Category: Churches | Page 103 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Informational post on speaking in tongues #5

This is just a little ‘did you know’ informational post on the subject of speaking in tongues, shared as some food for thought.

Did you know that there are only three instances in the entire book of Acts where it is said that believers spoke in tongues? They are Acts 2, 10 and 19. (Acts 8 cannot be included as it never once mentions tongues. More on this in another blog.) There are similarities in all three.

Have you ever considered the fact that when the people in these three instances spoke in tongues, they were not seeking or expecting to do so? They were not all even praying at the time. A group of people were involved in each situation. In two of the three cases, it clearly shows those speaking in tongues were magnifying and exalting God, telling of His mighty works, as they were understood by those nearby. (See the previous blog for the first instance.)

Acts 10:45-46:

The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. For they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God. NLT
All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. NASB
The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. NIV
And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. KJV

Informational post on speaking in tongues #4

This is just a little ‘did you know’ informational post on the subject of speaking in tongues, shared as some food for thought.

Did you realize that in Acts 2, the Bible only records about 120 people speaking in tongues? I know what many have been taught, but the Bible doesn’t say anyone else did on that day.

Acts 1:15 shows us that “a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together.” (NASB) There may have been more or less people when Pentecost actually came, however most Pentecostals use 120 as the number present. Verse 41 shows us that after Peter’s message, about 3,000 people became believers that same day and were water baptized. Yet there is not one word about them ever speaking in tongues. It is read into the text and assumed to have happened by those who believe all must/will/should speak in tongues.

Did you also realize that those who spoke in tongues on that day spoke about the mighty works of God? They were actual earthly known languages, understood by people from around the world who were gathered in Jerusalem. (see verses 7-11) There was no gibberish, repeated syllables or la-la-las such as we often hear today.

And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. KJV
Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” NIV
They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.” NASB
They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” NLT

Anger

I am struggling with anger, and with guilt for the anger that I feel. Oh, the anger is well founded. I don’t think my anger is off base, unchristian, or unfounded. I have been lied to, lied on, falsely accused, and misrepresented. I’ve been discredited, shamed and humiliated, falsely accused by saints and then the pastor, and informed that I cannot even speak in my own defense because doing so questions his authority. I have seen backbiting, bitterness, variance, envying, strife, contention, gossip, and lying promoted in the name of religion. And I have seen true religion negated due to these promotions. Pure religion and undefiled is this… to visit the fatherless and widows… and to keep himself unspotted from the world…

My anger is as justified as Jesus’ when he drove out the money changers in the temple. No, I’m not being haughty or proud. I am not justifying bitterness, nor am I thinking more highly of myself than I ought. I am simply stating the facts. Jesus got angry, he even made a whip and drove out the money changers, yet He was without sin. To lay sin at my feet for saying the attitudes directly spoken against in the Bible should not be ignored in the church is neither reasonable nor biblical.

I have been told multiple times that I should forgive and forget things that should not be forgotten and which the offender never repented of. According to the unspoken rules of the church, if I tell the pastor he has offended me, I will be “reproved and rebuked” and told that I have a bitter, unforgiving spirit. Further, if I call and ask to go back to church, I will be dealt with harshly for leaving. I will be expected to attend four services a week and will have little or no privacy. I will not be able to use the internet for anything but work purposes. And I will only be sitting on a pew waiting to be called out for some new false report or supposed infraction anyway.

So I’m angry. Not sinfully angry, but angry in a way that has prompted change and research on my part. Anger that has made me re-look and rethink several teachings of the conservative Oneness movement. Anger that has made me realize that I’d prefer to go to a church where the women wear pants and they sing the doxology than to sit in a church where brothers and sisters distrust each other, where people are judged more than they are loved and accepted, and where there are some big names and also many no names.

I’m angry. I have a right and a need to be angry. When my anger shows through in my writing, it is not because I’m a horrible backslid reprobate. It is because there are terrible wrongs taking place under God’s name, and good people are being hurt as a result. There is no greater hypocrisy, no worse way to take God’s name in vain than to do these things “in His name” and then attempt to silence those who have been so misused.

Informational post on speaking in tongues #3

This is just a little ‘did you know’ informational post on the subject of speaking in tongues, shared as some food for thought.

Did you know that the Apostle Paul shows that everyone will not speak in tongues? This is found in 1 Corinthians 12:29-30 where Paul asks a series of questions where the obvious answer is ‘no.’

Some people will tell you that you must speak in tongues or that all believers should. Oneness Pentecostals will say unless you speak in tongues, you are not saved as they claim it is the ‘initial evidence’ of receiving the Holy Spirit. These lines of thought are not found in scripture. The apostle Paul didn’t teach or believe it, nor did any of the other apostles.

All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All do not have gifts of healing, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? NASB
Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles? Do we all have the gift of healing? Do we all have the ability to speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages? Of course not! NLT
Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? KJV
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? NIV

Placing Blame

When you go through a trial, if you don’t pass, you’re bound to repeat it til you get it right.

What is the indication that someone has “passed” a trial? Does a righteous God make people repeatedly go through something, and without indicating what they have done wrong, force them to repeat the trial because they somehow unwittingly failed? What is a mark of failure or success, from a Pentecostal perspective? Is it staying in church? Keeping a right attitude? Keeping a smile on your face in public even when you are dying inside? Forgiving and loving the people who hurt you?

When I was in school, we were given quizzes through a week or month. The quizzes and later our tests were scored, corrected, and returned to us. If we students reviewed our corrected quizzes, we saw the errors we had made and would learn from them. Many times, when I saw the correct answer to a question I had missed, that fact or answer would be etched in my memory. I would never make the same mistake again.

If the tests had not been scored, reviewed, or corrected, but only returned with “Pass” or “Fail” written at the top, we would not have known what we did wrong. We would not have been able to improve. We would have become frustrated by this method of grading. Any teacher who had graded this way would have been considered a very poor teacher and would probably been released from their position.

How then, in a walk with God, can people be repeatedly told they must have “failed” some test without being told what they did wrong or how to improve? What kind of teacher is God if he simply says, “You failed. Try again,” without showing us how to do better when we ask? That doesn’t make sense.

Someone might say, “All the answers are right there in the Bible- you’re just missing it.” Am I? God hasn’t opened his word and my understanding after years of the same problem?

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? (Luke 11:10-13)

God isn’t playing games with us. He doesn’t leave us to fail repeatedly without giving us the answers as to how to succeed with Him when we ask.

As a child, when I would bring some supposed wrong to my mom, I’d often hear: “There are always two sides to a story,” “it takes two to tango,” or “and what did you do to her?” Mom loved me, but she raised me to understand that most things were not totally one person’s fault or another’s. If I was bullied at school, for example, she comforted me, but she also questioned where I was and why and offered solutions to avoid similar situations in the future. If I ignored her advice and walked back into the same situation again, I was at fault- not because the bully was right, but because I had not taken steps to prevent their wrong behavior toward me.

I have put that training to use in this situation. I am not totally at fault, as some in church would like to think. Nor am I not responsible at all for what happened, because I walked into the same problem more than once. That was not an issue of passing or failing a trial, that was an issue of trying too hard to make something work that just, well… didn’t. It is not my fault that I was falsely accused. It is not that God is putting me through some horrible trial repeatedly. But I allowed a wrong situation and wrong behaviors to continue, trying to be more forgiving, trying to forget their wrongful accusations and cutting words, attempting to be more submissive and obedient, trying to show that I don’t have a chip on my shoulder or that I’m not intrinsically a more wicked person than anyone else or that there isn’t anything “wrong” with me.

When the pastor would tell me that my situation was abnormal, that there was something wrong with me, that I was unforgiving or bitter or unsubmissive, I would go out of my way to attempt to be more normal, right, forgiving, or submissive, thinking he would eventually see that I wasn’t the terrible person that he apparently thought I was. He would shun me, and I would press for attention, craving the love I saw him show to others. He would be angry at me, and I would think it was my fault. I had failed again. He told me I was depressed and negative and so he didn’t want to spend time with me or have others around me. So I would try to act happy and positive, and he would tell me that I didn’t take his rebuke seriously! I finally realized there was nothing I could do to change what he thought of me. There was no way that I could ‘succeed’ in that man’s church, not because I was not a successful person, but because I was expected to fail. It took a very long time for me to understand what had happened, and really I’m still sifting through it all.

I am not to blame. It is not my fault, and I will not continue to go through the same trial repeatedly because I somehow unwittingly fail every time. How did I come to this? Because now, people say that I failed because I quit church. Yet I never quit before. So if quitting church is the mark of failure, I have passed with flying colors many times, yet was still repeating the same ‘trial!’ I won’t fail this test again. This time I will succeed. I will walk away from the bully and will not put myself within the bully’s reach again. And in doing that, I will succeed.