Tongue Tied
- If you're a Christian, have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit?
- Do you speak in tongues?
- Do you pray in personal tongues daily?
All of the churches that I have regularly attended during the course of my life have taught that every Christian should seek baptism in the Holy Spirit. Most of these churches also taught that tongues were a required sign of this baptism, though some of the churches were fine if members happened to disagree with that particular piece of theology. People in these churches frequently use personal tongues while praying over somebody else or while seeking God during church.
Tongues are pretty commonly understood in my circles of pentecostal/charismatic Christianity. I mean, I even taught the guys in my cell group a few years ago a bunch of things about baptism of the Holy Spirit, the differences between personal tongues and tongues of prophecy and the purposes of the two types of tongues.
And yet, that third question has caught me a little by surprise several times in the past few months. I know that personal tongues are used to edify and strengthen ourselves (1 Cor. 14:4) but I don't remember any particular emphasis telling me that I should use personal tongues every day. It was probably taught to me at some point but that didn't exactly translate into practice in my life.
In retrospect, though, it makes perfect sense. We're encouraged to do daily devotions and spend time in prayer with God. It seems similarly beneficial to let the Holy Spirit use us directly every day through tongues to pray according to God's will and to strengthen our spirits.
I would like to thank the people at Open Door church for their often boisterous use of tongues during prayer. Prayer is loud and groups are directly asked to pray in personal tongues if they can (and out loud in english if they cannot). People are asked directly during prayer ministry if they are baptized in the Holy Spirit and if they can pray in tongues. People even pray in tongues while doing regular things like household chores.
Funny enough, my initial observation as I prepared to write this post was that our particular church cultures (and family tradition) have a lot to do with our approach to spiritual matters. That's not a surprise to anyone, of course, but the now that I see personal tongues in action more often I've started to use them more regularly myself.
To any Christians reading this blog, I do encourage you to seek baptism of the Holy Spirit if you have not received it yet. Have someone pray over you and study up on it. And if you do speak in tongues already, let me encourage you to use them more regularly. God certainly has some cool things in store for us.
14 comments:
"To any Christians reading this blog, I do encourage you to seek baptism of the Holy Spirit if you have not received it yet. Have someone pray over you and study up on it. And if you do speak in tongues already, let me encourage you to use them more regularly. God certainly has some cool things in store for us."
Do I correctly assume from this that you believe that "baptism in the Holy Spirit" = "speaking in tongues"?
Meh. I prefer to think that's the case but it's not a real issue if someone disagrees. I do take my cue from the apostle Paul and say that "I would like everyone to speak in tongues."
Anecdotally, every story I have ever heard about people being baptized in the Holy Spirit did result in personal tongues. And people I know that frequently see people baptized in the Holy Spirit like this always expect tongues, as far as I know.
By the way, it took me two tries to get this blog post up. I wrote my first version in about forty minutes and lost it just as I went to post it. That version was centred around the idea in the second last paragraph of this current post. I had to rewrite this post from scratch again later.
Ah ha, but I can't respond based on what you said before, only what you said now.
Perhaps then you are going to have to define how someone is "baptized in the Holy Spirit", and how they can know?
I think I'm going to have to do some research. But I'll do that over at Into the Depths, rather than in a blog comment.
That said, feel free to answer the question here :)
i've always typically heard it as being they are not the same thing. The Bap of the HS is an event after which you CAN speak in tongues. It's an evidence of the Bap of HS. If you have tongues, you have BHS, but some people have been BHS-ed and haven't yet spoken in tongues.
Perhaps then you are going to have to define how someone is "baptized in the Holy Spirit", and how they can know?
The answer...
Anecdotally, every story I have ever heard about people being baptized in the Holy Spirit did result in personal tongues.
You know you're baptized when you speak in tongues, yes? So of course every baptized person will have spoken in tongues. It's kinda of...circular.
Wikipedia has an (alas, uncited) comment on tongues that I have heard from several other sources:
The syllables that make up instances of glossolalia typically appear to be unpatterned reorganizations of phonemes from the primary language of the person uttering the syllables; thus, the glossolalia of people from Russia, Britain, and Brazil all sound quite different from each other, but vaguely resemble the Russian, English, and Portuguese languages, respectively. Many linguists generally regard most glossolalia as lacking any identifiable semantics, syntax, or morphology.
If true, it's a very interesting comment on the concept of tongues. Why does this "heavenly language" use the building blocks of the individual's native language? Exactly how many dialects does heaven have?
My memories surrounding tongues mostly involved being repeatedly told to just "let go," which I did once or twice just to have the annoying alter worker move on.
How can we identify baptism of the Holy Spirit without tongues? I don't know. I do think it's a required sign so my theology fits into a nice little box. Perhaps someone else can answer that question.
And Mike, I agree that the logic is circular as far as proving it theologically. Fortunately my little box has square corners and not round ones. :)
Seriously, though, I've heard similar references to the wikipedia quote you mentioned. By my estimation, there are two types of tongues: Earthly languages that the speaker doesn't know and various heavenly languages. So there are numerous dialects of tongues, which may or may not reflect people's natural languages.
As for your personal experience in praying for this baptism, I know many people that can share similar stories to your own. Some people I know have been praying for it for years. I know of one pastor that prays for people to be baptized a lot and it happens a lot, with the evidence of tongues. I assume that faith enters into the equation somewhere.
ahhh... my favourite topic.
Here's a couple quotations from the first and last verses of chapters 12-14 in First Corinthians that speak so explicitly about spiritual gifts.
Now concering spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I will show you a more excellent way. Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, [I need love]. Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts. Threfore brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order.
Here's my opinion: The reason that the Lord Jesus baptises us with his Holy Spirit is to be endued with power from on High to be his witnesses. One of the great and wonderful benefits of this supernatural baptism is the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. This is typically associated with a personal prayer language -called "praying in the Spirit" (see Rom. 8.26) The scriptures have multiple commandments to pray in this method: it's our forgotten 7th piece of spiritual armour: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit (Eph. 6:18), pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17), to edify yourself.
Oh gosh, so now we're dividing tongues into different categories. Maybe we should let the rest of the church know about this fact, so they don't miss out.
Did I miss something, Abe? Whyfor the sarcasm?
Are you referring to the idea that there are various "tongue languages?" Or that I differentiate between personal tongues and public tongues?
I was planning to hunt down my teaching on tongues from my cell group a few years ago for another blog post. It won't be perfect, I'm sure, but it might clarify my thoughts on the matter.
It's just that I found your response to a very good challenge by Mike to be lacking in substance. The whole earthly languages versus heavenly languages thing sounds like something you pulled out of....uh, that you made up on the spot. With an area like this that has been heavily abused by the charismatic church, you're going to have to come up with something pretty darn good if you're using anything other than the Bible to support your ideas.
And sarcasm is fun.
Ah, I see. Yes, I mocked my own answer with two references to "my little box" of theology. I was intentionally trying to answer his question without inviting a thorough debate. I did in fact have Bible verses and additional arguments but I purposely decided not to post much of it this time around.
This blog post was about my own personal experience and it was intended to be an encouragement to other Christians. My next post about tongues may open up that debate but I wasn't trying to do that this time.
Is it still mockery if I agree with you? :)
Earthly languages that the speaker doesn't know and various heavenly languages. So there are numerous dialects of tongues, which may or may not reflect people's natural languages.
If the wikipedia comment is accurate, than the unrecognizable speech that is often labelled "tongues" is emphatically not an "Earthly language that the speaker doesn't know." It doesn't even make sense to call it a heavenly language. It is a random, unstructured collection of sounds from the speaker's first language.
Religious experience is an interesting thing. Tongues are as real to you as this computer is to me, huh Jamie.
I know you've been around the biblical side of this question a billion times over. This might be a new angle for you to consider.
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