Raf

I keep trying to return the thread to the topic. I answered your question with an on topic response. You answered with a patronizing dismissal that did not contribute to the discussion but instead made it personal. So I ask you to please stop.

I answered a specific question that you asked about what the verse In question is saying, and I applied it to the context of this thread. No need for you to get snippy about it, cman.

I think the context is clear that neither the speaker nor the audience understands the LANGUAGE that is brought forth. I think the context is clear that the audience being spoken of is a typical worship service. I think the verse is clear that what is produced IS a language. No, it's not a major point. Rather, it's a given. Speaking in languages produces languages. The verse cannot be "absolute" and apply to all gatherings, or it would contradict Acts 2. Modern tongues speakers cannot believe it is "absolute" or applies to all gatherings, or they would be compelled to dispense with their precious anecdotes. But to believe that God confounds linguists so that they can't detect languages in glossolalia is to introduce an element of hocus pocus that is foreign to the text. The bottom line is that SIT remains, at its core, a very testable claim. If you're producing a language, then you're doing what the Word promises. If you're not, then you're doing something else. You're doing something else.

By the way, "different" kinds of tongues is not the word heteros OR allos. It's in italics. Heteros is in the term "to another," which is a reference to either the people receiving the gift or the profit of the manifestation, depending on your theology. It has nothing to do with the language.

Ah, of course. To another, diverse kinds of tongues. It's still languages, no matter how you slice it. It's different from the language of the speaker. It's not different from human language.

I don't see where heteros and allos even come into play in this discussion. Is there a verse someone is pointing to where that distinction is important?

Which words?

Cheating to move it along Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Alan Rickman Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves

Sounds logical to me. This is just another sophisticated excuse as to why the modern, phony, counterfeit practice does not produce Biblical results. Do I really need to defend the proposition that speaking in languages should result in people speaking in languages? I mean, I need to prove this? It's a tautology, for Pete's sake. Take a verse out of context and mangle it so that languages are only languages if people looking for languages aren't listening, and you haven't discredited my argument. You've disgraced your own.

If I can put on the modhat without switching ID's: Whether Rocky has a valid point or not is for skyrider to consider. Whether that point is related to this thread or not is a separate issue. So without judging the content of Rocky's post for its validity, without judging whether or not it's good advice that skyrider should heed, I think a strong case can be made that it's off-topic for this thread. No warnings, no reprimands. Just a gentle nudge back on topic, please.

Yup

Yesterday's derail notwithstanding, the purpose of this thread is to give people who did fake it an opportunity to come clean. Secondarily, it is about whether SIT does produce human languages. The question of whether it SHOULD produce human languages is doctrinal, and squabbles over the answer to that question belong in Doctrinal. This thread is about what it does produce. If you started a doctrinal thread exploring, oh, say, I Corinthians 12-14, and you demand answers to questions about that subject matter, that's the place to do it. Please keep this thread on topic.

TnO, I think Paul is speaking of the norm in I Corinthians, and not making a blanket statement that amounts to a promise. We should not be surprised in a worship setting when no one understands what's spoken in a tongue. It's probably normal that no one will be there who understands the language. But it's still a language in Corinthians. That's what "tongues" means, and in every other verse that uses that word for tongue, it either means the physical organ or a human language (the exception, I think, is tongues of fire in Acts 2, which is a figurative use to describe what the fire looked like). Never is it meaningless, or meaningful to God only. That's a retrofit. We don't produce languages today, so we force the Bible to conform with what we produce, rather than change our practice when it doesn't match the promise of God. That it's not a promise that no man will understand is self-evident: men understood in Acts. Same word: glossa. So either Paul did not know the Acts record (yeah, right), or he was not making a blanket statement in Corinthians meant to be applied in all situations. My opinion, for what it's worth. Disagree, and there's nothing to argue. ;)

I'm fine disagreeing, Socks. If that is where we disagree, we have no common ground from which to argue. I just don't see where the Bible is as "squishy" with the terminology as you are being. But I have no cause to argue it with you. Honest Christians have disagreed over far more consequential things.

You know, people disagree on the identity of God and Christ, and each side belittles the other in particular times and places. No one on either side has been subjected the the barrage of "prove its" and the less-than-expert dissection of supporting material than I have endured on this thread. I'm not whining. Just stating a fact. I can take it just fine, thankyouverymuch. And the namecalling, which I have given just as much as I've gotten, long, long ago passed the point of ridiculousness. I stopped the namecalling, but I did not stop the passion of my conviction. If you want to disagree with my position, let's go for it. I can go another 70 pages if it's an honest discussion. But today has seen nothing constructive. One juvenile taunt after another, and my call for civility was not only ignored, but mocked. The incivility was expanded beyond its original expression. [EDITED to remove reference to a deleted post]. I am sorry my position offends some people. I am. But what I'm sorry about is the level to which we were deceived by a power hungry cult eager to bore its way into the deepest, most personal aspects of our prayer lives. I am sorry that I was ever party to such a tremendous deception, one that I KNEW was a lie, but buried because I wanted to fit in. [EDITED to remove reference to a deleted post]. As for those outside TWI, what can I say? Itching ears eager to believe a lie during a time in our history when such lies were commonplace, when the only question was "which god is producing this phenomenon?" and not "is this phenomenon what it is claimed to be?" So they spoke in tongues and, convinced it was a language, went abroad to become missionaries. They got the hard lesson that the gobbledy-gook they were spewing forth was not what they claimed it to be. In this, God was not glorified. But instead of correcting themselves for speaking presumptuously, for pretending the babbling of man to be an expression of the power of God, they simply redefined the power of God to make it less awesome, less real. Now God promises to give you something indistinguishable from someone faking it. That's not what the Bible promises. But it's what we delivered. This isn't about believing God or believing scientists. It's about believing God and not believing those who pretend to bring forth His power but fail to produce the results God promises, and then mock us when we call them on the LIE. If you're not producing what He said you'll produce, then you're not doing what He wants. In this, God is not glorified. Why do I think it's going to be a language. Please. Because it's speaking in tongues, which are languages? Because every Biblical reference to that word, when it's not talking about the physical organ, is talking about human languages spoken by other people on earth? There is honest inquiry, and there is defensive posturing. We've seen both on this thread. Only one deserves serious consideration.

I believe contorting the scripture so that what's plainly a language becomes some indecipherable utterance just because someone's looking at it mangles the plain reading of the text. Plenty of words could have been used to describe speaking in tongues. The word chosen was the word for languages (also the word for the physical organ of the tongue). I don't think there's a hint of unreasonableness in expecting a modern practice that claims to be a Biblical one to produce Biblically predicted results. Sorry, socks. I think reading into SIT to make it say anything other than languages is a retrofit -- an attempt to bring the Bible into conformity with what we observe, rather than bring our practices into line with what the Bible clearly teaches.

First appearance was in The Spy Who Loved Me. The second was Moonraker, from which those quotes were lifted.

[Edited to remove reference to a deleted post] Chockfull, you will not get so much as an acknowledgment from me without an apology. Good night.

This post is deleted because it responds to a deleted post.

Agreed.

Look, if the Bible promised Babblalia, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I've already said that if we do not agree that SIT is supposed to produce a language, we have nothing to discuss. Now, 70 pages later, I have to defend the obvious? Look, if TWI promised you that when you practiced SIT it would produce linguistically meaningless prattle, you wouldn't have done it. Any schmo can produce linguistically meaningless prattle. If you think that's God, more power to you. But that's not the position I'm contesting.

No.

No. Chockfull. I have no ad hominem attack for you. I disagree with your interpretation of scripture. I am trying (and failing) not to sink into the gutter with you in making this personal. I have no ad hominem attack to level at you. Your position is what I have a problem with. The only person leveling ad hominem attacks today has been you.

I am distinguishing biblical SIT from modern SIT, which is a phony counterfeit of what's described in the Bible. For the last time, I am not challenging the Bible. Impeaching my position by making it sound like there's a conflict in my position between Acts and Corinthians is frankly unintelligent and beneath you, Chockfull. In Acts they understood the languages. In Corinthians, according to you, that's impossible. If anyone here has a discrepancy that challenges the authenticity of the Acts record, it's you, pal.

False analogy. You ripped the verse from Corinthians out of its context and are applying it to situations it is not discussing. You are as competent with the scripture as you are with the research we've been reviewing. Which is to say, not at all. Oh please. Glossa doesn't mean language now? You've spent the whole day engaged in namecalling and have the gall to accuse ME of an ad hominem attack?