A number of Christian religious bodies teach that a person must be baptized with the Holy Ghost in order to be saved/converted, and that the initial evidence of that baptism of the Holy Ghost is the sign of speaking in tongues. I propose in the next five posts to present testimony to show that such an idea is not Scripturally defensible. Passages of Scripture that relate conversion experiences, passages dealing with the filling of the Holy Ghost, passages specific to the "Baptism of the Holy Ghost", passages directly addressing tongues, and the New Testament evidence of what constitutes a disciple of Jesus Christ all together testify that speaking in tongues IS NOT and NEVER WAS the evidence of either the baptism of the Holy Ghost or conversion/salvation.
I. The testimony from the history of the early church in the book of Acts -- believers were accepted as converted without the evidence of speaking of in tongues.
II. The testimony of the filling of the Spirit in the early church in the book of Acts -- numerous accounts are recorded of disciples being filled with the Spirit without the evidence of speaking in tongues.
III. The testimony of the Scriptures concerning the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which is a specific term used of the events on the day of Pentecost and associated with the conversion of the household of Cornelius.
IV. The testimony of Scripture passages concerning speaking in tongues.
V. The testimony of the Scriptures as to the evidence of true disciples without the evidence of speaking in tongues.
Stay tuned for the next five episodes (d.v.); give me your opinions.
Testimony on tongues -- history in the book of Acts
Testimony on tongues -- the filling of the Spirit
Testimony on tongues -- the baptism of the Holy Ghost
Testimony on tongues -- direct Scripture references
Testimony on tongues -- Biblical evidence of true disciples
Tongues -- an evangelistic tool?
The "Rebaptisms" of Acts 19
3 comments:
Yes Robert, so many are mislead. Most of those who claim to speak in other tongues are not actually doing it at all. Isn't the meaning of "tongue", another language? From what all I have ever heard are utterances that no one can understand, and not a language at all.
Neil
Neil, the tongues activity with which I am familiar does not line up with the Biblical restrictions, even if one could prove they are not supposed to be languages. But in my opinion, Biblical tongues are languages (even if unknown to the speaker or hearer).
For those who are interested, there is some discussion of the language/linguistics issue at Bart Barber's post Tongues Are Probably the Only Issue.
Yes, besides, where is the interpreter? The "tongue-speakers" of today are just uttering gibberish.
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