Is the pendulum swinging in a different direction?

Yet he thanked God that he spoke in tongues. Hmmm....

1 Corinthians 14:4-5,18
[4]A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally, but one who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire church.
[5]I wish you could all speak in tongues, but even more I wish you could all prophesy. For prophecy is greater than speaking in tongues, unless someone interprets what you are saying so that the whole church will be strengthened.
[18]I thank God that I speak in tongues more than any of you.

 

He definitely spoke in tongues. I Cor 14:18

 

Its funny how Greek scholars are. You emphatically say the last verse in chapter 13 means one thing and the scholars of three different study Bibles say it means another.

 

When did Paul stop speaking in tongues?According to you, he would have had to have stopped before penning verse 13. We know from later text that can not be the case.

 

You cannot be correct.

 

When I became a Christian (1979) I attended an Assembly of God church in Harrison, NJ. A "prophetess" came to speak and baptize people in the Holy Spirit (the second blessing), accompanied by receiving the "gift of tongues". Forget for a moment that Eph. 1:3 tells us that we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, in Christ, ergo we lack nothing for the practice of our Christian faith. Intuitively I knew that there was something wrong praying in an unintelligible language that my mind did not understand. Even though I was a new Christian, I understood plainly from the Bible that tongues was speaking a known language you did not previously know. As I matured as a believer I was taught hermeneutical principles by a godly pastor. He taught me that when there is one plain, normative passage on a matter, and one vague passage on the same matter, interpret that vague passage through the plain, normative passage. Acts 2 is the plain, normative passage on tongues. The tongues spoken on the day of Pentecost were known languages. The tongues spoken in 1 Corinthians 14 are vague. Is it an ecstatic language? Is it a known language? Christians on both sides argue. The plain, normative text in Acts 2 adds clarity.

Another a problem with a private prayer language is that a) there is no interpreter b) there is no warrant in scripture to pray in such a manner c) Rom. 8:26 is grossly ripped out of context by Continualists d) there is no benefit to praying in a private prayer language that your own native tongue cannot provide. When Paul wrote " In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;" (Rom. 8:26), he was simply saying that because of our sin and human frailty, we sometimes do not even know what to pray. I have been like this when broken by my sin and have experienced something profoundly emotional. God knows our heart even when we do not know what to say.

Back to that "prophetess". I was told that Christians who receive the second blessing and speak in tongues are closer to God. They have something that other Christians do not. I understood that this created a caste system within the church. Verbalized or not, there was this reality that "I have something you do not." When I came to that realization I left charismania.

 

Quite right!
'As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him..........For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him' (Colossians 2:6, 9).

Spiritual gifts are not given for the benefit of the recipients, but 'for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ' (Ephesians 4:12). I find it hard to see how 'tongues' can accomplish this.

 

This is why I see tongues as a gift given by God solely for the work of evangelism as we observe it in the Acts of the Apostles.
The Corinthian church was a mess and should not be our mentor regarding the gift of tongues.

 

I did, but you want it both ways. You said "When Paul said "Now" what part of that word didn't you understand?".
Text does not say "now, no new believers will be gifted."

 

The genuine gift of tongues was operating in the church of Corinth. Things were s mess. People now use things being a mess to argue against tongues. Makes you think.