Do you speak in tongues?

[AbbasChild]

Tongues ............... just like everything else of God. It is something that is hidden and revealed ............ there is a counterfeit along side the real. Hard to argue with the man with the experience. Would I like to see my children baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues ........... ya betcha, I want everything God has to give them to equip them in this walk.

I have mentioned earlier that I could not imagine not being able to pray in the Spirit. It is an every day occurrence with me and sometimes it is as spontaneous an event as any in my walk. Yesterday I was contemplating a situation and to my surprise I found my self unconsciously praying in the tongues. That blessed me as I find the deeper I walk in Him the more it becomes like a subconscious exercise ........... especially with regard to the difficult areas of life I must pass through. It is as though He is carrying me.

Jack

PS. that ol' tongue is the littlest member and oh my, the power of that little booger .............. there is spirit that would do everything to deny it being given over to God.

Yes, can definetley identify with this.  :thumbsup:

[Hennessey]

I have mentioned earlier that I could not imagine not being able to pray in the Spirit. It is an every day occurrence with me and sometimes it is as spontaneous an event as any in my walk. Yesterday I was contemplating a situation and to my surprise I found my self unconsciously praying in the tongues.

Hi Hennesey,
for my understanding...are you saying that "to pray in the Spirit" one needs to pray in tongues?
Is this you personal conviction or is this indicated in Scripture somewhere?
please enlighten me as I am still only a student.

thanks :thumbsup:

No not necessarily. We may have some confusion over semantics as we often use the term "praying in the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:18, Jude 1:20) to mean praying in tongues.  One can pray with understanding also and that also being Spirit led.

"Where we see that praying in or with the Spirit identified as praying in tongues is I Corinthians 14:14-15 where Paul said, "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding."

blessings and I hope this helps,

Jack

[Hennessey]

Tongues ............... just like everything else of God. It is something that is hidden and revealed ............ there is a counterfeit along side the real. Hard to argue with the man with the experience. Would I like to see my children baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues ........... ya betcha, I want everything God has to give them to equip them in this walk.

I have mentioned earlier that I could not imagine not being able to pray in the Spirit. It is an every day occurrence with me and sometimes it is as spontaneous an event as any in my walk. Yesterday I was contemplating a situation and to my surprise I found my self unconsciously praying in the tongues. That blessed me as I find the deeper I walk in Him the more it becomes like a subconscious exercise ........... especially with regard to the difficult areas of life I must pass through. It is as though He is carrying me.

Jack

PS. that ol' tongue is the littlest member and oh my, the power of that little booger .............. there is spirit that would do everything to deny it being given over to God.

Yes, can definetley identify with this.  :thumbsup:

Hey Floyd, I was hoping sometime you might E-mail me or PM me and let me know how your praying was going. Last time we traded posts you were really being blessed as you entered into new and deeper realms of prayer.

I have thought often of you and wondered how that was going. I was dismissed from the board for awhile and last I heard you were being encouraged to come to America and sell coffee. That was second hand info but it did get me giggling.  :laughing7:

Be blessed my friend,

Jack

[Cardinal]

 :bigGrin: Hi; I've shared this before, but I wouldn't know this if I hadn't experienced it myself. The tongues they heard on the day of Pentecost were not an earthly foreign language, but a spiritual manifestation of a spiritual gift. I read that as Jerusalem was a crossroads, it was estimated that there were probably at least 18 different nations, therefore 18 languages in the audience. The "miracle" of speaking in tongues, was both that they spoke something never heard before, AND that all present heard it supernaturally in THEIR own language. That is not possible with man, but is possible with God.

:cloud9: I was in a church one time where a woman got a gift of tongues message; THIS is the one for unbelievers, not your personal prayer language. Then a few minutes later, and she got the interpretation. The thing was, she said, in tongues the last sentence/syllables 3 times. At the same time she said it, I heard, IN THE SPIRIT, what He said to the body in that thrice repeated phrase. It was, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

:HeartThrob: When she got ready to speak the interpretation, the last three line's interpretation were, "I love you, I love you, I love you." I had heard the tongues with my natural ears, but heard the interpretation with my spiritual ones. THAT is how the gift of tongues works, and the gift of interpretation. It all starts and finishes with the Holy Ghost, who does the works. If it was otherwise, then the Word lies, because we are told the Holy Ghost does the works, and that gifting is a "work" of the Spirit.

:thumbsup: In addition, Jesus came to reverse the curses, and that includes the curse over Babel, where God confused the languages of man. No more confusion; all that are baptized into His Spirit speak with the tongue of the Spirit. Paul said he spoke with the tongues of angels and forbid not to speak in tongues.

  :Shoot: The carnal mind fights this more than anything else, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, it's His enemy. Thus, the tongues of fire come upon our heads, so that no enemy can stand in His presence.

:pointlaugh: I shared once how I was in a church I was led to 3 months after coming to the Lord. I had a man get a word of knowledge for me, while I was waiting to get dressed to get baptized in water in the restroom. It came over the loudspeaker in there, and I had not even been in the sanctuary yet in my life. I came out, and the man that I came to meet there asked me if I had heard the word the pastor got. I told him I had, and knew it was for me. He practically drug me down the aisle. I saw people there lined up, waiting for him to pray for them. I had never seen anything like this in my life, they were falling over backwards as soon as he prayed for them.

:laughing7: I, of course, immediately began to pray that God would forgive me for coming into this la-la-land and asked Him to not let that man touch me like he did the others, convinced he had a bad spirit, LOL.......God didn't let him come near me. He gave me his word for me, and said God said He wants to give you more power if you'll trust Him for it. I thought to myself, "AHA! THAT'S how he gets 'em!" and I wouldn't agree to anything, remaining silent for what seemed like an eternity. I finally gave in, after of course, telling God to myself, that if this is not You I don't want it, just so I could get out of there.

:winkgrin: God had other plans. Just before it hit me right between the eyes, I saw thru my spiritual eyes, the roof open, the heavens opened, and saw a fire with a tail on it like a comet coming thru it and then it hit. I was instantly slain in the Spirit, and laid there spinning within myself it seemed, hearing this really loud tongues inside myself. I had no idea it was IN me, I thought it was the people on the outside of me. After about of half hour of intense peace washing over me and thru me, I was peeled up off the floor by the man who had me go in there. It was 4 months, before it even dawned on me, I had seen the tongues (tail of the comet) of fire that fell on the day of Pentecost. Like Jack said, it's hard to argue with a man with an experience......and you're right Jack.....the tongue no man can tame.......that's why it takes the Spirit of God to tame it. Blessings to you.....

[Hennessey]

That was good Card.  :thumbsup:

[Redlettervoice]

But I remain of the mind that says that speaking in tongues is a sign for UNbelievers

Do you mean other "people" or the "unbelieving" flesh in yourself?

[julzabro2]

either or...them as unbelievers or me when I was one. It's a sign. But, now, we have the mind of Christ...don't we?

[Kratos]

You can certainly be led by the Spirit in all that we do including praying in English. But, Pauls said that when you pray in the spirit your spirit prays and your mind is unfruitful. So praying in the spirit is praying in other tongues.

Jude said that we build up our most holy faith praying in the spirit. Jesus taught that faith grows as it is used and it takes faith to pray in a language that you don not understand, and thus, your mind is unfruitful. We are so dependent upon our natural mind to live in this world that it is hard at first to put your mind in neutral and to let your spirit pray through your yielded tongue. But it gets easier as your faith is grown in this way.

Another added bonus is that you can use praying in tongues to purposely quiet your mind when your are fretting or worrying over what to do in a situation. When I find myself at a crossroad and lying in bed trying to decide what to do by weighing my options with my mind, I often will start to pray in the spirit to make my mind shut up so I can hear God on the matter. Once I pray through my mind screaming like an unweined child for attention, my mind shuts down or becomes unfruitful and the answer can then seap up from my spirit to my understanding.

John

[Hennessey]

Another added bonus is that you can use praying in tongues to purposely quiet your mind when your are fretting or worrying over what to do in a situation. When I find myself at a crossroad and lying in bed trying to decide what to do by weighing my options with my mind, I often will start to pray in the spirit to make my mind shut up so I can hear God on the matter. Once I pray through my mind screaming like an unweined child for attention, my mind shuts down or becomes unfruitful and the answer can then seap up from my spirit to my understanding.

John, that is so big. One of the reasons I could never think of not having such a gift. I wrote of it in an earlier post.

Thanks,

Jack

PS  also works well in emergencies when our minds are frozen in fear or just bewildered ............. "miraculous" is the description I would use.

[noname]

But, now, we have the mind of Christ...don't we?

Exactly!...is the mind of Christ and the spirit of Christ two things and do they contradict each other?
Aren't we to love God with our "whole heart, mind and soul"?

I see a lot of references made to Paul when referring to speaking in tongues...are there other witnesses to this besides Paul or that which he wrote?
I can't find in Scripture any references involving Jesus or the twelve appointed apostles...this worries me somewhat

as Cardinal earlier stated, the tongues at Pentecost were languages that people could understand (earthly languages being spoken where the Jews/Israel resided)..I do not see any mention of "special prayer languages" or "tongues"

if this is a doctrine it is indeed a strange one, as i do not see Jesus or his apostles referring to it or staing that it is necessary for any kind of prayer..if the Master does not require it, then it is not necessary...simple as that (for me anyway)

[Michael Dankoski]

Paul spoke of tongues of angels and of men, and James said that if any man could bridle the tongue, the same was a perfect man. I therefore see tongues as a means to perfect us. Not that it is needed to come into perfection, but rather as an aid. I do speak in tongues. Also, not all tongues are known languages, else why did Paul say that some have the gift of interpretation? A Chinese visitor hearing me speak in Chinese (just an example) wouldn't need any interpreter.

Tongues in church is for a sign to the unbelievers, and in some instances it can be confirmation to a believer when it is accompanied by interpretation, knowing that what was spoken was not planned, but came directly from the Lord.

Tongues in private is for personal edification, and an aid in bringing oneself into submission and perfection.

Tongues were never to be the evidence of having the Holy Spirit. It was to be a sign, in church, to the unbelievers, that the Lord was in control of His people, to bring them to Christ.

Not speaking in tongues is also not a sign of not having the Holy spirit. The only thing it is a sign of is that you don't speak in tongues! It doesn't make you any less spiritual, either.

I heard a preacher (who did speak in tongues) say once, that the sign of receiving the Holy Spirit wasn't speaking in tongues, it was opening your mouth, and for the first time in your life, nothing stupid came out! (he was kidding)

[rockclimber]

yes i do, for about 25 years now.

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Hi; I think you misunderstood what I was saying about those known languages. They HEARD the tongues (unknown language of the Spirit) in their own known language. That is the miracle of the gift. The people weren't speaking known languages; the witnesses there said, "How is it that we HEAR every man in our own language....". God plants the hearing ear, and He allowed all present to hear what the Spirit was saying thru these men that day, each in their own language. If 18 different languages were actually being spoken at the same time thru a whole lot of people, no one would have heard anything!

Conversely, I have been present in church when a man got a gift of tongues, a message given to the body that turned out to be for a visiting unbeliever, who happened to be from the Ukraine. She stood up sobbing afterwards, asking if that man knew her birth language, because it was her language and the word was for her. Got has and continues to do some marvelous things thru the speaking gifts He imparts thru His Spirit.

I met a minister once who was told to come to this country to speak, for the first time. Problem was he didn't know any English. He was assured an interpreter would meet him at the airport. He arrived, no interpreter, but the person who met him there took him where he was to speak that night. He was panicking, asking God what to do. God told him to open his mouth and He would fill it. He spoke for 2 hours in an unknown (to him) language. He could tell it must be good, because the people were nodding in agreement sometimes, laughing in others. The language was English.

There is a place in there, where it was said that Jesus groaned within himself with groans that could not be uttered. I believe that was from spiritual intercession, because I too, have experienced the Spirit taking me into travail like that. But the main reason I think there is no witness to it, is because He had the Spirit without measure as the Head, and the earnest of our inheritance, literally means "a portion". He gave us a portion, and Paul was called apparently to be the one that explained how that portion operated thru the gifts.

Off topic a little here, but remember Paul was not taught by the apostles, but by the Lord Himself, after His death and ascension. I think that was why he was given what he was. He didn't have the memory of the flesh of Jesus; he knew Him after the Spirit, not after the flesh and so said we are to from henceforth, know no man after the flesh. Peter was the only one, it seems, that got the revelation from the Father, as to who was really speaking to him thru the man Jesus, when He walked in the flesh, ie. "Thou are the Christ, the son of the living God." Flesh and blood cannot reveal that to you, but only the Father, which is in heaven.

Paul had that revelation another way, when He saw NO MAN, but only a great light that told him he was persecuting HIM, in a people, a many-membered body, multiple habitations, a city made without hands. Blessings.......

[julzabro2]

Excellent points, Cardinal! Thank you for that!  :bigGrin:

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Wanted to add something else here.....the soul is the candle of the Lord. What does a lit candle look like, but something with a "tongue" of fire on it? Without the baptism, our candle is not "lit", and since God is a consuming fire and desires to consume our soul..........well, you do the math  :wink1:

[Hennessey]

:cloud9: Wanted to add something else here.....the soul is the candle of the Lord. What does a lit candle look like, but something with a "tongue" of fire on it? Without the baptism, our candle is not "lit", and since God is a consuming fire and desires to consume our soul..........well, you do the math  :wink1:

LOL Good one!

[julzabro2]

I have a question....to those of you who have spoken in tongues or witnessed it. Do you think when the Bible says "speaking in tongues" or "gift of tongues" that it ONLY refers to the actual/literal speaking in tongues or do you suppose that it also refers to the fact that those who are young in faith will not understand what those who have spiritually matured will see????

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: I think the Bible was actually talking about the spiritual gifts. But I also think that from a spiritual perspective, sometimes it does sound like someone is speaking in another tongue by virtue of what has been made life in them, by the Spirit. It's only natural, since His ways are not our ways. Was that what you meant?

[julzabro2]

Yeah, that's what I meant... :bigGrin:

I guess I always wonder, tho, if there is a copy of the gifts as other things...as there was a copy of the temple, the feasts, the Sabbath

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Sure there is.....one only had to turn on the TV to see any number of counterfeits such as "psychics", ect. And He knew there would be, because Satan comes IMMEDIATELY to steal, that's his job and he does it very well. So that's why He told us He would not give us a stone, a snake, ect. if we ask Him for something.

[Taffy]

I have a question....to those of you who have spoken in tongues or witnessed it. Do you think when the Bible says "speaking in tongues" or "gift of tongues" that it ONLY refers to the actual/literal speaking in tongues or do you suppose that it also refers to the fact that those who are young in faith will not understand what those who have spiritually matured will see????

Valid question J2.

For mine, I would agree with the latter.
When paul spoke ,he told us when he was a child he spoke as a child  [as one who was yet to be born of the promise - ie still a pharisee as one UNDER Law]  bY THIS he spoke in one Tongue,( purely carnal and physical by the literal sence of the LAW] but when the spirit was Given at Pentecost ,ALL THINGS not only tongues became New , therefore  he spoke with a "spiritual tongue " comparing spiritual with spiritual.

[Why are the Pharisees often referred to as Deaf [or blind- no eyes to SEE or HEAR) for mine they walked by LAW not by faith, therefore still carnal and blind to the spiritual truth which the law pointed us toward , Christ Himself.

In Conclusion , again for mine, Paul talked [if you will in tongues,) one to those under the law still but babes ( carnal) and another to those who were walking by Faith , Now SONS and HEIRS , who Understood the spiritual Reality of the written Law and its true purpose who could HEAR the TRUTH= Christ) NO LONGER tossed to and fro confusing Law with Faith WHICH MANY EARLY CONVERTS were still struggling with.



just my two pennies J2 :2c:

Blessings
Taffy

[Cardinal]

 :2c: What you are seeing is true for a reason. Everything in the natural is a mirror image of some truth that exists in His Spirit, because He poured Himself into His creation. Therefore, He cannot be any less in the natural than what He is in the Spirit. What you are seeing is the natural truth that witnesses a spiritual one. Blessings to all......

[Kratos]

As far as Jesus and the original 12 speaking in tongues I would add two things. (1) There are certain things that God keeps to Himself as far as times and seasons. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues came "when the Day of Pentecost was fully come". This was a fulfillment of the type and shadow when the children of Israel met God on Sinai to learn His laws and ways and to begin being led by His Spirit. No one, not even Jesus and the original 12 could receive this gift until this time was fully come. (2) The purpose of the Baptism was to give us the ability to follow God and learn His Word which was not necessary when the living Word was there among them. Jesus said that when He wnet away, He would not leave them comfortless, but would send the promise of the Spirit which had been given to the fathers. Jesus was perfected in hearing God so had no need of this gift and 11 of the 12 (excepting Judas) were in the upper room and received this gift and ability when the time was right. Jesus instructed them after His resurrection to wait in Jerusalem for it.

John

[julzabro2]

I agree, Taffy!  :thumbsup:

I don't want to imply that I discount those who have claimed to "literally" speak in tongues, but I was given the same understanding as you....at least, thus far.

Thanks for that and, btw, I like how you called me J2....that's a kool abbreviation! :winkgrin:

[Taffy]

I agree, Taffy!  :thumbsup:

I don't want to imply that I discount those who have claimed to "literally" speak in tongues, but I was given the same understanding as you....at least, thus far.

Thanks for that and, btw, I like how you called me J2....that's a kool abbreviation! :winkgrin:

J2..thats cool..Glad ya like it , saves me typos...he ha!

At times ,Its encouraging to know others  see what you also do....sort a makes you feel a part of the Body. :icon_flower:

Blessings Taffy