Raf

A related question: does "laleo" make a difference? Wierwille taught that "laleo" means speaking without reference to the words that are spoken. That definition simply does not hold water, Biblically. Any concordance will give you a list of verses in which that word or related words are used. You will find that if you tried to apply Wierwille's definition across the board, you will very quickly be baffled. It doesn't fit. In fact, Wierwille's blunder on laleo was one of the Actual Errors from the old PFAL thread. Laleo is the word used most often in connection with SIT. The word used in I Corinthians 14:9 is NOT laleo, but dote, which means to give. If "utter by the tongue" in THAT verse equals "speak in tongues" in the surrounding verses, then the Bible clearly indicates that speaking in tongues can, in some instances, be understood by those present. I don't feel strongly enough about it to make that bold an assertion, but I hold that it is very possible. With no explicit reason to believe that IS what Paul is saying, and no explanation for why a change in the terminology showed up out of the blue, I have little choice but to stand by the explanation I gave above. Going to continue looking at the verse and those particular words to see if I learn more.

That word was never accurate and never appropriate to this discussion. It was beneath you and remains so. It was namecalling whether I posted an answer or not. It was a vile and despicable act of taunting and bullying, and that you continued to do so even after this was pointed out to you was reprehensible. So, with respect, go ahead and keep calling me whatever you want, because your opinion means nothing to me. Gonna stop calling me a hater. Like he's doing me a favor. Puh-leease.

Can you make it downloadable? I'd like to send it to a linguist in an e-mail.

I made numerous attempts, all of which were ignored, to direct the doctrinal assumption behind my assertion about modern SIT to this thread, which is properly placed in the doctrinal forum. Although I did lay out my reasoning in the other thread, I am laying it out here in greater detail for anyone who chooses to look for it. I think it's a fair question. What are tongues in the Bible? To begin with, I'm going to set the verses in I Corinthians 12-14 aside. Saving them for last, as it were. The word "glossa" appears in the following verses: Mark 7:33 [refers to the physical organ] Mark 7:35 [refers to the physical organ] Mark 16:17 [considered by many scholars to be a fraudulent insertion into the original gospel of Mark, those who accept it as canonical agree that "new tongues" is a reference to existing languages new to the speaker, not to the planet]. Two uses in Luke refer to the physical organ. Acts 2:3 [the word appears as a physical description of the fire that appeared on the heads of the apostles. Has nothing to do with speaking or language]. Acts 2:4 [the context clearly states that the "other tongues" were known, human languages. Unless the Mark 16 verse is accepted, this is the first use in the New Testament of tongues as a language, and it is specifically in reference to the manifestation of speaking in tongues]. Acts 2:11 [this verifies that the tongues in v. 4 are real, human languages]. Acts 2:21 [a metaphorical reference to the actual tongue, where the tongue is put for the speech of the speaker. Good news made him happy and he said so]. Acts 10:46 [a reference to the manifestation. No reason to assume it's referring to anything other than a human language, whether or not those present understood the utterance. Peter is present at this incident and surmises it to be the same as what he experienced in Acts 2, which was known human languages. How did he know? Either he understood it (not likely), or the same God who gave Him profound revelation to get him to this location in the first place revealed it to him]. Acts 19:6 [Again, the manifestation, and again, no reason to believe the meaning of tongues changed for the writer, Luke, who for no reason failed to tell us about the change. It's a human language, regardless of whether anyone around understood]. Romans 3:13 [physical organ] Romans 14:11 [likely a metaphorical reference to the physical organ, with the tongue put for the person speaking. Every knee shall bow + every tongue shall confess = God will be honored in the deeds and words of those of whom He is speaking]. Skipping I Corinthians... Philippians 2:11 [same as Romans 14:11] Five references in James, all dealing with the physical organ, literally or metaphorically. I Peter 3:10 [metaphorical reference to the physical tongue]. I John 3:18 [tongue is put for the words of the speaker: not a reference to language, but speech]. Revelation 5:9 [human languages] Revelation 7:9 [human languages] Revelation 10:11 [human languages] Revelation 11:9 [human languages] Revelation 13:7 [human languages] Revelation 14:6 [human languages] Revelation 16:10 [physical organ] Revelation 17:15 [human languages] It should be noted that the in the references in Revelation, the languages stand in for the people who speak them. But the underlying reality of human language is rather rightly taken as a given. So we see, then, that outside of I Corinthians 12-14, tongues has two meanings: the physical organ, either literally or metaphorically, or human languages. In no verse is there even a hint that tongues might be referring to something else. Let's look at one other verse, since it has come up in conversation: Romans 8: 26-27 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. I'm going to ignore the argument over whether to interpret this verse under a Trinitarian framework or a Biblical Unitarian view, because it's not particularly relevant. Is this verse speaking about SIT? I'm pretty sure it is. Not 100 percent, but SIT makes perfect sense as the subject matter to me. What does "groanings which cannot be uttered" mean? Does it mean sounds that are not a human language? I highly doubt that was the intent of the writer (or the Author). After all, if the sounds are not a human language, then the infirmity is not just ours, but the Sspirit's as well! I believe the clearest explanation for this verse, the one most in line with what the Bible teaches, is that the infirmity is the believer's, and it is the believers who find it impossible to put their "groanings" into words. The spirit has no trouble with this, and SIT, if applied here, corrects our infirmity. In light of the clear verses identifying SIT as producing human languages, this view makes the most sense to me. This verse does not change SIT from a language to a linguistically meaningless utterance. It changes our inability to express ourselves in words to an ability to express ourselves in words through the Sspirit's intervention. So let's move back to I Corinthians. I Corinthians 12:10 [kinds of tongues/interpretation of tongues: still no reason to believe this is anything other than human languages, consistent with every other verse in the Bible in which this word does not refer literally or metaphorically to the physical organ]. I Cor. 12:28 [diversities of tongues: still no reason to believe this is anything other than human languages] I Cor. 12:30 [still no reason to believe this is anything other than human languages. It's the same manifestation and there's nothing in the text to signify a change of meaning]. I Cor. 13: 1 [tongues of men and angels: tongues of men is presented as normal, tongues of angels as a hyperbole. Tongues is still languages here. Is "tongues of angels" literal and not hyperbole? I think not, but honest Christians disagree. So be it. I still think it's a huge stretch to suggest that somewhere between Acts and Corinthians, tongues of angels became the norm. The apparent tone of the discourse Paul is in the middle of strongly suggests tongues of angels is, in fact, hyperbole. It's also being put down in comparative value to love]. I Cor. 13:8 [A reference to the manifestation, which produces human languages unless you take tongues of angels to be both literal and the norm, neither of which seems justified by the context]. I Cor. 14:2 [The word unknown is not in the text. The person doing it is speaking to God, not men, IN A LANGUAGE the speaker does not know. It's still a tongue, and the meaning of that word has not changed. That "no man understands" is to be expected in an ordinary worship setting, which is the context of this verse. This says nothing about any other setting. It does not bar anyone from understanding in any setting. It is merely describing the normative, worship experience. It has no bearing on the language produced; only on the extreme unlikelihood of anyone in a worship setting understanding it. What is produced is still a human language]. I Cor. 14:4 [still no reason to believe this is anything other than human languages] I Cor. 14:5 [twice: still no reason to believe this is anything other than human languages] I Cor. 14:6 [still no reason to believe this is anything other than human languages] I Cor. 14:9 [this appears NOT to be a reference to the manifestation, but a reference to speaking in a known language with the understanding. The tongue here is either a metaphorical reference to the physical organ or a reference to a known language itself. If the former is true, it affects neither my position nor those who disagree with me. If the latter is true, we have an explicit statement of what I've been taking as a given: tongues are languages, period. Alas, I think the former explanation makes the most sense. In context, however, I think the use of that word here indicates that tongues are simply languages, and there's nothing complicated about it]. Nine more references in I Cor. 14. In all of them, they are talking about the manifestation, the same manifestation described in Acts, which produced human languages and never, not once, indicated that something else was being produced. There is ZERO evidence that SIT produces anything other than a human language, UNLESS one takes I Cor. 13:1 literally and ignores the rather obvious hyperbole Paul is employing. He did not claim to speak in the tongues of angels, or even that there IS such a thing. He merely says IF HE DID, it would still not be as valuable to him as love. That SIT is tongues of men is a given. It's tongues of men in every other Biblical usage that does not refer, literally or figuratively, to the physical organ. The original writer and readers of Paul's letter would have been utterly baffled by the assertion that they were doing anything other than producing human languages. It runs counter to every other use of that word in the Word. It is, as I have called it, a retrofit designed to explain why people who SIT today are NOT producing languages. Suddenly, 2,000 years later, the Bible isn't promising human languages. Sorry, I don't buy it. That's my doctrinal position. If you disagree with it, there is no need to argue with me on the conclusions I draw from it. We're simply not going to agree, and that's that.

Any person on any thread has the right to choose which posts and posters to respond to. I am excluding certain posts and posters from future responses based on my dissatisfaction with how previous encounters were handled. I've made my practical case and explained its doctrinal foundation, but this thread is not about the doctrinal argument. It presumes a doctrinal foundation, and if you want to debate that foundation, I would suggest the doctrinal forum is the place to do that. If you'd like to raise your questions here, I can't stop you. But I have no obligation to answer it, here or anywhere else, especially after I have already done so. That my answers have not satisfied some people is their problem, not mine.

Go right ahead! I have no doubt what you will find, but if you prove me wrong, you can settle this once and for all.

As a researcher, I would reject the submission as being tainted by this argument. But do what you will. If it comes back "not a language," it will surprise no one and change no minds. If it comes back a language, I'd be proved wrong, plain and simple.

Modern SIT began in the same pseudo-spiritual, paranoid, gullible atmosphere that brought widespread belief in the power of the occult. This was an age in which supposed mediums and spiritists and the like flourished, even though a great many of them were later debunked. This was an age in which supposed photographs of real-honest-to-goodness fairies gained notoriety, when a trio of sisters faked an ability to communicate with the dead and were passionately defended by spiritists and excoriated by Christianity -- with the affirmation and condemnation continuing even after one of them revealed the hoax and explained exactly how it was done. Many of these hucksters were exposed as frauds. Harry Houdini was adept at pointing out the fraud and died without ever seeing a paranormal experience he could call genuine. Fraud was rampant. It was in this era of our history that the modern practice of SIT emerged, the "genuine" "Christian" alternative to these Satanic "displays" of "power" (most of which were explicitly proved fraudulent). It was believed (based on sound scriptural expectations) that what was produced was actually a language. So firm was this belief that the people who produced SIT went out to become missionaries in the countries whose languages they were convinced (based on WHAT?) they were producing. Didn't work out too well for them. So they switched gears and started calling it a spiritual language. Make a provable claim unprovable, and who could discredit it? If I claimed to heal by the power of God, you would demand evidence of healing. If I claimed to work miracles by the power of God, you would demand evidence of miracles. If I claimed I could walk on water by the power of God, you would demand to see me walk on water. You claim to produce a language by the power of God. "No man understands" in the Bible is set in the context of a typical worship meeting, not a blanket prohibition against inquiry. OldSkool is right: the Bible tells us to prove the spirits (inspired utterances, in some translations). It cannot be against His will to do exactly what He asks us to do. SIT is a testable claim. The Bible sets the expectation. SIT fails to meet it. It is not the practice the Bible describes. Either the Bible is wrong or the modern practice is wrong. I know which proposition gets my vote.

One of the mistakes researchers like Goodman made was connecting glossolalia itself with the aberrant behavior that accompanied it in certain religious circles. Samarin deserves a lot of credit, I think, for cutting through that so-called connection early in his study of glossolalia. Although he didn't use the specific terms, he recognized that correlation does not equal causation, and called other researchers on their failure to note the difference.

There's no question that I have been rude and I have been called on it. Of late, I have tried mightily to cut that out, and I am well aware that I am being closely watched in that regard. I have done my best to restrict my criticisms to arguments and positions, not to people. If people take those criticisms and apply them to themselves instead of their arguments, that's their business and not my problem. Your positions and arguments are fair game, as are mine. I explained my position using scripture and its context to back it up. People are free to disagree with that and free to discuss that. I will not entertain it here any longer. Complaining that this thread is doctrinal when it is not, that it belongs in Soap Opera when it does not, and then fulfilling that prophecy by namecalling and non-productive posts or insisting on a doctrinal discussion and continuing to bicker over the same issues as though they were never addressed, is not something I need to feed into. Taunting me for refusing to engage your "logic" will be unproductive. You're wasting your breath. I'm not even reading your posts anymore.

Feel free. If you're on topic, I may even respond. But I've entertained the doctrinal digression long enough. It's not my fault people want to ignore their own threads.

Keeping a thread on topic and directing a doctrinal discussion to the doctrinal forum is not stifling conversation, cman. I am sorry my view of scripture is not accepted by everyone, but that is a doctrinal discussion and it's not my fault that people decide to ignore their very own threads and instead insist on having doctrinal debates in a non-doctrinal thread. This thread assumes a doctrinal position and proceeds from there. If you want to debate the doctrinal assumption, and you started a thread in doctrinal to have such a debate, I recommend holding the doctrinal discussion there and request that you stop trying to derail this thread. CMan, I am not calling anyone names. I have characterized a particular conversation with a particular poster as fruitless, and have explained why I came to that conclusion. No namecalling here. No rules violation here. Nice try. OldSkool, I agree with you wholeheartedly. There's a difference between demanding from God a promise he doesn't give and proving MAN's CLAIMS by holding MAN's CLAIMS to a Biblical standard, which is all I have done on this thread.

I've already discredited your argument scripturally. You act as though I have not. Then, proceeding from that assumption, you draw conclusions based on your misinterpretation of scripture. Nothing obliges me to entertain that. I have still not received an apology from you for your unspeakable rudeness the other day. I vowed to stop engaging you, and clearly should have kept to my word. So if you don't mind (or even if you do), I'm going to go back to ignoring you. Not because I'm avoiding your "logic," but because arguing with you has repeatedly proven to be fruitless. When I refute your "logic," you simply declare that I haven't and barrel your way through the discussion anyway. I have no obligation to address that. I've changed minds. You have not. That alone should tell you who's making the stronger logical argument. Good day.

LOL. Nice. So expecting God to be faithful to His Word is tempting God. Ok. Whatever you say. Our disagreement is doctrinal. Kindly take your argument there.

Aside from not being part of the Ten Commandments (seriously, do you just make stuff up and hope no one will notice?) "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" is a rebuke against Israel for demanding a miracle from God that He had not promised. To apply it to SIT is to say we should not expect God to be faithful to His promise, which is quite a different proposition. You may not expect God to live up to His Word, but when you claim to be doing what His Word says, I expect His Word's results. Modern SIT doesn't pass this test. On this basis, I doubt the modern practice, not the Scripture.

There's no need to carry on with aspects of the conversation that have been beaten to death. Enough other people seemed interested in the doctrinal segue that has been taken, so I decided to address those questions on their own, doctrinal terms. If anyone disagrees with that, there's really nothing to debate. My argument is based on SIT producing languages. An interpretation of scripture that argues the phenomenon cannot be studied by its very nature, while not an argument that I agree with and not an argument I believe is consistent with the Bible's teaching on SIT, is also not an argument I can counter because there is no common ground there. So we part in peace. That argument is doctrinal. This thread is not. I have been grateful over the past few days to receive private e-mails from people who reflected on their experience and recognized that the behavior I described matches their own experience. They have freed themselves of the delusion that invaded their own lives, and to me, any growth that sheds dishonesty and embraces truth is a positive step. Whether I am right that it's ALL a fake or not, the reality is that many, many people faked it, more than are willing to admit it, and this thread can give them the impetus to unburden themselves of a practice that was, at least for them, completely fraudulent.

The post above this one does not reflect edits I made to the post quoted. I am responsible for any discrepancies.

I'm not sure it squelches that particular argument, OldSkool. Not disagreeing with you, just not making the same connection you are. Wierwille and today's Pentecostalism may have a common source, but the areas in which they diverge may be relevant. Or not. Who knows?

OldSkool, Yes, Samarin included Pentecostals in his research, among others.

The contention has been made, repeatedly, that I Corinthians 14:2 contains an "absolute" statement that "no man understands." Whether the verse itself applies to the speaker or the audience is irrelevant, for even if one were to concede that it applies to the audience as well as the speaker, I contend the verse itself is still in the context of the average worship service and cannot be extrapolated to cover all situations. The Biblical support for my belief as it applies to the Biblical practice has been previously cited as Acts 2, where men did understand. I agree that Acts 2 is an unusual situation in which God saw to it that the languages spoken were actually understood by those present. I Corinthians tells us that there's no guarantee this will be the case in all instances of SIT. But it does NOT say that the languages spoken will themselves be unknown by any other human. The Biblical definition of speaking in languages is self-defining: speaking in LANGUAGES. (WordWolf's recent comment on these same lines had not been posted as I was originally writing this). It bears repeating that if I Corinthians 14:2 is "absolute" in its assertion that "no man understands," that would by definition discount any modern instance in which someone present DID in fact understand. How can people understand what was spoken if "no man understands" is absolute? It is not. The fact remains that the person who speaks in languages will produce a language that CAN be understood by man, but typically is not understood in a worship setting. That is the clear reading of the verse. Contorting it to say otherwise is a retrofit: interpreting the scripture in light of our experience rather than allowing the scripture to define and predict our experience. If our experience fails to meet Biblical expectations, we should change our experience, not the scripture! The notion that "no man understands" contains a blanket prediction that others will not understand, as an absolute, is without merit both in scripture and by the defense of the modern practice. If "no man understands" is absolute, then cases where people did understand are not of God! But it's not absolute. It's in a context. And that context does not negate the testable claim that speaking in languages will produce languages. Paul never contemplated the field of linguistics. Paul knew darned well that the SIT he was writing about produced real human languages (as every other use of that word in the Bible, when not referring literally or metaphorically to the physical tongue, indicates a real language, including in I Corinthians 14:9, where the language IS spoken with the understanding: same word in the same context, but no distinction between what it produced insofar as it being a language is concerned). I continue to contend that using this verse to absolve SIT of the burden of independent examination is a cop out, one more excuse to make a testable claim untestable, one more excuse as to why the modern practice of SIT does not produce Biblically predicted results. I accept that people disagree with my position here. But I believe my position is in full keeping with the Scripture on the subject. If you disagree, our disagreement is doctrinal and the discussion belongs there. I do not believe the Bible promises an experience indistinguishable from fakery except to the faithful. I believe the Bible makes a testable assertion that modern SIT fails to meet.

Thanks. Now that we're all reminded, let us all continue on that course.

Good hint. Can't remember the name, though. Something like: Finding A Date for the End of the World. Close enough?

Part BG Leonard, part JE Stiles. Don't know their sources, other than the Bible. The GS site rules, including what's not permitted, are posted for all to see.

When it comes to the rules of this forum, everyone is told what they can and cannot say. You're no different. Neither am I.

Imagine that. Listen, cman, you are being unnecessarily confrontational and deliberately rude. I'm asking you politely to knock it off. You are obviously capable of staying on topic without making things personal. I ask that you continue on that course. Yes, I am hung up on the word language. Why that should be controversial, I have no idea. Manufactured excuses as to why language suddenly doesn't mean language anymore don't impress me as easily as they seem to impress others. If God promised to give me something that was indistinguishable from its counterfeit, I'd feel a little let down.