You should’ve replied to him in Hebrew.
In that particular example, though, the Chinese man was hearing someone (a white person?) speaking in tongues, Cantonese, directed at that Chinese man himself - and the speaker did not even know about that Chinese man in attendance, if I recall correctly.
Here’s the original source, Acts 2:1-13. The “they” in the first book are the apostles, who were all from Israel (except Peter, the Roman) and so spoke the same language. Those who heard them were from all over the place and heard their own languages.
The original source? More original than 1 Corinthians 14?
I have a strong feeling Triskadecamus might be a little less than neutral on the “right” interpretation.
Presumably you want the Pentecostal perspective. (Pentecostals are the subset/offshoot of Evangelicals who believe in speaking in tongues.) While my beliefs differ now, I did grow up in that, so I’ll give my understanding of their perspective–including the Scriptures used to back it up.
Essentially, there are two types of speaking in tongues. One is your private prayer language, for use in private, or in the general murmur of everyone praying. This is not for anyone else but you. It is letting your spirit pray without your mind. The scripture usually used for this is Romans 8:26: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” However, the underlying idea is also mentioned in the big chapter on speaking in tongues, 1 Corinthians 14.
However, that chapter is primarily concerned with the second form of speaking in tongues: the public prophesy. And, with that form, Paul shares you concerns. Verse 6 says “Now, brothers and sisters, 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?” Verse 13 follows with “For this reason the one who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what they say.”
In fact, in Paul’s instructions about speaking tongues in public are exactly what you thought they should be. Verse 28: “If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.”
So, given all of this, you have a private prayer language that is just the Spirit interceding for you when you don’t know what to pray for. This is valuable because it gets our earthly minds out of the way when praying. However, when using it in public, it is 100% true that speaking in tongues is useless without interpretation.
And this is exactly how my church practiced it. During worship, people might be relatively quietly praying in tongues in their seat, while music was playing. However, sometimes, the music would quiet down, and someone would shout in tongues, with a message purportedly from God. Everything in the service would stop as everyone prayed to receive the interpretation–often the Pastor would wind up doing it.
You didn’t see what you do now, with people up front praying in tongues as some sort of sign of holiness. if pastor started speaking in tongues while praying, he would pull the mic away unless he thought it was for us. Those who use it as a badge of holiness are, in my understanding, misusing it.
I don’t know this particular megachurch pastor. But I would suspect they are part of that situation, where they use their speaking in tongues to indicate they are holy and good. I remember a preacher talking about how we should not be misled by those who do this but preach a doctrine contrary to the Bible. We were exhorted from 1 John 1:1: “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
All Scripture excepts from the New International Version. That is the one I am most familiar with, though I grew up with the pre-2011 edition.
That is indeed the original experience. However, it is not the version discussed in 1 Corinthians 14 nor in Romans 8:26.
I actually forgot about this form of speaking in tongues, as I’ve only ever heard about it in modern times in easily doubted stories like the one Velocity gave. (You know, the ones that could easily be urban legends due to the lack of details.) But, yes, supposedly someone will be able to spontaneously speak in another language, or the Holy Spirit stepped in and translated for them Babelfish/Universal translator style.
I’ve heard non-Pentecostal denominations interpreting this as a one time miracle (or at least a rare one only used when God deems it absolutely necessary), and that the “gift of tongues” is just a natural talent for learning other languages. Or even just “the gift of speaking.” However, I would argue that 1 Corinthians 14 suggests that the gift was explicitly about glossalia, which needed an interpretation in an Earthly language.
And I believe that was the actual split between Pentecostals and the Evangelicals of the day back in first decade of the 20th century. However, given that these tongue-talking churches call themselves “Evangelical,” it seems that this divide has been healed.
I’m sorry, are you claiming some sort of actual miracle happened?
In point of fact, that’s actually 1 John 4:1.
Yes. Sorry. I got the 1s stuck in my brain.
I presume either 1:1 or 4:1 is a verse you know well?
Yeah, I’m a big fan of 4:1; often pair it with Deuteronomy 13.
An identical technique has been used by some pet psychics. “Fido just told you he wants a big bone and a softer bed.” Unless you understand dogese, how can you argue with that?
Gullibility know no bounds.
They don’t call it Oral for nothing.
If he’s talking about the story I think he is, I think it has (like an urban legend) grown in the telling. What I remember is that the person saying they heard words that sounded like spiritual words in their own language.
Such could easily be explained by audio pareidolia–your brain wants to make sense of things. I’ve personally thought I heard Hebrew words, particularly Shalom and Shaddai.
Ah, yes. I knew there were Old Testament Scriptures that were relevant, but I couldn’t remember them and my Google search was not working.
I also seem to remember a scripture saying you could test a prophecy in a very pragmatic way–did what they say actually come to pass? And did the prophet actually have a record of accurate predictions. I couldn’t find that one, either.
As a teenager, I went to church. The church I usually went to once had someone speaking in tongues. I went to a youth church and got weirded out by the speaking in tongues there. Funny how the two “languages” sounded completely different.
Surely, in its own humble way, the traffic ticket is akin to the Word of God.
The Episcopal church probably held their own services on Sunday morning, and rented the facility to the Pentecostal church in the late afternoon or evening. That’s not unusual nowadays, especially with small or beginning congregations. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church in my town even hosted a Presbyterian congregation on Sundays for a while.
Anyway, I personally think it’s something people do to show off. I’ve never attended a Pentecostal service, but I’ve heard that some of them can get pretty off-the-wall (at least by my own personal mainstream Protestant experience).
While I’ll grant that there is something to be said for being “race blind”, I wouldn’t call it a miracle that someone would look at a Chinese man and subconsciously decide to put their Cantonese to use.
Or, in the case that it was happenstance, I’ll note that if the white guy had been speaking Japanese, the Chinese guy would never have thought anything about it and there wouldn’t be an internet anecdote about that one time that crazy thing happened.
It was all single takes, I swears.
You use your tongue (or in this case, keyboard) purtier than a $20 Whore!
LOL. It doesn’t appear anyone tried to seriously address your actual q’s, Monstro.
I assume the first is rhetorical? (Unless the SDMB has solved some thorny theological issues while I was away…)
As to why tongues (private or public) is such a common gift:
Of the seven traditional gifts of the HS, tongues is not even represented. And speaking in tongues is only referenced in a couple of places in the New Testament. So it’s not “common” from a scriptural perspective, in my opinion.
WRT to practice in religious sects, it’s common in charismatic-oriented ones because they select out for it. Much of charismatic tradition is built around tongues as a sign of contact with the HS, and people experiencing tongues are attracted to charismatic-oriented groups. Public tongues is not common in non-charismatic circles, and private tongues is, well…private, so therefore not “common” as a public-facing expression.
Whatever the neurologic/psychologic basis is, those wired that way are going to feel comfortable in an environment where their experience is not only accepted, but encouraged and reinforced as a positive and appropriate behavior.
It’s my personal opinion that xenoglossia never happens and uninterpretable gibberish is an ordinary neurologic event. Because it’s gibberish, it’s also easy to fake for those who happen also to be charlatans. But the grey zone between earnest leaders who are expressing what they believe to be proof of supernatural connections and scammers willing to fake heavenly signs in service of fleecing is a different discussion for GD, I suppose.