Is speaking in tongues real ?
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- āđāļāļĒāđāļāļĢāđāđāļĄāļ·āđāļ 11 āļ.āļĒ. 2024
- Join us as we explore the phenomenon of speaking in tongues and whether it is real or not. Dive into the spiritual realm with us as we discuss the significance of this practice in the context of Christ and God. Featuring insights from Cliffe George, this video will leave you questioning and seeking spiritual growth and development. Don't forget to subscribe for more thought-provoking content!ð
All video credits to / @georgejanko
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I love all of these guys and their depth of knowledge of the Bible.
His explanation is correct but incomplete: there are three types of tongues, which is why Tongue(S) is in plural. The two types are for public use, which require interpretation or are understood by the listeners as they are being explained. The third type is private, it is between you and God. This type of tongues is for all believers and does not require any interpretation, as stated in 1 Corinthians 14:2. "For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit."
See my posts further above -
Itâs always a bit interesting to see how different tongues-speakers skate around what for them is that awkward discrepancy between the real, rational languages of Pentecost and the so-called âprayer language â of Paulâs letter to the Corinthians. The solution seems to be instituting various âtypesâ of âtonguesâ. There is only one type of âtongue(s)â in the Bible when referring to something spoken - real rational language(s).
â @@kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474 I still donât understand how someone can not see clearly that it says no one understands him when he speaks to God and that in the spirit he speaks mysteries. Then right after that says when you prophesies you edify men but when you speak in a tongue you edify yourself. Then after that Paul said I wish you all spoke in tongues. Also, in 1 Corinthians 13:1 Paul points out that theirs languages of men and languages of angels. We know that God is the creator of Languages, like when he created different languages during the time of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9. I wouldnât call a language God gives you not real because he is the creator of all things and what he gives us is real whether we believe it or not. If you donât believe in tongues then ask God for the gift, he said ask you will receive, seek you will find and knock and the door will be open. When I first had knowledge of this I asked God to speak with unknown languages and surely he made it happen. But you have to be open and know our ways are not like his ways. Receive it, donât reject it!
@@koolaidbegaming1456
Because thatâs not really what it says - there is *no* verb âto understandâ in the Greek. The verb used is âto hearâ in the sense that no one hearing the speaker knows what he is saying (because they do not speak/understand his language). If Iâm in rural Alabama and I stand up and start praying aloud in Albanian, absolutely no one is going to have a clue what Iâm saying. To them, I am uttering âmysteriesâ (an idiomatic way of saying âwe have no idea what heâs sayingâ). Thereâs no way to make the speaker also not understand what heâs saying. Unless the author of the text is a really bad grammarian.
âPraying in the Spiritâ 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. âPraying in the Spiritâ should be understood as praying in the power of the Spirit, by the leading of the Spirit, and according to His will.
Yes, you edify _only_ yourself. Thatâs exactly what Paul admonished not to do - throughout his letter he calls for clarity and understanding at a public worship such that _all_ may benefit.
Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles - it stands to reason he would use his knowledge of foreign languages more than the average person to spread the Gospel, and thanked God for giving him the ability to do so. A frequent use of foreign languages was sort of part of his âjob descriptionâ.
It also stands to reason that he wished others were able to do the same - would make his job a lot easier and the message could be better spread to all corners of the known world. Paul is not speaking about, nor is he advocating here for, modern tongues-speech.
âTongues of angelsâ is frequently used as a vehicle to posit âangelic speechâ. That entire phrase, as well as a few others in that particular part of Paulâs letter, is 100% pure textbook hyperbole no matter how one wishes to slice and dice it. Thereâs just no getting around that. In all instances of angels speaking, it has always been in a real, rational language. In fact, in traditional Jewish belief, angels can only speak and understand one language; specifically, the sacred/sacerdotal language of Judaism, Hebrew. Paul, being a Jew, would have known this, which lends further support for his intentional use of hyperbole.
What people are producing today is not language - it is non-cognitive non-language utterance. Essentially random free vocalization. As Iâm sure you know, there Are no âunknownâ tongues - that word is a 16th century addition to the texts.
I've personally witnessed and heard stories within my family to the effect of; someone is speaking in tongues (gibberish) but another person listening hears clear words in their own language. Another example was, someone is speaking in tongues (gibberish) for all to hear, and someone on the other side of the room begins to translate what is being said. You also have those who speak in tongues quietly to themselves (a personal favourite) to edify themselves spiritually and "refuel", so to speak, or break up spiritual tension in the atmosphere.
Speaking from personal experience, its more like something that comes from withing and overflows into sound and words rather than my brain deciding to just spout gibberish. In other words, it comes from the spirit, not the mind.
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.
âInterpretationâ (read *âtranslationâ of the spoken word* ) - the divine gift, is the God/Holy Spirit given ability to effortlessly render one language into another capturing all the minute nuances of one language into the other. An otherwise phenomenally difficult task when dealing with religious texts and prayers. It is not the self-created âspiritual improvâ (inspired by oneâs deep faith and beliefs) that most people are doing today.
These "interpretations" are typically characterized by being inordinately longer than the actual glossic utterance, rather generic and non-specific in nature, and perhaps not surprisingly, open to multiple non-related âinterpretationsâ. In other words, have ten interpreters listen to a glossic string and youâll get ten different (typically unrelated) âinterpretationsâ.
In âtonguesâ, âThe big brown dog is slowâ, can also be âThe small white cat is quickâ. These latter two characteristics do not suggest anything that is divinely inspired. It fails even the most basic tests and criteria that define âcommunicationâ itself.
The common come-back to the multiple interpretation issue is that God/the Holy Spirit gives different interpretations to different people. As someone once put it, âPentecostal Darwinism does not exist - thereâs no mutation or transformation of one message into several for the sake of justifying an obvious discrepancy. If this were the case, it would completely eradicate the need for âtonguesâ in the first placeâ.
Everything refers back to the beginning (Genesis).
The gift of tongues (languages) undoes the confusion of tongues after the Tower of Babel.
It is the gift of communicating the gospel to all the nations to unify everyone under God once more.
It is the least of gifts per the Bible. Simply because the abilities of being multilingual are wasted if not used in accordance with God's will (spreading the gospel).
A translation is needed because there will be others present who will not comprehend because they are not multilingual.
The babbling is just that, babbling.
Prayers are the language (words) an individual converses with. Different usage and meaning for the same word.
100%! Speaking in tongues is biblical and it has changed my life and so many lives of people I know. Everywhere in the NT where it mentions praying in the Spirit it is interchangeable with speaking in tongues (see 1 Cor. 14). I've got a full video explaining and teaching this on my channel if anyone is curious to learn more or receive their own prayer language supernaturally.
"How do I make this person take my Bible seriously". Well, you can start by believing the words that are in the Bible. If the Bible says tongues are a gift, then you should believe it and not dismiss it.
He's not dismissing it though, he inherently understands that in at least some aspects, speaking in tongues was (and/or is) a documented gift of the spirit. He's not dismissing it or denying its existence or importance, he's trying to distinguish what's biblical and what's not, and he's asking questions about it to clear up his previous thoughts on the matter. This is active questioning and investigating, not dismissal.
@@andrewgonzalez7143 I don't know, him saying that he gets angry at people who speak in tongues because he feels like it makes it harder to accept Christ tells me that he doesn't really believe it's not fake babbling today.
@@speedboy6776 because he doesn't believe it's real. But yet he has the humility and the integrity to ask Cliffe his advice on whether or not that's a biblical attitude. He even asks how to think like a Christian on the topic. He has his doubts of course, but he's working through them as respectfully (yet obviously skeptical) as he can. You have to give him credit for that much, even if it's clear he doesn't understand it.
@@andrewgonzalez7143 Yeah you're right. He is at least showing an openness to it.
Also, Jesus did speak about tongues, but it wasn't available until after Jesus ascended. See Mark 16 and Acts 1.
Paul instructs us to pray in the Spirit (which he uses interchangeably with tongues throughout his epistles, see 1 Cor 14) at all times and on all occassions (Ephesians 6).
Jude 1:20 instructs us to continually build ourselves up on our most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit.
Tongues is usually for personal edification in private prayer time, but the Holy Spirit has also led me to use it to minister to others with someone else interpretign and its mind-blowing. Also, at times, tongues can be a sign for unbelievers and i have used it to lead others to Christ.
Studies have also shown that praying in tongues boosts your immune system (Oral Roberts University for one)
George should take some time to read 1 Corinthians 14 and meditate on what the Holy Spirit leads him to regarding tongues. I laughed when he said âIâm trying to get someone to take Jesus seriously while thereâs someone going [mocks the sounds]â but Iâd say be mindful of mocking things of the Spirit that you donât currently believe or understand.
Bro it's not speaking in "tongue". It's speaking in TONGUES.
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) - itâs their native language (in some cases, it is a language the speaker has learned).
In contrast, the âtonguesâ Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians are producing today is an entirely self-created phenomenon. It is non-cognitive non-language utterance; random free vocalization based upon a subset of the existing underlying sounds (called phonemes) of the speakerâs native language, and any other language(s) the speaker may be familiar with or have had contact with.
It is, in part, typically characterized by repetitive syllables, plays on sound patterns, alliteration, assonance, and over-simplification of syllable structure. The "nail in the coffin", so-to-speak, is that _any and all_ phonological rules (rules governing how sounds are put together in a given language - what is allowed and what is disallowed) governing a speaker's native language, will _also_ govern their tongues-speech. That fact alone negates anything that can be construed as 'divine' in nature and cements that fact that it is a self-created phenomenon. Further, this subset of phonemes mentioned above typically contains only those sounds which are easiest to produce physiologically.
Occasionally some speakers will use two or more subsets of phonemes to generate glossolalia, producing what, to them, sounds like two (or more) distinct âtongues languagesâ, thus claiming to be able to speak in âdivers tonguesâ.
There is absolutely _nothing_ that âtongues-speakersâ are producing that cannot be explained in relatively simple linguistic terms.
Conversely, when it comes to something spoken, there are absolutely _no_ Biblical references to âtonguesâ that do not refer to, and cannot be explained in light of, real rational language(s), though it may not be the explanation you want to hear, and it may be one which is radically different from what you believe, or were taught. _Nowhere_ in the Bible is modern tongues-speech advocated or evidenced.
âPraying in the Spiritâ 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. âPraying in the Spiritâ should be understood as praying in the power of the Spirit, by the leading of the Spirit, and according to His will.
I'm not doubting or questioning the 'tongues experience'; glossolalia as the spiritual tool that it is, can be very powerful and, for many people, the experience is profound. As one commenter put it, âSpeaking in tongues distracts the ego/analytical/conscious mind while leaving the subconscious (the heart) wide open to import the divine." Both the spiritual and physical benefits of using this tool are also well documented. Again though, it is important to note that this same statement can be made for virtually _any_ other culture that practices glossolalia. Religious and cultural differences aside, the glossolalia an Evenki Shaman in Siberia, a vodoun priestess in Togo and a Christian tongues-speaker in Alabama are producing are in no way different from each other. Theyâre all producing their glossolalia in the exact same way; they just have different explanations and beliefs as to why theyâre doing it, and where it comes from. It is only in certain Christian denominations where is it construed as something it never was.
âTonguesâ is to some Christian believers a very real and spiritually meaningful experience but consisting of emotional release via non-linguistic âfree vocalizationsâ at best; non-cognitive non language utterance - the subconscious playing with sounds to create what is perceived and interpreted as actual, meaningful speech. In _some_ cases, I would argue that it is clearly a self/mass delusion prompted by such a strong desire to âexperience Godâ that one creates that experience via âtonguesâ.
âTonguesâ (read, *âlanguagesâ* ) - 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).
As a point of note, Iâm a Linguist, and let me also add here that I am neither a so-called âcessationistâ nor a âcontinuationistâ - I do not identify with either term; in fact, I had never heard the two terms until just late in 2016. As far as Iâm concerned, quite frankly, since the Biblical reference of âtonguesâ is to real, rational languages, obviously âtonguesâ havenât âceasedâ.
Itâs always a bit interesting to see how different tongues-speakers skate around what for them is that awkward discrepancy between the real, rational languages of Pentecost and the so-called âprayer language â of Paulâs letter to the Corinthians. The solution seems to be instituting various âtypesâ of âtonguesâ. There is only one type of âtongue(s)â in the Bible when referring to something spoken - real rational language(s).
What are your thoughts on 1 Corinthians 14 (namely verse 2, but the entire chapter at large) where Paul expounds upon the gift of tongues and the way it should be used?
@@lmnop3023
PART 1 -
This will take a few posts and I kind of skip around, but I think I cover most of Corinthians with respect tot "tongues".
When looking at verses/passages, they need to be put into historical, cultural, and when it comes to languages (âtonguesâ), linguistic context/perspective. Most people donât do this and take these very literally. Paulâs letter to Corinth does address spiritual gifts but then goes on to speak to real-language issues facing a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and somewhat transient, population in large city situated on two major seaports. A place where everyday communication can be challenging. He's not expounding on the gift of tongues here.
Letâs look at some of the verses:
1Cor. 14:2 is perhaps *the* quintessential verse used by many to âevidenceâ 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 âEast Haystackâ, some remote town in the US out in the middle of nowhere, two things are going to be evident: one; thereâs 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, thereâs no one at that service thatâs going to understand a single word Iâm saying. Even though Iâm speaking a real language, no one _there_ will understand my âtongueâ. 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 Iâm praying in the Spirit (as defined further below), to the people listening to me, Iâm still speaking âmysteriesâ - i.e. even though Iâm praying as I ought, no one understands me. An idiomatic expression to say that no one has a clue what Iâm saying as no one speaks my language.
When one looks at the original Greek, the verb which is usually translated as âunderstandeth/understandsâ is actually the verb âto hearâ in the sense of understanding what youâre hearing someone say. The verb is *not* âto understandâ. That part of the verse is more properly âno one hears [him] with understandingâ, i.e. no one listening to him understands what heâs 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 understandâĶâĶ.unless the author of the text is a bad grammarian, it just isnât there.
âPraying in the Spiritâ 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. âPraying in the Spiritâ should be understood as praying in the power of the Spirit, by the leading of the Spirit, and according to His will.
Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles - it stands to reason he would use his knowledge of foreign languages more than the average person to spread the Gospel, and thanked God for giving him the ability to do so. A frequent use of foreign languages was sort of part of his âjob descriptionâ.
It also stands to reason that he wished others were able to do the same - would make his job a lot easier and the message could be better spread to all corners of the known world. Paul is not speaking about, nor is he advocating here for, modern tongues-speech.
More to the point, he is not forbidding someone at a public worship from praying aloud even though no one else understands a word theyâre listening to (ties back to v.2). Better for the person to worship God in a language no one else can understand and thus not benefit from (recall that throughout his letter Paul calls for clarity and understanding at a public worship so that all may benefit, not just the one) than to not pray/worship at all. He does, however, set some ground rules for when this happens by limiting the number of speakers to 2-3. Again, heâs not speaking about, nor is he advocating here for, modern tongues-speech.
With respect to v. 19, Paul would rather speak/teach five words in a language he was intimately familiar with (i.e., his native language), than to have to attempt to speak/teach in a language he may have not spoken as well, and have to explain the nuances of what heâs trying to say, and by doing so, have to speak considerably longer (use a lot more words) to try and explain.
This has to do with translation - If my native language is English and I learn say Basque enough to be able to speak it to get by and get around, it does not necessarily mean I can adequately translate to say exactly what I mean to say in English - I may need to do a great deal of circumlocution; I may be able to get across the gist of what Iâm trying to say, but to express the nuances, particularly with things like prayer and teaching, is actually quite a difficult task. In short, itâs not a language I am intimately familiar with and am going to need a lot more words to try and explain myself adequately. Iâd rather just do it in English, use just a few words, and get exactly what I mean to teach across to the audience.
With respect to interpretation - people get a bit confused with this concept - to put it in a nutshell, one âinterpretsâ the spoken word and âtranslatesâ the written. When it comes to languages, both words mean exactly the same thing: render language X into language Y.
The text does not necessarily imply that the person speaking is also going to be doing the translation; it just says he should pray that he can translate what heâs saying - it doesnât indicate how the translation is to be done.
The assumption is that the person speaking will also be doing the translating, but it could just as well imply that if heâs planning on praying aloud at a public meeting, to pray that heâs able to secure a translator for himself.
Itâs one thing to speak another language but another thing altogether to interpret/translate.
If my native language is English and I learn German enough to be able to speak it to get by, it does not necessarily mean I can adequately translate; I may be able to get across the gist of what Iâm trying to say, but to express the nuances, particularly with things like prayer, is actually quite a difficult task.
Given then the difficulties faced in translation/interpretation, it is not at all unreasonable for a person in a multi-lingual church situation to ask God for help so that the rest of the church can be edified through their participation. Again, it should also be pointed out that the interpretation is not confined to the one speaking as referred to in v13 and in v5. Verse 28 indicates others also can interpret, and of course, thereâs no specific time frame referenced.
Paul then goes on to indicate, that if the person canât translate (whether himself or through a translator), he should keep quiet and pray silently to himself.