Let's look at the 9 key points that refute Christ4Me's aNti-tongues stance:
I am a brother in Christ, not a sister in Christ FYI.
(1) She constantly warns that private tongues cannot confidently be distinguished from pagan tongues. Yet she has no answer to my challenge to find a single case in Paul's day (not Isaiah's day) of private tongues.
Pagan Practices | History of Tongues | Ecstatic Language!
Quoting from link "Ecstatic language was a common form of worship in pagan temples.
i It was well established in Ancient Byblos (1100 BC). Plato (429-347 BC) mentions it as a phenomenon in his time. He tells us that a person under divine possession received utterances and visions that the receiver did not understand.
These utterances were sometimes accompanied by physical healing of people present. Virgil (70-19 BC) tells us that the Sibylline priestess, when in prayer, united her spirit with the god Apollo and spoke in strange tongues.
ii End of quote
charismatic delusion: PAGAN TONGUES
Quoting from a second link as another source: "The oldest account of tongues goes back as far as 1100 B.C. to the Byblos Osiris cult. Tongues have been used by the Tibetan monks, certain north American Indians, the halide Indians of the pacific northwest, the aborigines of Australia, the aboriginal peoples of the sub arctic regions of north America and Asia, the corianders of the ands, the dyads of Borneo, the Chaco Indians of south America, shamans in the Sudan, Siberia and Greenland, and in various cults (voodoo in Haiti, zoo in Ethiopia, tango on the west coast of Africa, sago in Trinidad; many of these with rituals centered around spirit possessions. The Gnostics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Quakers, Shakers, Seventh-day Adventists, Christian Scientist, and the W. Church of God all employ tongues.
John P. Kildahl’s concluded in his 1972 study “The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues” that "from a linguistic point of view, religiously inspired glossolalic utterances have the same general characteristics as those that are not religiously inspired." Glossolalia then is a purely "human phenomenon” and is “not limited to Christianity nor even to religious behavior." (Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements by Spittler, P. 340)
Felicitas D. Goodman, the psychological anthropologist and linguist, compared tape recordings of non-Christian rituals from Africa, Borneo, Indonesia and Japan. Goodman came to the same conclusion: "when all features of glossolalia were taken into consideration--that is, the segmental structure (such as sounds, syllables, phrases) and its suprasegmental elements (namely, rhythm, accent, and especially overall intonation)-- there was no distinction in glossolalia between Christian and pagan religions and that glossolalia "is, actually, a learned behavior, learned either unawarely or, sometimes consciously.”
(From "Speaking in Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study in Glossolalia" by Felecitas D. Goodman, University of Chicago Press, 1972)
Indeed, people are carefully instructed on tongue speaking during the
LIFE IN THE SPIRIT SEMINAR. "
end of quote
You can search the internet yourself.
(2) She constantly overlooks the glorious experience of those who praise God privately in other tongues. In tongues they praise and adore Christ with a passion of which they were formerly incapable. Why would Satan want to encourage a new level of gratitude for God's grace?
And how would you know they are praising God and not being self edified or the Holy Spirit is praying for that tongue speaker? Is that not confusing? it is to me on the outside looking in when you cannot know what that tongue is doing unless it was interpreted for why it is not of Him.
(3) She constantly insists on the sufficiency of "normal prayer" and thus ignores Paul's command to "pray in the Spirit," Spirit-directed prayer which can be uttered in one's own language or in other tongues. Paul identifies praying in the Spirit as a key to successfully waging spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:18; cf. 6:11-17).
Praying IN the Spirit is not praying BY the Spirit nor praying TO the Spirit. You are to pray normally to know what you had prayed for so you can give the Father thanks in Jesus's name for known answers to prayers. Why would God have the Holy Spirit praise Him and you know not what was being said? It is unreasonable and irrational to believe that other than you just want that tongue to be of God as well as that extra phenomenon. It elevates you above other Christians who had not that extra experience nor the tongue for private use that it brought by it.
(4) She ignores the fact that "glossai" can refer to what seems like gibberish rather than human languages. Thus, she ignores the difference between the tongues of Acts 2 and the group tongues of 10:44-47 and 19:6, tongues which are neither interpreted nor comprehensible and are therefore distinguished from prophecy. The tongues of Acts 2:17 are by contrast labelled prophesying precisely because they express human languages.
By acknowledging it seems like gibberish nonsense and not a human language, you are erasing the line of discernment given by the apostle John in testing tongues as well as the spirits in 1 John 4:1-6
(5) She ignores the fact that the Corinthians are "zealots of spirits" (= angels--14:12), and so, "tongues of angels" (13:1) refers to gibberish that is in fact angelic language. That understanding of angelic speech also applies to ecstatic prophesying in Rome (see Hermas Mandate 11).
@Ronald David Bruno
Scripture says zealous of gifts for which you resort to the Greek and inserted your own meaning in it as zealous of spirits. Christians are not seeking spirits, brother. That is why the phenomenon is continuous after the so called "second blessing" like in holy laughter as it never stops.
(6) She imagines that tongues must be "human languages" (Greek: "dialektos" as in Acts 2:6). But Paul instead speaks of "kinds (Greek: "gene") of tongues. " that is, both human and angelic languages. If he wanted to restrict tongues to human languages, he would have used "dialektos."
Paul referring to tongues to angels in 1 Corinthians 13:1 is an hyperbole since the end of that verse ought to prove that to you.
1 Corinthians 13:1Though I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, and have not charity,
I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
Paul just stated an extreme example of tongues which is not based in reality to emphasize how important love is. He continues giving more of such examples.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and
understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3 And though
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Obviously Paul is still alive when writing this therefore he was using hyperbole to explain how having love is more important that doing even the most incredulous things.
(7) She constantly ignores Paul' wish for every believer to speak in tongues (1 Cor. 14:5) and his twice repeated command that we should all "earnestly strive for spiritual gifts," which in context includes prophecy and tongues. If such seeking is God's will, why would God make it virtually impossible to authentically speak in tongues? Hmm
(8) She ignores Paul's preference for saying "5 words" in church in his own language, a preference that implies a private setting when he "speaks in tongues more than you all" (14:18).
(9) She doesn't recognize the absurdity of denying the bracketed phrase for clarification of 14:28:
"If there is no one to interpret, let him keep silent in church and let them speak (in tongues) to themselves and to God." If believers are thus to be silent in church, they should not be mumbling to themselves! Commentaries right grasp Paul's intention: we are to speak in tongues to ourselves at home, where outsiders won't be present to be offended. Thus Paul says, "He who speaks in tongues edifies himself (14:4)."
"
All addressed and explained in this thread, brother.
God's Gift of Tongues Not for Private Use
