Thursday, June 17, 2010
speaking in tongues?
A group from a "miracle center" rented some of the dorms to stay and have a retreat. does anyone know about these kinds of centers? They kept us up the first night with their praying and singing. But the second evening they chanted down by the shore. And they were loud with their pacing and yelling in tongues and screaming. Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe the gift of speaking in tongues still exists and can be used for great good. However, like any of the gifts, it can be misused and faked. I wasn’t terribly surprised when John Paul said he felt moved by the Spirit to go talk to them and confront them with their chaos. Bryce sent him off with a prayer, I encouraged him that he knew more than he thought. Next time I looked, john paul sat in one of the chairs reading his bible, surrounded by people chanting, screaming, shaking, yelling, and writhing on the ground. I went down to check out the situation. Some of you know my past, and how it has affected me. I tell you, there was something wrong happening, something strange. John paul assured me he wanted to do this on his own. So went back to the dorm and watched. He stood up and talked to them for a few minutes as they all listened, then read part of Corinthians where it talks about prophets and speaking in tongues. Then he prayed for them all and walked back to the dorm. He left on a walk to go compose himself. As soon as he left, they started up again, only this time twice as loud and fervent. So I sat there and prayed against whatever they were doing until my parents called. Why didn’t I go over and do something about their actions? I don’t know. I don’t know if it was fear or just my inability to act. Maybe the Holy Spirit moved john paul to act, but not me. Whatever the reason, I didn’t. thankfully, they left the next day.
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a big long "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..."
ReplyDeleteWow. That sounds... weird. Way to be though: returning to the Word was the right thing to do! Too bad they ignored it...
ReplyDeleteSometimes things in the Spirit don't make sense to our minds. Take Jesus spitting in the mud and using that to heal a blind man's eyes. I know a pastor from Africa that is a godly man and sometimes will go to town fighting in prayer, sometimes in words we understand and sometimes in his prayer language. I think often we as americans don't do warfare in prayer enough. Sometimes there is a time to pray quietly and sometimes a time to pray with a warrior spirit, with the authority that has been given to us as believers. There are two kinds of tongues, one is the gift of tongues that must be interpreted and the other is the prayer language that the Holy Spirit gives. I don't know if the group's spirit was right, but be careful to judge, you never know, they may have been called by God to do warfare that night in the Spirit.
ReplyDeletei know sometimes the way christians act doesnt make sense. i believe strongly that each of the spiritual gifts are still active. but all of them can be faked or used wrongly. i didnt get the feeling that these people were using the gift of tongues correctly if they were in fact using the gift. thats why i say something was very wrong when i went down to check it out. it felt wrong. and not just to my american sensibilities.
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