Why don't people believe in speaking in tongues?

Question

It is described in the Bible so many times. I never believed it at first but then I actually started reading my Bible. I saw a documentary about it on the History Channel. They even had Catholic Priests on there that believed in it. I don't get why Churches shun the belief if it is scriptual. What did they have to lose if they taught it? Now everyone is against it so it will never be a widespread Christian belief.

I think a lot of people are misreading the Bible. Speaking it and understanding it are two different gifts. It's not that they were able to speak in all these different languages (at Corinth) but they spoke in one unintelligable language and through the gift of the Spirit everyone was able to understand it in their native language.

I suggest more people read a little more carefully. Peter instructed us not to be afraid of it. I used to think it was a joke, too. But go to a revival and I think you will be pretty amazed.

Answer 1

Because it is nothing more than religious hysteria. You wouldn't have to LEARN it if it were natural. No one does it until they have seen others do it so they can mimic it. It serves no purpose whatsoever, so why try to spread it around?

:(|)

AD

Answer 2

1John 4:1 "Beloved ones, do not believe every inspired expression, but test the inspired expressions to see whether they originate with God."

Among those 'speaking in tongues' today are Pentecostals and Baptists, also Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. Jesus said that the holy spirit would 'guide his disciples into all the truth.' (John16:13) do members of each of these religions believe that the others who also "speak in tongues" have been guided into "all truth"? How could that be, since they are not all in agreement? What spirit is making it possible for them to "speak in tongues"?

A joint statement by the Fountain Trust and the chruch of England Evangelical Council admitted: "We are alos aware that a similar phenomenon can occur under occult/demonic influence." (gospel and Spirit, April 1977, published by the Fountain Trust and the Church of England Evangelical Council, p 12)

The book Religious Movements in Contemporary America reports that in Haiti 'speaking in tongues' is charateristic of both Pentecostal and Voodoo religions.

In the fisrt century, when Christians 'spoke in tongues,' what they said had meaning to people who knew those languages. (Acts 2:4,8) today, is it not true that 'speaking n tongues' usually involves an ecstatic out burst of unintelliglble sounds?

In the first centrury, the Bible shows, congergations were to limit the 'speaking in tongues to two or three persons who might do that at any given meeting; they were to do it "each i turn," and if there was no interpreter present they were to keep silent. (1cor. 14:27, 28) Is that what is being done today?

In the first century, the ability to "speak in tongues" gave impetus to the international work of witnessing that Jesus had commissioned his followers to do. (acts 1:8; 2:1-11; Matt 28:19) is that how those who "speak in tongues" use that ability today?

In the first century, the miraclous gifts of the spirit, including that ability to "speak intongues" verified that God's favor had shifted from the Jewish system of worship to the newly established Christian congregation. (Heb. 2:2-4) Since that objective was accomplished in the first century, is it necessaty to prove that smae thing again and again in our day?

Answer 3

Here is my thought. When the disciples began speaking in tongues, that meant that they were speaking languages that other races spoke that the disciples had never learned. That is a miracle. Today when people claim to speak in tongues, they are rambling gibberish. If you could bring a person forward that could understand what they are saying in either a foreign or ancient language, then I would say they are legitimate. Otherwise, I think they are starved for attention. And by the way, I am 100% Christian.

Answer 4

The clinical word for "speaking in tongues" is glossolalia. It has been proven repeatedly that people who are speaking in tongues are not speaking real languages. They are making language-like sounds. This phenomenon, which is called a "gift of the holy spirit" in Christian tradition, also occurs in other mystical traditions. It occurs in the context of certain forms of yoga and meditation. It presumably also occurred in Shakerism--whose followers also participated in a phenomenon that often occurs with glossolalia when it happens in a spiritual-practice setting--which is spontaneous movement (this also occurs in certain types of yogic/Tantric meditational practices).

I suppose the medical and scientific community regard it as a kind of benign, situational hysteria or a form of psychogenic epileptiform seizure.

People who have experienced it, however, feel that they are having a spiritual experience, and are benefited by it spiritually, mentally, and perhaps also physically. So it may have value and be beneficial in that sense and since it does occur as a mystical human experience and is not necessarily only found in one or another religion.

I experienced this phenomenon when I was a teenager involved in Charismatic Christianity (the Catholic version of Pentecostalism) and also experienced it years later when studying a form of Tibetan Buddhism and Tantric-type yogic meditation practices.

Some people--or church officials--shun it because it technically is an "occult" practice.

Answer 5

speaking in tongues could be an genuinely distant places language or it is basically what some call "gibberish" even though it's the language that god knows. specific I do have self belief in speaking in tongues. i'm Pentecostal yet all people that repents and asks god for the Holy Ghost could have it.

Answer 6

You are not supposed to preach in tongues if their is no one who can interpret the words, is what the bible says. In other words, it would be useless. Speaking in tongues is only one of several gifts given to some of us. Pentecostals believe that if you speak in tongues you are truly blessed in the spirit. But one should only speak in tongues if there is somebody there to interpret the meaning.

Answer 7

Sorry, but, as the scriptures clearly teach...the true gift of tongues is a normal language, spoken somewhere on earth, but not learned by the linguistic processes by which we ordinarily learn languages; yet it is clearly understandable by anyone who would happen to speak that language. It is not some unknown tongue in the sense that it is different from any language spoken on earth. It is spoken somewhere on earth, if it is the true gift of tongues. This rules out all gibberish, stammering, stuttering, or repetitious sounds. And, right at this point, much of what passes for tongues today fails.

What you are seeing today is false. It has as much to do with real tongues as REAL gold with iron pyrites ("Fool's Gold") does

Answer 8

Mostly because the bible said they spoke in actual languages, the gibberish you're blurting out in your holy orgasmic state is just that, gibberish.

Answer 9

"speaking in tongues" is just another religious lie and deception...only the truly brain-washed/brain-dead believe.

Go beyond religion and do this:

Create Your Relationship with Our Creator
and have UnConditional Love and Peace in Your Life.

Answer 10

It was superseed in the New Testement by later scripture. It specifically said "this would no longer be done."

Answer 11

My church practices speaking in tounges as a form of prayer. It is one of many possible spiritual gifts. This is not uncommon in more progressive non-denominational (and non-apostolic) churches. We also believe in the power of healing through prayer.