(Part 1)
This is going to probably take a few posts due to text limitations, and some of you have heard this before, but……
1 Cor. 14:2 – “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.” One of the quintessential quotes in favor of T-speech, but it simply describes, real, rational language.
Let’s do a few things to this verse – namely, put it into a more modern ‘translation’, get rid of the added word ‘unknown’, get rid of the more archaic ‘tongue’ and replace it with the more modern ‘language’, and more accurately translate the word ‘understandeth’. A better rendering of the Greek word usually given as “understandeth” is “to hear with understanding”.
We now have “For he that speaks in a language, speaks not to people, but to God; for no one hears with understanding, thus in the spirit he speaks mysteries”.
One of the issues is the Pentecostal/Charismatic understanding of “praying in the Spirit” again, – it 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. In Pentecostal/Charismatic parlance however, the phase has come to be equated with modern “tongues”, i.e. when one “prays in the Spirit”, one is typically engaged in some form of T-speech.
Now let’s take an analogy –
If I attend a worship service in ‘East Haystack’, Alabama 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 in East Haystack 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 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, nor does it imply that I myself do not understand what I’m saying; just no one (other than me) 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 above), to them, I’m speaking “mysteries”. An idiomatic way of saying “we have no idea what he’s saying”.
In this analogy, as well as the original passage, there just isn’t anything there that even remotely suggests the speaker does not understand what he’s saying. If there is, it’s because it’s being completely read into the text.
There is nothing mysterious about Biblical "tongues" – when referring to something spoken, they are nothing more than real, rational language(s); perhaps unknown to those listening to them, but always known by the speaker(s) – it’s their native language.
If the history of the Pentecost movement is examined, one fact is very clear: at some point, between 1906 and 1907, the Pentecostal church was compelled to re-examine the narrative of Scripture with respect to “tongues”. The reason for this re-examination was that it quickly became embarrassingly obvious that their original supposition, and fervent belief in tongues as xenoglossy, certainly wasn’t what they were producing.
This forced a serious theological dilemma — As a whole, either the Pentecostal movement would have to admit it was wrong about “tongues”, or the modern experience needed to be completely redefined. The latter option was chosen.
One would think it impossible to study the history of Pentecostalism without, at the very least, a cursory look at the ‘tongues issue’. Because the Pentecostal doctrine and understanding on tongues was completely redefined, this would seem to present a problem – how can the issue be taught by Pentecostals to Pentecostals? The answer is rather surprising. The entire issue seems to have been conveniently ‘forgotten about’ and for all intents and purposes, swept under the rug. Very few, indeed if any, Pentecostals are taught about this issue; most aren’t even aware that it ever existed.
In redefining “tongues”, Pentecostals looked to primary and secondary source works for an alternative explanation. It is during this time that, that (mainly) five German scholars promoted a fresh new approach to Biblical interpretation that purposely tried to avoid the trappings of traditional and enforced interpretations of Biblical texts, collectively known as “Higher Criticism”. Part of this tradition was examining “tongues” as ecstatic utterance, rather than the supposed xenoglossy as understood by mainstream Christianity for centuries.
As a quick aside, an important thing to note is that, prior to 1879, the term ‘glossolalia’ did not exist – it is a word coined by English theologian, Frederick Farrar (Dean of Canterbury) in 1879 in one of his publications
The Pentecostal solution was an adaptation from the works of Farrar, Schaff and a few others. These ideas were further ‘tweaked’ to more adequately fit their new notion of tongues. From this, the concept of “prayer language” as an explanation for the modern phenomenon of tongues-speech was formed.
Over a short period of time, a Pentecostal apologetic was built. The emergence of the term “utterance” was strongly emphasized - it kept the definition ambiguous as it allowed for a variety of definitions beyond real, rational language, it was something sort of related to language, and could be defended more easily. “Utterance” fit much better in the Pentecostal paradigm and did not require empirical evidence. ‘Natural Praise’ and ‘adoration’ became a feature of ‘tongues’, and then ‘heavenly’ or ‘prayer language’ further broadened the definition. The term ‘glossolalia’ was transferred in from academia and was given a Pentecostal definition. In short, the tongues doctrine simply shifted into new semantics without any explanation. Xenoglossy one day, prayer language the next.
The resulting implicit theology however was not a synthesis of revelation and philosophy, but rather a synthesis of trying to make sense of the modern “tongues experience” in light of the narrative of Scripture. A way to legitimize and justify the modern phenomenon by ‘proofing’ it in the Bible. The problem with this however, was an obvious overwhelming absence therein of anything resembling modern tongues. Call it what you will, but for this group of Christians, the result was a virtual re-definition of scripture with respect to the understanding and justification of modern “tongues”; a re-interpretation of select Biblical texts to fit the modern practice/connotation of what ”tongues” was perceived to be.
It's amazing how absolutely none of this is taught. It’s a topic that today is completely glossed over in the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches.
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