This sort of brings me to another topic that I find to more obscure and hazy. Spiritual gifts. Specifically speaking in tongues. I am sure that you both know my feelings on the matter, but for the sake of the blog I will restate them.
Speaking in tongues as it has come to be know today seems to have no purpose at all. Speaking in gibberish doesn't seem to communicate, but rather on the contrary it seems only to cause confusion. Speaking in tongues as I read it in the scripture was more of an act of speaking the gospel in your language and someone hearing it in their own. This was a feet of God overcoming a language barrier in a culturally diverse group of people. Again we find a few obscure verses that have led to this doctrine, that speaking in tongues is some sort of heavenly language. In fact now that I think of it most false doctrines seem to be based on obscure verses.
But as don't necessarily know what those obscure verses mean, rather I only have my ideas and a gut feeling that those who are interpreting it in a way as to justify gibberish are simply looking for a spiritual high by working themselves up into a frenzied hypnotic state, I would like to here your thoughts on the matter and even better perhaps we can find a biblical interpretation of those verses.
We once attended a church in Spokane. They had open prayer before the sermon. Different people prayed and then one person prayed and it was in some language that I didn't know. Could have been Hebrew or Aramaic or made up or honestly the Holy Spirit, but no one clarified as to what he said or if he was just praying in another language or what. No one said anything about it. So I would agree that for the most part the tongues of today are not real or misused.
ReplyDeleteThere was a missionary at our church that we go to who serves in Cambodia. He talked about the miracles he has seen and others have seen. One was talking to someone in a foreign language that he did not know, but he knew what he was saying and it helped the other person get saved. Our pastor has I think a good test for these things does it bring people closer to God or turn them away. By people, he means someone walking off the street. I think it is good test concerning spirtual gifts.
sorry guys my internet was down last night so I couldn't post a comment. What is your interpretation of the verse that says though I can speak with the tongues of Angels? Is this some sort of heavenly language or is the tongues of angels better translated into the words of Angels, in which case it is not another language but the message of God.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought it of as being literal, but more as an example of something great or wondorous, but meaning nothing without love.
ReplyDeleteIf it is literal, I would have to give it some more thought.