One thing that I have noticed when there is division within the church is when we make conclusions of a scripture that are not clear-cut, and then we have tendency to fully promote our conclusion as scripture itself. The two scriptures that you mentioned above Jude 1:20 in Romans 8:26, at best the two of you must be honest and say my conclusion, or my interpretation of the scripture or my understanding of the scripture is such and such.
I understand looking at the context and that is valid, but I would tend to agree with the conclusion that the groans of the spirit are as we are speaking in tongues praying by the spirit of God, but I personally also think it could mean not necessarily in tongues but in our native language as well, whichever it might be, groanings by the spirit. When we see the words praying in the Holy Spirit, people interpret those words differently. So can we be honest and agree that at the very best we are giving our conclusion or interpretation to those words?
So when we read the scripture that says Jesus died on the cross, we need no interpretation.
There is no conclusion that needs to be drawn because the words are very clear. There was a cross and Jesus died on it. But other pieces of scripture are not as clear-cut.
And that is where we ask the spirit of God to help us and direct us, which of course is what both of you and others here are doing.
The government is upon his shoulders, thank God not ours. And the groanings we offer up that his body come into Unity, not by might nor by power but by his spirit I believe. I have no question but the heavenly father will answer his son’s prayers.
My prayers by some miracle we might live to see it, but Unity comes when we walk in his Mercy his truth is Justice and his love, not when we are all having perfect understanding or mental knowledge I don’t believe. That will come when we see him.
But here it is the love that unites, the very true agape love of God not some falsehood that claims love but has no love for God or people. So here we are and you guys have a division between you on the definition of some phrases in Scripture.
As you search the scriptures for better understanding, can you agree
1. That we know in part?
2. That at least with those two passages — I haven’t fully studied the whole scriptural theories you both are presenting — the Bible does not say literally the words, “this does not mean speaking in tongues.” Neither does it say the literal words “this means speaking in tongues.”
3. So now each of you offer your conclusion to scripture, your theories as to whether there is praying in tongues or whether tongues was purely used and is purely used for the sake of speaking to people in a language that we don’t normally have, either as in the book of Acts where those who were listening spoke the other languages, or as is written there is an interpretation of the tongues whether they are tongues of men or angels, for the edification of the body of Christ which of course scripturally should be done within the body.
There is never indication in the New Covenant for private personal prophecy and that I find very dangerous and have seen horrible things as a result of such personal “prophecy,” in other words one person telling another person, “God told me to tell you this and this is what you need to go do,” but within the church there should be two or three witnesses that this is accurate.
Why? Because of human pride and flesh and also sometimes as people are learning to walk in the spirit of God we very simply make mistakes.
And so the body of Christ is a protection.
Also because of the spirits of darkness and the Antichrist spirit that seeks to exalt one individual over the other, but there is no such thing in the kingdom of God. In God’s kingdom the only one exalted is Jesus Christ and the living father our Lord, Father Son and Holy Spirit. To whom belongs all glory, power and Dominion forever.
I always get in trouble because it tells me I needed to shorten it and I try to and it still needs to be shortened to the rest is here on a Blog if anyone has interest:
I offer this suggestion: I believe sometimes an understanding of scripture comes through the living letters that are walking with the spirit of the Living God and the experiences that are valid to those living letters.
— In so long as it is not contrary to the obvious Word of Scripture itself.
“[2] You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. [3] And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
2 Corinthians 3:2-3 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/2co.3.2-3.ESV
So here I share with you my experiences of praying in the Holy Spirit.
I do not think there are any sound scriptures to denounce the praying in tongues as being praying in the Holy Spirit.
I understand your conclusions, and I would not LIMIT the phrase “praying in the Holy Spirit” to only praying in tongues, I would believe that to be error, but as a living letter of the spirit of living God, I assure you, I have spent since age 12 now over 40 years interceding and praying in the spirit of God as he grants me Grace and utterance.
So now you have a choice. You either have to say I’ve been wrong all of these years and I wasn’t really praying in the Holy Spirit those hundreds of hours that I prayed in tongues, or you have to say perhaps you might be wrong and the spirit of God does pray through individuals, but all things are to be done in love. Some of the things that you have described might be fleshly. Sometimes we get caught up in wanting wonderful emotions especially when our lives have had a lot of pain and God understands that it is a blessing to find our joy in the Lord, but as my pastor wisely said one time, God is not our dopamine pusher. To everything there is a time and a season and when we’re constantly pushing for an emotional high from God, we are looking for self-centered motives, and not walking in the grace and love of God.
There’s a balance because he knows what we need, also sometimes people are young in the Lord or they haven’t had adequate teaching and there is much grace. Which is of course why there are pastors such as yourselves and teachers to direct the church. But we are to be busy about doing the works of Christ, certainly he prayed and he taught his disciples how to pray, but the body is meant to be the hands and feet of Jesus to reach into the suffering of this world with a good news of his salvation and of the Kingdom of Heaven being at hand. Casting out devils, praying for the sick, teaching because that most certainly was a major part of Christ’s Ministry, helping people to put their eyes on the Living God for their daily needs for he is most kind and gracious and abundant. Likewise urging those who have to share with those who do not. Greed I have found has no economic barriers. I have known generous homeless people and I have known greedy homeless people. I have known those with higher income to be generous and those with higher incomes to be greedy, but the Lord applauded the widow woman who gave her last coin to worship the God who saves her.
Without firm scripture stating: “tongues is not for praying, it is only for communicating to others the message of the Gospel.” Which clear scripture I have not seen? Only conclusions to scripture, interpretations of scripture and understandings of scripture that lead people to think that. Which I do understand how you can come to that conclusion, do you agree it is a conclusion not the actual words of scripture?
So your choice now is to disavow my sharing from my heart over 40 years of my life and to tell me no you haven’t been praying in the Holy Spirit when you were praying in tongues, which I would caution people speaking like that if there is no clear outlining in Scripture.
I personally would be afraid of grieving the Holy Spirit. But he Grant each of us Grace and wisdom as he will and help us to be humble and not be arrogant. In which case I would ask so what was I doing? As I am praying for hours upon and I cannot say how many hours in my life has been spent in such fashion. For you to accuse me of not speaking in the Holy Spirit would be very dangerous because to me that would be borderline blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
That does not deny that there are false spirits and false prophets. However they tend to deny the Lord Jesus Christ which I do not. I acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Lord Of My Life.
And so it would be very dangerous to tell somebody you are not of the spirit of God. Or you’re speaking is not of the spirit of God, if they are in truth speaking by the spirit of God, because while it wasn’t exactly that, it wasn’t accusing Jesus that he was not speaking by the spirit of God but rather the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was when the Pharisees were saying it was a demon and not the Holy Spirit, yet to me that is close enough that I would be scared unless I had some very sound evidence to make such a false accusation against a child of God claiming to speak by the spirit of God.
Now if I was to speak in tongues and interpret and say something contrary to the scriptures then yes, by all means you can correct.
But my intercession was between my spirit Within Me and the spirit of the Living God and my heavenly father and my Lord Jesus Christ and so you have a choice whether or not to listen and to believe what experience I am sharing with you. But if you do not believe me I would find that strange.
I think the danger within the church, and it’s interesting because I’ve lived in both circles, having attended Oral Roberts University and having sat under Oral Roberts, I was in the what is considered the word of faith movement and I see and have seen much biblical error coming out of that section, but error does not mean somebody is not walking in Jesus Christ.
There is a difference between a false prophet like Muhammad that denies the lordship of Jesus Christ, there is a difference between a familiar spirit such as the one that the disciples cast out of the woman going in front of them telling people here are men to tell you the way to God! I’m going from memory here forgive me the quote is not exact, but she was speaking technically the truth and the right words but it was the wrong spirit. Because that spirit was trying to gain attention for itself, not point to Jesus Christ and the apostles got irritated and tired of it and cast it out of the woman.
So we know that if somebody is trying to gain attention to themselves rather than pointing to Jesus Christ, if they are trying to draw people away from the body of Christ rather than into the fold, that is the spirit that we would be careful, either the human being an error and needing to be corrected or at times a demonic Force seeking to draw attention to itself which in that case was the occult, it was an actual demon.
I have also stood with a Baptist pastor that did not believe in speaking in tongues and very proudly told me how he had rebuked another Pastor that did believe in speaking in tongues when somebody that he, the Baptist pastor had led to Faith in Jesus Christ, was then baptized in the Holy Spirit was speaking in tongues and the two pastors arguing over whether or not she could speak in tongues caused her to leave the church. This is wicked. It would be better to give it to God and submit to humility then to harm the Sheep. There is a time where it is more important to walk in love than knowledge, and I suppose that would be all the time and I am failing that because I’m supposed to be going to sleep so I can be ready to worship tomorrow.
🤷♀️🙏
Those are just my thoughts I don’t know if they’re helpful or not. But I think you have a good heart’s here Desiring the will of God, not so concerned about being right or prideful, but truly Desiring to know what is the will of God and one of the most beautiful words in our English language and I’m quite certain there are similar words in other languages, is you are right. I was wrong.
When the church learns better how to speak that language, the language of love not Pride, we will find that people will be quicker to listen and to repent, because we were leading by example. Blessings to you men of God. I pray God bless you abundantly. And please please pray for the churches in America, pray that we live and not die.
Pray for God to have mercy. Pray that when people from other countries come to America they do not fall into the slumber, the comfort, the complacency of what John Bunyan called Vanity Fair. And rightly so. But yet in the midst of our mess wherever we be, glory to the most high God we are living proof of his mercy and his grace. How great is his love! Blessings in God’s peace.
Please ask your churches please to pray for us. Greed is as damnable of sin as the sin of Murder in the eyes of God. The abomination of pride is equal to the abomination of the act of homosexuality, according to scripture however you don’t often hear that preached. This does not mean that we grow in sin, heaven forbid as Paul says! By no means! But rather that we grow in humility, Mercy, Justice which judges the person in the mirror with the same measure that we judge the person on the other side, and love.
Blessings and God’s peace.🙏
