SIT, TIP, Confession
39 members have voted
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1. What do you think of the inspirational manifestations/"gifts"?
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I've done it, they are real and work the way TWI describes14
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I've done it, they are real and work the way CES/STFI describes1
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I've done it, they are real and work the way Pentecostals/non-denominationals describe2
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I faked it to fit in, but I believe they are real.1
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I faked it to fit in. I believe it's possible, but not sure if it's real.6
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I faked it. I think we all faked it.15
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chockfull
Raf very honestly my behavior on this thread earlier caused me to look in the mirror and re-evaluate some things. I also was not pleased with the reflection. I'm thankful for the personal growth tha
geisha779
No? You really kind of are if you demand Raf prove his point....funny how that works. How about any reasonable standard? I have to wonder, as I have inadvertently strung two words together that Freud
Steve Lortz
I believe that SIT is real, but not what it is described as in either Pentecostalism or TWI. I believe that SIT is always thanksgiving (giving proper credit) to God. I believe there were lots of times
geisha779
You know....if I am following along correctly with the, God may shut this off, or, I can't do this line of reasoning....maybe God does have a problem with your prayer and this is His way of telling you.....we can stretch this puppy straight out to gas on the snow pumps.
I have a problem with using a child like faith or approach as an excuse. What did God tell Job out of the whirlwind. Pull up your big boy pants and answer me? or, Come, let us reason together. Search the scriptures to see if these things are true. Iron sharpens iron......
If you believe what you are doing is scriptural, perfect prayer, speaking mysteries to God, I don't have a problem with that. . . . . I think you are wrong, but so what.
I do have a problem with the attitude that you have your special toys and are not going to show them to anyone because you can't. . . . God wouldn't like it. It was used as a sign for unbelievers. That was the point. Not some self-edification and secret prayer language and mysterious spiritual body building. It all seems so far removed from edification for the body or a confirmation of the gospel it causes me serious questions.
Those questions arise...in part....from the things you are saying and the attitude you have about SIT. But, it is my problem....not yours? I should just accept your attitude as correct because it works for you?
No. You claim this special gift from God almighty....your attitude is definitely relevant. After all, if God has given you this special gift to confirm the gospel......I am going to pay close attention to not only the tongues you speak but the manner and attitude you approach it with. Seems reasonable.
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Raf
You're scaring me, chockfull.
OldSkool, are you following this?
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OldSkool
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chockfull
Geisha,
Here's what I have a problem with. You picking a fight. I have none of these attitudes towards SIT. You are picking a fight with me because you have some kind of issue or anger problem. No, you picking a fight is NOT God telling me something. It's you being obnoxious. I've explained these things away over and over again to you specifically, yet you STILL want to have some attitude like God didn't give you a toy or something, and that I'm vaunting myself. Fine. I'm done with your attitude here. Get over it. It's definitely not a Christian attitude. Stop lecturing me about big-boy pants and put some on yourself. Christians may disagree. That doesn't mean you have license to be obnoxious to them, or make blanket statements denigrating their positions.
I mean johniam quoted a scripture in I Cor. 14 a bit ago that says that if you SIT you are edified. It was immediately hands-down dismissed as TWI doctrine. Where is quoting a verse TWI doctrine? Only if you are closed minded. If God says in I Cor. 14 that when you SIT you are edified, and you want to excuse that away by saying the point was it was for unbelievers and it doesn't mean self-edification, then please take that up with the author, not me.
Are we clear?
Hey, I'm an analytic guy when it doesn't come to my prayer life and how I talk to God. I'll look at scientific evidence as far as it takes us. And learn things. I don't think it will get us all the way there, as I believe there is a spiritual element to prayer lives and interaction with God, and that can't be approached or solved via reason and man's facts. But I've seldom had knowledge or facts hurt my prayer life.
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Raf
Your call. But I choose not to stop there.
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chockfull
Although I have a preconceived belief going into this, I don't want to stop short of anything I can learn through scientific analysis, or scriptural study either.
So I'll continue discussing. I think you and I have dialed back the rhetoric enough to make it sufficiently interesting also.
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geisha779
They mocked Jesus as they crucified Him for sins He didn't commit, yet, someone questions you, or calls you delusion, or is offended by your attitude and those are fighting words? I hope you never run into real persecution.
I really do find your attitude about tongues offensive, but if you are not saying they are for your own personal use, that God won't let you show them, and that they don't have to be a real known language, or that was a one time deal. I apologize. If you are saying that.....yeah....it offends me. The only reason it would matter that you are offending me is if you were a witness for Jesus Christ and had a special gift or calling you are responsible for. Otherwise I am just some angry blond at a keyboard.
What else would you call one verse taken out of context and thrown out as an answer from Johniam. I suspect it is meant to bring to mind TWI doctrine, but I could be wrong. Either way, I thought I answered that rather well, in its context, without getting too specific. If you didn't think so....fair enough.
I don't want to pick a fight with you....you actually once made me cry. I usually try and avoid you. And YES I am somewhat angry about being lied to in TWI and being led into some pretty ego based assumptions about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Again, seems a reasonable response to me.If it is an anger problem....so be it.
Are we clear?
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chockfull
Not necessarily fighting words, but now that I am not in TWI I don't have to eat everything and stuff it. I am allowed to stand up for myself. I am not Jesus, who God called to sacrifice himself for the entirety of our sins.
We are Christian brother and sister, so we need to get this stuff straight. If we can dial back the offense/emotional reaction side of interacting like I think Raf and I have I believe it will help to be able to do some study of science and scripture and do some real good. I make no claims w/r to a witness or special gifts or callings. I'm just trying to get by day to day. Part of that is just trying to pray. I don't have an attitude.
I've got a thread on doctrinal discussing I Cor 12 - 14 that could run parallel with this one. Discussing verses is definitely doctrinal. That verse maybe should be discussed there. All I'll say here on it is that even though the context is talking about edifying the body, if SIT did not edify an individual personally, then I can't see it being stated that way in the verse. That would make it a lie. If that first part of the verse is found to be a forgery, or something translated wrong, or a myriad of other options that we can highlight in doctrinal, then that's a different story.
Yes we are clear. I don't want to make you cry, I want to discuss things as Christian brothers and sisters. I think it's possible to do so without transferring our anger with TWI to one another. I think it is hard though, so it will take work. I guess for me after TWI there's a limit to how much I'm willing to be stepped on. That probably stems from anger too.
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Raf
Okayyyy...
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Raf
I think I've done the best I can do considering the limited framework of GSC.
I've made my case. I have shown from independent sources the mechanics and innocent motive involved in the process I described.
And I have to say that I have seen no actual evidence, aside from deep, personal conviction of practitioners, that anyone in or out of TWI has done anything other than free vocalization as described by Rev Vern. His distinction of TSpeech notwithstanding, Vern gives no verifiable reason to differentiate TSpeech from nonreligious, non Christian free vocalization. He's given a non-verifiable reason, faith/God. But even he only raises it as (perhaps I'm oversimplifying here) the only thing standing between equating the TSpeech with non-religious free vocalization. Now, I can't stop someone from grasping at that straw, but... well, I think I just said what I think of it.
In short, I don't believe anyone anywhere has spoken in tongues, resulting in a real language, because there's no proof of it.
Your assertions that you're not faking speak to your sincerity, but Pentecostal interpreters are sincere too. I'll agree with Wierwille on the value of sincerity. It guarantees itself, and nothing more.
Shall I place the ball in your court, or is there something else you'd like to see from me?
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Raf
By the way, the absolutist tenor of my previous post should not be read back to call into doubt any Biblical accounts. Assuming those to be true, it would mean that what we did/are doing is quite simply not what they did, and a diligent search for the truth is in order.
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chockfull
I'm left a little high and dry by all of this.
Okay, so the evidence shows that it can be faked. You have a big fat claim out there that nobody is really doing it, but they are all faking. There are accounts in scripture that if they are assumed as true (which most Christians WILL assume), then there is quite a discrepancy between the Bible and it's historical accounts and what you say is modern day where everyone is faking it.
What's the difference between now and Bible times?
I realize seeking truth on this HAS to involve doctrinal discussion and taking apart some verses at least as a bare minimum in Acts and Corinthians.
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excathedra
i am not being disrespectful AT ALL, i mean it
have any of you seen -- or have proof -- that jesus christ rose from the dead?
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waysider
I think that's a fair question.....but probably better suited for the doctrinal forum, in another thread.
As it relates to this thread, I think that question is part of what puts people off when considering the authenticity of speaking in tongues. After all, we were taught, in a round about way, that speaking in tongues IS the proof.
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Raf
Chockfull, that post took a ton of restraint. I applaud you for it. without agreeing with me, Steve appears to have tackled that very subject, as have you. I don't have an answer for you.
Excy, the short answer for me is no. The longer answer is that proving the resurrection is very much like proving God; it's an untestable premise. The best we have is the Bible's assurance that there were a truckload of witnesses bigger than my Twitter followers list, at least some of whom preferred to die rather than renounce a belief whose validity they knew firsthand. Would you die for a belief you knew to be false?
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Raf
I'm gonna put a toe in this pool, and I'll trust you guys to let me know if the water starts to boil and I should step out:
What's the bigger, fatter claim?
"In the privacy of my quiet time with God (or at a meeting of believers, or in my car, or wherever I want: whichever fits your view), I am able to bring forth a language I have never known and never been exposed to, a language whose meaning is known only to the heavenly host and the Almighty Creator of the Universe."
"I know you love God and appreciate your sincerity, but no, brother, no you can't."
Which is the bigger, fatter claim?
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Raf
I keep forgetting to bring this up, but there is ONE contingency I had not seriously considered (nor am I now, but it needs to be raised in fairness).
I think we can safely assume, although we MIGHT be wrong, that Samarin's study included no TWI SITters.
If (and this is a Jupiter-sized if) TWI and its offshoots are the only people producing the real thing, then my thesis is wrong and we would never see it because they have not been part of these studies.
Stop laughing!
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waysider
Well, we were "the best", now, weren't we?
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Raf
The evidence, what there is of it, is against it when comparing the practice of teaching tongues with the description of non-religious free vocalization combined with Samarin's hypothesis of motive affecting outcome.
God said so, every Tuesday and Thursday.
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excathedra
i was trying to say that we can't "prove" the resurrection same as speaking in tongues
you know as in the bible tells us it's true
and so does paul tell us he spoke in tongues more than "them all" :)
and other verses and so on and so on
my comparison is definitely in line with this thread, no? why would this belong in doctrinal?
can anyone say this better than i'm saying it? lol
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Raf
You're not wrong, excy, but you're not right either.
In MY OPINION (for whatever it's worth), the question of the validity of our practice of speaking in tongues is qualitatively different from questions like "is there a God" and "was Jesus raised from the dead."
Those last two questions are impossible to prove, one way or the other. There either is or there isn't. He either was or He wasn't. You can't record it, analyze it, put it in a beaker, boil it, etc. It's not provable. It's not disprovable. You take the available evidence and you make a leap of faith.
The question of tongues has lots in common with the other questions, with one major distinction. It IS testable. What you speak can be recorded, replayed, analyzed, compared to known languages, etc. Now, if one were to summarily reject the testing, the discussion is over without either side having been proved or disproved. If one were to accept the testing and prove the veracity of the practice by producing a known language, or even an unknown language with the unmistakable characteristics of a known language (say, Tolkien's Elvish). Ultimately, the practice can't be disproved completely without submitting every speaker to testing.
What are we left with?
The only way to stop the speculation is to find a tongues speaker who produces a known language, someone who can demonstrate that he has not been exposed to the language in question, has not read it, heard it, practiced it, etc., and whose messages are saying what the Bible says they should say.
So my position can be disproved with a single bona fide example of SIT. But it can never really be proved.
Guys, we were supposed to have at least 100,000 tongues speakers (did that number ever go up? Shouldn't it have, by now?).
Surely we can find ONE!?!
Unless God won't let us, in which case (and only in which case) the premise that it cannot be proved or disproved becomes true. No way to know that. But I'll keep looking until He tells me to stop. He has my cell number.
However, if God won't let us be tested, what does that say of the people who agreed to be tested? No honest escaping of the answer: they faked it. And when they faked it (we're assuming here God won't allow it to be tested) they did not appear to recognize any difference between their faking it and their genuine experiences. Does that tell you something about their alleged genuine experiences? Your answer to that question is a matter of deep personal faith. I can't argue with it. Me, I believe it speaks volumes. Like, Encyclopedia Brittanica sized volumes (whatever happened to those guys?).
I sense I'm getting redundant. I hope I've satisfactorily addressed your question without disrespecting your right to disagree with me.
One last add to this post and I promise I'll let it go: I am willing to drop my use of the variants of "lies" and, until it becomes necessary to confront an issue head on (as in, two paragraphs ago), "fake" and replace it with "free vocalization" if that soothes the pain people understandably feel when they are, effectively, called liars. I've always conceded it was a harsh word, and I appreciate that so many were willing to overcome it to take on the issue.
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Raf
Roundabout?
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Raf
Better?
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waysider
Should I speak in tongues?
Should I not speak in tongues?
Consider this:
Jesus never spoke in tongues....He still managed to do okay for himself. :)
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