by jwfacts 25 Replies latest watchtower bible
JW"facts" wrote: "Damn, I spent 5 minutes trying to work out what it meant, and thought I almost had it. Any comments anyone on whether they think the Bible shows that we still should be speaking in tongues?"
Mad writes: GwEHFAWGFHCVGSD qa;sfgDFGWWGFADFBJFGB BADWLAEILT!
Mad, Typical JW reaction to avoid answering difficult questions by deflection.
Your questions could be asked of the first century Christians as well. How was their need to use miracles any different than today? If Jehovah only operates through one newly established Organization today there is as much need for a sign to prove who that is as there was in the first century.
In regards to the first two questions:
(1) Is it possible to have the Gifts of the Spirit if you do not know who God REALLY is, and if you do not obey His son?
This is based on the flawed JW concept that only they know God. Every fundamentalist religion thinks that only they know God. This very morning I had a Seventh Day Adventist come and tell me the same.
(2) Is there anyone on Earth who DEMONSTRATES such gifts- which included raising the dead, and, as Christ did, healing EVERY sort of infirmity-weteher the person has faith or not?,
Yes, many religions make that claim. Whether they can be believed is a different matter.
Any comments anyone on whether they think the Bible shows that we still should be speaking in tongues?
Nothing at all implies that the gifts of the spirit would cease. The bestowal of the Spirit in fact is construed as a harbinger of the eschaton (Acts 2:17-21), not as a temporary phase.
One may find good examples of Jewish-Christian ecstatic speech in the pseudepigrapha and in early gnostic works. There is a merkabah vision in the Ladder of Jacob (c. first century AD), which contains the following exclamation: "Holy, holy, holy Yao, Yaova, Yaoil, Yao, Kados Chavod Savaoth, Omlemelech il avir amismi varich" (2:18). This is very broken Hebrew, or rather, a string of OT divine epithets, e.g. Yhw "Yahweh", qdwsh "holy", kbd "glory", tsb'wt "hosts", 'wlm mlk "eternal king", 'l 'byr "Bull El," 'myts "firm, steadfast," brwk "blessed". Since Jews in the Hellenistic diaspora had lost much of their first-language competance in Hebrew, such Hebrew words long associated with religiosity came to be invested with magical and mystical connotations, so it is not unusual to find them in ecstatic speech. One may also note Paul's use of Isaiah 28:11-12 in 1 Corinthains 14:21 which likens the speech of disobediant prophets to intoxicated drunkards and babbling children; the Hebrew of the preceding verse (v. 10), in fact, gives a sample of the kind of nonsense speech: tsaw latsaw, tsaw latsaw, qaw laqaw, qaw laqaw, ze'er sham, ze'er sham. It is clear from the rhetoric of ch. 12-14 of 1 Corinthians that glossolalia was already exceptionally popular in the church at Corinth and rather than banning it outright he tried to divert interest from it to other (more upbuilding) pursuits. This is intelligible because ecstatic religosity was a prominent feature of Hellenistic mystery cults in the area and Gentile converts brought such practices with them into the church.
Speaking in tongues from my reading of the bible seems to mean an unintelligable language or a heavanly language. Many Seventh Day Adventists in Africa also attend penticostal meetings to have the experiance of speaking in tongues. Barry
Great information Leo.
Barry, I had a 7th Day Adventist knock on my door this morning, a you man that had just converted. He was very strongly in favour of Ellen Whites teachings, and was explaining her prophecy that the US would shortly make the Sunday Sacred.
I believe many churches today seek after this gift as it is a "showy" gift.
I have always been curious but do not have the gift of tongues.
However, I spoke in tongues one time about 15 years ago. I was by myself praying because I just found out some information from the dentist than my front tooth way dying and I had to have a root canal. On top of that, I had one continuous problem that was not getting resolved and it cause me great discomfort.
So, I began to pray and like a mighty rushing from behind, I felt tingling as if I was being hugged by God Himself and I just began praying in tongues really fast. It was effortless, certainly wasn't from me at all and I wanted to keep praying like that.
Had absolutely NO idea what I was saying, but I started out praying for my situation.
It was awesome.
Has never happened since that day.
JW'fact'- wrote: " Mad, Typical JW reaction to avoid answering difficult questions by deflection."
Mad: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO! And you said that with a straight face! You're guilty of what you accuse ME of- and I will NOT avoid a question- unless the one asking (like 'Kid-a') is just out to ridicule; it looks to me as if YOU are that type. I asked sincere questions you avoided and didn't answer at all...Hari Krisna!
Counter-intuitively to the average Bible reader, Acts 2 cannot be taken as a "starting point" on glossolalia (aka speaking in tongues).
The early practice of Hellenistic churches is better depicted in 1 Corinthians: it has little to do with foreign languages (although it may have included some Semitic "words" with a mysterious or magical sounding to Greek ears, such as the few Aramaic words scattered in the Gospels or Pauline letters); it was an ecstatic phenomenon which did not result in any understandable message unless someone "interpreted" it under a similarly ecstatic "inspiration".
Acts 2 does refer to this practice but builds it into something entirely different (a literary miracle, so to say): either the disciples inspired to speak actual foreign languages which they never learnt (xenoglossia), or the hearers made to understand the "speaking in tongues" as speech in their own language -- the text hesitates between those two mutually exclusive versions of the story.
The first version of glossolalia was probably not very different from the current practice of Pentecostal churches. The second was most likely a pious fiction, as are similar stories today.
Glossolalia is fascinating as a popular subversion of language. Branding it as demonic is not exclusive to JWs (the WT stories about it are most probably drawn from mainstream churches books which equally frowned down upon this practice). Depending on the authority's mindset, it may be felt as a threat to mind control or be used as a tool for mind control.
Thanks Nark
