Christ4Me
Well-Known Member
I haven't addressed those passages yet.
Okay
I'm well aware of this passage. I've cited it in maybe 8-10 different Bible studies that I've written. But this is addressing a woman who was a Gnostic heretic, not simply a Christian woman, and it addresses her alone, not women in general. Different things.
Gnosticism is a cult in Christianity, is it not? Gnosticism is known as secret knowledge or hidden knowledge. Monasteries where they were known at where the scriptures were collecting dusts, is because they spent most of their times in praying & fasting speaking in tongues for private use.
One can say Paul was rebuking them here for using tongues for self edification wresting his words out of context for why prophesy was better than tongues.
2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. 17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;......
24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; 26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
Ah, but see, I pray in tongues and should do so more regularly, not less. But I didn't "chase after it." It was not even something I pursued. It was something I began to move in after I was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
The woman across the street was not pursuing it, but been around people that talked about it. That is like evil communications corrupts good habits. She was reading her Bible one day in the kitchen and suddenly as she puts it, the Holy spirit came over her and she began to speak in tongues and then she said that was when she was saved because she got the Holy Spirit & tongues all at once.
Then I asked her what she was reading that led her to believe in Jesus Christ. She did not know what I had meant and then it don on her. She began to share with her pastor what had happened because she had been a believer most of her life. The pastor pointed to the Book of Acts but she did not say exactly where to me. Then she began to share that others had similar experiences of doing every day things when that had happened to them but she rolled her eyes at it in disbelief but did not care to share why she was rolling her eyes at that report.
This is why the apostle John said not to believe every spirit but test them and the tongues they bring. 1 John 4:1-6 Most of the time, the initial encounter will spark others to hype it up to chase after.
As it is, that woman was not seeking that but she been around people that talked about it. Subliminal? On the back of her mind?
At any rate, she used that encounter to change her testimony as to when she was saved. Even though she did not believe that "if you do not speak in tongues, you do not have the Holy Spirit, and therefore you are not saved," it would be hard to stop those from using her testimony that do preach that.
You just posted again, so let me see if you addressed my question of how you define the phrase "praying in tongues." That's pertinent to our present discussion.
May God cause the increase. I know it is not in my power to convince you of anything, especially when you want to believe praying in tongues is of God.