Tongues!

[Colswann1]

The Bible records that the people of God would speak in other tongues. Do you think this is relevant for the modern-day Church?

[Arpy]

Well, it depends on how exactly you interpret 'speaking in tongues.'
I have always believed the references in the Bible to be referring to real tongues that real people speak and can understand.
As I remember, one place that the apostles spoke in tongues was in Acts after the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost. Doesn't it mention that there were many devout Jews of different countries in the city? (Converted Gentiles) The amazing thing about the apostles speaking in tongues was that they were relatively uneducated Galileans. It came as a surprise that they were speaking these men's languages to them.
In the modern day church, sure speaking in tongues is relevant. I mean, what about missionaries? Not just foreign missionaries, but even missionaries at home? Being able to speak Arabic, Spanish, or other languages like that may help us witness to people around us.
I don't think that God very often performs such miracles as suddenly enabling us to speak in a tongue we never knew before. But there are cases when missionaries have been able to miraculously communicate with tribes whose language they had not previously known. I have heard of at least one, a long time ago.
But then, God doesn't change water to wine every day, either. Something miraculous about God is His originality. He can glorify Himself without repeating the same miracles He has done before.

[swfdoc1]

The Bible records that the people of God would speak in other tongues. Do you think this is relevant for the modern-day Church?

Yes.

I would have said “Just ask any Pentecostal, Charismatic, Neo-charismatic/Third Waver,” but since I see from your profile that you attend a Charismatic church, I am wondering why you ask.

Arpy identified one of several types of tongues. That type is only described once in Scripture and you don’t often (ever?) hear of it these days. Many other types are described in Scripture too (e.g., tongues of men and angles, tongues that no one can understand until interpreted, singing “in the Spirit”/spiritual songs, praying “in the Spirit,” praising God “in the Spirit.”) All these types are widespread today.

Both speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues are listed as spiritual gifts. There is no biblical evidence that these gifts will ever cease. (Obviously, by saying this, I reject the argument of the cessationists who claim there is biblical evidence.) If God gives a gift it is “relevant.”

[Colswann1]

I would have said “Just ask any Pentecostal, Charismatic, Neo-charismatic/Third Waver,” but since I see from your profile that you attend a Charismatic church, I am wondering why you ask.

It's is important that Christians get a right view on it, and it is the gift that most of the Christians possess who are into the gifts. I think this is because Paul implied it is a self edifying gift and Paul said he used it more than any other of his day but not in public.

Seems important, to talk about it, to me.

[swfdoc1]

Seems important, to talk about it, to me.

I thought that might be it (but didn't want to assume).

That's why I jumped in, especially since you had only gotten one response.

In my view, being baptized in the Holy Spirit is normative and thus "moving in the gifts" is normative.

I hope you get some more responses.

[Come forth]

I wanted to reply straight away, but I wondered what I was going to get myself into

Talk about throwing out a bait to catch a minnow and ending up with a shark. I thought to myself, "Colin, you are either very brave, very nuts or just English (which means a bit of both) By the way, I am English too. although I live in Australia (came out here with parents) I was born and grew up mostly in Nottingham.

I guess that's why I'm going to follow you into the water.

I agree that anything God does is relevant; so tongues are relevant. And God is the same yesterday... So they are as relevant today as ever; perhaps even more so.

Scripture is full of types and shadows; and Paul speaks of us coming to understand the 'mystery' of Scripture. Jesus often said, as indeed the entire Bible often says, that He wished we had ears to hear and eyes to see; because hearing we do not understand and seeing we do not perceive. Jesus spoke in parables and He even told His disciples that within those parables was the understanding of the Kingdom.

We see and understand this first in the obvious. Jesus was the Lamb, the feasts of the Lord contain shadows of things to come, He is coming as the former and latter rain.

To drink His blood and eat His flesh is symbolic of coming into an understanding of and the power of the Word (He was the Word made flesh, so if we eat His flesh we eat His Word; which is bread, milk and meat). When 'covered by His Blood' or defeating the enemy with 'The Blood', we are saying that the power and authority of God's very Word, the Word by which the entire world was created, is the authority by which we live.

Tongues are part of that symbolism too. Everything that you have said is true. I have heard testimonies of men who spoke a foreign language which they did not know before and people were saved, I know we also speak in the tongues of angels as well as the tongues of men and yes, praying in the Spirit is also all true. Not one ounce taken away. But there is more.

To speak in tongues also talks about speaking the mysteries of the Kingdom, bringing forth the Truth of God's Word with the power and authority that His followers will all come to in time.

In First Corinthians (2:7 and 15:51) and in Ephesians (1:9, 3:3-4) Paul tells us that he speaks in 'mysteries'. That means he speaks in a way that is hard, impossible for some, to understand; he's speaking a foreign language to many.

Symbolism, parables and proverbs, types and shadows are part of the language of God that reveals the Truth of the Word. No wonder Paul wished we ALL spoke in tongues; and walked in what they reveal.

Failing to understand these 'mysteries' was why many of the Jews of the day did not understand or accept who Jesus really was. They didn't talk the language of God, they missed the types and shadows of the feasts, it was all just an oral tradition handed down from generation to generation, to them what Jesus was saying was a foreign language; and they missed the boat.

May God bless us with ears to hear and eyes to see; Graham

[eaglelion]

Hi -

Interesting reading the thoughts here on tongues. It certainly helps when we share.

Absolutely, tongues is relevant today.

I Corinthians 14:39, 40 - KJV
...and forbid not to speak with tongues.

Let all things be done decently and in order.

On March 9, 2011, I posted a piece on my blog titled, SPEAKING IN TONGUES. It received about forty comments. You may be inclined to read it. If so, here's the link http://lioneaglesoar.blogspot.com/2011/ ... ngues.html

[Enad]

I've stopped by to read a bit and I am so proud of all of you; just good civilized responses.

This is, we all know, such a potential hot button topic with some folks. I'm glad it is not a requirement for salvation, the poor seekers would be confused with the wide variety of views found within the Churches .

I love and respect many of my brothers and sisters who hold views different than I hold on this topic. The Lord had to show me a Scripture that no one had rubbed in my face before I would abandon my C. I. Schofield Chart.

I have an understanding that is comfortable to me: if I am teaching a portion of Scripture in which the subject is presented, I teach it as a gift in use for today, otherwise I seldom make reference to it, but I do find that as I grow older and know less, I enjoy great comfort in allowing my spirit to pray in the language the Holy Spirit directs in me.

Enad

[helen1975]

Oh Colin, bless your courageous little heart!

Here's my 2 cents' worth . . .

YES! It is absolutely relevant today and given as a spiritual gift!
NO! It is NOT essential to salvation; did the thief on the cross suddenly start speaking in tongues when Jesus welcomed him into his Kingdom at the crucifixion?! Hmm, probably not high on his list of priorities at that stage of his life

I never sought after the gift of speaking in tongues; in fact, the first moment I noticed this strange new language was on my way home from work one day as I sat down in the bus A strange, 4-syllable word escaped my lips, barely audible but so full of power, I knew it was not of my own doing. Needless to say, it was one bus ride that I didn't fall asleep on! And from there, it just . . . happened. I couldn't imagine not praying in the spirit any more, although I do not just use it unthinkingly. I mix it up a little! And in those times when I just don't know what to pray, how very very blessed I am to have the spirit's words to intercede, to join with me in praise and supplication to my Heavenly Father.

Here's another thought that I once heard . . . that the devil cannot understand what is being said when the Saints pray in tongues . . . have you heard that, Colin? Or anyone else?

Blessings to you all!!! What a wonderful God we worship!!!!!!

Helen

[Paula22466]

Isn't it true (for anyone who might know or be willing to find) that in 1 Corinthians 14:2, For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.( bold mine) the original Greek is better translated, "but to a god"?

[swfdoc1]

Hey, Paula! Long time no "see."

No, that's not the proper translation. That is the same argument that the Jehovah’s Witnesses make about John 1:1, where the construction is the same as here: the word “theos” without the definite article. They think John 1:1 should be translated “the Word was a god.” Here, as there, the proper translation is “God,” not a God.”

[Paula22466]

Hey, Paula! Long time no "see."

No, that's not the proper translation. That is the same argument that the Jehovah’s Witnesses make about John 1:1, where the construction is the same as here: the word “theos” without the definite article. They think John 1:1 should be translated “the Word was a god.” Here, as there, the proper translation is “God,” not a God.”

Hi Steve, you are awesome
I am no Greek scholar by any means, but am able to understand those who are. The following info is what I've found in several places, but I'm only pasting this one part because I think it explains my questions pretty well. I know you're busy, but I would appreciate your response whenever you get time. Thanks.

The Greek noun for “God” is [theo], from [theos], meaning "God, god, goddess." In the polytheism (believe in or worship of more than one god) of the ancient Greeks, [theos] denoted a god or deity (Acts 14:11; 19:26; 28:6; 1 Cor. 8:5; Gal. 4:8). As a result, this word was seized by Jews and retained by Christians to denote our one and true God. When [theos] is use to imply the one true God, it will be used with the definite article, which is sometimes, but not always translated “the” in the English. This example can be seen in Acts 7:2 in which we see the definite article translated in the English, “The God of glory.” Yet, five verses later in Acts 7:6 we see that the article does not need to be translated “the” in the English because we know from verse 2 that it is still talking about the one true “God.” In Acts 7:6 the article is also not translated in the English for a smoother reading, it reads smoother as "God spoke" instead of "the God spoke." [Theos] will not always require the definite article for it to be a reference to the one true God. For example, John 1:1 reads, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The first word translated "God" has the definite article [ton] included with it [ton Theon]. However, the second word that is translated "God" does not have a definite article but is simply [Theos] because it is still referring back to the first "God" since it is it's antecedent (the noun it refers back to). The Jehovah's Witnesses' bible has erroneously translated the second "God" of this verse as "a god" because of the absence of the article totally ignoring the antecedent rule. This was to discredit the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ since they do not believe in the Trinity. Yet, in verse 12 of the same chapter of John they correctly translated, even though it does not have an article, [Theou] as "God" instead of "a god" ignoring their own rule of translating it "a god" when there is no article. The [Theou] of verse 12 is still a reference to the same [ton Theon] of verse 1 because of the antecedent and context of the rest of the verses it follows. Therefore, in 1Crointhians 14:2 since there is not an article or antecedent the reference is to "a god" and not "the God."
The translation here of “a god” is also supported by the fact that nowhere in scripture are we commanded, "to pray by babbling meaningless sounds in an unknown language that even we don't understand." The example of the wonderful prayer that the Lord Himself prayed in John 17:1-26 let's us know that prayer should be done in normal and intelligent speech.

http://www.mariovelez.net/files/FIRST_CORINTHIANS14_VV_1_AND_2.htm

[swfdoc1]

Paula,

Yes, life is busy.

Thanks for providing the link to this guy’s writing on I. Cor. 14.

Surely, before we ever get to what he says about I Cor. 14: 2, we are on our guard. He consistently engages in eisegesis of the worst sort. One doesn’t have to search his website(s) to find out why: he is a cessationist—although if one bothers to search, he proclaims it over and over again: speaking in tongues is one of the “temporary” gifts. These gifts supposedly ceased when the canon of Scripture was closed.

This idea comes, of course from the “interpretation” [read “eisegesis”] of I Cor. 13: 8-10, that claims that “the perfect” is the canon. In my view, anyone who is willing to treat this passage of Scripture this way is a dyed-in-the-wool, born-and bred, tried-and-true [insert additional clichés here] eisegete. There is absolutely no textual, contextual, or common sense basis for reading “the canon” into this passage.

And sure enough, as you read the entire article that you linked to, it is full of eisegesis long before we get to the part about 14:2. The article is also marred by many other kinds of problems. As just the easiest early example to give, he claims Apollos was the second leader f the Corinthian church. The passage he cites for support speaks of a VISIT Apollos made to Corinth, which is how standard commentaries characterize it. He later claims Paul SENT Apollos to Corinth, whereas the verses he cited clearly state that Apollos went due to his own desire and that if anyone “sent” him, it was the church at Ephesus.

Time does not permit to give any other examples of errors like these or of his eisegesis—the article is non-stop full of them. I’ll just give one more example of, well . . . I don’t know what:

“In the same manner as many Christians today, the Corinthians looked on the incest as part of their Christian freedom . . . .”

I’ve NEVER met a Christian who thought incest was part of his Christian liberty. What kind of crowd does this guy hang out with?! (Which is not to say that EVERYTHING is wrong; there is certainly SOME correct material in his article.)

Now we come to what he says about spiritual gifts. In his background on I Cor. 12, he writes:

All spiritual gifts are a decision of God the Holy Spirit at the moment we are born-again, as discussed in chapter 1. Today Christians run around begging for other gifts after they have already been born-again. This is due to misapplication and misexegesis of scripture.

As he states, he had made this same claim earlier. If you are interested, you can go back and look at his eisegesis there. In a nutshell, he claims that I Cor. 1:7 proves that any spiritual gifts we will ever receive/have/exercise, are given to us at the moment we are born again.

Here he adds to (or clarifies) his error. First, not all spiritual gifts come from the Holy Spirit. Romans 12:3-8 speaks of gifts given by “God.” Almost always when “God” is used unqualifiedly,or unless context indicates otherwise, it means God the Father or sometimes God the Trinity. Ephesians 4:7-11 speaks of gifts given by the Son (since He is the One Who descended and ascended). II Cor. 12:4-11 speaks of gifts of the Spirit. (No time to chase the rabbit of what difference it makes which Person of the Godhead give which gifts and what do we do about the overlap? BUT just as it is wrong to say the Holy Spirit died on the cross, so it is wrong to say the Holy Spirit gives gifts that are actually given by the Father and the Son.)

Meanwhile some of the Scriptures he has brought into his discussion, including some of those about Apollos, show that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is often a different experience from salvation. The gifts given by the Spirit are generally given with or after that baptism AND we are told to “desire” (i.e., be zealous for, burn with desire for, PURSUE ardently) these gifts in I Cor. 14:1. In other words we are to do exactly what he claims we are not to do. And—surprise—he tries to get around this by his eisegesis of I Cor 14:1.

So he has shown that he is (by his self definition) a cessationist; and (in my opinion) an eisegete, a mis-handler of Scripture, and ignorant of basic principles of spiritual gifts.

Now we come to what he says about tongues.

First, he claims:

In continuance, we now read that “whether there be tongues, they shall cease.” At the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jewish people in AD 70, the gift of tongues was the first to be suspended.”

Really?? Well, I guess I just believe that because you say so. NOT!

But when we look at the larger context of this passage, it is even more puzzling:

In continuance, we now read that “whether there be tongues, they shall cease.” At the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jewish people in AD 70, the gift of tongues was the first to be suspended. The words “they shall cease” is used for the Greek verb [pausontai] meaning, “to stop, prohibit, be done with, cut off, come to an end.” [Pausontai] is in the middle voice (subject is benefited by the action of the verb) and in the indicative mood (mood of reality; indicates that an event actually occurred as indicated). We have seen some of the problems that the misuse of tongues had caused the Corinthian Church. The termination of this gift would benefit the Corinthians in that these problems would cease once the gift terminated. The indicative mood declares the reality of the termination of this gift. The attempted practice of tongues today has resurfaced many of the problems that plagued the Corinthian Church, from strife to inferiority and superiority complexes (12:15-16; 12:21).

This may be a little hard to follow because English doesn’t have a middle voice (only active and passive), but the point is, he seems to be saying (although it may just be sloppy writing) that tongues had ALREADY ceased (“an event actually occurred as indicated”). Even were someone to believe him about the tongues-destruction of Jerusalem connection, what does this have to do with a letter written about 15 years before the destruction?

And God’s gift must be terminated for the good of the Church??

Anyway, we finally arrive at his “interpretation” of 14:2. The key to it (in addition to his cessationist bias) is that he believes Paul is writing sarcastically. I don’t buy it.

Then he claims that the Greek word “laleo” can mean "to babble." This was only true in classical Greek, not Koine (NT) Greek. Furthermore this meaning is contraindicated by its connection with “tongues” which indicates language, i.e., not something made up nor unintelligent (the point being that it is intelligible to God).

I’ve already covered his “we are never commanded” argument, or at least the argument it should be: “we are never told to seek.”

AND FINALLY, what he says about “God” vs. “a god.” (I ignore his strange use of the word “antecedent.”) According to him, John 1:1 can only omit the definite article and still mean “God” because there is an “antecedent” reference to “God” with the definite article. This is absolutely untrue, as the following examples of “theos” without the definite article will show. If his were the true reason, we would need to translate “a god” in—as just a few examples—these passages in which “theos” occurs without the article: Matthew 6:24, II Cor. 1:1 (apparently Paul is the apostle of Christ and a god), II Cor. 5:19, Gal. 2:19, and in many passages where the Greek goes back and forth fairly routinely between the article and no article, yet we cannot say that in every case the “antecedent” of “God” is “the God.” Thus, in those passages we would make mincemeat of the passage, translating “God” in some sentences and “a god” in other sentences. One example is the Nativity narrative in Luke 2. CONTEXT, of course, not ANTECEDENTS tells us that the reference every time is to “God.” The same is true in I Cor. 14:2, as every translation shows. Only by twisting the context beyond recognition and only because the word God/a god only occurs once can he make his absurd claim.

[lish1936]

I hope I don't regret jumping in here; especially with Steve who is an expert on these things.

I, too, believe tongues are relevant today as always. However, I've come to the conclusion that every thing I read in 1Cor. 12 suggests this gift is not for everyone (as some would believe) and is given at God's discretion. It also answers the question for me why Christians of other evangelical or biblical persuasions have been powerful men of God and serving God with equal fervor and His favor.

As one TV commentator likes to ask rhetorically, "Am I wrong?"

Blessings,

Lillian

[swfdoc1]

I won't say I'm an expert. I just looked at the passage and the man's writing that Paula asked me to look at, based on what I learned about Greek (and Church history and exegesis) in seminary and subsequent study.

I agree with you though. As a self-described Charismatic, I pull my hair out at fellow Charismatics who claim that everyone who receives the baptism in the Holy Spirit is supposed to speak in tongues.

As for equal fervor and other persuasions, I wasn't sure whether your point was about those who don't speak in tongues or those who haven't received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. My bottom line is that fervor and theological convictions are completely different issues from one's stance on tongues or the baptism. The same is true for spiritual maturity and a host of other issues.

The Corinthian church was fully charismatic, yet was a "mess" in many ways.

I believe being baptized in the Holy Spirit is normative. Yet, for whatever reason, God made it available as an event that can occur separately from salvation. Given that, there will be many Christians who never have this experience. They are not somehow "second class citizens."