I have read your post. . . I don't see anything in scripture that speaks of "counterfeit tongues". I see where believers manifested tongues when they received the gift of holy spirit. I see where the Corinthian church believers were abusing the manifestation of tongues and had to be reproved and corrected by Paul. I do not consider myself a "Charismatic" nor a Pentecostal.
I am not mad at you and I have not called you names. Am I discussing this with you in order to get you to question your belief? Nope - you can believe what you want just as I can. I believe that every believer can manifest the gift of holy spirit, you say that I am wrong but scripture says that every believer can manifest the gift of holy spirit: But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal. Again, I do not read where the Corinthian church had counterfeit tongues.
Okay . . . you are right . . . these kind of discussions end up in a stalemate - so I agree to disagree. BTW, I love each and everyone of my brothers and sisters in Christ whether they manifest the gift of holy spirit or not . . .
Thank you, Agreeing to Disagree, does KEEP THE PEACE. I will answer that above post to show you how firmly planted I am in my Beliefs, and I respect your right to be equally firm in your beliefs.
It sounds to me that you probably think,
"if it is not specifically in the BIBLE, it did not happen", I presume? If that is so, then you do not know that we do not have every event in the Bible, only the Highlights:
John 21:25 (KJV)
[SUP]
25 [/SUP] And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
Corinth was a Hotbed for the Greek Mystery Religions and many of them, especially the Worship of Apollo, taught their followers to pray in ecstatic utterances that they too called
"a language that only the gods understand", also called
tongues. I did an intense study of TONGUES for 6 months back in the 80's and traced the Mystery Religion's
Tongues back to at least 400 B.C. back then. As I gained additional information, I updated it, especially in late 90's after I bought my first Computer in 1996. Now just a couple weeks ago I found updated information that they can now trace the Mystery Religion
Tongues, clear back to 1100 B.C. The Church at Corinth was started in the Synagogue in Corinth, and moved next door to one of the Member's house, when they were asked to leave the Synagogue. BUT the Jewish Christians were the minority of the Congregation, when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. THAT tells me they were having more success with converting Mystery Religion pagans, than the Jews next door. Therefore, some of them had to be converted from the Worship of Apollo, which was famous for teaching their followers
Pray to the gods in a language only they can understand, as well as some other pagan religions in Corinth taught that too. YES, you have to study the History of the Mystery Religions too, before you can fill in those kind of blanks like I just did. AND I CERTAINLY DID that study decades ago.
Now I am not going continue this discussion with you beyond this post, BECAUSE I KNOW FROM PAST EXPERIENCE where it will lead. You will get irritated at first and getting into a very heated debate, DENYING all the evidence that I present, because you BASE your Belief on your personal experience. As we continue to debate, you will use more and more LARGE FONTS, crossing the line into arguing, while ignoring more and more of what I have presented. And if I did not CUT IT OFF, with a "We will just have to Agree to Disagree."; you would eventually start calling me names and accusing me of Blaspheming the Holy Spirit; because after all, you know your experience is REAL, putting your experience over and above what the Scriptures actually say.
Most of the Corinthians did not even know it, when one day someone relinquished control of his vocal chords to do his
tongues thing, and a demon seized control of them, and ended up cursing Christ right in the Assembly in a foreign language, that someone had to of understood. Plus I even documented that very thing happening in couple of Churches, decades apart, here in the USA, and both Pastors refused to believe that is what happened. So the problem and confusion that plagued the Corinthians continues today.
We will just AGREE to DISAGREE!