Speaking in tongues...

Thanks you Somsoc. Glory to God in all things. I am just pleased that I recalled those articles - having read them a long time ago, when I was on the unbenounced to me, path toward Orthodoxy. The one from GoArch is very well put. This issue, in my opinion can really be summed up with two points I think. First however I will interject a brief personal note. I was raised a barefoot, non-practicing Catholic. That is to say I know there was a God, He was/is a Trinitarian God with the Son and Holy Spirit, He loved me and I should fear Him. During my High School years I went to a Charismatic non-denominational Christian church where they spoke in tongues and went about acting on other gifts. I have intimate personal familiarity, and personal opinions relating them back to my own experiences. Ok, that said on to the two things I set forth to say in the first place. I feel most modern examples of Glossolalia are suspect at best, yet more importantly I know it is not my place to judge the people involved as I certainly do not know their hearts’ as God does. I simply prefer, and I would hazard to say wisely so to remove myself from involvement in such things. To paraphrase Fr. George Nicozisin: The Church does not rule out Glossolalia. We simply does not regard it as one of the important Spiritual Gifts. Better to \\"speak five words that can be understood ... than speak thousands of words in strange tongues.\\" This is the Orthodox Christian viewpoint. Thanks for listening, may God bless you all and pray for me a sinner

This is pretty confusing issue among the Pentecostal \'churches\'. I know of some Oneness Pentecostals who \'speak in tongues\' while they deny the Holy Trinity. That speaks enough for itself. When it comes to \'speaking in tongues\' on the day of Pentecost those people were given the gifts of Latin, Arabic and other spoken languages and not some gibberish babbling. It\'s all the same in 1Cor. Read the commentary of St.John Chrysostom on ch 12, 13 and 14. As far as I recall Chrysostom doesn\'t state that those were some ecstatic unspoken languages. St. Paul says that tongues are a \'sign to them that believe not\' and then quotes Isaiah. The whole thing is related to Jewish people. They refused the clear message of repentance preached by the OT prophets, they also largely refused the words of the apostles spoken to them in the languages they were born in /except those 3000 who repented and believed/ so the tongues were rather a sign of forthcoming judgment on them. The situation in Corinth is somewhat different. They all spoke Greek there and there was no need to preach to them in any other language and thus create a confusion which is exactly what some did. What was the point of them loudly and disorderly speaking Arabic, Latin etc. while those who didn\'t understand those languages could not say amen. Besides, the languages were a sign to UNBELIEVING Jews. What happens nowdays in the modern neo- Protestant Charismatic world is just one big confusion. Their \'tongues\' are just a sign of their confusion. It\'s incredible that your friend relates the infant baptism to \'speaking in tongues\' as a prrof of indwelling Spirit. When you read the end of ch12 of 1Cor you\'ll see that not all spoke in tongues, just like not all were apostles and had gifts of healing etc... Nonetheless, as others suggested, show her love and humbleness so she can see the truth and be saved from the wretched distortion she is entangled with

I will have to echo that friend, and with 30,000 plus (early 2000 number I believe) churchs and more every day the problem will not ease away over night.

Yea I can appreciate it. Having studied a variety of protestant theologies is a headache. I once took a class on history of American religions and basically unless you are talking about one of the main groups, lutherans, baptists etc... you have almost no hope at following the score of the whole game. At best you may nail down a few pitches. And even when you do nail down a particular church, the guy in charge retires, quits, gives up, is outed, whatever and the new guy believes and teaches something new and often different all over again. The one I always find funny is when the spirit tells a group to build lets say a gym and all of a sudden their church grows and isn\'t it wonderful we have all these new converts. But when you look at statistics all they did was take people from another church up the street. Then they wonder why the people aren\'t dedicated, well duh what do you expect when they \\"convert\\" for aesthetic reasons. You get people who tend to be superficial. Not exactly the Orthodox way. And that was a bit of a rant, and was wrong of me, sorry.

I\'m glad we got that out of our collective system... By the way, have you guys seen this blog entry by Fr John on the [url=http://my.orthodoxcircle.com/_landing/view.php]homepage[/url] Sometimes I forget to check that part of the circle...

I was thrown out of a Catholic carasmatic prayer meeting because I couldent stop laughing at the people babbeling and jumpin and a shoutin. That was before I was recived into the faith

\\"some time ago a greek man who lived in the States went into a pentecostal gathering. after the prayers and hymns some started to talk in \\\\"strange\\\\" languages. one of them was speaking in greek .... the words that came out of his mouth were blasphemies against our Lord and His mother. no one else could understand them except the greek man,who explained to the others what was going on.\\" What a great example. Thanks for sharing, Misha.

paul has some good stuff to say on this in Corinthians\'s 1

Before I answer, let\'s take a look at Mark 16:17-18: \\"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.\\" Orthodox Christians do not deny Mark\'s words. In the early Church there were Orthodox Christians who spoke in tongues; there were Orthodox Christians who were given poison yet preserved by the grace of God; various Orthodox Christians (especially saints) have healed the sick with their prayers. Certain of these manifestations of the work of the Holy Spirit still occur in the Church. What Orthodox Christians understand but Pentecostals have yet to grasp is that when Mark or Paul speaks of these as \\"signs\\" of a believer, he is not speaking of \\"signs\\" as \\"proof\\" of an individual having become a [true] believer, but as manifestation of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Pentecostals speak in tongues (or claim to), perform deliverance, and of course they pray for those who are ill. Yet, how many Pentecostals begin each morning with a glass of Cyanide Delight? According to Pentecostal logic, it would seem that if speaking in tongues is a necessary indication of being a true believer, so too would be daily drinking a gallon of arsenic, turpentine or mercury, or a mixture of all three, to no ill effect on health. I don\'t know exactly when the phenomenon of speaking in tongues became less frequent in the Church. Several Church Fathers considered why speaking in tongues no longer was prominent in the life of the Church. Blessed Augustine (3rd-4th century) discusses speaking in tongues in one of his homilies on the Gospel of John. He recognizes that in his day many baptized persons do not demonstrate speaking in tongues. His response is not that speaking in tongues is necessary for the baptized individual, but that the gift was manifested in the early Church for a particular purpose--to serve as a sign of the Gospel spreading to the entire world, and in all languages. Makes sense to me. Back in my Latin Catholic days, I was involved in a Catholic Charismatic group. I must say that they were some of the nicest people I\'ve known in my life. They were very kind to me, just as Orthodox have been kind to me. But , this said, I never felt comfortable with the speaking in tongues that occurred at each meeting. I underwent the \\"Baptism in the Spirit,\\" which was supposed to give me the gift of speaking in tongues, spiritual discernment, etc. I still don\'t know what to make of that laying on of hands ceremony. I felt double-minded at the time. I already was thinking about Orthodoxy back then, and all the while they laid their hands on me, I was unsure if I was doing the right thing, and constantly praying, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Well, I guess God does save one from poison. :D (j/k)

Just a clarification, before someone jumps me on it. The Biblical selection from Mark I provide above uses the conditional \\"if\\" in reference to the drinking of poison. A Pentecostal may argue that this \\"if\\" indicates a sure safety from the possibility, not a sure actual occurrence in the life of the believer. To drink poison deliberately would be to tempt God, which a real believer would not do. They would have some validity in arguing this. Perhaps I went a little too far on this point. What I was trying to show, however, is the hermeneutic by which Pentecostals read the text: i.e. Paul mentions persons speaking in tongues immediately after baptism; therefore, today, persons baptized must also speak in tongues right after baptism. There\'s a fundamentalist attitude which makes Biblical forms unchanging absolutes for everywhere and for all times. To use a perhaps better example than the one I provided in my last post: there still are some fundamentalist Christians who handle snakes according to this eisegetic reading, which declares that everything pertaining to church organization, charismatic gifts, etc. in the Scriptures must be fully duplicated by the church today. I hope that makes sense.

If I am a true believer and I \\"speak in tongues\\" solely for acceptance than am I not profaning the Holy Spirit with a lie?

thisgirlhere, I have only one bit of advice for you and its totally open ended so I have no idea if you can run with it. But its real simple. Love her. Everything else is details (waves details away in dismissal). But if your question is one of tact ... that would be up to you to use the God given gifts you have to judge the best method.

Of course. Think of the heretical Montanists.

I didn\'t think Chrysanthos was condemning Pentecostals, but rather condemning their error. They are in error, to the extent they refuse to dissolve their separate organizations and drop their heterodox doctrines. To say so is not judgement, nor accusation. The gift of intelligible speech is a beautiful miracle in harmony with the style and meaning of salvation. Babbling in trance states is not, and although it is tolerated in the Church, I am not aware that it is considered prophetic, or meaningful, or evidence of the Holy Spirit.

There\'s a passage in the book of Romans which is very telling, as concerning receiving the Holy Spiritand glossalia/speaking in tongues. The Apostle Paul says that \\"...if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.\\" O.k. the Holy Spirit marks ownership. Among other things which Our Lord said about the role of the Holy Spirit, He said \\"...but when He the Spirit of Truth comes, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.\\" (2) The Holy Spirit teaches.The disciples wre told to \\"...tarry ...\\"in Jerusalem until they received the promise of the Father. THis is the second half of The Great Commission so many speak of in evangelical Protestantism. (3) The Holy Spirit enables. If the Holy Spirit is \\"another one of the sme kind\\" who comes alongside, then what was the evidence of Jesus being alongside the Disciples; Was it not that whenever any of them received this \\"new wine\\". Thery showed the fruit of being filled with the life of of the Vine. I.E., the simple truth is that whenever anyone is filled with anything, they show evidence of being controlled by that which fills them. In this both the Apostles Paul and Peter write that the fruit of,...is character qualities which render you neither useless or unfruitful, and against which there is no law. (galatians 5, and 2nd Peter 1) Scriptures tell us that God gives to each one individually as \\"He wills\\", which meansHe doesn\'t give to each one according to donominational doctrine. NOw;, none of this means that God does not \\"gift\\" anyone inthis present time with another language, again He does as He wills;, but it does mean there\'s an awful lot of faulty theology out there. Orthodox teaching points out that whenever we begin to \\"sek\\" an esperience we set ourselves up for future deception, which may be imediate. The Apostle Peter tells us that we should by the manner of our life\\"...silence the questions of foolish men...\\" To me having been in the Charismatic Movement that is a lot more powerful an evidence of the Holy Spirit being in my life than saying something someelse has to interpret. the sinful and unworthy servant