Lifeway's Recent SBC Survey

[rfuss]

Here is Lifeway's recent survey on SBC private prayer langange. Anyone know any more about this?

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[ET]

Ubee jubee cokeo fleo ekcleld

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

[Howard]

[Dave Roberts]

[Hal Eaton]

[Timsings]

I have no experience with this, so I also have no opinion as to whether it is a reality. I do have an opinion about the attention it is getting: TOO MUCH! When you consider all the real problems that we live with every day, I find it amazing that so many people are giving this so much air. We got more important things to attend to. You all know what they are.

Tim Reynolds

[Timsings]

[Lamar Wadsworth]

Dr. Dale Moody (theology prof at Southern Seminary for 40+ years) used to say, "There are three views on speaking in tongues. You have the exaggerators, the exterminators, and the regulators. I'm a regulator."
Moody himself did not speak in tongues, but he believed that it was a valid gift of the spirit that could serve a useful purpose and glorify God. He was equally outspoken in his disagreement with cessationists ("exterminators") who held that the gift was only operative during the apostolic era and in his disagreement with the "exaggerators" who elevated the gift of tongues above other gifts as THE evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person's life and denigrated those who did not have the gift. My view is the same as Moody's--not because I was one of his students or because of my high regard for him, but because Scripture and experience lead me to the same conclusion that he reached.

As for missionaries (or pastors or seminary trustees) who practice a "private prayer language," can't we just be thankful that they pray and let it go at that?

One of my spiritual heroes was my uncle Clyo Bailey, my mother's oldest brother, who was a bivocational pastor of Pentecostal churches in west Georgia (Cedartown, Rockmart, and Villa Rica) for many years. Uncle Clyo spoke in tongues, but he parted company with the United Pentecostal Churches and became an independent Pentecostal because he concluded that tongues were merely one of many possible ways that the Spirit could be evident in a person's life, and that a person could be filled with the Spirit and never speak in tongues. Dr. Moody and Uncle Clyo never met in this life, but now that they are both with the Lord, I can picture the two of them as friends and kindred spirits, discussing Scripture.

[jerryl]

[Joshua Villines]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

I'm surprised that the numbers of Southern Baptists who believe that tongues and private prayer languages are valid gifts are so high. Among other things, that's got to be alarming information for the aging leadership of the so-called conservative resurgence, since it shows that they don't have as much influence over the doctrines that are taught or practiced in the churches as they might have thought. It might also indicate that what some people have said about the strength of the "young blogger" movement, represented by Wade Burleson, Ben Cole, Marty Duren, and others, would be accurate--that they had the votes to elect Frank Page over the chosen resurgence candidate last year, and, with the convention being held in the center of moderate-dominant Texas, might be able to turn the direction of the SBC, or at least significantly weaken the grip of the conservative resurgence.

From a personal perspective, I thank Lamar for bringing up Dr. Moody's view. That's pretty close to my own view. I believe tongues, both known language and an unknown spiritual language, is an active spiritual gift, given by God in a sovereign manner, and is practiced correctly both in a limited way in the fellowship, as well as privately, in prayer. I've never experienced it personally. I've been in some pretty intense prayer sessions, both privately, and in a small group, where I had an overwhelming sense of the spirit's moving, an experience similar to the description in the book of Acts of the place being "shaken," not literally, but in a spiritual sense.

[Kaye]

Years ago I took my preschooler with me to a Christian concert, where for the first time I heard someone speak in tongues. Suddenly I realized that my preschooler seated next to me was now standing in her chair with arms raised and looking up and shouting "How-wah-woo-wah" over and over. She was saying "Hallelujah" but she was unable to pronounce the word yet and that was the first time I had ever heard her say the word. Now an adult she heard someone speak in tongues at church and called me about it. She asked if there was anything wrong with it because she had been taught in church that it was a gift used only in apostalic times and could not be used in church today unless an interpreter was there. I shared with her that there was nothing to fear and the person is praising the Lord. She did not remember how she had praised the Lord when she was barely able to talk. How sad it would be for someone to have a spiritual gift and not be allowed to use it or told it was not relevant.

[Wade Burleson]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

The scripture is pretty clear on that point about an interpreter being present.

1 Cor. 14:2 "For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit."

14:13-15 "For this reason, anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So 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.

14:26-28 What shall we say brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two--at the most three--should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and to God.

(Emphasis mine)

It is this scripture passage on which I base my personal belief. Paul says that tongues must be a part of the strengthening of the church, but that it isn't predominant in worship, and shouldn't be done if no interpreter is present. He also indicates that it is primarily used as a prayer language. In the argument advanced by those who say that this gift only lasted until the scripture was canonized, no scripture is actually cited to draw that conclusion. And if that were the case, then why would an inspired writer of scripture not make note of that somewhere in this passage, in this context?

Ed's question is an excellent one. Can Satanic forces inspire humans to sound as if they are "speaking in tongues," or inspire someone to "interpret" those tongues? Yes. So how do you tell the difference?

I Cor. 12:3 "Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, 'Jesus be cursed,' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit."

And I think there is a similar point made in I John 4, about testing spirits. Satanic forces cannot declare Jesus to be the Christ. I don't know if that covers those who try to "fake" the gift, since that happens, too. When I was in junior high and high school, one of my good friends was the son of the pastor of the AOG congregation in town. He was not a believer, and was, in fact, quite jaded and cynical about the church, particularly Pentecostal practices. He was also very skilled at imitating speaking in tongues, so much so that he could burst out in a couple of paragraphs in church and usually get an interpretation. He was convinced that most of the people in their church worked really hard at faking the gift.

I find it rather interesting that those in the SBC who have been the most adamant advocates for declaring that the scriptures are inerrant and infallible do not have scriptural support for a doctrine which they are attempting to codify through manipulation of trustee boards. I've never doubted that the so-called conservative resurgence in the SBC wasn't about doctrinal purity or returning the denomination to a conservative belief in "inerrancy and infallibility" of the scripture, but this is pretty convincing evidence to support my contention that it was always about power and control.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Kaye]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Norm]