Hey everybody,
I've been wondering about speaking in tongues for a long time, and I'm a little confused about this topic.
I never understood why we would always be so quick to judge other people who claim to be speaking in tongues. There are some verses in the Bible that I do not understand, and I can see why the pentecostal church would interpret these verses differently than we would. So, would someone please explain the following verses...
"For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries." -1 Corinthians 14:2
It seems like St. Paul is saying that there is more than one type of tongues that can be given by the Holy Spirit, because he says that those speaking in tongues do not speak to men, but to God. The other kind of tongues that can be given by the Holy Spirit is where you speak to men instead of God. For example, when St. Peter spoke to 3,000 people and each one understood him in their own languages. In this case, St. Peter was talking to men. I'm sure I'm not interpreting this right, so can someone explain this to me?
Also, another thing in this verse is that St. Paul says that no one understands the person speaking in tongues. Does this explain why people don't understand those who are "speaking in tongues"? This verse seems sort of out of context because the rest of this chapter is about how important it is for other people to understand you if you speak in tongues. So why does he write that no one will understand the person who is speaking in tongues?
There are more verses that I need someone to explain, but I guess we'll focus on this verse first.
Comments
Your question is a very good question, and fortunately, abouna covered this topic during the bible study sessions. Here is what he said:
At the time St Paul wrote this epistle, the people of Corinth were faking their gifts in the sense that someone would stand up in front of people and start talking in some language that no one would understand to try to get the people’s attention. It was so common at this time at Corinth that St Paul dedicated this epistle talking about the proper manners of listening to people, and teaching people. At one place he said when one speaks, the others should listen because there used to be a great chaos because everyone tried to grab people’s attention. Also, when he listed the gifts later on (I don’t remember which chapter in the epistle), he put speaking in tongues the last one to tell the people of Corinth that it’s not something of great importance as they think, and that God gives this gift for the glory of His name.
The main questions that I'm asking concerning this Bible verse are...
1) Is there more than one type of tongues that can be given by the Holy Spirit? For example, this verse mentions speaking to God in tongues. The other kind of tongues would be speaking to men in tongues.
2) What does St. Paul mean when he says that no one will understand the person speaking in tongues because he will be speaking in mysteries?
Speaking in tongues just mean speaking in different languages... so for example, when someone is born, the parents would be teaching him/her a language (i.e arabic, english, etc...), and as this person grows, they might pick up a new language to speak - coptic for example.
So to answer your first question, no, there is only one type of tongue (in this context) that the Holy Spirit will give (can be multiple languages).
If we look at it from a different point of view, we can argue that the Holy Spirit can give someone a tongue to praise God, or someone else a tongue to preach the gospel, etc... those are different talents dealing with the tongues, but I don't think this would apply to what St. Paul is referring to in his epistle.
For your second question, the people of Corinth used to get up and talk in words that people would not understand, and it would be considered "mysteries" that will not benefit the people.
If you read the arabic version of it (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Corinthians 14;&version=28;) he says, who speaks in a language that no one understands... and this is considered a myth to the people with no benefit. Keep in mind that any gift that God gives is for the benefit of man. In this case, how could a man benefit if he can not understand...
Please let me know if I'm still not clear.
"Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered." -Romans 8:26
I don't understand what this verse means when St. Paul writes that the Spirit makes intercessions for us with groaning which cannot be uttered. What are these groanings, and why can't it be uttered? People from the Pentecostal church interpret this verse as when you are speaking tongues while praying to God, this is actually the Spirit interceding for you. They say that these tongues that you pray in are the groanings of the Spirit, and when St. Paul says that these groaning cannot be uttered, they say that this means that its not understandable, and this goes along with the previous verse that I listed (1 Corinthians 14:2). Now I'm sure that our church doesn't interpret this verse that way, so what does this verse mean?
To help understand the Pentecostal point of view, I was born in Egypt and my parents taught me arabic, and that is what I grew up speaking. When we came to America, I learned English, and that what I use to communicate with people. So this means, I have two tongues (= I speak two languages). With the Pentecostal interpretation, if I pray in arabic, then its me praying to God, but if I pray in English, it’s the Spirit (Holy Spirit) praying and not me.
My analogy is very close except that God didn’t grant me the gift of English. BUT, if God would grant me a gift to speak a different language I would understand what I’m saying when I speak that new language. For example, St. Paul was granted the gift of tongues, he was able to go to different places, talk to different people and he understood every word he said.
Our church’s interpretation of this verse is very nice… as the verse said, “we do not know what we should pray for as we ought”, when we pray, we do not know how to pray to God as the heavenly host, what to say, how to glorify God, how to worship Him, how to bless Him…
But the Holy Spirit Himself is helping, abouna says something nice about this verse, the Holy Spirit takes our prayers, cleans it up a little bit, and go offer it to the Father.
The word groan means non-stop requesting, combined with “cannot be uttered” gives you the understanding that non-stop prayer for us.
In the holy liturgy (3`or3`ory), abouna says, sha3abk, we kanistak yatalaboon MA3AKA (with you) we BEIKA (through you) eila el aab talabeen arhamnah….
This by itself shows that we pray to the Father through the Son, this verse shows that we pray to the Father through the Holy Spirit…
Let me know if this answers your question.
Pray for me…
"seaking in tangue could be considered prayer because if you substatute prayer for tongue it fits perfectly because prayer is the angels way of talking