Speaking in Tongues

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  • [quote author=bigwayne275 link=topic=12011.msg142864#msg142864 date=1312918266]
    If someone needed to be healed yes I will call on the Lord to heal them.
    I don't go around looking for demons to cast out.
    Yes as a child I tried to walk on water, but not now. If there was a place and time were i needed to walk on water God will give me the power to do so.

    Are you serious with these questions? Because you can keep going and I can give you a answer. Unworthy1 you my friend are the wrong person to ask question to because obviously your arrogant s is coming out. I want to thank everyone else though.

    Unworthy1 I think your fellow coptic members would find it disappointing in the way that you are representing your fellow believers.


    I'm sorry you feel this way, Wayne. I was trying to get you to realize that what you seek is not important and emphasis on it to validate your faith or salvation is silly. Forgive me for my aggressive/arrogant method.

    I hope you realize that the fruits of the spirit are our primary concern.
  • Wayne,

    Can I ask you kindly to look at this video. Its done by a protestant/pentecostal lady who looks at speaking in tongues as well as being "slain in the spirit".



    Please see this video, and tell me what your opinion is. Do you feel that the lady (Simone) is totally incorrect? Do you feel that what she is saying is true?

    I'd like to know.

    THanks
  • and this one:


  • The Bible speaks about speaking in tongues for the benefit of the service. There was not an instance where the apostles used the speaking of tongues to pray to God. What benefit would that be to the person and to God? How does speaking tongues in ones own church with everybody speaking a common language be used for the service?
    Also I would like to echo the person that posted that speaking in tongues was not given to every individual in the apostolic time so translated in this time within the pentecostal church, a person not granted this gift of speaking in tongues does not have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them? Please share your view about this posters comment.
    [quote author=bigwayne275 link=topic=12011.msg142843#msg142843 date=1312912328]
    Thank you very much. Now I am getting the discussion that I was looking for! Your example of glossolalia is correct for the pentecostal church. In my church we do not stand on the altar and just speak in tongues just to do it. It is a personal occurrence. And when I do it I am speaking to god, I don't know exactly what I was saying but I know I was speaking to him for forgiveness and other things I don't want to mention. But when we speak we are not going it all willy nilley  ;)  I understand in today's world there are translators and people are bilingual but WHAT IF...just WHAT IF there was a person who didn't know what you were speaking of when you are witnessing to them, then speaking glossolalia is not wrong then correct? And as you said it is a gift not for everyone BUT why can't people of today have this gift? I do not believe that miracles and the wonders of Christ are only good for the people of 2000 years ago. Do you understand what I am saying? If Peter used it 2000 years ago and he received the gift why can't people of today have the same gift? Christ is the same today as he was yesterday and it is the same gift the people are the same and we are under the same teaching so I believe anyone can RECEIVE the gift. You must look and ask for it first then you will receive it. It will not just fall into your lap. This gift is not for just the elite its for anyone who SEEKS it.


    Forgive me for my lack of intelligence, but I am confused by the bolded statement. You mentioned in several posts that you don't know what you are saying. You also mentioned it in this statement that you don't know what you are saying except this time you say that you know what you are praying about. Please clarify.

    please correct me if I am wrong for my benefit and that of others.
  • [quote author=bigwayne275 link=topic=12011.msg142837#msg142837 date=1312906938]
    THANK YOU! Finally the answer that I was looking for and I know this scripture. I was waiting for someone to bring it up. Ok so what if a person was by themselves and they were in prayer and they started to speak in tongues...is that forbidden?

    My main reason for asking this is because of this question. HOW DO YOU SHOW PROOF THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS IN A PERSON OR A PERSON HAS THE HOLY SPIRIT? In my church speaking in tongues is the proof that your in the spirit of the Lord (and if your faking shame on you). So how does one know that they are saved under the blood of Christ and has the Holy Spirit in them without showing proof.


    I do not know anything of this matter, but this caught my eye.
    How can any Christian ask this question? (the one bolded) Is our religion not based on faith? What, then, will stop you from asking if God really exists, if you need proof for everything?!

    Also, you make it sound like no one understood what you were saying...what purpose does "speaking in tongues" serve then? You state that speaking in tongues allows you to speak to God- do you really believe this is the case? So if I sit down in prayer, and with all my faith and belief, ask God to speak to me, he will only speak to me by instilling within me a language incomprehensible? I do believe men can talk to God- then, and now....but I do not believe that "tongues" is the way to do it. God is all-knowing, trust me, he knows English  ;)

    What everyone else is saying should be enough of a counter-argument for you; if this speech is not EDIFYING, but purpose does it serve? I'm sure you believe in an intelligent God who does all things for a reason, why would he do something for no reason?

    Pray for me.
  • + Irini nem ehmot,

    image
  • Did you know lilwayne speaks in tongues, too? ;P
  • Think about this:
    What is prayer?
    What is the purpose of prayer?

    Our prayers do not affect God, nothing affects God because He is beyond and above all. But out of His love for us, He hears our prayers. Why then would we need to pray in any other language other than the language we know? What good will it serve to speak to God in a language we ourselves do not understand? Is prayer not a communication with the Almighty God? How then can we communicate if we ourselves do not understand what we are saying?! Common logic would explain otherwise.

    God Bless and please pray for me.
  • [quote author=liftmyheart link=topic=12011.msg142882#msg142882 date=1312939085]
    Did you know lilwayne speaks in tongues, too? ;P


    I hope I misunderstood your message.

    With all due respect, we don't need to make fun of the guy's name because we don't agree with his ideology and faith. He came asking a genuine question and I think many of these responses are offensive to his religion. Just answer his question.
  • I did not intend to make fun of anyone, I just made a joke about Lil Wayne's rapping that no one understands. Sorry if anyone got offended lol
  • + Irini nem ehmot,

    Remnkemi,

    I agree with you in principle. However, it is difficult to take this seriously when we know that: a) speaking in tongues is the least of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, b) it served a purpose in the early Church (viz. to spread the message of the Gospel to the nations) and c) there is no longer a driving need for tongues anymore in light of the fact that the Bible has been translated into virtually every language known to man.

    The jibberish uttered by Pentecostals cannot possibly be thought of as a legitimate manifestation of the Apostolic 'speaking in tongues'. The tongues the Apostles spoke were real languages. That is not the case in the Pentecostal church. The 'tongues' spoken by Pentecostals only occurs within the context of their church and is not for spreading the gospel to the nations. Now I know some will refer to St. Paul being taken up in the spirit to the third heaven and hearing things that are unutterable to speak, but that cannot justify the Pentecostal 'speaking in tongues' as we are neither in the spirit or in the third heaven.

    Furthermore, statements like this:
    [quote author=bigwayne275 link=topic=12011.msg142837#msg142837 date=1312906938]
    My main reason for asking this is because of this question. HOW DO YOU SHOW PROOF THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS IN A PERSON OR A PERSON HAS THE HOLY SPIRIT? In my church speaking in tongues is the proof that your in the spirit of the Lord (and if your faking shame on you). So how does one know that they are saved under the blood of Christ and has the Holy Spirit in them without showing proof.

    make it even more difficult to take the idea within the Pentecostal context seriously. In my view, the Pentecostal version of 'speaking in tongues' is at best utter silliness and at worst a very insidious act.
  • Cephas,

    What you describe in your first paragraph is the current Orthodox understanding of glossolali. However, has anyone ever actually checked what the fathers have said or given any references?

    It is clear that Wayne's description of glossolalia is not Orthodox, but how accurate his description is to the Pentecostal cathechesis (if there is one) is unknown. It is sufficient to say Wayne's description is not in line with Orthodox teaching. Saying it's gibberish describes one understanding of the Pentecostal practice, not necessarily Pentecostal theology or glossolalia in Egypt.
  • + Irini nem ehmot,

    I'll do a more exhaustive search into this later, but here is what I've found on what the Fathers say about speaking in tongues.

    Church practice
    [edit] A.D. 100 to 400

    20th century Pentecostalism was not the earliest instance of "speaking in tongues" in church history, but earlier examples are few; in church history and writing after the New Testament, it had never been regarded as orthodox until the rise of Pentecostalism.

    References to speaking in tongues by the Church fathers are rare. Except for Irenaeus' 2nd-century reference to many in the church speaking all kinds of languages 'through the Spirit', and Tertullian's reference in 207 AD to the spiritual gift of interpretation of tongues being encountered in his day, there are no other known first-hand accounts of glossolalia, and very few second-hand accounts among their writings.[24]

    What we do have are general remarks that Christ had given the gifts of the Spirit to the church, and that the gifts in general remained in the church.

        For the prophetical gifts remain with us, even to this present time. (Justin Martyr, c.150)[25]

        Now, it is possible to see amongst us women and men who possess gifts of the Spirit of God. (Justin Martyr, c.150)[26]

    The Fathers also recount the lists of gifts of the Spirit recorded in the New Testament.

        This is He who places prophets in the Church, instructs teachers, directs tongues, gives powers and healings, does wonderful works, often discrimination of spirits, affords powers of government, suggests counsels, and orders and arranges whatever other gifts there are of charismata; and thus make the Lord’s Church everywhere, and in all, perfected and completed. (Novatian, c.200-c.258)[27]

        For God hath set same in the Church, first apostles…secondly prophets…thirdly teachers…next mighty works, among which are the healing of diseases… and gifts of either speaking or interpreting divers kinds of tongues. Clearly these are the Church’s agents of ministry and work of whom the body of Christ consists; and God has ordained them. (Hilary of Poitiers, 360)[28]

    There is one instance of a Father apparently recording that he had heard some in the church speaking all kinds of languages through the Spirit:

        In like manner we do also hear many brethren in the Church, who possess prophetic gifts, and who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages, and bring to light for the general benefit the hidden things of men, and declare the mysteries of God. (Irenaeus, c.180)[29]

    Tertullian in an anti-heretical apologetic alludes to instances of the 'interpretation of tongues' as one among several examples of 'spiritual gifts' common enough in his day to be easily encountered and provide evidence that God was at work in the church:

        Let Marcion then exhibit, as gifts of his god, some prophets, such as have not spoken by human sense, but with the Spirit of God, such as have both predicted things to come, and have made manifest the secrets of the heart; let him produce a psalm, a vision, a prayer -- only let it be by the Spirit, in an ecstasy, that is, in a rapture, whenever an interpretation of tongues has occurred to him; let him show to me also, that any woman of boastful tongue in his community has ever prophesied from amongst those specially holy sisters of his. Now all these signs (of spiritual gifts) are forthcoming from my side without any difficulty, and they agree, too, with the rules, and the dispensations, and the instructions of the Creator; therefore without doubt the Christ, and the Spirit, and the apostle, belong severally to my God. Here, then, is my frank avowal for any one who cares to require it. (Tertullian, c.207)[30]

    There were unorthodox movements that may have engaged in glossolalia. For example, Montanus was accused (by his opponents) of ecstatic speech that some have equated to glossolalia:

        He became possessed of a spirit, and suddenly began to rave in a kind of ecstatic trance, and to babble in a jargon, prophesying in a manner contrary to the custom of the Church which had been handed down by tradition from the earliest times. (Eusebius, d.c.339)[31]

    Their hostility to such a practice demonstrates that the mainstream (the anti-Montanists) regarded it as false, and would never have practised it. Indeed, "after the first or perhaps the second century, there is not record of it in any Orthodox source, and it is not recorded as occurring even among the great Fathers of the Egyptian desert, who were so filled with the Spirit of God they performed numerous astonishing miracles, including raising the dead".[32]

    However, Eusebius' words demonstrate that he still regards the gift of prophesying as being a normal part of church life, so he is clearly not a cessationist.

    Chrysostom regarded the whole phenomenon of 'speaking in tongues' as not only something that was not practised in his own day, but was even obscure.

        This whole phenomenon [of speaking in tongues] is very obscure, but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such then as used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity hath produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more? (Chrysostom, 344-407)[33]

    Augustine of Hippo regarded speaking in tongues (that is, xenoglossia) as a gift for the apostolic church alone, and argued that this was evident from the fact that his contemporaries did not see people receiving that gift in their own day.

        In the earliest times, "the Holy Ghost fell upon them that believed: and they spake with tongues", which they had not learned, "as the Spirit gave them utterance". These were signs adapted to the time. For there behooved to be that betokening of the Holy Spirit in all tongues, to shew that the Gospel of God was to run through all tongues over the whole earth. That thing was done for a betokening, and it passed away. In the laying on of hands now, that persons may receive the Holy Ghost, do we look that they should speak with tongues? Or when he laid the hand on infants, did each one of you look to see whether they would speak with tongues, and, when he saw that they did not speak with tongues, was any of you so strong-minded as to say, These have not received the Holy Ghost; for, had they received, they would speak with tongues as was the case in those times? If then the witness of the presence of the Holy Ghost be not given through these miracles, by what is it given, by what does one get to know that he has received the Holy Ghost? Let him question his own heart. If he love his brother, the Spirit of God dwelleth in him. (Augustine of Hippo, 354-430)[34]

    Augustine did, however, recognise a phenomenon he called jubilation[35] - sounds of exaltation without words; commentators such as Richard Hogue speculate that the practice of singing in the spirit persisted in Augustine's era, although xenoglossia was no longer extant among Christian[36]:

        Behold, he giveth as it were the tune of thy song; seek not words as if thou couldest explain whereby God is pleased. Sing with jubilation: for this is to sing skilfully unto God, to sing with jubilation. What is it to sing with jubilation ? To be unable to understand, to express in words, what is sung in the heart. For singers, either in the harvest, or in the vineyard, or in any other busy work, after they have begun in the words of their hymns to exult and rejoice, being as it were filled with so great joy, that they cannot express it in words, then turn from actual words, and proceed to sounds of jubilation. The jubilee is a sound signifying that the heart laboureth with that which it cannot utter. And whom beseemeth that jubilation, but the Ineffable God? For He is Ineffable, Whom thou canst not speak; and if thou canst not speak Him, and oughtest not to keep Him silent, what remaineth to thee but jubilation ; that the heart may rejoice without words, and the boundless extent of joy may have no limits of syllables? Sing skilfully unto Him with jubilation.
        —Augustine of Hippo on the 33 Psalm[37]

    Source
  • Here's a verse from the Holy Psalmody - from the 1st Hoss (Ten Thino):


    Grant us sobriety O Lord, that we may know how to stand before You at times of prayer.

    If the Orthodox Church prays that her faithful have sobriety or solemness in times of prayer - do you think it really a gift speaking gibberish???

    When we lift up our hearts to pray, God indeed listens. So if we speak gibberish (nonsensical) - then we are wasting our time.

    I find this situation quite serious to say the least.

    I noticed that many evangelical christians who are proponents of gibberish speaking prayer often see themselves as attaining a higher spiritual level if or when they can speak in tongues. This is total pride. Its not right.

    I'm not at all saying that their spiritual level has no basis whatsoever, I'm sure that through continual reading and engaging in reading the Bible (which is what they do at least fervently) that they are growing spiritually, but this is then a stumbling block for them. They need to ask themselves what are they gaining by speaking in a language that NO ONE understands.

    ANd then if it IS indeed a language, there must be some structure to it. All languages have structure.

    There is a pronoun followed by a participle followed by an infinitive, or an adjective. If it was indeed a language then there would be a pattern that is recognisable?? Wouldn't there!!

    But its not recongisable. Its not consistent. The sounds are all the same. Its "Shallalalala aaaahhh"

    For example - I don't speak Coptic. Its a language TOTALLY foreign to me. I can say that when I hear deacons sing in Coptic, it MAY seem that I might as well be in an evangelical church where they speak in tongues as I do not understand either. But there is a difference!

    The difference is this.

    Even though I do not understand Coptic, I have learnt a few things without even taking a course in Coptic.

    Apparently: Teno-osht means "We worship" and Maren-osht means "Let us worship".

    It would make perfect sense to me that the Coptic for "Worship" is Osht. I could be wrong, but this language has structure. Its consistent.

    In fact, the entrance exam for Cambridge or Oxford had the SAME question in there.

    The question was based on a language from a planet that no one knew. THey asked that if this sentence meant so and so, and this sentence meant so and so - then how would you say the following sentence in this foreign language?

    What is the structure of the language in "tongues" that you speak in?  It has no structure. Its just silly sounds that are inconsistent.

    That's fine - as I said, you can waste your time and pray in dumb sounds by all means, but what worries me is that not only is NOT edifying for you NOR the Church, it is a source of destruction, for by thinking that you are indeed praying in tongues, you risk to fall in the sin of pride; and FOR NO REASON! So, you elevated yourself over a lie. I would be OK if it was a genuine talent or gift, but to fall in the sin of pride over something that you are not even gifted with is just STUPID!

    Let's try this with you Big Wayne!

    I know you do not speak arabic , but I want you to look at the following sentences that are in English with their Arabic Transliteration after the = 's sign:

    I am hungry = Ana Ga3aan
    I am sad = Ana Za3alan
    I am bored = Ana Zah2an.
    I am clever = Ana shaater.
    I am funny = Ana beda7ak.

    What DO YOU THINK the Arabic for "I am" is???

  • While I agree with the objections of the Orthodox people here, Pentecostalism is most definitely spreading throughout the world (though yes, Cephas, I would not agree that it is spreading the Gospel), particularly in Africa. By many estimates, it (not Islam, LDS, or any other religion you can think of) is the fastest growing religion in the world. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Pentecostalism has grown from 72 million believers in the 1960s to 525 million believers in 2000. Between 2000 and 2005, this religion grew 488%, making it undoubtedly the world's fastest growing religion.  (sources: here and here)

    Somewhere around here, I have a DVD of musical performances from the Islamic Republic of Mauritania which, quite surprisingly, contains an excerpt from a local Pentecostal service. The similarities between this and both Sufi trances and pagan/animist ritual cannot pass unnoticed. I personally believe that Pentecostalism attracts this sort of 'primitive' connection with its believers (for lack of a more delicate way to put it), as it is very much an experiential religion. I believe that Pentecostals are also well-known in Ethiopia, as the Amharic word for "Protestant" derives from "Pentecostal" (P'ent'e or P'ent'ay, depending on the transliteration), and this is the word that is used for Protestants regardless of their actual denomination.

    Orthodox Christians have a lot of work to do to combat the spread of this religion, which daily poaches their flock. The Catholics, it should be said, have given into this idea, at least since the 1970s when "Charismatic Catholics" were suddenly seen as an acceptable expression of their faith. (This is another one of the many, many, many things that eventually drove me from the RC to Orthodoxy; I had been spared from it in my home parish, so when I first encountered it I was very much scandalized and confused.)
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