Praying in tongues

[jmwhalen]

Godrulz writes:

"We can rationalize away Scripture and experience, or we can yield to God and receive an anointing to be mighty in Spirit rather than weak in the flesh. The gifts are supernatural, so will not always seem rational to our minds.

God= supernatural

Satan= supernatural

Church/believers= natural or supernatural...do not grieve or quench or limit the Spirit in our generation."

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No, it is not a matter of rationalizing away Scripture-it is a matter of rightly dividing scripture. Human experience is not the standard for the truth-scripture is. Human emotions are very "volatile", and should not be the "lense", the "barometer", the "gage" from which we understand the truth, including discerning truth from error. Experience must be agree with the word of truth rightly divided, not vica versa.

Re. "receive an annointing"-All Christians are annointed by the Holy Spirit. In the current "dispensation of the grace of God"(Eph. 3:2), as revealed to Paul, there is no such "degrees of annointing" among Christians.

Re. "limit the Spirit in our generation"-It is not a matter of limiting the Spirit. The question is not whether God "can do" something-the question is "Is He?" That is, it may be scriptural, but is it dispensational? It is a matter of your refusal to accept that God has declared that there is one baptism today(Eph. 4:5) in this "dispensation of the grace of God"(Eph. 3:2), not 2, and in this baptism the Holy Spirit is the Baptizer, not the Lord Jesus Christ("with the Holy Spirit") as in the Acts period. In the Acts period, believers were annointed with the Holy Spirit by Christ as the baptizer("power from on high"-spiritual gifts) for a specific purpose(discussed in previous post). Today, all believers have been baptized(identified") by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ, and into the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Re. "limit the Spirit in our generation"-

If I were to tell you I raise the dead, what would you say? If you say I cannot do that, then would you say you are "limiting the Holy Spirit in our generation"? These are the Lord Jesus Christ's words:

"Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, RAISE THE DEAD(emphasis mine), cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give... " Mt. 10:8

Funny, all the so-called healers on T.V. never seem to raise the dead. Why not? And why do they where glasses?

In Christ,

John M. Whalen

[godrulz]

Paul and Jesus left some people sick, but healed and delivered countless others. This is an argument against extreme Word-Faith teachings, not against the validity of the work of the Spirit through the centuries.

I concur that we cannot put experience above the Word. In light of the experiential evidence and Pentecostal scholarship, perhaps your understanding of relevant passages is suspect.

There are documented cases of people being raised from the dead. The power of God is mighty in the land for His glory.

[jmwhalen]

Godrulz writes:

"Paul and Jesus left some people sick, but healed and delivered countless others. This is an argument against extreme Word-Faith teachings, not against the validity of the work of the Spirit through the centuries.

I concur that we cannot put experience above the Word. In light of the experiential evidence and Pentecostal scholarship, perhaps your understanding of relevant passages is suspect.

There are documented cases of people being raised from the dead. The power of God is mighty in the land for His glory. "

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The sign gifts were "done" by the end Acts-I showed you from scripture this, but you deny it.

"Perhaps your understanding of relevant passages is suspect"-Perhaps they are, but you again provided an opinion, not an argument. You refuse to answer relevant questions asked, and you do not discuss "relevant" passages.

Re. "There are documented cases of people being raised from the dead".

Please provide this. I would like to see this documentation.

In Christ,

John Whalen

[waitingforhim]

"How come the believers in Acts 2 (which shadow clearly quoted) didn't speak in tongues, but recieved the Spirit, same for the other ones in Acts 8 and in fact any other believer in the BIBLE other than the THREE INSTANCES you have quoted. This did not happend to ALL it happened in three cases, don't act as though every time a beleiver got the Spirit, he spoke in tongues, this IS NOT the case."

Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.-It sounds like they spoke in tongues to me.

We are only given details of people being filled with the Holy Spirit 3 times-in those times we are told that those receiving it spoke in other tongues. So-you have brought a straw man argument into this. How many times are we told to be born again?

Acts 8-we aren't told they spoke in tongues-we aren't given details. However, something noticable happened-no doubt about it-Simon saw that the baptism was given by the laying on of hands-He wanted to buy this power. Now, if nothing noticable happened- I don't think Simon would have been so wanting to have this power.

Now, if you don't want to be baptised in the Holy Spirit-don't worry-it won't rub off on you.

[jmwhalen]

Waitingforhim references "baptized in the Holy Spirit".

You are not discerning the difference between Christ baptizing WITH or IN the Holy Spirit at Pentecost(Mt. 3:11; Mk. 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:4,5;11:16), and "For BY(emphasis mine) one Spirit are we ALL(emphasis mine) baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been ALL(emphasis mine) made to drink into one Spirit"(1 Cor. 12:13).

The Body of Christ's(which was not in existence in the early Acts period) baptism involves the Holy Spirit as the baptizer, which 1.places/identifies/unites us into one body of Jews and Gentiles who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ alone as the Saviour, creating a NEW entity("new man") totally distinct in its nature and program from Israel, and 2. places/identifies/unites each believer with Christ("in Christ" and "Christ in me"), who is the "Head of the Body", and thus His death becomes our death, His burial becomes our burial, and His resurrection becomes our resurrection. There is therefore both a vertical and horizontal union simultaneously formed by this "one baptism"(Eph. 4:5-NOT TWO) by the Spirit.

Notice that throughout 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 there is a constant reference to the work of the Holy Spirit. Quoting only one here, which illustrates the Holy Spirit's instrumentality: "Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking BY(emphasis mine) the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is Lord, But BY(emphasis mine) the Holy Ghost"(1 Cor. 12:3). All through that Chapter 12 it is clear and understood that the Holy Spirit is the One who is the Instrument doing the various actions. So the passage could not be made to say "in/with one Spirit". It has to be BY ONE SPIRIT, and therefore a different Spirit baptism is being spoken of here, which is separate and distintinct from the Spirit baptism in Acts 1 where the Lord Jesus Christ is the baptizer.

Failure to discern the difference between these 2 baptisms has caused millions of people to be deceived and led astray into a vast number of heresies, including the "Holy Laughter" debacle, the "pscho-babble" tongues embarrassment, and the unscriptural "slain in the spirit" lunacy.

In Christ,

John M. Whalen

[waitingforhim]

The baptism in the Holy Spirit was not taught only at the day of Pentecost but after also. You can call it by another name if you want to-but it is there in the early church for all to see. Many Christians throughout history have realised the truth of this baptism. The book of Acts covers the first 30 years of church history. As a matter of fact, this "experience" was so important to the early church that they sent out apostles to make sure believers had this. Jesus is the One who baptises in the Spirit.(John 1:33) The Holy Spirit baptises us in the body of Christ at the moment of salvation. ( 1 Corinthians 12:13)

[Guest mcm42]

First, I have nothing against Baptism in the SPirit, It's speaking in tongues that I have a problem with.

You're good at twisting things. (Acts 4) is refering to all the disciples, not all the people. You'll notice that some 3,000 were saved that day, none spoke in tongues.

The spirit is given more often than three times, at least four times (2, 8, 10, 19) but even more than that, because every believer recieves the Spirit at salvation... with or without tongues (preferbly without).

Since tongues has 3 instances, and receiving the Spirit has countless, how can you say that tongues is the sign for receiving the Spirit?

[waitingforhim]

The baptism in the Spirit is given in detail in only three instances. In each of those instances we have the sign of speaking in tongues as the evidence of this baptism. - In fact, "speaking in tongues" is given as the sign that the Jewish believers accepted as to the fact that the gentiles had received the Holy Spirit in Acts 10. In Acts 4??? I don't see any references to your post??? Please explain?

I DO believe that every believer receives the Spirit at salvation. There is however, another experience Jesus called "the baptism in the Spirit" that Jesus said was the "promise of the Father". The diciples received the Spirit in John 20-remember-yet they were still told to receive the baptism in the Spirit before they began their ministry. In in Acts 2:39 we have Peter telling the gathering that "this promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." --hey, that's us!!!!

I don't have to twist anything to see this truth taught in scripture. I know what I believe and I know why.