Featured Babbling against Speaking in Tongues

Paul teaches that we should all strive to receive the gift of speaking in tongues. Critics of tongues have no sensible answer to these 5 points:

(1) Paul's command to "pray in the Spirit" is fulfilled by striving to speak in tongues. 3 points establish this teaching:
(a) Paul commands us to "pray in the Spirit" (Eph 6:18) and speaking in tongues is the only form of praying in the Spirit in the Bible (1 Cor 14:15). (b) Paul commands us to "strive for spiritual gifts (14:1)," clarifying this command with his desire for all of us to speak in tongues (14:5). (c) Paul repeatedly commands us to imitate his spirituality (1 Cor 4:16; 11:1; Phil 3:17) and makes it clear that such imitation includes a demonstration of the Spirit and of power (4:29-20; cp. 2:4-5).

(2) Point (1) is not refuted by Paul's preference that we all prophesy (14:5). This counter-point is refuted by 2 facts: (a) Those who disregard tongues for this reason blaspheme the Holy Spirit by implying that some of His gifts are irrelevant and not needed. If speaking in tongues were not important, why does Paul celebrate the fact that he speaks in tongues more than everyone (14:18)?
(b) If prophecy is the greatest spiritual gift, speaking in tongues is just as great if it is interpreted (14:5). In that sense, both gifts are equally "great" and should therefore both be diligently sought. (c) What critics fail to realize is this: in 1 Cor 14 Paul is addressing the specific situation in which believers are speaking in uninterpreted tongues in public worship services at which outsiders are present who are not ready for such unintelligible Spirit manifestations. But Paul encourages speaking in tongues in private prayer sessions (1 Cor 14:28; cp. 14:4) and in other public meetings (e. g. Acts 19:1-6).

(3) Point (1) is not refuted by the false claim based on 12:29-30) that the gift of speaking in tongues is not divinely intended for everyone.
(a) Paul insists that we "can all prophesy one by one (14:31)." Yet the gift of prophesy is included in Paul's list that critics invoke to claim that these gifts are not divinely intended for everyone. So what Paul is instead teaching is this: Look around you: not everyone actually exercises their prophetic potential, but I want all believers to do so. (b) So when Paul encourages us all to speak in tongues, he clearly means that this gift if available to all believers.
(4) In 3 of the 4 times people receive the Holy Spirit in Acts, they demonstrate this by speaking in tongues (2:1-18; 10:44-47; 19:1-6). In the 4th case, tongues are not mentioned, but the experience of receiving the Spirit is so dramatic that Simon the Magician offers money to learn the secret of channeling such power (8:19-20). So it is reasonable to believe that these Samaritan converts also spoke in tongues when they received their Spirit baptism. This well established pattern does not mean that Spirit baptism requires speaking in tongues (see 1 Cor 12:13); but it is further evidence that the gift of tongues should be diligently sought (1 Cor 12:31: 14:1).

(5) The tongues in contemporary languages in Acts 2 is NOT normative for later manifestations of this gift. That eruption is identified as prophecy (2:17-18 citing Joel 2:28), but speaking in tongues is subsequently distinguished from prophecy (19:5-6; 1 Cor 12 and 14). The tongues in Acts 10:44-47 and 19:1-6 are neither understood nor interpreted. In Greco-Roman parallels speaking in tongues (Greek: "glossai") is understood as ecstatic gibberish that needs a prophet for interpretation. Paul prefers to view this non-human gibberish as angelic language (1 Cor 13:1) and labels tongues speakers as "zealots of spirits (14:12)" a phrase that means "zealots of angels (see Heb 1:7)." Jews in Paul's day embraced the possibility of interpreting angelic languages (e. g. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and Testament of Job).





Here I

 

Yeshua1: "Tongues were unlearned languages, were used to testify that samirtans [?] and gentiles were saved by Jewish messiah,"

As usual, you pontificate without carefully reading the OP which refutes your nonsense. So I guess I'll just have to repeat myself and rub your nose in your oversight.
First, only the tongues on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) were unknown languages recognized by the Jewish witnesses. The tongues in Cornelius's house (Acts 10:44--47) and at Ephesus (19:1-6) were neither understood nor interpreted.

Second, the tongues in Acts 2 are labeled "prophesying" in fulfilment of Joel 2:28, whereas tongues and prophesying are carefully distinguished from each other in Acts 19:6 and 1 Cor. 12 and 14. That is because only in Acts 2 were the tongues identifiable as human languages.

Third, Paul identifies Corinthian speaking in tongues with "the tongues of... angels" in 131: and on that basis in 14:12 describes Corinthian tongues speakers as "zealots of spirits" (Greek: "pneuma"). "Spirits" is the term for "angels" In Hebrews 1:7,

Fourth, the Greek word "glossai" (= Tongues) is applied to ecstatic speech in non-Christian usage (e. g. with reference to the prophetess's speaking in tongues at the Oracle of Delphi), it refers to incoherent gibberish (not unknown human languages) that must be interpreted.

Yeshua: "...and the Holy Spirit used the gift in the transistion period when Apostles still living for doctrines, but we have no longer any need for their operation!"

How dare you insinuate the Spirit-inspired gifts are obsolete junk! There is not a shred of NT evidence that the gift of tongues must be limited to the apostolic era. For documentation of the ecstatic gifts throughout the first 3 centuries, see Dr. Ron Kydd's book "Charismatic Gifts in the Early Church: An Exploration into the Gifts of the Spirit During the First Three Centuries of the Christian Church."

 

If you read the OP carefully, you'd have realized that this comment is irrelevant to the point at issue.
(1) Tongues were a sign to the unbelievers in Cornelius's household whose glossolalia was a sign of the Holy Spirit's reality and presence (See Acts 10:44-47). Indeed, spontaneous outpouring of tongues can indeed serve as a sign for unbelievers. At age 16, while I was blessed with a powerful experience of tongues after the service at a Pentecostal camp meeting, I was interrupted by a Lutheran pastor who informed me he didn't believe in tongues and was just there as a curious skeptical observer. Well, I didn't argue with him; instead, I merely touched him gently on the forehead and he just exploded in tongues!

(2) More basically, here is the point you don't grasp. True, in 1 Corinthians 14:22 (citing Isaiah 29:11-12) Paul identifies tongues as a sign for unbelievers and prophesying as a sign for believers. But as the academic commentaries on 1 Corinthians confirm, the converse is also true: tongues are also "a sign" of the true believer (a point Jesus explicitly makes in Mark 16:17) and prophesying is also a sign for the unbeliever. Thus, in the one example of prophesying provided by Paul, it is the unbelievers (not the believers!) who are convicted of their sin through prophecy and humbly acknowledge: "God is truly in your midst (14:24-25)!"

(3) Most importantly, you overlook Paul's stress on the need for private prayer in tongues, which Paul distinguishes from messages in tongues that need interpretation (14:14-17). Private tongues "build up" the individual believer (14:4) and are encouraged as the proper place for tongues when there is no interpreter in public worship meetings attended by outsiders (14:28). Because private prayer tongues "build up" the individual believer, Paul expresses his desire that every believer speak in tongues. He prefers prophesying in public worship only because the ecstatic speech can be understood by "outsiders." But remember, Paul celebrates the fact that he speaks in tongues (by implication in private prayer) more than anyone (14:18). As one Pentecostal preacher aptly put it, the Holy Spirit don't inspire no junk!"

 

Exactly what is the benefit of authentically speaking in tongues to the blessed seeker? I will answer that question in 2 ways: first from the perspective of personal experience and then, in another thread from the perspective of Scripture.

By far he most powerful and important turning point in my life was an experience of glossolalia at Manhattan Beach Camp in Manitoba. I was 16 at the time and felt I had lost my faith. I was determined to give it my best shot to find God real, but not to succumb to wishful thinking and emotionalism. That fateful, Tuesday, I went on a 7 mile walk towards Ninette, Manitoba, pleading with God to make Himself real to me. That evening, I did something I'd never done before. I fasted for dinner and put my dinner money in the offering plate. After the service, I stayed at the altar and prayed to be filled with the Spirit as I had previously done in vain. After almost everyone (about 1,000) left the open-air amphitheater, my heart still felt like stone as I tarried in prayer.

Then suddenly I felt a warm breeze, but it wasn't the wind from nearby Pelican Lake; it was the Holy Spirit first warming me and then possessing me. I was forced against my will to speak in tongues at the top of my voice. More importantly, wave after wave of liquid love surged through my being with ever increasing intensity until I feared it might kill me. My ego seemed on the verge of collapse into the divine presence. I can only speak poetically and say that I experienced a hundred times more love, power, the sweetness of intimate connection with God than I have ever experienced before or since. I have absolutely no doubt that if any of you experienced what I did that night, you would celebrate this encounter as by far the high point in your life.

A Lutheran pastor observed me, unseen, and quietly came and knelt beside me. He told me he was not Pentecostal and didn't believe in speaking in tongues. He had only come to the camp meeting as an interested observer. He said he could tell God was doing a special work in me and he asked me to pray for him. At that moment, if a blind man had approached me for prayer, I would have had no doubt that he would have been healed. Such was my faith in that moment! I made no effort to explain or defend tongues. Instead, I just gently touched this skeptical pastor's forehead, and the moment I did so, he just exploded into tongues like me. Another lady was sitting in the now darkened amphtheater and just staring at me. Self-conscious, I asked her why? She said, "Don't you know? Your face is glowing in the dark!"

When it was all over, I realized that God had said to me clearly: "Son, you long for answers to burning questions. But answers aren't good for you right now. They will make you live in your head, and i want to live in your heart. I want you to just live your questions until they lead you to the center of my heart." Instantly my mind was so transformed that I progressed from an ordinary student to the highest GPA in the province, a feat that helped finance a very long period of academic studies from BA to MDiv (Princeton) to Harvard doctorate in New Testament, Judaism, and Greco-Roman Backgrounds.
hat is the reason for my long educational pilgrimage from BA to MDiv to doctorate. The experience alos led to other gifts of the Spirit that at times provided as many questions as answers. I may well post about my journey into other gifts of the Spirit on another thread.

But here is my most sobering takeaway from the impact of that holy night on my life. I was so disillusioned with the Bible and so skeptical about any claims of divine connection that I now realize I would probably no longer even be a Christian, were it not for that night of supreme blessing. Decades later, I still draw comfort and spiritual nourishment from the very memory of that night.

 

terrpn: "Tongues, etc. is so un-biblical I am not wasting anymore on this thread."
LOL, you just proved yourself virtually a biblical illiterate. On the other hand, I am an ex-theology professor with a Harvard doctorate in New Testament who knows Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, as well as other ancient languages from the biblical era. So kindly season your penchant for bluster with a modicum of intellectual rigor, read the relevant NT texts, and my exposition of them, and throw down, boy! Otherwise, go whimpering back to your carefully insolated Baptist thought Ghetto, so that you can avoid the big bad world of academic Bible study and its challenging insights.



terrpn: "Faith plus nothing.....it is settled, it was finished"
You illustrate famed Bible scholar B. F. Wescott's observation: "The simple Gospel is not so simple as the simple would have you suppose." You need to go to the Catholic thread and see where they excel you and your ilk in their grasp of the biblical doctrine of justification by faith. You don't think so? Then read those posts and let's get into the Word!

Trusting, putting faith in what he did to get me to glory. All righteousness is as filthy rags where the very best I can do falls short

Eph. 1:13 “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,”

No hard feelings....


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