Prophesey and speaking in tounges

[Nancy47]

Apparently unapproved apparitons material is not allowed so I won’t be posting anymore…no need…nothing important to discuss here…

Thanks for listening to me.

 

[Christiano]

Hi everyone,

Well, paarsurrey quoted on the 6th page of this thread a list of Marian apparitions around the world. One of them happened in Platina, a small town (less than 4 thousand residents) around 28 km far from Assis. I’ve posted a message about these apparitions on christiano-jabur.blogspot.com/2003/04/our-lady-of-platina.html

 

[jfallaw]

I never quite understood the use of prophesy and speaking in tounges in religions such as Pentacostalism. I am Catholic and know someone who is part of the Assemblies of God. I went to a service and a prayer meeting. I felt very uncomfortable by what was going on. The pastors wife is a prophetess, and a healer. They encourage speaking in tounges as well. I guess these questons are for Pentacostals or anybody that knows anything about this subject.

1. Can Prohets prophesy about anything ? Can their prophesys be extremly general such as saying that they prophesy that the crooked paths are going to be made straight or telling someone that they are going to have dreams in the future and to come in and talk to prophet to interpret?
2. When the pastor prays he speaks in a laungage that sounds like Hebrew and you can easliy repeat what he says. I thought when a person speaks in tounges it sounds like a unknown foriegn laungage that you cannot understand. Is this true? or is he just praying in Hebrew?
3. For healing when someone gets sick the pastors wife prays for them and when they get better she writes a testamony and puts it on the wall. Is this normal practice?

I am just perplexed and need a little insight

They were big on those things in my old church. The ‘prophets’ would give some kind of general prophecy that could be interpreted in a multitude of ways. I could honestly get the same kind of ‘prophesy’ by calling one of those fortune teller lines. It’s interesting, a visiting priest just did a mission on the Advent prophets, focusing on Isaiah. He said that in most cases in the Scriptures, the prophets had no idea what it was they were prophesying about, and on most occasions their prophesies were not fulfilled in their lifetimes. But the protestant ‘prophets’ always speak to people on an individual and time-specific level, i.e., “This will happen to you next week,” “You will be blessed in this way,” “Your son/daughter will stop hanging out with those kids and come home again,” or whatever. It’s nonsense that makes people feel better.

Also, scriptures are pretty clear on what the ‘tongues’ that the first Christians spoke were. They didn’t just babble gibberish- it might have been an ‘angelic language’, but it was understandable to all those present, to give the Gospel to those present and also to show that the Gospel was for all people of all ‘tongues’.

“Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own 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!” -Acts 2, 8-11 (NIV)

Now, when I hear a protestant ‘speaking in tongues’, I certainly don’t understand a word of it. I have heard of a couple of cases of true Xenoglossy, or speaking in a (human) language previously unknown to the speaker, although I don’t believe it, and think that if it’s true, it’s due to possession. Sandy Kulkin, one of the ‘prophets’ who sometimes came to our church, says that he converted to Christianity (he’s originally Jewish) because he met a protestant Christian once who was praying for him and all of a sudden started praying a Hebrew prayer familiar to Mr. Kulkin, but that the Christian had never even heard.

And you have to remember that there are some fundamentalist, pentecostal, ‘Spirit filled’ protestants out there that, though I’m sure they ‘mean well’, are actually just dirty liars. Ever heard of some of the dirty things televangelists do? Some might deliberately learn a prayer in another language if they know they will be speaking to someone who knows that language, so that they can ‘miraculously’ start praying it in their hearing, ‘proving’ their form of faith.

 

[jfallaw]

I would like to add something else about talking in tongues from a Catholic perspective. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a “language” we humans understand. I was taught by the Catholic Church as a convert that talking in tongues while praying could be interpreted as the language of angels. In other words only God and the angels can understand what you are saying. No man would understand. The Catholic mysticism here is that you are guided by the Holy Spirit in your verbal prayers to God. But here is the catch, you, the speaker, also wouldn’t understand what you are saying! I am told by Catholic Charismatic people that what happens is when the Holy Spirit descends on you these “words” are “written” or “spoken” in your heart and you repeat them. Often times they are just a few syllables that are just repeated again and again while in prayer. It’s kind of hard to witness because, since we can’t understand it, it seems like babble but it can also be very beautiful. If you want to know more about the gifts of the Holy Spirit there are groups out there like Sword of the Spirit that are Ecumenical but Charismatic Catholic groups are also approved by the Vatican.
I would be concerned about anyone who calles THEMSELVES “Prophetess”. Sounds like pride to me…

I’ve heard things similar to this, and I frankly don’t buy it. They will say it’s a ‘prayer language’ or ‘angelic language’ that the soul prays, especially when we just don’t know what to pray. Well, first of all, God knows what we need before we do, and secondly, He knows what we are going to say before we do. So I doubt he needs ‘help’ understanding us. The tongues in the Scriptures, though they may have been some angelic language, were quite specifically for one purpose- to make the Gospel known to people who spoke different languages (Acts 2).