@kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474

2 months ago

1Cor. 14:2 is perhaps the quintessential verse used by many to “evidence” modern tongues-speech in the Bible.

The whole passage is talking about real, rational language.

Let me use an analogy - If I attend a worship service in “East Haystack”, some remote town in the US out in the middle of nowhere, two things are going to be evident: one; there’s only going to be so many people at that service (i.e. there will be a finite given amount of people there) and two; the chances that anyone speaks anything but English is pretty slim to nil.

If I start praying aloud in say Lithuanian, there’s no one at that service that’s going to understand a single word I’m saying. Even though I’m speaking a real language, no one there will understand my “tongue”. That does not mean or imply that no one else understands Lithuanian; just no one at that particular service.

In this sense, therefore, I am speaking only to God, since he understands all languages. To everyone at the service, even though I’m praying in the Spirit (as defined further below), to the people listening to me, I’m still speaking “mysteries” – i.e. even though I’m praying as I ought, no one understands me. An idiomatic expression to say that no one has a clue what I’m saying as no one speaks my language.

When one looks at the original Greek, the verb which is usually translated as “understandeth/understands” is actually the verb “to hear” in the sense of understanding what you’re hearing someone say. The verb is not “to understand”. That part of the verse is more properly “no one hears [him] with understanding”, i.e. no one listening to him understands what he’s saying.

There is nothing in this passage that suggests modern tongues-speech nor is there anything that even remotely suggests that the speaker does not understand what he himself is saying. The Greek bears this out; it is the listeners who do not understand, not the speaker – no matter how hard modern tongues-speakers want the speaker to also not understand…….unless the author of the text is a bad grammarian, it just isn’t there.

“Praying in the Spirit” does not refer to the words one is saying. Rather, it refers to how one is praying. In the three places it is used (Corinthians, Ephesians, and Jude), there is absolutely zero reference to 'languages' in connection with this phrase. “Praying in the Spirit” should be understood as praying in the power of the Spirit, by the leading of the Spirit, and according to His will.

‘Tongues’ (read, ‘languages’ ) – the divine gift, is the God/Holy Spirit given ability to effortlessly learn to speak and be understood through real-language barriers. It is not xenoglossy (as many people incorrectly assume), nor is it the self-created non-cognitive non-language utterance of what certain Christian denominations are producing today (modern tongues-speech).

Nowhere in the Bible is modern tongues-speech advocated or evidenced.

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