I was reading a Times article on Pentecostals, which mentioned the practice of “speaking in tongues”. I have never heard anyone do this and I’m curious. Has anyone witnessed someone doing this? I would imagine it would be pretty funny if you don’t “believe”. And my guess is that the believers sort of subconsciously “fill in the blanks”. Is this pretty much the jist of it, or am I missing something?
Well, in my experiences, when someone spoke in tongues, they just suddenly burst into a long stretch of unintelligble speech. At times you may hear something familiar, like “Amen”, “Halleijuah” and the sort. Sometimes they seems to be repeating nonsense syllabes, but you can make out the emotions behind them. Listeners usually don’t pretend they know what each other is talking. One Charismatic pastor I once known told me it’s more like a heart-to-heart talk to God, or it’s the outburst of the Holy Spirit. I am quite bewildered too, actually.
It’s one thing to hear one person speaking in tongues, it’s quite another thing when a whole church, about 500+ strong, start to speak in tongues. It’s unnerving, whether you believe it or not.
Just my humble opinions and limited experiences.
My paternal grandmother was Pentecostal and took me to church with her when I visited. I was raised Southern Baptist, where only the preacher was allowed to speak. (if you were a man aged 70 or above you could get away with an occasional “Amen”)
Those people scared the hell out of me. I was so terrified I almost wet my pants the first time.
The documentary film Hellhouse has some footage of Pentacostals speaking in tongues. Very weird.
Snakescatlady, that sounds identical to what I saw at a “Youth Conference”. Raised Baptist, and went home crying because I was so scared.
What I was told was that for it to be condsidered “legit”, someone else in the room would be given the power to translate what the tongue speaker was saying or something like that.
It depends. I grew up in a Pentecostal church. Speaking in tongues could be done during any service, usually at the end when everyone is praying and several people may be “speaking in tongues”. They believe (and I did) that it was the Holy Spirit speaking the heavenly language through you directly to God. Less often there might be someone who would be come over by the Spirt at another time and everyone else would fall silent and listen. Typically then someone else would be overcome and “translate”. It seems odd, in retrospect, that some poorly educated hick from southwest Arkansas/East Texas would be “translating” some Heavenly language which just happens to sound like someone poorly mimicking King James English complete with “thees” and “thous” sprinkled liberally.
Well of course! Everyone knows that God speaks only english circa mid 1660’s.
Yes, I have. Two of our closest friends are Pentecostal couple, and while I’ve never heard her do it, I have heard him do it a number of times.
It is definitely a weird sound. Nothing like a language at all. More something like “La, la-lablla, lab loddle bottle…etc.” Heavy use of “Ls” for some reason…then on occasional, going to words with a lit of “Ms” in them. Almost a singsong chant.
(For years, we attended an interdenominational church with them and others on a very small island, and when we visit them here in the states, we sometimes go to their church on Sunday)
Doesn’t skeeze us out or anything, the Pentecostal folk don’t go around trying to convert us or dance with snakes or anything, just a “different strokes” kind of thing. Never seen anyone faint or dance in the aisles.
I don’t have any idea if speaking in tongues is real or not, or even what standard practice is, but I can relate my personal experience. I attended a New Life (born again) sunday school for a while around age 8 or 9 or so in the Pacific Northwest. One week, the sunday school leader took all the kids to a big empty room, sat us in chairs in a circle facing each other, and told us that we were going to learn about speaking in tongues. Furthermore, she said that “no one is leaving here until everyone does it.”
Well, we all did it. Me, I did it because I didn’t want to miss the bus home.
The speech sounded like nonsense, but rhythmic and vowel-laden yet different for each person. According to this woman, each of us has our own divine language in which we can speak to God and which only He understands. Interestingly, she said that we could only pray for things we truly needed in this tongue. Not that we simply weren’t allowed to pray for frivolous things, that humans are literally incapable of praying in tongues for anything except for that which we truly need, even if we ourselves don’t know what that might be! The idea was that God gave you a “heart-language” in which you simply reach out to God emotionally, and God supplies you with both the right words and the ability to say them.
Oddly, this incident was not the reason that I quit this church.
That’s what happened to me. A friend invited me to church with her one evening, and innocently, I agreed. I was in no way prepared for what I saw, having attended only infrequently quiet Baptist services.
To my eyes, all hell broke loose. One man ran laps around the room screaming and red-faced. A woman stood at the front of the aisle, apparently having one hell of an orgasm, while others writhed, jiggled and gabbered. I sat frozen in my pew as my friend went up and joined in, so frightened that I began to cry.
A woman saw my tears and screamed, “Praise Jesus, she’s gettin’ the Holy Ghost!” Instantly, I was surrounded by these sweaty, wild-eyed people who still spoke in tongues as they pressed their palms to my face, my head and my shoulders. (Called “laying on hands” as I later learned.) I guess it was supposed to help me along, but all it did was freak me out
“Please, stop!” I cried, swatting away the hands. “I’m not getting the Holy Ghost! Really, I’m not!”
My friend warned me direly on the car ride home that unless I could speak in tongues, I wasn’t Saved. (She said she could prove it by a certain scripture constantly quoted in her church that was actually absent from the Bible.)
I went to a Christian highschool where we had chapel twice a week. There were occasions where the pastor or guest speaker would encourage the crowd of students to pray in tongues. The first chapel I was in that that happened I was terrified. Eventually I got used to it but 4 years of highschool, chapel twice a week, I never “received the gift of tongues”.
At a brunch with the other senior cheerleaders and our coach, the coach asked if we’re all able to speak in tongues. I was scared that they’d surround me and perform some kind of weird ritual. I didn’t know what they’d do, so I lied and I said yes, I had. Aparently the other 6 seniors had.
As LiveOnAPlane said “La, la-lablla, lab loddle bottle…etc.” sounds about right to me. Unintelligible and seemingly repetitive.
The few times at a previous church I attended an old woman stood up in the middle of the sermon and spoke in tongues. A few minutes later another member of the congregation stood up and interpreted it, or atleast said something that sounded very wise and holy. That happened several times. In my eyes that was more God’s words than a bunch of kids saying “blah blah blah” in chapel. I don’t know why I view it differently. I was scared of both but more comfortable with the tongue speaking with interpretation than without.
I don’t go to church anymore but that’s for different reasons.
I currently attend a Pentecostal (Assemblies of God) church. In my specific church, it is very rare to hear someone speak in tongues. There are some people in the church that pray in tongues when they are praying for someone, and occasionally someone will start speaking in tongues in the middle of the church service.
All that to say, most Pentecostal churches, including the Assemblies of God, teach that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is ALWAYS evidenced by speaking in tongues. However, in my experience, that is not what the bible teaches. What I see, is that speaking in tongues is a gift from God, just like any other gift such as prophecy or one of the other ones in the lists that Paul sets forth. It can be an evidence, but is not usually.
What really bugs me is the way that people are taught about speaking in tongues. Sometimes, as one of the other posters said, they are locked in a room until they speak in tongues, which accomplishes nothing. In other cases, such as at summer camps or youth conventions, they are invited forward in a highly emotional atmosphere. The people also feel the pressure to speak in tongues and so they do.
I see the real evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit to be a changed life. Without this evidence later on down the road, the speaking in tongues thing means nothing.
On a final note, Paul sets forth some rules regarding exercising the gift of tongues in 1 Corinthians 14, which are generally followed in my church.
Mines Mystique
Yep. I was going to add that St. Paul has some strong things to say about people who regard speaking in tongues as more damn holy than other gifts.
*Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction? 7Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? 8Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? 9So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. 10Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. 11If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me. 12So it is with you. Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.
13For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says. 14For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. 15So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. 16If you are praising God with your spirit, how can one who finds himself among those who do not understand[e] say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying? 17You may be giving thanks well enough, but the other man is not edified.
18I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. 19But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue. *
I’m going to tell a story I don’t think I have ever told, unless I maybe told my husband back in our dating days. The only ones who know it are the 4 people who were present that night. I generally don’t enjoy speaking about it, but maybe somebody can get something useful out of it.
When I lived at Washington State University, my first semester was awfully tough. First time away from very controlling parents, I kinda went nuts, did stupid things. I’m lucky I didn’t get raped or worse, with as many stupid situations as I got myself into, most of them involving alcohol.
Then I met Andy. And to make this part of the story very short, he confronted me on my behavior and challenged me to become a Christian. I wound up meeting him and two friends, a young married couple, and they prayed for me in a private room somewhere on campus. They ‘spoke in tongues’ - to this day I think the one fellow may have been speaking Latin - and I found myself gradually beginning to do the same. They were ecstatic of course. Later I tried to deny I had done any such thing, and Andy said “You can’t deny it, I heard you.” So then I got into the church life thing, and if it did nothing else for me, it gave me structure and rules and a community to belong to.
And, as somebody else here said, the speaking in tongues thing was explained as ‘speaking to God’, and it would have to be (if it was anything at all) because I never knew what I was saying, nor did anyone ever understand or interpret what I said. At least, in the Foursquare churches I attended over the years, it was never required, and nobody was made to feel lesser if they didn’t. I just sort of took it on faith that it meant something, or did something, or did some good, because I never felt ecstatic when the sounds tumbled out of my mouth. I never felt anything at all.
All of this sort of culminated at a prayer meeting about 18 years ago at a church where high emotion was de rigeur, and some preacher guy came in and was ‘slaying people in the spirit’ by touching their foreheads while everybody sort of danced around, making a complete cacophany of babbling sounds, and by gum, when he came by and touched my forehead, I just simply fell over backward and a couple of guys caught me and laid me down, and left me there as he went on.
I never figured out what the falling over thing was supposed to mean. I could never find a significance for it, and eventually decided it was the power of suggestion. But it amazed me that I could have succumbed and not been afraid of falling (and I am usually terrified of falling).
About a year later - 2 years after college, so 6 years into my christian career - I burned out big time and have not called myself a believer in…oh, 15 years. I think the correct term is ‘apostate’. Andy - with whom I am still in touch, along with his wife my ex-roommate - was pretty distraught when I told him I had walked away from the faith.
But I can still…ah…create the sounds I once called ‘speaking in tongues’. There is no ecstasy involved; there is no emotion, and no, it doesn’t sound like ‘bala bala’ or anything like that. Actually it sounds to me like some of the Native American speech I’ve heard, with gutterals, glottal stops, and tonalities utterly absent from English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, or any other language I speak even a little. I’d transcribe some of it here but I don’t know how to write some of the sounds.
Andy and his wife tell me this is proof that God has not given up on me. I don’t know what to think about it. It’s just a freak…ability, if it is an ability…with no purpose I can identify. But there it is.
My particular tonguérre had a bit of Arabian Nights and some 700 club Jewish/Ahramaic Barrrarbas and lolling. She was good. She scarred me good.
Next thing you know, yadda, yadda, yadda, you’re speaking in tounges.
The problem I have with speaking in tongues is that many who believe in it consider it to be a “higher” spiritual gift than the others. And I have a HUGE problem with using speaking in tongues as evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit as that is unBiblical. I also agree with Mines that evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit is a changed life.
God can speak through anyone, not just someone who speaks in tongues. Church services are supposed to be orderly. How can they be orderly with Sister Thelma rolling around or pacing in the aisle speaking in tongues? (Guys, I have seen this done.) I personally have only seen tongues spoken when things get very emotional and tense. That makes me wonder if alot of people are not just reacting to the emotion. While I am sure that it happens, I don’t think it is as prevelant as some would have others believe. I have never done it myself (and to be completely honest, I don’t want to).
Another issue is with praying in tongues. I see nothing in 1 Corinthians about this practice. I don’t think it is right as the point of tongues is to bring a revelation from God and to encourage and strengthen the church. How can you do that if you are not sharing what is being told to you?
Exactly!!! Why did I not think of that! :smack: LOL
Wrong!
God speaks Latin. And expects that when “Speaking in Tongues”.
I, like Lissa, once went with friends to their church service, which turned out to be a Pentecostal service featuring “speaking in tongues”. I thought it was ‘interesting’, and quietly wandered a bit, listening to people ‘Speaking’.
And I came upon one guy who was reciting the conjugation of the verb “to be” in Latin: “sum, es, est, eram, eras, erat, …”. Something that I vaugely recognized from my long-ago college Latin classes. And my friends told me on the way home that he was widely known in the church for being good at “Speaking in Tongues” – the Holy Spirit shows powerfully in him that way, they said.
I concluded that the whole thing was just a crock. (But I didn’t say that to these friends.)