by Stewart75 35 Replies latest watchtower bible
Hi Moggy...nice to hear from you. Another one from down under eg?
Aside from what you have stated, it's all hogwash. Nobody is relating a message to god with any intelligable languge .....or relating anything as far as spiritual counciling or praise to another who understands it.
Gumby
Nobody is relating a message to god with any intelligable languge
Isn't that precisely the point of "speaking in tongues"? Acknowledging both the inadequacy of and the need for language?
Even the brainy and thematic Paul who tries to divert the Corinthians from the fascination of glossolaly to a more articulate form of worship elsewhere writes: "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:26f.)
So with the amount of dud interpretation from the WTS over many years, the options are open when the brain is unlocked? or.....
WTS says gifts of the spirit were done away with the death of the apostles, based on misinterpretting 1 Cor 13.
Watchtower 1958 January 15 p.45 Overseers in Apocalyptic Times
Today we are not living in apostolic times. Long before our time, when the apostolic days ended almost nineteen hundred years ago, the miraculous gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit passed away.”
1 Corinthians 13:8-13; "8 Love never fails. But whether there are [gifts of] prophesying, they will be done away with; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we have partial knowledge and we prophesy partially; 10 but when that which is complete arrives, that which is partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a babe, I used to speak as a babe, to think as a babe, to reason as a babe; but now that I have become a man, I have done away with the [traits] of a babe. 12 For at present we see in hazy outline by means of a metal mirror, but then it will be face to face. At present I know partially, but then I shall know accurately even as I am accurately known. 13 Now, however, there remain faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
This scripture says that these gifts would end at some point in time. It then goes on to show that this will occur when that which is complete arrives. The Watchtower says it is the bible that is the complete thing and that with the completion of the bible in 98 A.D. the gifts were no longer needed. This is wrong if one reads the whole scripture. Paul says he saw with a hazy mirror but at some stage would see ‘face to face’. What could that mean? Paul did not live to see the completion of the bible. He was not saying that when the bible is completed he would know accurately. It was to be when he sees Jesus in heaven. The scripture also says the gifts would not be done away with until we see accurately. Even now the Organisation admits it sees only partially. Accurate knowledge will not be known until one meets Jesus face to face. That which is complete has not yet arrived and so it is necessary for gifts of the spirit to continue.
There is a further reason it is incorrect to say that ‘that which is complete’ has already arrived and that the gifts of the Holy Spirit have already been ‘done away with’. This can not be correct because Joel prophesied that the Holy Spirit would still be manifest in the Last Days. In the Society’s own words,
Watchtower 1958 January 15 p. 45 Overseers in Apocalyptic Times
“We are living also in the time of final fulfilment of the prophecy to which the apostle Peter referred on the day of Pentecost, namely: “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit.” (Joel 2:28, 29)”
Peter quoted these words of Joel and applied them to the gifts of the Spirit appearing in the last days;
Acts 2:15-18
“These people are, in fact, not drunk, as you suppose, for it is the third hour of the day. On the contrary, this is what was said through the prophet Joel, ‘”And in the last days,” God says, “I shall pour out some of my spirit upon every sort of flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams, and even upon my men slaves and upon my women slaves I will pour out some of my spirit in those days and they will prophesy.’”
It is also historically inaccurate to say the gifts ended with the death of the apostles. In Justin Martyrs Second Apology chapter VI it shows that 50 years after the death of the last apostle healing and exorcisms were continuing to be done by the Christians;
“For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in your city, many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing devils out of the men, though they could not be cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and drugs.”
The Witness explanation of 1Corinthians is also a contradiction of their own beliefs. On the one hand the Witnesses say that their teachings change because that which is perfect is not here. On the other hand they say that the gifts of the Holy Spirit have been done away with because that which is complete or perfect has arrived.
1 Corinthians 13:9 (New American Standard Bible) says;
“10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.”
Proclaimers p.121
“Did they believe that they had all the answers, the full light of truth? To that question Brother Russell pointedly answered: “Certainly not; nor will we have until the ‘perfect day.’” (Prov. 4:18, KJ) Frequently they referred to their Scriptural beliefs as “present truth”—not with any idea that truth itself changes but rather with the thought that their understanding of it was progressive.”
Notice Russell showed that the perfect day is not here, and believed that Truth can not be known until the perfect day arrives in the future.
Isn't that precisely the point of "speaking in tongues"? Acknowledging both the inadequacy of and the need for language?
Uuuuh .....no.
I thought it was for the purpose of relating the news about Jesus in the 1st century to those who came to celebrate Pentecost who spoke other languages and speaking in tongues to these ones eliminated that problem. Where did you get your idea from Narkmeister.....it couldn't have been from the bible could it?
If a person doesn't KNOW what to pray for....it seems a bit arrogant of god to put words in ones mouth for them.What is the purpose of a two way relationship when one has to do all the talking for you?
I can think of a million questions and things I'd like to ask and say to god so I don't see why he'd need to speak 'for' us.
Gumby
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Find ONE person who can interpret someone speaking in another language they do not ALREADY know and I'll eat a dog turd.
I am that man. I can speak and interpret in all tongues....So suck it up..Turd Boy..
I am that man. I can speak and interpret in all tongues....So suck it up..Turd Boy..
Yer higher than a kite.... ya acid poppin burnout! Besides, ya think I'd let YOU interpret what you said in a tongue? You'd just lie and tell me what you said and expect me to believe ya. Ha! Forget about it!
Here's the only guy in the whole wide world I believe to be an authentic tongue speaker.
Speaking in tongues (and the other gifts of the spirit) is the very first doctrine that I disagreed with the witnesses about. In the NWT, 1 Corithians 13:8-10 says:
8 Love never fails. But whether there are [gifts of] prophesying, they will be done away with; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we have partial knowledge and we prophesy partially; 10 but when that which is complete arrives, that which is partial will be done away with.
Since Christ didn't return in 1914, the gifts go on.
It's a simple case of you are what you eat on a spiritual level. If you eat of the fruits of the Spirit, you will receive the gifts of the Spirit. I know that this thought is difficult for some Christians. For anybody who doubts, let me encourage them to try practicing the fruits of the Spirit daily for 6 months and then make a decision as to if the gifts are still here and available in the 21st century.
Fruits of the Spirit from Galations 5:22:
22 On the other hand, the fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, 23 mildness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.
I thought it was for the purpose of relating the news about Jesus in the 1st century to those who came to celebrate Pentecost who spoke other languages and speaking in tongues to these ones eliminated that problem.
Gumsczblrzyckscht,
You're still under the influence that "Pentecost came first" -- I can't blame you, that's what the author of Acts wanted you to believe. But the Pentecost story is actually a late 1st-century legend, largely unechoed in the rest of the NT. The actual practice of glossolaly as existed long before the Pentecost story in some Hellenistic Christian groups, as attested in 1 Corinthians, had nothing to do with multilanguage evangelism: it was an insider's ecstatic, trance-like practice -- see the passages I highlighted in 1 Corinthians above. The Pentecost story refers to this practice but (in part) misrepresents it as a supernatural medium of communication to non-Christians, which was actually never the case.
The actual practice of glossolaly as existed long before the Pentecost story in some Hellenistic Christian groups, as attested in 1 Corinthians, had nothing to do with multilanguage evangelism: it was an insider's ecstatic, trance-like practice
Well well well! See there.....ya learn somethin everyday. I did not know tongues were practiced as such at an earlier date. Narkster....do you have some info on this? I'd like to read up on it a bit so's I can use it in one of my Sunday Sermons that's coming up soon.
Rev Gumby
