Tongues

[@Yisrael_Teshuvah]

I’ve woken up several times last year in December speaking in tongues. It is amazing when it happens. It feels like a kiss from God Himself. It’s not a thing people should be forcing or doing on command, it’s sacred. It’s special. God does it, it happens automatically. It’s breathtaking when it happens! Oh I hope He has me do it again some time soon.

[@Yisrael_Teshuvah]

Oh hey man, I haven’t heard from you in a while! Good to see you! Shalom!

[@kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474]

There is absolutely nothing mysterious about Biblical "tongues" - and there is only *one* type - when referring to something spoken, they are nothing more than real, rational language(s); usually, but not always, unknown to those listening to them, but always known by the speaker(s) - it’s their native language (in some cases, it is a language the speaker has learned). _Nowhere_ in the Bible is modern tongues-speech advocated or evidenced. ‘Tongues’ (read, *‘languages’* ) - the divine gift, is the God/Holy Spirit given ability to effortlessly learn to speak and be understood through real-language barriers. It is not xenoglossy (as many people incorrectly assume), nor is it the self-created non-cognitive non-language utterance of what certain Christian denominations are producing today (modern tongues-speech).

[@Anthonytp2010]

@@kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474 when you speak in tongues you are speaking the mysteries of God. Yes sometimes you can speak another language like French or Portuguese or something like that but that is the holy Spirit speaking through you. I speak in tongues but I don't know what I'm saying. The Bible makes it very clear that man doesn't understand tongues for you are not speaking unto man but unto God. It is a mystery. You are entitled to your own opinion. I encourage you to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. It will not hurt you.

[@kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474]

@@Anthonytp2010 There are (unfortunately) absolutely no documented cases of xenoglossy - anywhere. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of examples of tongues-speech have been studied. Not one was ever found to be a real rational language, living or dead. Despite this, the tongues-speaking community is rife with such examples. The frequency that they are reported suggests that tongues as xenoglossy is relatively common. The above aside, given the amount of allegedly attested examples of xenoglossy reported by Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians, if one were to apply this attestation to even a relatively small sampling of say 2,000 glossic utterances, it is more than reasonable to conclude that at minimum, a phenomenally conservative estimate would suggest that at least 10 of these samples would yield a real, rational language. As stated above, this has never happened; not even once. 1Cor. 14:2 is perhaps *the* quintessential verse used by many to “evidence” modern tongues-speech in the Bible. The whole passage is talking about real, rational language. Let me use an analogy - If I attend a worship service in “East Haystack”, some remote town in the US out in the middle of nowhere, two things are going to be evident: one; there’s only going to be so many people at that service (i.e. there will be a finite given amount of people there) and two; the chances that anyone speaks anything *but* English is pretty slim to nil. If I start praying aloud in say Lithuanian, there’s no one at that service that’s going to understand a single word I’m saying. Even though I’m speaking a real language, no one _there_ will understand my “tongue”. That does not mean or imply that no one else understands Lithuanian; just no one at _that particular service._ In this sense, therefore, I am speaking _only to God,_ since he understands all languages. To everyone at the service, even though I’m praying in the Spirit (as defined further below), to the people listening to me, I’m still speaking “mysteries” - i.e. even though I’m praying as I ought, no one understands me. An idiomatic expression to say that no one has a clue what I’m saying as no one speaks my language. When one looks at the original Greek, the verb which is usually translated as “understandeth/understands” is actually the verb “to hear” in the sense of understanding what you’re hearing someone say. The verb is *not* “to understand”. That part of the verse is more properly “no one hears [him] with understanding”, i.e. no one listening to him understands what he’s saying. There is _nothing_ in this passage that suggests modern tongues-speech nor is there anything that even _remotely_ suggests that the speaker does not understand what he himself is saying. The Greek bears this out; it is the _listeners_ who do not understand, *not* the speaker - no matter how hard modern tongues-speakers want the speaker to also not understand…….unless the author of the text is a bad grammarian, it just isn’t there. “Praying in the Spirit” does _not_ refer to the words one is saying. Rather, it refers to how one is praying. In the three places it is used (Corinthians, Ephesians, and Jude), there is absolutely zero reference to 'languages' in connection with this phrase. “Praying in the Spirit” should be understood as praying in the power of the Spirit, by the leading of the Spirit, and according to His will. The idea of being baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of tongues is a Pentecostal/Charismatic concept. Nowhere in the Bible is this evidenced. There are, however, examples of people being baptized in the H/S and boldly praising God with prophetic and authoritative voices (as on Pentecost) in speakers’ native languages which Peter and Paul did not recognize.