T-Bone

T-Bone post #47 June 26 2006 9:19 PM: "…I wonder how much of what I saw was self-directed instead of coming from God? I remember my twig leader's wife always saying the same five or six words in a tongue but the interpretation was at least two or three sentences long. I never gave this linguistic oddity much thought until I brought my friend Steve to Twig – and he pointed that out to me. Every week, the same five or six words – with a different interpretation each time. Maybe each word had multiple meanings and functions – a diagram of the sentence would probably look like a complicated map of the NY Subway System." GeorgeAar post# 65 June 27 2006 11:29 PM: "…in fact, I never heard a "tongue" that really sounded like a language at all. In 15 years of doing the nonsense, it never happened. I heard quite a few that sounded incredibly similar, though." Oakspear post #67 June 28 2006 2:53 AM: "I can go along with that. While allowing for the possibility that there might have been a structure or linguistic pattern in a "tongue" that I didn't perceive, most, if not all, tongues that I have heard in TWI and in churches, were just a string of the same sounds repeated over and over." In Systematic Theology: Volume Four, Church, Last Things by Norman Geisler, Appendix Two, Were Tongues A Real Language?, Geisler makes the point that the speaking in tongues mentioned in the Bible was a real language because I Corinthians 14:10-19 states it must be interpreted for the church – thus logic demands it is a meaningful, translatable language. Concerning "tongues of angels" I Corinthians 13:1, Geisler says, "is probably a figure of speech meaning 'to speak most eloquently.' Even if this is to be taken literally, every time angels spoke in the Bible they did so in actual language that people could understand." In the previous appendix [Appendix One Only the Apostles Spoke in Tongues At Pentecost, page 663] Geisler concludes, "If tongues were only a sign gift to apostles and only apostles had the gift or could give it to others, this would be confirmation of its temporary nature in laying the foundation of Christ's apostles. Thus, once this basis was established, it would be natural that the gift of tongues would cease – there being no more need for it. Indeed, this seems implied in the phrase "whether there are tongues, they will cease" , since it is in the middle voice and can be translated "They will cease of their own accord." Getting back to Appendix Two Were Tongues a Real Language?, Geisler doubts [as do GeorgeAar, Oakspear and myself] if today's "tongues" are real languages; Geisler quotes extensively from a book by Samarin – any page references to Samarin's book I will put Samarin's text in bold with the page reference as the following [TMA, page X]: "William Samarin, professor of anthropology and linguistics at the University of Toronto, wrote the first comprehensive book-length study of speaking in tongues [Tongues of Men and Angels, New York: Macmillan, 1972]. In this work he takes Christian charismatic glossolalia – the common contemporary practice of speaking in unknown and unintelligible speech, which Samarin distinguishes from what he calls xenoglossia [the miraculous gift of tongues in which the speaker communicates in an unlearned human language] – and the "tongues" of other religions [including healers, occultists, and shamans] and compares them with known human languages. He concludes from his linguistic analysis that "glossolalia is a perfectly human, perfectly normal [albeit anomalous] phenomenon" [TMA, page 235]. If this is the case, then "speaking in tongues" as commonly practiced today is a creation of the human mind and not the miraculous, divine activity recorded in Scripture… When Samarin and other linguists attempted to transcribe recorded glossolalia, they found that they continually came up with different results due to the difficulty of finding thoroughly distinct words in the utterances: "On analysis these transcriptions will always expose the linguistically deviant nature of a glossolaic discourse…notwithstanding a charismatist's claim that glossolalia is neither repetitious nor meaningless banality, no "jabber-babble or twattle-twaddle," but clear, distinct, precise, and uncluttered speech." [TMA, page 78] Samarin concludes from his analysis: "The illusion of word-structure is destroyed when one tries to dissect all the breath-groups of a text…So it is not surprising that a linguistically trained respondent was no more successful in "breaking down" her [the subject's] speech than I was." [TMA, page 81] This is not the case with a real language, and these results were not limited to the investigators. In a similar experiment with another "tongues-speaker," Samarin noted: "When his [the subject's] own prayer was played back several hours later, he was unable to fulfill the function of the normal speaker of language. In other words, he could not, listening to his own speech, repeat for me what he had just said." [TMA, page 81] The reason for this linguistic defect is that "there is no grammar for glossolalia, because it is a phenomenon, like a human language in general, and not like a specific language" [TMA, page 73]. Thus, when it comes to these supposed tongues, "nobody can learn a set of rules that would enable him to speak a 'language' that is the same as someone else's. Even what one speaks on different occasions is not the same in the linguistic sense" [TMA, page 73]. Native Speech Patterns Even in light of these apparently random "word salads," we discover an interesting trend, When glossolaic verbal patterns are analyzed regarding the use of consonants, vowels, and other features, they are revealed as strikingly close to the speaker's native language. "The explanation for this similarity, to put it simply, is that [the subject] is "doing what comes naturally!" In other words, he and every other creator of extemporaneous pseudo language tends to use what is common in his native language…What makes a person's glossa different from his native language is how he uses its sounds" [TMA, page 83,87]. This is to be expected if tongues are the product of an intentional speaker. Because the speaker is making some form of syllabic selection, "Glossolalia, even though it is lexically meaningless, is not a randomized collection of sounds and sound sequences. It is a derivative phenomenon. Its basic features depend on the linguistic competence and knowledge of each speaker. This will surprise no one who came to this study already convinced that glossolalia was some kind of gibberish. However, now he knows that it is not simply that…It is on looking closely at glossas that their artificiality becomes apparent. This is as true of their construction as it is of their function" [TMA, page 127,121]. Artificial Function and Construction As to function, "Glossas and natural languages are responsive to the world outside the speaker in different ways. In normal speech it is content, and not merely manner of delivery, that changes constantly in response to topics, person, setting, time and so forth…In construction as well as in function glossas are fundamentally different from languages…If glossas do not have grammatical structure, we might nevertheless expect them to be like languages phonologically, because they sound so much like languages. Even here we are deceived. The total number of different sounds appears to be smaller than one finds in most languages. Glossas are strikingly unlike natural languages in the rank frequency curves of the sounds…This cannot happen in normal language, because the occurrence of sounds is determined by the words in which they occur" [TMA, page 122-126]. "When the full apparatus of linguistic science comes to bear on glossolalia, this turns out to be only a facade of language – although at times a very good one indeed. For when we comprehend what language is, we must conclude that no glossa, no matter how well constructed, is a specimen of human language, because it is neither internally organized nor systematically related to the world man perceives" [TMA, page 127,128]. "[Linguists] know enough to declare what is and what is not a language. We know as much as a mathematician, who can tell the difference between a real formula and a pseudo-formula – one that looks like mathematical language but does not say anything…The glossolalist must grant this, because one of his proofs for the existence of God is orderliness in creation. A hodge-podge of DNA produces biological nonsense just as much as a hodge-podge of syllables produces linguistic nonsense" [TMA, page 234]. To argue [as some do] that these are coded forms of language fails; codes have meaningful linguistic patterns and can be broken, while tongues do not and cannot. Any other so-called code-without-pattern places a tongue out of the realm of the intelligible and into the unverifiable domain of the mystical." The following is from The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker [Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT], pages 168,169: "An inventory of phonemes is one of the things that gives a language its characteristic sound pattern. For example, Japanese is famous for not distinguishing r from l. When I arrived in Japan on November 4, 1992, the linguist Masaaki Yamanashi greeted me with a twinkle and said, "In Japan, we have been very interested in Clinton's erection." We can recognize a language's sound pattern even in a speech stream that contains no real words, as with the Swedish chef on The Muppets or John Belushi's samurai dry cleaner. The linguist Sarah G. Thomason has found that people who claim to be channeling back to past lives or speaking in tongues are really producing gibberish that conforms to a sound pattern vaguely reminiscent of the claimed language. For example, one hypnotized channeler, who claimed to be a nineteenth-century Bulgarian talking to her mother about soldiers laying waste to the countryside, produced generic pseudo-Slavic gobbledygook like this: Ovishta reshta rovishta. Vishna beretishti? Ushna barishta dashto. Na darishnoshto. Koraphnosha.... darishtoy. Aobashni bedetpa. And of course, when the words in one language are pronounced with the sound pattern of another, we call it a foreign accent, as in the following excerpt from a fractured fairy tale by Bob Belviso: GIACCHE ENNE BINNESTAUCCHE Uans appona taim disse boi. Neimmese Giacche. Naise boi. Live uite ise mamma. Mainde da cao. Uane dei, di spaghetti ise olle ronne aute…" In my 12 years of being with TWI - I have never witnessed an unbeliever [or anyone for that matter] exclaiming "wow - that person speaking in tongues just spoke in my native tongue or a language I also know." And the more I think about some of the accounts given in Acts of speaking in tongues - the fact that some indication is noted of the language being understood by others present leads me to think it was a way for them to verify it was genuine...Perhaps, some charismatic group would record their speaking in tongues and interpretation and submit the tape to a panel of linguistic experts - I figure if it's from God the test results will blow the minds of the language experts. For that matter - In my opinion, anything God does can stand up to the most stringent scrutiny. I figure doctors could have examined the blind man healed by Jesus and said "yup, this guy's got 20/20 vision."

Socks, I really enjoyed your rendition of I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. That song was never one of my favorites - maybe too slow - or rather dreary or melancholy. But I get a more upbeat or hopeful feeling from your version. Thanks

Thinking about Skyrider's and Wordwolf's posts about VPW the phrase "blind leading the blind" comes to mind. And really most of the posts on this thread so far, have been along those lines – to which I totally agree. And if I may continue to be master of the obvious, most of the posters so far have been out of TWI for awhile [myself included]. But what has intrigued me the most about this topic is the way these type of questions [like "Why didn't VPW confront TWI's straying from the truth?"] may evolve [re-defining the problem] in each person's mind as they continue to analyze things after getting out of TWI. I think how we define a problem also sets how we plot a solution or come to some sort of conclusion. I read a story in The Thinker's Toolkit by Morgan Jones: A man awoke one morning aware of a small puddle of water in the middle of his king-size water bed. To fix the hole in the water bed, he rolled it outside and filled it with more water so it would be easier to find the leak. But the huge water bed mattress, bloated with water became impossible to control, rolled down his sloping backyard and crashed into the thorny bushes - shredded beyond repair. He decided to buy a standard bed. The next morning he awoke to find a small wet spot in the middle of his new bed. The upstairs bathroom had a leaky drain. Lesson of the story – He defined the problem by thinking "how can I fix the leak in my water bed?" What he should have asked was "what is the source of the water on my bed?" My thinking in the months after hearing Geer's Patriarch was along the lines of VPW did confront TWI [according to Geer's Patriarch] for straying from the truth, and what we as Corps are supposed to do about getting it back on track… A subliminal message of Corps training is you fly by having your autopilot engaged – that's believing God is guiding the Board of Trustees – trust them. A big question I kept thinking is "how could this happen to the ministry that has more of the rightly-divided Word of God than anyone else on earth?" After months of seeing the Board of Trustees make no effort to address the issues – I figured the autopilot has failed – I disengaged it by turning my brain on. My question evolved into "Did it go wrong because it wasn't based on something right?" That has driven me to dig into many intellectual/doctrinal issues and since I've joined Grease Spot Café, moral issues as well. Of course, what's "right" is a matter of opinion – but in my early Ex-TWI days, I was slowly gaining the courage to think for myself.

Welcome to Grease Spot Café, Watersedge! Happy 4th of July - we're all celebrating our independence from The W--- - oh never mind - - tonight, let's drink our fill of French Vanilla Cappuccino - the first round is on me.

Gorgeous pictures, Cowgirl !!! My favorites are the kids eating watermelon, swinging on rope over lake, frog, clothesline in archway and the spider-web looking sky - oh and the double rainbow - well shoot I just about named all of them...Thanks!!!

Very relaxing - - I think when it gets real heated on some of the threads - maybe everybody ought to take a break and do the Jackson Pollock thing - - and NO WRITING CUSS WORDS on it !!!!!!!!! Thanks Mstar1 a nice website.

I think that would be a Quadruplet - - no - wait - that's 2 plops and 2 fizzes - I don't know - Duality Squared?

Yup - the foot follows the hand - amazing...And on the Illinois Cow -

Read my lips - no more Disks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Corinthians 12: 3 [NASV] Therefore I make known to you, that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus is accursed", and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit. In Receiving the Holy Spirit Today, chapter 11 A Study of I Corinthians 12, VPW comments on this verse on page 135, 136: "To really mean that Jesus is the lord of our lives is to carry out God's orders in obedience to His will. "Speaking by the Spirit of God" is speaking in tongues as God who is Spirit gives the utterance. We believe God means what He says and says what He means, and in this verse the Word says it is impossible for any man to say of his life "Jesus is the lord, but by the Holy Ghost" – which is by way of speaking in tongues." VPW's statement made sense to me at one time when I was in TWI – but I have come to think verse 3 is talking about someone who is in harmony with the Spirit. As in the passage in Matthew I've listed here: Matthew 22: 41-45 [NASV] Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, "What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?" They said to Him, "The son of David." He said to them, "Then, how does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying, 'THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, "SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I PUT THINE ENEMIES BENEATH THY FEET"'? "If David then calls Him 'Lord," how is He his son?" To me I Corinthians 12: 3 and Matthew 22:43 convey a similar idea – the speaker is saying Jesus is Lord by the Spirit – influenced by the Spirit, in harmony with the Spirit, something along those lines. Jesus wasn't suggesting that David in the Old Testament spoke in tongues is he? In The Interpretation of St. Paul's First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians by R.C.H. Lenski, the author offers his own translation of I Corinthians 12:3 [in bold] and I've included some pertinent comments from pages 492, 493: "Wherefore I give you to understand that no one speaking in union with God's Spirit declares: Accursed is Jesus! And no one is able to declare: Lord is Jesus! Except in union with the Holy Spirit. …Paul's statement is misunderstood when it is assumed that already in this verse he is speaking about spiritual gifts, in particular about the gift of tongues. This view states that Paul is furnishing the Corinthians a criterion by which they may distinguish the genuine speakers with tongues from the spurious. The genuine have the Spirit and call Jesus "Lord," the spurious curse Jesus and have not the Spirit. But such a statement from the pen of Paul would be surprising. Were there members in the Corinthian congregation who cursed Jesus? And was it necessary for Paul to inform the Corinthians that such people were devoid of the Spirit? And where is there the least evidence that in Corinth or elsewhere pretending speakers with tongues had appeared who were deceiving the church?...Paul is, however, not comparing two men, one who is without the Spirit, the other with the Spirit, one who is cursing Jesus, the other confessing Jesus. For every man who is without the Spirit does not curse Jesus; many do not even know about him. Paul is not talking in the whole world of non-Christians in contrast with all true Christians. He remains in a far narrower sphere. In both halves of his statement he is speaking only about one man, who is animated by the Spirit, and points to what he always does. Thus both subjects are 'no man'." In my opinion, Lenski's comments make more sense, especially when I consider the similar idea expressed in Matthew 22:43. I like the way Lenski puts it "animated by the Spirit." Which makes me think of John explaining his source of revelation: Revelation 1: 10, 11 [NASV] I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, saying, "Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches…"

I am somewhat familiar with Adams' stuff – I liked a lot of his ideas – but like everything else I read – I try to exercise good critical thinking skills – picking and choosing things that I think are valid. While in TWI I enjoyed Adams' books more as a self-help tool [along the lines of cognitive therapy] – and didn't portray myself as a qualified Christian counselor to others but as a believer providing friendship/empathy/feedback/help in identifying the problem and resolving the issue with the understanding of "this is what worked for me." I viewed his counseling tactics as good for most general run-of-the-mill problems and issues in the Christian walk. In my opinion, a simplified description of how Adams and TWI differ is on their viewpoint: Adams attributes a Christian's problem to personal sin and needs to take morally responsible action to resolve it – following the dictates of Scripture. Whereas, TWI tends to spiritualize the situation, suggesting the believer is under attack by devil spirits or possessed and needs to obey the dictates of leadership to resolve the problem. As to your question WordWolf, I have quoted below from his Competent to Counsel book – and it appears your recollection is fairly close. Concerning psychiatric disorders and institutionalization Page 17-19: "…Nearly all recent counseling books for ministers, even conservative ones, are written from the Freudian perspective in the sense that they rest largely upon the presumptions of the Freudian ethic of non-responsibility...Mental health institutes are conducted in order to persuade ministers that they cannot [more often the wording is "dare not"] help the "mentally ill." The big words at such conferences are "defer" and "refer." …This book strikes an entirely new note, a note which is long overdue. Rather than defer and refer to psychiatrists steeped in their humanistic dogma, ministers of the gospel and other Christian workers who have been called by God to help his people out of their distress, will be encouraged to resume their privileges and responsibilities. Shall they defer and refer? Only as an exception, never as the rule, and then only to other more competent Christian workers. Their task is to confer. The thesis of this book is that qualified Christian counselors properly trained in the Scriptures are competent to counsel – more competent than psychiatrists or anyone else…The real issue for the minister is referral. At this point he cannot dodge the question. He must ask himself, shall I refer my parishioner to a psychiatrist or a mental institution, or can I do something for him? In view of these recent changes, he must reevaluate the propaganda of the last generation and ask anew, "How much can I do?" But in order to answer that question, it is necessary for him to come to some conclusions about the true nature of the problems of the so-called "mentally ill." The question must be considered from a biblical perspective, beginning with scriptural presuppositions, refusing to Baptize Freud [or Mowrer, for that matter]. Such a consideration reveals that the central issue boils down to a discussion of the question: Is the fundamental problem of persons who come for personal counseling sickness or sin?" Page 28: "…The fact is that the words "mental illness" are used quite ambiguously…Organic malfunctions affecting the brain that are caused by brain damage, tumors, gene inheritance, glandular or chemical disorders, validly may be termed mental illnesses. But at the same time a vast number of other human problems have been classified as mental illnesses for which there is no evidence that they have been engendered by disease or illness at all. As a description of many of these problems, the term mental illness is nothing more than a figure of speech, and in most cases a poor one at that. To put the issue simply: the Scriptures plainly speak of both organically based problems as well as those problems that stem from sinful attitudes and behavior; but where, in all of God's Word, is there so much as a trace of any third source of problems which approximate the modern concept of "mental illness"? Clearly the burden of proof lies with those who loudly affirm the existence of mental illness or disease but fail to demonstrate biblically that it exists. Until such a demonstration is forthcoming, the only safe course to follow is to declare with all of Scripture that the genesis of such human problems is twofold, not threefold." On medication Page 108, Adams refers to James 5:14-16 about the sick calling on the elders of the church to pray over him anointing him with oil: "…What James advocated was the use of consecrated, dedicated medicine. In this passage he urged the treating of sickness by medical means accompanied by prayer. The two are to be used together; neither to the exclusion of the other…" And in a footnote on page 142: "The excessive use of pills among psychiatrists and physicians is alarming. Sometimes personality is so distorted by mood-effecting drugs that it is difficult for the counselor to know whether he is talking to the person or the pill. Whenever possible, the prescribing physician should be contacted to determine whether the pills could not be eliminated or dosage reduced during counseling. Pills may remove much motivation by lessening pain and depression. While not all medication is unnecessary, clearly much is. There may be cases in which the counselor must refuse to work with the client until the use of drugs has been moderated or eliminated. No nouthetic counselor advises about the use of drugs unless he is a physician, but whenever possible he should become acquainted with a physician whose judgment and advice can help him make his own judgments."

Me personally - I really got into Jay Adams' stuff. I found his work to be a breath of fresh air from TWI's stifling legalism. I agree with Shazdancer - we TWI folk weren't competent to counsel. Probably because Adams' idea of counseling Christians was dealing with them as morally responsible people expected to follow the dictates of Scripture. That's fundamentally at odds with TWI's litmus test for a good believer - are you abundant sharing, attending every meeting, getting the tapes and magazines and believe the Board of Trustees are gods on a stick [or how about "shtick"].

Socks, thank you for that beautiful and peaceful tune! Yeah, I'm ready for bed now...

I haven't figured everything out on the issue of TWI's version of speaking in tongues – but there has been an evolution of how I address the subject. Initially, when I left TWI most of my criteria were anecdotally based – trying to come to some conclusions thinking about my own experiences and those of others I knew in TWI. As time went on, I felt I needed to set some intellectual standards – and thus review the Bible, TWI's doctrine, and my own thinking a little more critically. In my opinion, TWI's doctrine on speaking in tongues has eclipsed the importance of prayer in our understanding. I feel TWI's version of speaking in tongues is mind numbing [does not engage the intellect], and usually self-centered [directed towards a personal agenda]. It gives a false sense of securing the promises of God, insulates the person from the transforming effect of communion with God [since their mind is not involved in the process], and can lead to self-deception, pride, and hypocrisy. I have listed below a number of points as to why I think TWI's teaching on speaking in tongues is in error. Some things to consider about Speaking in Tongues, TWI's version of it and Prayer in our Understanding 1. The significant purpose of Speaking in Tongues. I noted this in my previous post [# 71]. In The MacArthur Study Bible on I Corinthians 14, John MacArthur suggests tongues ceased after serving a threefold purpose: a sign to unbelieving Jews , a significant blessing of God building a new nation of Jews and Gentiles [Romans 11:11,12,25-27; Galatians 3:28], and authenticating those who preached the gospel [iI Corinthians 12:12]. 2. Decline of Speaking in Tongues after the book of Acts period. The Encyclopedia Britannica notes under Speaking in Tongues "The greatest emphasis upon the gift in the early church was made by followers of the 2nd century prophet Montanus. His excommunication about 177 and the later decline of the sect probably contributed to a climate of opinion unfavorable to speaking in tongues, and the practice declined. During later church history, glossolalia occurred in various groups. In modern times, it occurred during various Protestant revivals in the United States, in the early 20th century." In The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: I Corinthians, John MacArthur states on page 361, "…the gift of tongues has evidently ceased because, since the apostolic age, it has reappeared only spasmodically and questionably throughout nineteen centuries of church history. The gift of tongues is nowhere alluded to or found in any writings of the church Fathers. Clement of Rome wrote a letter to the Corinthian church in the year 95, only about four decades after Paul wrote I Corinthians. In discussing problems in the church, Clement made no mention of tongues. Apparently, both the use and misuse of that gift had ceased. Justin Martyr, the great church Father of the second century, visited many of the churches of his day, yet in his voluminous writings he mentions nothing of tongues. It is not mentioned even among his several lists of spiritual gifts." 3. Different Greek words for "set aside" and "cease". From The NET Bible I Corinthians 13: 8-11, "Love never ends. But if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be set aside. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when what is perfect comes, the partial will be set aside. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways." In the Greek text set aside is katargeo and cease is pauomai. According to The Analytical Greek Lexicon Revised 1978 Edition by Harold Moulton, The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Abridged in One Volume by Geoffrey Bromiley, The Word Study Concordance by George Wigram and Ralph Winter and A Basic Grammar of the New Testament by George Aristotle Hadjiantoniou: Katargeo [translated set aside] is passive – meaning something or someone is setting it aside. In the New Testament, this word can mean: to condemn to inactivity, to destroy, to take out of the sphere of activity, to make inoperative. In other words in saying, "prophecies, they will be set aside [katargeo]" either an event or a person is rendering prophecies inoperative. A few other katargeo occurrences: Romans 3:3 "make the faith of God without effect", I Corinthians 1:28 "to bring to naught things that are", I Corinthians 6:13 "God shall destroy both it and them", II Corinthians 3:7 "which glory was to be done away", II Timothy 1:10 "Christ, who hath abolished death." Pauomai [translated cease] to stop, to come to an end. This word differs from katargeo in that it is in the middle voice – the subject exercises the activity indicated by the verb with special reference to itself. A few other occurrences of pauomai: Luke 11:1 "when he ceased, one of his disciples said", Acts 5:42 "they ceased not to teach and preach", I Peter 3:10 "let him refrain his tongue from evil." In other words, in saying "tongues they will cease [pauomai]" it implies a built-in stopping point. From the above differences in the Greek words used for set aside and cease – it appears to me there's a difference in how tongues will stop and how prophesy and knowledge will stop. Perhaps it may mean God had a limited "lifespan" built into tongues and after serving their purpose [suggested in point 1] they stopped. Whereas, prophecy and knowledge will someday be rendered inoperative by some event or person – and until such time remain in effect. 4. Spiritual abilities are distributed according to God's discretion. As I mentioned in a previous post [#47] VPW taught that every believer has the ability to operate all nine manifestations suggesting I Corinthians 12:11 "dividing to every man severally as He will" meant as the man wills according to his believing. I disagree, in my opinion the entire chapter emphasizes it is God's prerogative to whom the spiritual abilities are given and that every believer is not given all nine. I think the chapter centers around God's influence - in I Corinthians 12: v.4 "…there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit," v.5 "…varieties of ministries, and the same Lord," v.6 "varieties of effects, but the same God," v.11 "But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills" v.13 "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…all made to drink of one Spirit" v.18 But now God has placed the members…just as He desired" v.24 "…God has so composed the body" v.28 "And God has appointed in the church, first apostles…" It makes me wonder – if God is the one who works all these things – then why do we need a man or a class to teach us about them? Where do you see in I Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 instructions on how to operate the manifestations – I mean how to actually do them? You don't! These chapters reveal how much the Corinthians wigged-out on their charismata! They needed some instruction on God being in charge, doing everything out of love and in a gracious and orderly fashion. 5. The Bible emphasizes we engage our intellect in prayer. A study of prayer in the Bible will often touch upon attitudes and thoughts we're to adopt and to avoid. Matthew 6:5 "…when you pray do not be like the hypocrite." Mark 11:25 "…when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him…" Matthew 6:7 "…when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words." For the Bible to encourage us to cultivate humility, persistence, trust, forgiveness, sincerity, etc. in prayer necessitates we engage our minds in the process. I think there was a prevalent idea while I was in TWI that you could be out of fellowship, sinning like a trooper – but you could still speak in tongues which is perfect prayer so everything will work out alright anyway. I think true prayer comes from the heart – from way down deep inside our being – what we think about, what we want – a good reason for us to guard our hearts as Proverbs 4:23 says. To "tremble with fear and do not sin! Do some soul-searching as you lie in bed, and repent of your ways!" as Psalms 4:4 The NET Bible puts it. I think when Scripture encourages us to pray in the Spirit it means we're to make a conscious effort to be in harmony with the Holy Spirit – reflecting on our motivation, thoughts, and behavior as we beseech our Heavenly Father. Psalms 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart." Could be understood two ways: God answers our prayers [the desires of our heart] and He may put desires in our heart. I equate delighting in the Lord as being in step with the Spirit. Ephesians 6:18 "With all prayer and petition [deesis] pray at all times in the Spirit…" The Greek word deesis is supplication, a request, or prayer for specific benefits. That implies the content of my prayers [specific requests] are directed by my mind. It is NOT pressing the S.I.T. button to launch a magical encrypted language that is equivalent to the Star Ship Enterprise's Photon Torpedoes…Didn't VPW in the PFAL class say he hardly ever prayed in his understanding? He believed in the superiority of speaking in tongues. Even in the Corps, I recall how often my mind drifted into daydreaming, worrying or thinking about anything EXCEPT what I was speaking in tongues for - doing the goofy 4 fifteens [yeah, that really kept TWI on the straight and narrow path!]. ...Sometimes I think of prayer in my understanding as perhaps a verbal affirmation or agreement with God - that as I speak the words that I know I should say - I am aware of their reproof of some hidden hypocrisy they have flushed out of my heart - my conscious will not shut up! There have been times as I'm praying for something - when all of a sudden it's like a boxer nails me with a round-house punch while my guard is down; I become aware of how unloving I was toward my wife tonight, or lied about something at work. And as I recover from this blow to my ego - I feel a resolve to right that wrong and my prayer switches gears from being a prayer for whatever - to asking the Father for forgiveness, strength and wisdom to draft a plan of action. And how much of all that going on in our hearts is from the Spirit? The Holy Spirit oversees the Word of God. Much of our prayer phrasing comes from the Bible - I imagine the Spirit can make a particular word, phrase or thought sizzle with energy - or heal. Alright, I'm starting to sound like the sappy Eternity commercials "I don't know where I end and the Spirit begins." Better move on to point 6. 6. The essence of prayer is communion and partnership with God. The thrust of our Lord's teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:8-13 focuses our attention on the person of our Heavenly Father, His purpose and will, His sufficiency for us, His forgiveness, His guidance, His deliverance, His kingdom, power and glory. Point 5 is the process of prayer – point 6 is the object of our prayer. The object of our prayer should be God, His purpose, His will, His glory – not the thing we're praying for, not our own agenda. I think of Paul praying to God three times about his thorn in the flesh – the solution wasn't in Paul's prayers – but in God's strength! If prayer is to be such an integral part of our lives maybe it means any situation in life can be an opportunity to commune with our Heavenly Father, becoming an impromptu prayer/fellowship with Him. When I think of Psalms I think of the spiritually vibrant rapport the writers seem to possess with God – God Almighty – Creator of the Universe! Amid their confessions of doubt, frustration, sin, failures, disappointments – there's still some sort of indescribable tether, some connection, some partnership between the Creator and the creature. Yes, I believe we are fallen creatures - and that's why I'm amazed that God still wants us to approach Him – to hang out with Him – to confide in Him – to trust Him - and of all things to LOVE Him - He wants MY love! 7. TWI's pride with the manifestations overshadowed Christian love. I think I Corinthians 13, the chapter on love, sets the top priority for every Christian – a priority ignored by TWI. This is just my opinion – but try reading some of the My Story or By the Way threads. Note the frequent occurrence of leadership coming down on a believer because God showed them how screwed up they were and needed the beating of the week. When I was in Corps training – I got to see first hand the utter conceit of the top leadership of TWI – as they would speak with such hatred and disdain about any Christian group outside TWI, who didn't speak in tongues or operate the other manifestations according to their standards. Without the governing influence of love – our selfish egos become maniacal bulldozers plowing aside anyone who gets caught in the cross-hairs of our "in-depth spiritual perception and awareness." Jesus summed up the whole point of God's moral law – LOVE for God and your neighbor. I don't recall in the gospels Jesus conducting a bunch of "practice sessions" on the revelation or power manifestations with His disciples; or teaching the "Advanced Class" on them. He sure did teach a lot about love – oh uh – verbally too, besides His example!

Socks - that Bluesr piece is great! What's your equipment on that? Dmiller - thanks for that Gibson link - I haven't looked at those in awhile...My first good bass was a Gibson SG [after giving up on converting a cheap electric guitar my brother gave me into a bass - looked great - sounded terrible - sometime I'll tell the scary story of my Frankenstein Bass]...Funny story about the Gibson [as you can tell by now - not knowing what I'm doing never stops me - :) ]...I was NOT impressed with how dead the strings on my new Gibson bass sounded - I mean dead - no sustain - just thunk, thunk. I take it back to Sam Goody [where I bought it] - the guy in the store looks down at the tail piece - pulls out the piece of dark gray high density packing foam wedged under the strings - and voilà! I've got a nice sounding bass - [and quietly slip out the back door in a heap of embarrassment]...Gibson did something different on this bass - the tuning keys went back [like a double bass] - when it laid in the hard shell case - the keys bowed the neck up - didn't like that - traded it for a Fender Jazz Bass.

Hi Ploem, Tonto [my wife] and I were trying to remember way back then - unless any of the junior corps was around the same age as our son [4 through 6 years old] or happened to sit at our table - it's hard to remember...Anyway - welcome to Grease Spot, Ploem - I take it you're not a newbie - judging by your join-date so my hearty welcome is for your first post!

Very funny, Mstar1, but you have to admire those Californians for coming up with some creative options for attitude adjustment...I prefer the simple Optorecectomy - having a surgeon sever the nerve between your eyeballs and a$$hole - then you no longer have that $hi+ +y outlook on life. :blink:

Cynic, I looked through my JCING and couldn't find anything on it. However, I may have found what you're thinking of in The Word's Way by VPW, Chapter 11, The Lord's Brethren, pages 175 to 177: "…regarding the Lord's brethren, let us first look at the historical background which made an issue of who was the Lord's family…it had become a flaming issue by 300 A.D. when Christianity west of the Euphrates River divided into two camps over the issue. The one camp was in Antioch in the country now called Turkey where Aramaic was the language spoken…The other school had its home base in Alexandria, Egypt, where Greek was the scholar's language. The leader in the Greek school was Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria…In his early non-Christian days, he believed in Isis, Osiris, Horus and other such Egyptian gods. Undoubtedly this early learning influenced his thinking when he became a Christian. As Bishop of Alexandria, he proposed a new doctrine, namely that Mary was the mother of God… Heading the Antioch camp was Nestorius, a graduate of the school at Antioch and chaplain to the emperor in Constantinople. Nestorius, along with Christendom east of the River Euphrates, believed that Mary was the mother of Jesus our Lord but definitely not the mother of God… Thus the divergent doctrines on Mary not only stirred religious controversy in the Roman Empire, but also caused a struggle over power to determine which city – Constantinople or Alexandria – was the most prominent and influential in matters of church doctrine… Because of this controversy a general council of all bishops was called to meet in Ephesus in 431 A.D. The Western bishops came by ships from Greece, Rome, Spain and Alexandria. The Eastern bishops, however, had to come by time-consuming land routes and so they arrived late for the meeting. Thus, before the Nestorian group of bishops arrived, the other bishops of the West had met and condemned the position of Nestorius."

Shame on the late-comers - they knew Bishop-time is 10 minutes before the meeting!

Alright, here's a tough one for yah: In what famous "Gone with the Wind" movie did Clark Gable first appear in? :blink:

Alright kid, if yah ain't gonna give me my Pastrami Sandwich back - at least let me smell it.

Oakspear post # 1 June 22 2006 5:53 PM "...All of the other supernatural or phenomenal occurences seem to have a purpose: miracles, healings, discerning of spirits, revelation, prophecy, etc. They all have an obvious and tangible benefit. They could all be observed & measured. What about tongues? Couldn't God have come up with a way of "building up the inner man" that didn't involve incomprehensible babbling? Sure, God could do whatever he wanted, but don't you assume that he makes sense?" I Corinthians 14: 21, 22 [NKJV] 21 In the law it is written: "With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me," says the Lord. 22 Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers; but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe. I tend to lean towards what John MacArthur suggests on the above verses as to the purpose of speaking in tongues.The following is from The MacArthur Study Bible notes on the above verses: "14:21 it is written. In a freely rendered quotation from Isaiah 28:11,12, Paul explains that centuries earlier the Lord had predicted that one day He would use men of other tongues, that is foreigners speaking unknown languages, as a sign to unbelieving Israel, who "will not hear Me." These "other tongues" are what they knew as the gift of languages, given solely as a sign to unbelieving Israel. That sign was a 3-fold: cursing, blessing, and authority. To emphasize the cursing, Paul quoted Isaiah's words of warning to Judah of the judgment from Assyria…The leaders thought his words were too simple and rejected him. The time would come, the prophet said, when they would hear Assyrian, a language they could not understand, indicating judgment. Jeremiah spoke similarly of the Babylonians who were also to come and destroy Judah [cf. Jeremiah 5:15]. When the apostles spoke at Pentecost in all those foreign languages [Acts 2:3-12], the Jews should have known that the judgment prophesied and historically fulfilled first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonian captivity was about to fall on them again for their rejection of Christ, including the destruction of Jerusalem [A.D.70] as it had happened in 586 B.C. under Babylonian power. 14:22 Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers. Explaining further, he says explicitly that all tongues are for the sake of unbelievers. In other words, that gift has no purpose in the church when everyone present is a believer. And once the sign served its purpose to pronounce judgment or cursing on Israel, and the judgment fell, the purpose ceased along with the sign gift. The blessing of that sign was that God would build a new nation of Jews and Gentiles to be His people [Galatians 3:28], to make Israel jealous and someday repent [see Romans 11:11,12,25-27]. The sign was thus repeated when Gentiles were included in the church [Acts 10:44-46]. The sign also gave authority to those who preached both the judgment and blessing [iI Corinthians 12:12], including Paul [v.18]…" In my opinion, speaking in tongues served a specific purpose in the early days of the church [as MacArthur pointed out] - furthermore, I think it may be significant that outside I Corinthians, speaking in tongues is not addressed in the other epistles. Where scripture speaks of praying in the spirit I think pro-speaking in tongues people project their mind-set into it - assuming it means speaking in tongues. I think it means to pray in harmony with the Spirit; like to pray in Jesus' name. Do you think it's some magic incantation to say His name - then it's got to happen - rub the lamp and the genie appears? I think to pray in Jesus' name is to pray in harmony with His will, to honor Him, appeal to His lordship, appeal to Him personally - the name representing the person himself.

A tapeworm: "Geez, this is weird - there's a light at both ends of the tunnel."

I know VPW claimed he was patterning TWI after the book of Acts - but now I see him more like a Simon the Sorcerer type like in Acts 8 offering the apostles money so he could lay hands on people to receive the Holy Spirit; only in VPW's case it's steal other people's work on the Holy Spirit field and make himself as THE gateway to God's power...I think of Galatians 3:5 where it asks whether someone that ministers the spirit & works miracles among you does it by the works of the law or the hearing of faith? Yeah - a lot of LIVE spiritual action going on with running a tape!... ...Honestly, in my opinion what TWI has is cookie-cutter mentality with the PFAL class mass-producing little Wierwillites...People never could deviate from the norm when running classes - don't lead someone into tongues before they take the class - what if they ran into something like Acts 19:6 where they spoke in tongues and prophesied? Thinking of Stiles quote about patterning after the first century church - I see a BIG difference: I seems to me the early churches in the book of Acts period were somewhat autonomous with Christ as the head. Whereas, TWI is a centralized form of government by a hierarchy of leadership with the Board of Trustees as the head.

Tom, thanks for the Steve Howe clips - great stuff...I thought he was great in Yes but never followed him after that. I may have to get something recent of his...Speaking of guitar players - have you ever heard of Acoustic Alchemy? I've got a few of their CDs and caught them live a few years ago.