If anyone would like to discuss further please do…
PeteSinCA wrote:As I said, the "greatest" gift is the one needed for the situation at hand. So I don't regard speaking in tongues as any greater than the other spiritual gifts (and, as I've mentioned previously, that includes the spiritual gifts Paul listed in Rom. 12, not just the more obviously supernatural gifts listed in 1 Cor. 12).PaulSacramento wrote:.....My point was to make the gift of tongues a gift more than any other is, IMO, quite wrong.
Also that speaking in tongues doesn't mean "divine language" but in the tongues of the nations.
As for the kind of language a particular utterance in tongues might be, I'm satisfied to leave that to the choice of the Holy Spirit. Scripture says little to that effect, though not nothing. In Acts 2, the utterances in tongues by 12-120 people speaking more or less simultaneously were described by the hearers thus, "we each hear them in our own language to which we were born." That the utterances were in each of those languages is the more natural assumption/understanding.
However, the fact that as many as 120 people were speaking more or less simultaneously and the number of languages represented among the hearers raises a very reasonable possibility that the miracle was not that the 12-120 believers spoke the many languages of the hearers, but that God miraculously caused the hearers to "hear" what was spoken in their native languages. But even assuming what I call the more natural assumption/understanding, Acts 2 is a single example, not really a sufficient basis for certainty. I'll return to that thought in a minute.
At any rate, the other place Scripture speaks to the languages speaking in tongues might be is 1Cor. 13:1, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" (NASB). I've heard the "explanation" that "and of angels" was hyperbole, not a real possibility. The problem with that "explanation" is that there is nothing in the text to support it; it's what Walter Martin might have called "eisegesis", reading something into a text that isn't there.
Returning to building a doctrine on a few historical examples (and possibly something in the background of your comments, "It is also clear that the HS, WHEN He gives a special gift like speaking in tongues, can also give any other gift He so chooses" and "to make the gift of tongues a gift more than any other is, IMO, quite wrong"), the doctrine that speaking in tongues is the evidence that one has been baptized in the Holy Spirit is common among Pentecostals and charismatic’s.
The basis for this is the supposed fact that every time in the book of Acts someone is filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time, they spoke in tongues. I've never believed this doctrine, not from my first exposure to it in reading David Wilkerson's book, The Cross and the Switchblade, in 1971 or 1972. I saw three problems in it.
First, the claimed fact about events in the book of Acts in not correct. What Paul did when first filled with the Spirit is not described; in another instance (Acts 19), the event is described thus, "they began speaking with tongues and prophesying", which may or may not support the claim (Did those who prophesied first speak in tongues? Or did they simply prophesy? It's nitpicking, but if you're building a doctrine on such texts they should support what is claimed).
Second, building a doctrine on a half dozen or so historical events, IMO, is not sound, unless, Third, Scripture plainly states those events to be the norm ... which it does not.
It may come as a surprise to you, but I've never had occasion to discuss this doctrine with anyone in nearly 25 years in charismatic churches. I've never heard it taught from the pulpit or in classes at any charismatic church I've attended.
This is getting pretty far afield from the Doctrine of the Trinity, and there is a thread elsewhere that focuses on experiences with the Holy Spirit. If this conversation continues, maybe it should do so in that thread.
