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Speaking in Tongues


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YUP, Danny!

I have reproved more than a few for their "wrong" interpretations. :(

How ludricris this sounds now, but if someones tongue was only ___, and their interpretation was ________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________, boy did I get fumed!!! :realmad:

Just like if they said "I the Lord thy God love you , and God thankyou, ............"

or, if they used any "unapproved words". Like create, hope in, wish, etc....

Or, if the poor soul said the same interpretation every fellowhip,

or their tongue sounded the same, we often would have an "exceller session" to get practice.

Yikes, this all sounds so "uninspiring" and the total opposite of the day of Pentecost and what Paul expounds.

:blink:

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and does that make it counterfeit...because of her limited tongues ? I believe those who do speak in tongues fluently, beautifully, far, far outweigh them who 'feign it'. Same with interpretaion of tongues. We who have no problem believing it and doing it KNOW when we 'feign' bits of it and we KNOW when we just let it pour forth spiritually.

Well, that's the problem I have - looking back in retrospect, thinking about our tendency to deceive ourselves and others...It makes me wonder about the other manifestations that TWI was allegedly experts in - the president and founder morally bankrupt yet able to see through the spiritual darkness and lead the way by his accurate operation of word of knowledge, word of wisdom and distilling discerning of spirits...And why all the fuss and practice over the worship manifestations? Why didn't they have practice sessions for the revelation or power manifestations? And where in the Bible does it indicate we're supposed to practice at it? And for a ministry so proud on being experts in the Holy Spirit field - why didn't we see any actual honest-to-God eye-witness power manifestations - stupendous healing services, storming hospitals and emptying them out?...Sounds to me like a whole lotta talk.

Edited by T-Bone
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SIT is certainly not "necessary" to manefest those things, is it? This is evidenced by the many folks that have never SIT, yet they still manage to demonstrate those "fruit of the spirit" abundantly. This belies the notion that to have the fruit of the spirt, you must operatate the manifestations of the spirit.

I agree. I think folks have manifested fruit of the spirit without speaking in tongues.

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My somewhat casual observation is that those who speak in tongues much, as TWI taught, are no more spiritually edified (built up), are no more loving, are no more spiritually "tapped in" and seem to have no spiritual advantage over those who do not.

Can you offer any evidence to suggest otherwise?

That would be for the individual to evidence for him/herself, and if someone says they are blessed by SIT, I can take them for their word. It is like being a witness, we are witnesses and share with the world what we have experienced of our relationship/fellowship with God. Folks are free to believe or disbelieve.

Goey, somehow I get the feeling that if you analyzed the bible itself as critically as you are analyzing SIT, you'd become a non-believer very quickly. Nothing wrong with that... just a little odd.

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What I'm trying to find out - in light of Goey's acute comment earlier, to the effect that those who exercised the manifestations were seemingly "oblivious" to the sin transpiring in the organization -is if anyone was inspired to utter anything from God addressing precisely that situation, outside of the holy spirit seemingly hashing out the same old, usual scrambled retemories. I'm looking for evidence or confirmation of actual "life" there, if the holy spirit was actually "home".

Danny

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Can you imagine someone rebuking at a public meeting? What a circus. :)

Paul wasn't hesitant about doing just that - even rebuking Peter "before them all.." (Gal.2:14). Nor, unfortunately, were the Way's leaders. But in the context of those public manifestations - why didn't God make use of them beyond the trite scriptural fortune-cookie kind of stuff?

If ever there was ample opportunity to address the serious state of affairs in the ministry - what better way than through those public manifestations through which to hear a message directly through or from God Himself?

Danny

Edited by TheInvisibleDan
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If you put it that way, I really don't know.

If those who knew were too uninformed or fearful to say anything:

Why didn't God send angels?

Why didn't Jesus appear Himself?

Why didn't God manifest Himself into the senses realm, to tell us?

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That would be for the individual to evidence for him/herself, and if someone says they are blessed by SIT, I can take them for their word. It is like being a witness, we are witnesses and share with the world what we have experienced of our relationship/fellowship with God. Folks are free to believe or disbelieve.

So If I say I get blessed by slain in the spirit, you take my word for it ? That's good to know.

Goey, somehow I get the feeling that if you analyzed the bible itself as critically as you are analyzing SIT, you'd become a non-believer very quickly. Nothing wrong with that... just a little odd.

Oh, but I do "analyze" the Bible critically, but even moreso TWI's interpretations of it. But now I am more of a bible believer than a PFAL/Wierwille believer.

Yet, I find it even more odd that you do not critically "analyze" the glaring defects in wierwillian theology. I get the feeling that If you did, maybe you would become a more of a bible believer than a Wierwille believer.

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I return to that question I posed earlier: in all your recollections/experiences in the Way, does anyone here recall any occasion where someone got rebuked, reproved or even kicked out of the group for having produced an "interpretation" or a "prophecy" that was not well-received by the leaders?

Yes, on more than a few occasions.

I saw people reproved, rebuked and corrected, but never kicked out. (1976-1982)

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It has been said that some folks confronted the sinners privately, to no avail.

Can you imagine someone rebuking at a public meeting? What a circus. :)

Yes, I can.

Didn't TWI's leaders rebuke the WC/staff underlings in public quite often? And many times for trival stuff -- Was that a circus?

I find it quite interesting that the underlings, while edifying the spirit by speaking in tongues much, did not publically rebuke the higher ups for the non-tivial stuff they were responsible for -- especially considering the public rebuking example set for them by those leaders.

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I think that twi missed it a bunch when it comes to SIT. I agree with the doctrinal teaching of it-but not how they practiced it. As the years went on, my SIT became more mechanical, a going through the motions while picturing people on my prayer list. I think SIT is really designed for praising God--speaking His wonderful works--but this didnt happen much in practical application. It became a tool that we could put on auto pilot

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Ever heard toungues in english?

Nope, in fact, I never heard a "tongue" that really sounded like a language at all.

In 15 years of doing the nonsense, it never happened. I heard quite a few that sounded incredibly similar, though.

I can go along with that.

While allowing for the possibility that there might have been a structure or linguistic pattern in a "tongue" that I didn't perceive, most, if not all, tongues that I have heard in TWI and in churches, were just a string of the same sounds repeated over and over.

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Yet, I find it even more odd that you do not critically "analyze" the glaring defects in wierwillian theology. I get the feeling that If you did, maybe you would become a more of a bible believer than a Wierwille believer.

That's great, but it seems you, like me, don't believe some verses you don't want to believe. Or else you don't believe they are applicable to you, such as the ones in Acts and Corinthians about SIT. Like the one in Jude about "building up yourselfs...praying in the HS." Perhaps you believe these verses applied in an earlier time but not now? Don't see the profit in them in your life?

Goey, I also gather from some of your statements that you believe some O.T. scriptures apply directly to you as well and yet again at the same time you sidestep some of those in Acts and Corinthians and others.

I've proceeded similarly. I don't believe verses about tithing are applicable to me. There are others as well.

Well I guess it's all a matter of choice what one believes, and some of us still believe SIT and all the benefits and blessings of the 1st Century Church can apply to believers today.

Here's one way J.E. Stiles put it, from page 16 of his book, "The Gift of the Holy Spirit"

Of course, there are some who say that the Book of Acts recounts the events of a transition period, and that we cannot take it as applying to our situation today. Now it is quite apparent to the logical and clear thinker that the dispensation in which we live began when the Holy Spirit was given on the Day of Pentecost, and will continue until the rapture of the church, when His work, preparing a bride for Christ, is completed. These people who say we cannot take the Book of Acts as our pattern do so to fortify themselves in certain positions which they have taken, positions which would be completely untenable, if they accepted the Acts as applying to our present situation. Why not be fair with the Word and take it as it reads?
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Oldies, where in the scriptures is the practice of "praying in tongues for someone" ever mentioned?

Believers may pray and bless others with the spirit. Here's where I believe it comes from:

1Cr 14:14 For if I pray in an [unknown] tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.

1Cr 14:15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.

1Cr 14:16 Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit ...,

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I know VPW claimed he was patterning TWI after the book of Acts - but now I see him more like a Simon the Sorcerer type like in Acts 8 offering the apostles money so he could lay hands on people to receive the Holy Spirit; only in VPW's case it's steal other people's work on the Holy Spirit field and make himself as THE gateway to God's power...I think of Galatians 3:5 where it asks whether someone that ministers the spirit & works miracles among you does it by the works of the law or the hearing of faith? Yeah - a lot of LIVE spiritual action going on with running a tape!...

...Honestly, in my opinion what TWI has is cookie-cutter mentality with the PFAL class mass-producing little Wierwillites...People never could deviate from the norm when running classes - don't lead someone into tongues before they take the class - what if they ran into something like Acts 19:6 where they spoke in tongues and prophesied?

Thinking of Stiles quote about patterning after the first century church - I see a BIG difference: I seems to me the early churches in the book of Acts period were somewhat autonomous with Christ as the head. Whereas, TWI is a centralized form of government by a hierarchy of leadership with the Board of Trustees as the head.

Edited by T-Bone
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Oakspear post # 1 June 22 2006 5:53 PM

"...All of the other supernatural or phenomenal occurences seem to have a purpose: miracles, healings, discerning of spirits, revelation, prophecy, etc. They all have an obvious and tangible benefit. They could all be observed & measured.

What about tongues? Couldn't God have come up with a way of "building up the inner man" that didn't involve incomprehensible babbling?

Sure, God could do whatever he wanted, but don't you assume that he makes sense?"

I Corinthians 14: 21, 22 [NKJV]

21 In the law it is written: "With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me," says the Lord.

22 Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe.

I tend to lean towards what John MacArthur suggests on the above verses as to the purpose of speaking in tongues.The following is from The MacArthur Study Bible notes on the above verses:

"14:21 it is written. In a freely rendered quotation from Isaiah 28:11,12, Paul explains that centuries earlier the Lord had predicted that one day He would use men of other tongues, that is foreigners speaking unknown languages, as a sign to unbelieving Israel, who "will not hear Me." These "other tongues" are what they knew as the gift of languages, given solely as a sign to unbelieving Israel. That sign was a 3-fold: cursing, blessing, and authority. To emphasize the cursing, Paul quoted Isaiah's words of warning to Judah of the judgment from Assyria…The leaders thought his words were too simple and rejected him. The time would come, the prophet said, when they would hear Assyrian, a language they could not understand, indicating judgment. Jeremiah spoke similarly of the Babylonians who were also to come and destroy Judah [cf. Jeremiah 5:15]. When the apostles spoke at Pentecost in all those foreign languages [Acts 2:3-12], the Jews should have known that the judgment prophesied and historically fulfilled first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonian captivity was about to fall on them again for their rejection of Christ, including the destruction of Jerusalem [A.D.70] as it had happened in 586 B.C. under Babylonian power.

14:22 Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers. Explaining further, he says explicitly that all tongues are for the sake of unbelievers. In other words, that gift has no purpose in the church when everyone present is a believer. And once the sign served its purpose to pronounce judgment or cursing on Israel, and the judgment fell, the purpose ceased along with the sign gift. The blessing of that sign was that God would build a new nation of Jews and Gentiles to be His people [Galatians 3:28], to make Israel jealous and someday repent [see Romans 11:11,12,25-27]. The sign was thus repeated when Gentiles were included in the church [Acts 10:44-46]. The sign also gave authority to those who preached both the judgment and blessing [iI Corinthians 12:12], including Paul [v.18]…"

In my opinion, speaking in tongues served a specific purpose in the early days of the church [as MacArthur pointed out] - furthermore, I think it may be significant that outside I Corinthians, speaking in tongues is not addressed in the other epistles. Where scripture speaks of praying in the spirit I think pro-speaking in tongues people project their mind-set into it - assuming it means speaking in tongues. I think it means to pray in harmony with the Spirit; like to pray in Jesus' name. Do you think it's some magic incantation to say His name - then it's got to happen - rub the lamp and the genie appears? I think to pray in Jesus' name is to pray in harmony with His will, to honor Him, appeal to His lordship, appeal to Him personally - the name representing the person himself.

Edited by T-Bone
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Thanks for that, T-Bone. While I am no cessationist myself, your post helps me to understand the cessationist position better. From the uninformed layperson (your typical outhern Baptist for instance) it just comes across as obstinance. MacArthur gives me a more sensible rationale. And I like the way you stated your thoughts on praying in Jesus' name.

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1 Corinthians 14:5 " I would that ye ALL spoke in tongues but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prohesieth than he that speaketh in tongues, EXCEPT he INTERPRET, that the church may receive edifying"

v13 " Wherefore let him that speaks in tongues pray that he may INTERPRET".

v28 " But if there be no INTERPRETER, let him keep silence in the church, let him speak to himself and to God."

Seems to me these verses still apply to the church today that keeps having new people coming along. There are still people getting born- again today in the churches isn't there ??!!

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What about all the "gifts" or manifestations mentioned? It says 'to one, gift of tongues......to another gift of healing..." etc....?

I really like what you said T-Bone. And it was interesting to note no other epistles has it. Just trying to put the puzzles together. You know, if God wants us to SIT, then I want to do it! I love him and want to please him. But I am not ready (mentally or doctrinally) to do it until I recheck everything.

I totally disagree with how we did it in the Way. Practicing, and all was NOT INSPIRATIONAL. So that is definately lacking. So what is it if its fora sign to unbelievers? I use to get livid in fellowship if the Coord called on someone to SIT/INT when all of us were regulars!!!! When I ran it, it was always prophesy, unless a new person came. It was like they didn't head the written word, they just wanted everyone to practice even more. GEEEESH!

If it ceased then, what are these people doing in so many churches? Vain babblings? :blink:

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