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Have we restricted the work of the Holy Spirit by focusing almost exclusively on Spirit baptism as a personal experience and neglected the Spirit’s global and cosmic work? Link HudsonNTGlossolalia.pdf
John Kissinger [10/20/2015 8:37 PM]
Glossolalia, however, does not occur in a vacuum. It is a characteristic of a change and transformation of ecclesiastical religiosity to a personal experience. Glossolalia almost always occurs among people who seem to be economically unable, politically oppressed or even persecuted, and often culturally displaced by society. As Harvey Cox precisely points out, in such a context “glossolalia is a mystical-experiential protest against the existing religious language.”
Link Hudson [10/20/2015 8:41 PM]
I don’t know if we have restricted the work of the Spirit, but I do think American Pentecostals and American Christians in general can have a way too individualistic way of interpreting the Bible.
Link Hudson [10/20/2015 8:42 PM]
The Pentecostal movement in the US grew among poorer working classes, but the Charismatic movement seems to have grown among more middle class and well-to-do folks
Charles Page [10/20/2015 10:08 PM]
I tend toward Primitive Baptist belief and the greatest oversight by even them (monergistic regeneration) is the miracle of immediate new birth by the Holy Ghost!
John Ruffle [10/20/2015 11:45 PM]
It’s a 20 page document. Can someone provide an abstract please?
John Kissinger [10/21/2015 7:36 AM]
Full study on “speaking of tongues”. Link what were your questions to this particular study, if you can repost them here
Link Hudson [10/21/2015 6:05 PM]
Here is my previous post, John Kissinger
I had a look at the paper you posted. Did you write that? If so, can those of us who don’t know Bulgarian script refer to you as Brother Dony?
I am curious what your denominational heritage is, especially since you asked and I told you mine.
Your paper would make a good intro to speaking in tongues to someone who is a bit academically inclined who isn’t that familiar with it. I found the improvement to mental health part to be very interesting, too.
Specifically, which aspects of the paper do you want to draw attention to in relation to what I wrote?
What I wrote was similar to the view expressed in this quote by F.J. May in your paper.
“In a single, individual setting glossolalia occurs as the initial evidence and devotional tongues. In a group, corporate ecclesiastical setting, when interpretation is offered, it will be used as the charisma.”35
The only difference I’d take with that is that, although Luke may not call speaking in tongues ‘charism’ in those contexts, conceptually I think it is hard to argue that ‘initial evidence’ is not charisma. It would be hard to argue that they do not come by God’s grace. We don’t earn the right to speak with tongues.
The author, D.F. may allows for inital evidence. That’s a one-time thing for an individual or group baptized with the Holy Spirit. He allows for devotional tongues. That’s in private. He allows for tongues with interpretation in a group setting. This seems to be a reasonable approach to the issue for me.
These other sections I quote below seem to be assertions, but where is the Biblical evidence that we are supposed to have corporate prayer in tongues? If Paul corrected those who would pray as individuals in tongues without interpretation for not edifying others, saying that in the church he’d rather speak 5 words with his understanding that he may instruct others than 10,000 words in an unknown tongue, then why would everyone praying in tongues together be desirable?
My experience with the A/G is that it tends to be against the mass speaking in tongues side of things. I’m sure there is a bit of variety though and that not every pastor tows the A/G Bible college line on this issue. Praying in tongues at the same time is really common in the Charismatic movement. Then some–not all– of the people from the Holiness denominational backgrounds, COG, CH, etc. think that if you can speak in tongues at a particular moment, you are supposed to. Some people form those backgrounds are, or used to be, skeptical of the prayer language idea, that someone could speak in tongues whenever they wanted. The Congregational Holiness even addressed this idea specifically in their membership book back in the 1990’s. But I think the idea of a prayer language is making more of an in-roads as Pentecostal groups influence each other and as some people int he group have different experiences with the Holy Spirit. The idea of sanctification as a distinct one-time event post salvation is less popular than it used to be in some of these groups.
>>Further conclusion will be made that beside phenomenal experience, glossolalia is also a corporate experience, which occurs persistently through the New Testament ecclesiastical practice. This leads us into the next question of priority on the purpose of glossolalia.<< Glossalalia was a corporate experience on occasions when a whole group of people were baptized with the Spirit at the same time. Saying we should all pray in tongues and use our 'devotional tongues' at the same time is something different. The idea that someone who gets excited and feels he can speak in tongues should just do so, even after he knows there is no interpreter is another issue. IMO, the argument that tongues and interpretation and prophecy are 'equivalent' is a bit overargued by some Pentecostals. In those opening verses to the chapter, tongues are directed to God, and prophecy is directed to man. Some people argue that tongues are always prayers because of that, even when interpreted. I suppose you could argue that those intepretations that are prophecies are actually prophecies given during the gap of time when no interpreter spoke up to interpret a tongue. I'm not totally sold on it because of this. 6. Now, brethren, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how can I help you unless what I say to you conveys a revelation, knowledge, prophecy or teaching? I find it interesting that the article cites Hagin a few times. Are you a Kenneth Hagin fan, or is it hard to find more "Pentecostal" sources that deal with the nitty gritty in the detail he did? He was in the A/G for a while, though. I've heard he had some Baptist theology on certain issues.
John Kissinger [10/21/2015 8:25 PM]
so all you’re saying is that initial evidence and the gift of tongues are two different expressions of the same phenomenon?
Link Hudson [10/21/2015 8:28 PM]
John Kissinger I’d agree with that. Both are ‘speaking with tongues.’
John Kissinger [10/21/2015 8:30 PM]
in this case I’ve nothing to argue and you didn’t at least read the paper (except the great FJ May quote which you should know from CoG)
Link Hudson [10/21/2015 8:35 PM]
I read the paper.
Link Hudson [10/21/2015 8:36 PM]
John Kissinger I’m not quite sure what your objection was with what I’ve written either, or why you called it ‘Baptist’.
Link Hudson [10/21/2015 8:41 PM]
Btw, in a couple of places in the paper, you wrote about corporate tongues as something that should be an ongoing part of church practice. I don’t agree with that. The Bible doesn’t teach that, and it was probably either the corporate use of tongues, or uninterpreted individual use of tongues, or both, that Paul is correcting in I Corinthians 14:27-28. Paul does say, ‘and that by course’ in the ‘commandments of the Lord’ for tongues that any prophet or spiritually gifted person should acknowledge. All the examples of ‘corporate tongues’ we see in Acts were first time events in the lives of those people, who were empowered with the Spirit.
John Kissinger [10/22/2015 6:48 AM]
Link I will review and post here. Honestly now I cant remember 🙂
John Kissinger [10/22/2015 5:10 PM]
(1) If the term “spiritual songs” refers to Songs in the Spirit i.e. in tongues a corporate speaking in tongues is a Biblical doctrine, (2) Then also in the Bible, we have an angelic choir singing (hopefully in angelic tongues) as a corporate expression, (3) Day of Pentecost is the prime example of corporate speaking in tongues especially if you believe in initial evidence. In many of of our services when multiple people get baptized in the Holy Spirit, they all speak in tongues. We cannot order the Spirit when to baptize them and give them utterance to speak in tongues!
