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I am taking two classes this year, Literature and History of the Old Testament and Literature and History of the New Testament. During the first semester of OT we studied the history of Israel from "the beginning" whenever that was, until the return from the Babylonian captivity. In the first semester of NT we studied the intertestamental period (Maccabees), the gospels and Acts. During the coming semester we will study the prophets in OT and Paul in NT. In each class we have to write an exegesis paper during each semester. The exegesis papers are where we have to apply the interpretive skills we've been learning to specific passages of scripture. The exegesis papers are where the rubber meets the road. We are held to strict standards, and each paper must be between 3,700 and 4,000 words, no more and no less (you'll notice there's only 300 words worth of wiggle room). During the first semester I wrote on Deuteronomy 10:12-22 in OT. The title was What Does The LORD Your God Require of You? My NT paper was What Must I Do To Inherit Eternal Life? based on Luke 18:18-30. Since I finished Archaeology at the end of this past semester, I had no make up work hanging over me from the time I spent in the hospital a year-and-a-half ago. There wasn't going to be anything I HAD to do over the Christmas break, so I decided to explore the possibility of using part of I Corinthians 14 as the passage for my exegesis paper in NT this coming semester. I checked out a few commentaries before the library closed for the holidays, but after doing some initial reading, I realized that no part of I Corinthians 14 would be suitable for an exegesis because it couldn't be covered properly within the 3,700-4,000 word limit. Well... instead of doing that... I used the break to write a 10,000 word paper entitled What does the Bible really say (and really NOT say) about speaking in tongues? I learned one HECK of a lot! I will post a few of the highlights now, and discuss more as time goes by... Back in 1994 (twenty-one years ago, seven years after I left TWI) I decided to write A Partial Inventory of Things I Believe as of 1994 because of all the different things we were thinking about at CES, from Anthony Buzzard and from Dale Sides. These weren't articles to publish. They were just for me and my wife to figure out and come to agreement on exactly what we thought. One of the articles was on speaking in tongues. I realized that some of the things Wierwille and the offshoots taught could be substantiated from the scriptures, but many, many others could not be confirmed. One of the things I tried to do at that time was to define the primary function of speaking in tongues. Defining the primary function of a thing is an artifact of systemic analysis, which I learned to do in the Nuclear Navy. I arrived at this; the primary function of speaking in tongues is to enable a Christian to offer perfectly acceptable thanksgiving to God even though we know only in part. That was the best I could do at the time. There are many important things to learn about Pentecost from the OT, but we always wore blinders because of Wierwille's theology of administrations. The key to understanding Pentecost is Deuteronomy 16:10, "You shall keep the festival of weeks to the LORD your God, contributing a freewill offering in proportion to the blessing that you have received from the LORD your God." On the day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2, Jesus's followers who were speaking in tongues were contributing a freewill offering (by means of Spirit) in proportion to the blessing that they had received (the gift of the Holy Spirit) from the Lord. The tongues as of fire over their heads indicated that the offering they were making was accepted. Amos 4:5 tells us some interesting things about freewill offerings. God is chiding Israel, [You] bring a thank offering of leavened bread, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel! Leviticus said freewill offerings were to be made with UN-leavened bread. Leaven is often used as a symbol for hypocrisy. Thank offerings are to be free of hypocrisy! In our present unregenerate state, we cannot make perfectly acceptable thank offerings with our minds, because we are still contaminated with hypocrisy, and will be until Jesus returns and we are all changed. So one of the results of writing this paper is that I've redefined the primary function; the primary function of speaking in tongues is to enable a Christian to offer perfectly acceptable thanksgiving to God even though our minds are still contaminated with hypocrisy. This is possible because the Spirit, instead of our unregenerate minds, gives us the words to speak. I'm exhausted... more later... Love, Steve

History and science do NOT demonstrate this to be the case! Genuine biblical speaking in tongues is deliberate and volitional. There is no biblical warrant for equating speaking in tongues with ecstatic utterance. The word "ecstasy" comes from the Greek word echstasis that is a noun form of the verb existemi. Existemi means "to put out of its place, change, alter" (Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon, abr., s.v. "existemi"). Ecstatic utterance is that which proceeds from an altered state of consciousness. Both echstasis and existemi occur in the book of Acts. Echstasis is translated "trance" and is associated with receiving visions, not speaking in tongues. Existemi IS associated with speaking in tongues twice, Acts 2:12 and Acts 10:45. In both cases, it wasn't the speakers whose minds were put out of their place, but the people who HEARD them speaking in tongues. For several years now I've searched for possible pre-Christian incidents of speaking in tongues. I've only found two, one was the Pythoness who inhaled chthonic gases at Delphi, and the other was at the celebrations of the Bacchants that involved getting falling down drunk on wine. There have been people around the globe and throughout history who have developed numerous ways to induce altered states of consciousness, and sometimes people in such a state jabber senselessly, but there is no biblical warrant for associating genuine speaking in tongues with an altered state of consciousness. Biblical speaking in tongues is ALWAYS deliberate and volitional. The ancients were familiar with artificially inducing altered states of consciousness. The methods for doing so were considered part of the healing arts. They were called pharmakeia. According to Galatians 5:16-21, pharmakeia as a work of the flesh in opposition to the Spirit. Unfortunately, English translators chose to use "witchcraft" to translate pharmakeia, which throws our understanding WAY OFF. There are some Christians who think they have to get into an altered state of consciousness to speak in tongues. Those folks get all the news coverage, but they are not representative of the Pentecostals I know. History and science DO NOT demonstrate that speaking in tongues is wholly dependent on the mind and not the Spirit. Speaking of science and spirit, what do you think about supersymmetry, waysider? If dark matter and dark energy have the same complexity as the matter and energy apparent to us, then I can certainly feature that there could be invisible (dark?) intelligences co-occupying the universe with us. Of course the ancients had no concept of supersymmetry, so they had to use a metaphor of something else that could not be seen, but whose effects could be felt... wind, or SPIRIT!!!!! Love, Steve