The truth about tongues: a DIVISIVE force in Christianity today

Modern tongues have caused a huge division within evangelical Christianity, and division is not from God. It has also resulted in “two-tier” Christianity – those who are presumably “Spirit-filled” (the tongue-speakers) being Tier One, and everyone else (who should go to the back of the bus, since they are not “Spirit-filled”) within Tier Two.

The truth of the matter is that modern tongues are not even biblical tongues. And the only reason the KJV translators used the word “tongues” is because back in the 17th century, that word was interchangeable with “languages”. So if we eliminate “unknown” (since that is not in the Greek text, therefore italicized) and simply say “language” or “languages”, the whole controversy disappears. Indeed, several modern translations do not even use the word “tongues”, and consistently translate glossa or glossais as language or languages.

There is no glossolalia in the New Testament, and that is what is practiced today.
‘Those are the terms we have heard frequently at Charismatic conferences, such as those in New Orleans in 1987, Indianapolis in 1990, and St. Louis in 2000. The tongues that I heard in these conferences were not languages of any sort but merely repetitious mumblings that anyone could imitate. Larry Lea’s “tongues” at Indianapolis in 1990 went like this: “Bubblyida bubblyida hallelujah bubblyida hallabubbly shallabubblyida kolabubblyida glooooory hallelujah bubblyida.” I wrote that down as he was saying it and later checked it against the tape. Nancy Kellar, a Roman Catholic nun who was on the executive committee of the St. Louis meeting in 2000, spoke in “tongues” on Thursday evening of the conference. Her tongues were a repetition of “shananaa leea, shananaa higha, shananaa nanaa, shananaa leea…” ‘
https://www.wayoflife.org/database/pentecostaltongues.html

But no one is speaking unlearned foreign languages supernaturally today (as even the Charismatics will tell you). It would be fantastic for missionaries from the USA to go to Japan (for example) and simply start speaking Japanese fluently and supernaturally. Instead they must spend months and years learning the language, and being only rudimentary speakers after all that.

However, when you study Acts chapter 2, there are at least fifteen foreign languages or dialects listed, and that is when tongues were manifested on the day of Pentecost. Simple Galileans (who spoke only Aramaic) were suddenly speaking Persian or Arabic as though they were native speakers! And the native speakers heard their words and understood everything perfectly.

When we come to 1 Corinthians 14, it should be evident that it is there for the correction of the Christians at Corinth. They were abusing tongues, so Paul had to straighten them out. What does Paul say? “There is no reason to believe that the gift of tongues mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is any different from that mentioned in the book of Acts. In both places the tongues involved speaking in earthly languages that one had never learned.” [Ibid]

1. Focus on prophecy, not on tongues, but make agape love your primary goal. (vv 1-6)

2. Speaking within the church should be spiritually meaningful (vv 7-12)

3. There must be interpretation whenever tongues are spoken (vv 13-17)

4. Paul would rather speak 5 intelligible words than 10,000 words in tongues (vv 18-19)

5. Focusing on tongues is childish, and if everyone spoke in tongues at the same time, visitors would think they are all mad (vv 20-23)

6. Prophecy is extremely profitable for many reasons (vv 24-26)

7. Tongues (with interpreters) are limited to two or three speakers at the most (vv 27-28)

8. Prophecies are also limited to two or three speakers (vv 29-33)

9. Women are to maintain silence within the churches (vv 34-38)

10. Closing comments – everything to be done decently and in order (vv 39-40)

There wouldn't be any division if people handled the gifts properly... both those with and those without.

Instead, a few gifted people act like they are special; that's simply wrong; and some ungifted people rail on about how the gifts aren't for today.

Both are wrong, and both are responsible for the division.

This thread can end now. Thanks all for coming; there's an offering plate by the exit door.

Ezra is also in Aramaic.

PS, there are Aramaic words peppered in the Word from the transcripts availed to man.

I remember a Pentecostal Church I visited in the 1990's; they all started jumping around and speaking jibberish. I remember thinking at the time, These people have lost their minds! It was no sign for me, an unbeliever at the time. That experience kinda repelled me.

I remember when I read that verse in the letter to the Corinthians for the first time, where it warned the believers that if all spoke with tongues men would think they were crazy, I thought to myself, Amen, so true!

The truth of the matter is that modern tongues are not even biblical tongues. And the only reason the KJV translators used the word “tongues” is because back in the 17th century, that word was interchangeable with “languages”. So if we eliminate “unknown” (since that is not in the Greek text, therefore italicized) and simply say “language” or “languages”, the whole controversy disappears. Indeed, several modern translations do not even use the word “tongues”, and consistently translate glossa or glossais as language or languages.

There is no glossolalia in the New Testament, and that is what is practiced today.

But no one is speaking unlearned foreign languages supernaturally today (as even the Charismatics will tell you).

However, when you study Acts chapter 2, there are at least fifteen foreign languages or dialects listed.

When we come to 1 Corinthians 14, it should be evident that it is there for the correction of the Christians at Corinth. They were abusing tongues, so Paul had to straighten them out. What does Paul say? “There is no reason to believe that the gift of tongues mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is any different from that mentioned in the book of Acts. In both places the tongues involved speaking in earthly languages that one had never learned.” [Ibid]

Part 2 -

Here’s where I have to respectfully disagree with Nehemiah6. The language answer may come as rather a surprise for many: To put it as simply as possible and eliminate what could easily be several pages of detailed explanation, Jews from Judea spoke Aramaic as their mother tongue. I don’t think there’s any issues there. Jews from the Western Diaspora spoke Greek – all those lands had been Hellenized for centuries and Greek had long displaced any indigenous languages. Eastern Diaspora was a bit different - no Hellenization and countries had their own languages. Though people in Jewish communities in these lands spoke the local languages in varying degrees of fluency, it was never their ‘mother tongue’. For Jews in the Eastern Diaspora, the language of ‘hearth and home’ was Aramaic; it’s one of the main things that defined them, set them apart, and gave them their ethnic and religious identity.

Many lands, many places and people; but as we can now see, only two languages: Aramaic and Greek. The apostles spoke both.

The difficult thing for many to accept perhaps is that the gift of tongues (as traditionally defined) was not evidenced at Pentecost; it didn’t need to be. The apostles weren’t speaking any language they didn’t already know.

The miracle of language at Pentecost was making the God of the Jews accessible to all people and moreover, not having to do so in one prescribed language; namely, Hebrew, the sacerdotal language of Judaism.

The apostles, by help and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did away with this cultural and religious tradition, and addressed the crowd in Greek and Aramaic; the mother tongue of the attendees, instead of the culturally and religiously correct and expected tradition of Hebrew first, then translations into the vernaculars. Doing this from the Temple where they were, broke a slew of cultural and religious taboos. The shock to the crowd was that they did not first hear the expected and culturally correct Hebrew first, then vernaculars. Further added to the crowd’s reaction was to hear Galileans (the “country bumkins” of their day) speak so boldly and with such inspired authority. It’s no wonder some thought them drunk.

This idea of Hebrew first, then the vernacular is rather detailed and for the sake of brevity, I don’t present it in any detail here. The closest analogy in a religious setting I can think of would be the Roman Catholic Church, pre-Vatican II. If people in the US went to church in say 1950, and the priest came out and started to offer the mass in English, the parishioners’ reaction would be one of confusion, bewilderment, astonishment – the same reaction by the crowd as on Pentecost – “how is it that we hear him speaking in the language we were born in to??” In pre- Vatican II, the parishioners would have fully expected to hear Latin , the liturgical and sacerdotal language of the RCC used; not their native language of English. Indeed, the only part of the mass allowed to be given in the local language was the homily (sermon). Some may even have thought the priest drunk to dare to do such a thing – it was just unheard of. Sort of the same idea here with Hebrew first, then a translation to the vernacular.

To suggest, as the apostles did, that the God of the Jews was now available to non-Jews and in any language, completely dispensing with Hebrew altogether was tantamount to heresy; hence, in part, also likely accounted for the crowd's reaction.

If we take a closer look at a more literal translation of the Greek text here, what we have is: “they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages [than Hebrew] as the Spirit kept giving bold, authoritative, inspired speech to them.”

The Greek ‘apophtheggomai’ refers, not to the content of the speech (i.e., the language), but to "the manner of speaking." In each instance, the person's speech is bold, authoritative, and inspired.

Other languages - other than Hebrew. These other languages they spoke in were Aramaic and Greek – that the Spirit kept giving them bold, authoritative, inspired speech. Why? To declare the mighty works of God. To declare God available to anyone. The complete breaking of a previously existing barrier between Gentiles and God.

Something to consider is that the only "tongues evidenced" by the apostles after being “baptized in the Holy Spirit” were nothing more than their own native languages – Aramaic and Greek! No xenoglossy, and definitely no modern tongues-speech here, folks.

So, if the gift of tongues is not a spiritual xenoglossy, since the assumption that this definition hinges on is not correct, what is it?

I would argue that the “gift of tongues” may be essentially defined to mean the God/Holy Spirit-given ability, i.e. the gift ….. of being able to learn languages more easily and quickly than most others, but more so, as far as Paul was concerned, using that ability in spreading the message of Christianity and edifying the community, and to the further glory of God in general.

One needs to consider that in most cultures in the ancient world, the average person was born, lived and died in the same village and never ventured more than 10-20 miles beyond its borders. A person who had the ability to be able to “pick up” languages from lands that would have seemed almost impossibly distant, and quickly become conversant maybe even literate in them, was looked at and considered to be a divine gift.

And finally, yes, Corinth was about correcting language issues. In an ethnically and linguistically diverse city such as Corinth, it’s not difficult to imagine a slew of communication/language issues (no multi-lingual signs and instruction books in those days 😊).

Thread should read;
""Since us cessationists can not mentally discern the Holy Spirit,here is MY VERSION of modern full gospel believers outside the no brainer verses AUTHENTICATING their experience.""

So because tongues causes division and division is not from God, tongues are not from God?

If modern tongues were the same as biblical tongues, there would be no division. And the doctrine which was postulated to justify modern tongues was also divisive.

verse 8 says that "every man" did indeed have the language of the country "he was born in", and that this language was "his own". And the language they heard was was this language. Verse 11 reaffirms the same. After listing several places stretching from Rome to Libya to Arabia to Asia, the listeners from this multiple places said that they "hear them speak in OUR TONGUES".

If we look at just the countries around the Mediterranean today, with all the aids we have and the almost universal computer language being English, the traveler from Albania to Italy, just a short hop over water, has language problems. In Switzerland there are four official languages and the effects of Babel can still be felt with many French speaking Swiss refusing to speak Swiss German, though they proudly belong to the same nation - and a small one at that.