1 Corinthians (various passages) - Paul is not a happy apostle

[unsafe]

I have the gift of tongues and it received it after I received Jesus as my Lord and Saviour ----this gift is very powerful and when you speak in tongues your speaking to God not man ----in a church setting you need and interpreter but not when you personally use this gift ------

Speaking in tongues edifies the person ------it builds faith ---so the person stands strong in their Faith ------very powerful gift ------


Strong's Concordance
oikodomeó: to build a house
Usage:; fig. of the building up of character: I build up, edify, encourage.
(figuratively) to edify – literally, "build someone up," helping them to stand (be strong, "sturdy").

This gift is alive and well today as are the other gifts -----blackbelt and airclean both had this gift as well ----

Paul said ----

​

 

[paradox3]

I worked with a very committed Christian years ago who told me she had a "prayer language". She never described this as speaking in tongues but I often wondered if that's what she meant. It seemed like she prayed for extended periods of time.

 

[Mystic]

I worked with a very committed Christian years ago who told me she had a "prayer language". She never described this as speaking in tongues but I often wondered if that's what she meant. It seemed like she prayed for extended periods of time.

There's no question that she was referring to speaking in tongues:
"But if there is no one to interpret (the tongues), let them speak to themselves and to God (at home or in a prayer group of like-minded seekers--14:28)."

When evangelicals debate the sense in which the Bible is divinely inspired, I try to change the subject to the incompleteness of biblical revelation. Here is one example that I stress: Paul urges us to "zealously strive for spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1)," but he doesn't offer specifics on how to strive.
Of course, a willingness to intensify one's longing for more of God is part of it. But trying to speak in tongues can become a fetish like the pursuit of a drug high and can easily produce a counterfeit version of the gift that is nothing but wishful thinking. It's important to understand the gifts you seek, but then to focus on more of the Giver rather than the gift. The real gift takes you by surprise in a kind of divine ambush.

In my case, I (at age 16) knelt at an altar in a Pentecostal campground's amphitheater by Pelican Lake, Manitoba, with my heart feeling disillusioned and like stone, determined not to succumb to wishful thinking. The ambush came in the form of "a rushing mighty wind" (as in Acts 2:2) that I at first misconstrued as a breeze coming off the lake. But in fact it was the Holy Spirit overpowering my resistance and possessing me with wave after wave of ever intensifying liquid love until I feared my puny ego would be absorbed in God mind. Eyewitnesses later told me my face was glowing in the darkening amphitheater. A visiting Lutheran minister interrupted me to tell me he didn't believe in speaking in tongues and was just there as an interested spectator. In that ecstatic state I just gently touched his forehead and he exploded in other tongues!

 

[paradox3]

Thanks @Mystic for confirming she was speaking in tongues. I have never witnessed this happening and it is not part of my own faith tradition.

I confess to being skeptical about some of these things. I often wonder if there might be a physical explanation of some sort.

 

[paradox3]

As an example of a physical explanation, sleep deprivation has been shown experimentally to produce hallucinations.

There are theories about Paul's visions which suggest he might have had a form of epilepsy.

As some here will know, I am a long time insulin user. Hypoglycemic reactions to insulin (low blood sugars) produce a variety of unpleasant symptoms. One of my earliest warning signals is a visual disturbance which involves light.

Neither my endocrinologist nor my opthalmologist is concerned about this. Apparently it is not terribly common but not unheard of. People who get migraines sometimes have similar things happen.

If I hadn't connected these visual disturbances to low blood sugar, I would have wondered if I was hallucinating. But I can totally see someone attaching spiritual significance to such a "vision".

 

[Luce NDs]

If one uses a few strange words in an exclamation ... stop and watch how folk get suddenly ill at ease and stressed.

It is like a hollowed out (aGape) sensation that part of you is now unknown as you receive the alien tidbit in a great hall of darkness.

Could explain sensation of dark tubes with hidden enscripted misals ... few would believe any of that from ages past as they have set limits on time!

Timaeus thus went by on the road to Amaeus and all was a mess ... with humanity in control as they believe in not knowing much ...

Their brae in has no plasticity! --- MS Robinson as having become disjointed ... she stepped out!

 

[Luce NDs]

As an example of a physical explanation, sleep deprivation has been shown experimentally to produce hallucinations.

There are theories about Paul's visions which suggest he might have had a form of epilepsy.

As some here will know, I am a long time insulin user. Hypoglycemic reactions to insulin (low blood sugars) produce a variety of unpleasant symptoms. One of my earliest warning signals is a visual disturbance which involves light.

Neither my endocrinologist nor my opthalmologist is concerned about this. Apparently it is not terribly common but not unheard of. People who get migraines sometimes have similar things happen.

If I hadn't connected these visual disturbances to low blood sugar, I would have wondered if I was hallucinating. But I can totally see someone attaching spiritual significance to such a "vision".

It is simple ... Paul fell of a high horse and had a deep rest! An oh buoyed situation ... rendered as OBI'd and oblivion! Bird in the trees for all we know ...

Some are hard to grasp like raven things ... about matters we'd be uncomfortable with in the pew ... brute forte and other drivers? Thus these powers run amuck ... and we know little!

Go for the reach ... stretch or ye'll never catch up with how history lies ... substance of the myth! The power weilders say it is fecund crap ...

Jesus had words for powers in flowing dark robes and this can be taken as a specter in the darkness of all that is unseen! Complexity can be diastrous to those not understanding ... thus chasm and abyss are developed ... as a place to put what flew!

 

[paradox3]

@Luce NDs
Oh yes. Head injuries too.

 

[Luce NDs]

@Luce NDs
Oh yes. Head injuries too.

Imagine head bangers ... phoque standing there trying to drive dreams through an impenetrable nut!

What's the chance of a quantum shift; a turn aabout? Pore on that in another string, thread or alternate chord ... chaos may be created to keep the simple out of a complex enigma of heaven being not as incarnated ... (that's how it appears).

In the UK Bangers and Mash is considered goode ... as god as it gets? All in the phon etics!

 

[Mendalla]

Imagine head bangers

You rang?

\
To be fair, while I like metal, I don't headbang much. Neck is too stiff and achy these days.

In the UK Bangers and Mash is considered goode

It is good. Bangers and mash c'est yummy.

But I can totally see someone attaching spiritual significance to such a "vision".

And who is to say they don't have such significance, esp. when there is not a clear physical trigger as in your case? Our medicalized model of health tends to assume anything out of the ordinary means something is "broken" but maybe there are times when a vision means something spiritual or at least is a signal of something deeper than just a bunch of cells doing stuff. Maybe they come from within and are a sign of inner spiritual meaning but if there is a deity who exists/intervenes in the world (which would include panentheist visions of God), maybe there is an external reality impinging. If a vision from God looks like epilepsy and vice versa, isn't whether it is a vision from God a matter of interpretation rather than something that can be diagnosed and treated? Which could be applied to things like tongues, too.

 

[Luce NDs]

Such provides life with the pain of learning as a metaphor of payne it forward ... thus depart Ure!

Less comprehension is better? Negative emotional context ... imagine turbulance ...

 

[Waterfall]

As far as Paul is concerned, I like the Dali Llamas reply when travellers are seeking a more " enlightened" path than the Christianity they have rejected.
Basically he said , go back to what you already know and you will find what you need.
Even within Christianity, there are many paths that will lead to a common place and even lead us astray, and sometimes that includes who we choose to follow.

 

[paradox3]

Paul really emphasized the good of the whole church as a unit. We have become more individualistic I think. Interesting that the people still needed reminding in Paul's day

 

[Mystic]

Thanks @Mystic for confirming she was speaking in tongues. I have never witnessed this happening and it is not part of my own faith tradition.

I confess to being skeptical about some of these things. I often wonder if there might be a physical explanation of some sort.

Consider these 3 cases of speaking in a language one has never learned:
(1) The UMC minister who replaced me told me that when he was Spirit-baptized in a prayer meeting, he praised God in fluent Korean, as confirmed by a Korean immigrant present at the meeting.
92) When I was a boy, a Pentecostal pastor's wife gave a message in tongues in Swahili, confirmed by a visiting African who knew the language. The message was about her missionary daughter in Africa who was in danger and needed to navigate her way through the jungle to find safety. The message from th risen Lord confirmed that her daughter was now safe.
In the early 1960s Richard Bauckham was visiting a Pentecostal church just north of Los Angeles. The pastor's wife gave a message in tongues in fluent modern Hebrew, in which the risen Lord called Richard to engage in covert evangelism in Communist China. A visiting Israeli Jew confirmed the translation of the message. Bauckham got involved in Bible smuggling and eventually smuggled himself into China, catalyzing mass conversions resulting in many Charismatic house churches. NY Times reporter recounts the details in his book "Jesus in Beijing."

Ask yourself how likely it is that someone in the audience would know the foreign language spoken.

 

[paradox3]

@Mystic
How often does speaking in tongues involve a previously unlearned language, would you say?

There have been such cases investigated in the medical literature. Previous exposure to the language is always the explanation and sometimes it has been forgotten on a conscious level.

I assume speaking in a prayer language understood only by God is more common? Altered states of consciousness could be at the root of this.

Hard to say.

Here is something that happened to me a few years ago. I used to walk the same route frequently and would walk by the back yard of a small dog who always ran to the fence and barked at me.

One day I walked by and it didn't move a muscle or make a noise. I was praying, yes praying silently, as I walked along its fence line!

Do I think God intervened to keep the dog quiet? Nope. Not at all.

But I think it is completely possible I was emitting a different kind of energy as I prayed and the little dog responded to it differently. Lots of unknowns, right?

 

[paradox3]

There is also the matter of perception. In the present day we consider whales beaching themselves to be an ecological tragedy.

In the past indigenous peoples viewed a whale appearing on the beach as a wonderful gift and great blessing from the Creator

 

[Waterfall]

And it's also possible the minister and his wife learned how to say what she said by a coach and passed it off as tongues, when it was actually a well rehearsed script.

 

[paradox3]

And did these utterings in Korean, Swahili and Hebrew deliver a coherent message or just use recognizable words?

My mind wasn't going to deliberate fraud but who knows? I was thinking more of a subconscious process.

 

[paradox3]

Was just thinking the very little French I know (grades 7, 8 & 9) would.probably be enough to pull off a hoax. I often summon up something I need to solve a crossword puzzle from my memory bank. School? Ecole. Pupil? Eleve. And do on.

What time is it? Where is God? Open the door and shut the window! Stop, stop, stop!!! God is here now!!!

I could say such things convincingly in French LoL

 

[paradox3]

I do tend to favor the rational and scientific explanations. However I don't rule out interaction with Spirit. Or at the very least, spiritual energy.