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When the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentacost, the disciples began speaking in tongues. What is the function of this gift of the Spirit? How does the gift of tongues help us understand the Holy Spirit?

Being a member of the CRC it seems increasingly difficult to even approach speaking in tongues. If there is one short coming of the reformed tradition it is a lack of emphasis on the holy spirit. The father is talked about, Jesus is talked about, but outside of Pentacost sunday, very rarely is the spirit talked about, and even then there seems to be an unfortunate uncomfortability in congregations.
I had a pair of sisters in class who attended a pentacostal church. They had this wonderfully straightforward attitude toward the spirit—as if to say: “Yeah we speak in tongues; don’t you?”
Their explanation was that sometimes God moves you in ways you are incapable of expressing by yourself. When you speak in tongues, the spirit moves on you in such a way as to express these inexpressible thoughts outside of the common English language. It was also maintained that, if truly in the spirit, another person will be blessed with the ability to translate. This, the girls said, helped to maintain a true community of worship in which several, sometimes all, members worked together to praise, and understand the Spirit and God in ways that just one could not. It brought new meaning to “Where two or three are gathered together”.
Unfortunately I still feel a bit uncomfortable talking about the spirit. I just don’t know how to approach it. I’d like to be in a state of worship where God speaks something so wonderful to me that I’m incapable of expressing His feeling of love and joy. And at the same time it scares the heck out of me. When I was a boy reading the Bible, I prayed that God would never talk to me or show his face to me because I would just freak out. The spirit, any spirits, have a tendency to confuse and to frighten. Sometimes with dread and sometimes with the fear of God. Either way, it is scary to think about. Though just like watching a horror movie (Great article Kirstin) there is often an unaccountable urge to see what its about.
Leo Kottke tells a story about looking at a book about jungle diseases. It freaks him out and he get’s “sicker” as he goes along, but he just can’t look away. I guess that would serve to summarize my ideas of the holy spirit.
Does anybody have any first person accounts to relate with the Holy Ghost? I’ve had instances where I’ve felt the supernatural but nothing more than a vague feeling-an ambiguous inkling. Anybody have something more solid?

I think that is best to read the 2nd Chapter of Acts in it’s entirety if one is to truly understand what exactly happened on that day of Pentecost. A small snipit shed more light on this miracle:
Acts 2:4 -8"And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterence. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?"

I often am intrigued with the taking of this passage into what groups within the Church use it for. It seem so often that vs 2 is cited as undeniable proof of the realization of some estatic utterance, but then never follows the coninuation of the passage in which men, who of devout character (but seemingly without Truth) heard the Gospel message in their own languages. That day thousands were saved because of the miracle that the Holy Spirit performed through the early church. In the reference of the modern day “speaking in tongues” it is more referenced as a “personal prayer language” which does not seem to have much Biblical backing. Even if it did, this event is no proof of that. This event was a miracle of the preaching of God’s Word and the acceptance of Christ by people who were barriered by a language difference. God created languages (Tower Of Babel) so it is no wonder that he can cross that divide with great ease.

It should also be noted that many of the Spirit filled men and women went on to establish the Church in other parts of the world, using the gift that was given to them. It wasn’t something that was confined to a prayer closet, and it wasn’t something that left spectators wondering what the babble was all about. It was an evengelistic tool, given by the Spirit, to those who were ready to dedicate their lives to spreading the Good News at all cost. Many, if not most, of these touched men and women died preaching the Word.

Every gift of the Spirit is given for this specific reason: The spreading of the Gospel and the further salvation of those who hear.

there seems to be two ways of understanding “speaking in tongues.”

one is the notion of speaking in a totally new language inspired by the Holy Spirit.

the other is simply being able to speak in an existing language that one has never spoken before.

are all references to speaking in tongues referring to one or the other of these definitions? the Acts passage that JabirdV refers to seems to imply the second definition. where in Scripture do we have evidence that speaking in tongues implies the first definition?

I don’t know if such a passage exists, and I’m not sure that that was what I was implying. Again, I heard this from a student of mine who had spoken in tongues on at least one occasion. She did say that there was someone who translated what she said to what everyone in the church could understand. She did not know or recall which language (if it was an established language at all) came out of her mouth. Does anybody have first hand knowledge of speaking in tongues? Has anybody done it? translated? witnessed? It will be hard to get a solid understanding, I think, without a first person account.

I have only seen one experience in the gift of “languages” whereas I have seen a plethora of churches that practice the “estatic utterance”.
The first was a missionary to central america who was “led” by the Holy Spirit to drive to Costa Rica as opposed to flying there. (In Costa Rica there is a major school that teaches spanish where the majority of the missionaries headed for Latin America study) He sent his family ahead via airplane and he drove as he felt instructed. On his trip down he felt the instigation of the HS to stop and preach in a village in Mexico. While not knowing the language, he obeyed and got out of his vehicle. What he expressed to our family was that the HS came over him in a way he had never before experienced and when he opened his mouth he was speaking Spanish as fluently as a native Hispanic. To this day he speaks and reads spanish fluently and is a missionary in South America. I should add that the entire village was saved and a major church plant happened due to his obedience. It is worth pointing out that he both spoke and understood what he was saying, and the Gospel was preached as a result of his obedience as well as the miracle he experienced that day.

The other form of tongues, being the “estatic utterance” I have witnessed in many churches. There have been few instances where I have witnessed interpretation, only the chaos of many people jabbering in an “unkown tongue”. The unbelievers, also witnessing these events, typically left unbelieving and much more scheptical of the Gospel. It seems that in these situations the experience is referred to as “a way for the spirit (of a man) to speak of things (or in ways) that the speaker’s language capabilities cannot”. Or at least that is how it has been described to me by practitioners. As I have observed, nothing is spiritually learned…only verbally expressed in an unintelligable way. Often also refered to as a “personal prayer language” it seems that this phenomenon is primarially spoken of as a form of “self edification” and not as a form of edification of the church.
Personally, I cannot see purpose in this, nor do I see Biblical backing for it. 1 Cor. 12 gives us interesting rundown of the gifts of the spirit as used within the church. Within them, as Paul writes, there is to be unity and edification of the church. It should be noted that the purpose of the letter to the Corinthians, in part, was to correct some rather selfish activity within the church of Corinth in regards to their interpretations of certain gifts.

One more thing that I will throw out, but will preface it by saying that for the most part it is hearsay seeing as I did not witness the event, is the story of a woman I met in Brazil many years ago who came to the US for a church event and attended a church that practiced “speaking in tongues” as in the estatic utterance. What she heard was many of the congregants of the church speaking in a language that she had grown up with as a child in Brazil. What they were saying, while thinking they were praising God and worshipping as they spoke in “tongues”, was actually blasphemies and damnations towards Christ. She quickly hiked out of the church.

As I read the scriptures, it would seem that God always keeps His people pretty well informed as to what He is saying to them and through them and always uses the same methods which He has structured since the begining. It is in this way that we can see evidence of His overall design and subsequently His personality and character.

So this was from quite a while ago, but I had a conversation with an acquaintance that jogged my memory about this post. I had to re-open it.

Tonight as I was leaving to go back to work I met up with a guy who grew up in a “charismatic” church (as in “four square, Pentecostal, tongue speaking demon fleeing church” – his quote). He and I chatted a bit and Benny Hinn came up…He asked my thoughts and I gave them to him and somehow the quick conversation ended up on the topic of tongues.

Now I don’t feel that I am that most open guy to change, but I do know that if the Bible explains it then I will believe it (even if I don’t fully understand it). As he was telling me about how many demonic shadows he has made to flee by speaking in tongues, I interrupted and asked his what his biblical reference was for the basis of his belief in the gift of the estatic utterance. He went on to emphasize the extent of his experience in the matter and how he has seen so many “things” and how the evil just vanishes when you speak the language of the angels that the Devil doesn’t know and is scared of. Now I had to stop him right there because, “Come on, you do know that Satan was the biggest baddest angel until he was thrown out of heaven…how can he not know this angelic language if that is true?” to which he said he had no reply. I again asked him what his biblical basis for his belief was and he said that in reality that did not matter. His experiences supersede everything, and he was sure of his experiences and thus sure of his beliefs. I very quietly (and quickly) shook his hand and thanked him for the conversation, reminding him that I had to get going to work. I have been replaying our conversation through my head for the past hour and cannot get around it.

I am frightened that there are some who are putting the sum of their emotions and “experiences” on a pedestal that rivals or supersedes the authority of the scriptures. I was reminded of a church in Munster, IN that churned out a lot of the same philosophies and am dumbfounded that a church could teach people these philosophies.

Has anyone else ever run into this and what is the approach one should take (if any) to help these believers understand the concept of Biblical integrity?

i would have to say that the opinion of your friend is more than just common but, from my experience, is actually prevalent among evangelical xns and sadly, at least in my opinion, among alot of reformed types. at least from my experience in bible classes many find the idea that the Bible’s assertions supercedes any experiences that we suppose ourselves to have had a bit offensive. i am all for living xn lives according to one’s conscience but i still believe that the basis of any of my ideas on right living, belief, or action should be the Bible.

i am not sure how to best go about convincing others that sola scriptura is the correct way of approaching xnity. i think it just depends on the person you are talking to. sometimes gentle questioning about why they think this way is a good way to get them to think about why the believe and think the way they do.

Jabird, it is my understanding that the Quakers, whose roots go back more than 150 years (and whose cultural influence has been great in America), have always believed that experience trumps scripture in certain cases. It is essentially a belief that the “canon” of scripture is not closed—that the Spirit is adding to it yet today. Who’s to say it’s not so?

Point taken, who am I to tell God He is not allowed to reveal Himself in any new ways. Sill find it extremely hard to believe something so “spiritual” when it isn’t “scriptural”. The revelations of God cannot contradict the scriptures less God be contradicting Himself.

dan, you have a point with the quakers and i don’t necessarily want to doubt the validity of others spiritual experiences. however, i have to wonder about the human tendency to be ‘self-deception junkies’. we all tell ourselves lies to make everything okay and most of the time the lies we tell ourselves are just as important as any truth we cling too. i have to wonder about things like the ‘toronto blessing’, quakerism, and similiar occurances and groups where the individual experience is the trump card.

mostly i wonder at them because they seem to be entirely modern and contemporary occurences; they seem to have more to with our perception of religion, spirituality, and God then say history or the Bible. These all are not necessarily mutually exclusive but it seems to me that modern spirituality (beginning in the 18th c. see german pietism, moravianism, and its spread into english religious culture and then america, i.e the great awakening) is wholly concerned with the individual and her ‘experiences’ with God to the exclusion of a wider community of faith or the thoughtful consideration and development of belief. the Bible never talks about Jesus as a personal saviour nor the idea that just because ‘i believe it to be so it is’. these are thoroughly modern ideas, some of the language of conscience pops up much earlier in the via moderna, luther, calvin, and other reformers but it does not really take off in popular religion till much later. i realize this is a bit drawn out but it explains my objection and reservations to experience trumping scripture. honestly what gives me or anyone else to assert that what i say or experience is true just because i believe it is?