, which talks much of Pentecost.)

 

You IMPRESS Me!

Thanks for reading the links! That is something many wouldn't do! I know we disagree on tongues, but, we have through our agape love, mutual respect for one another, and your response leaves me feeling good about our understanding of each others beliefs.

I will agree, that tongues have never, in my opinion or experience, caused anyone to come to Jesus! The use PnS and I find of value is purely personal! Shalom!