I have posted the same comment three different times. I have not give up this debate, but I must admit my brain is spent trying to remember the GREAT and WONDERFUL points I made. Each time I logged in it locked up, and then lost the entire comment.

Sorry,I am not giving in, but I am spent trying to remember the arguments. Lets just end it with I love you both as the Brothers in Christ that you are.

Blessings,
Tim

I really appreciate your sensitivity toward a divided mind. That is something that must be considered in a great many areas of our leadership.

I don’t think there is an issue beyond the first tier where our Convention believes in one thing “as a whole.” Even on the major issues, we are nuanced greatly and each believe according to our own understanding. Priesthood of the believer, you know?

If you mean to say that the majority does or does not believe something about a “non-essential,” and that majority belief is the governing status on who gets sent or who serves, then we are on a slippery slope that will end in a place where the pop theology of the day will rule the doctrines of the Southern Baptist Convention. As much as we like to think of ourselves as the standard bearers for the evangelical world, we are not as influential as we are influenced.

It seems as though presuppositions are dominating this debate. Either you have convulted arguments like the one that Dr. Yarnell wrote that was posted on Brad Reynolds’ blog, or you have dismissal of Scripture and allusions to fear of charismatic takeover. While we cannot do theology in a vaccum, we need to make sure that we do not engage in reactionary theology because of the abuses of others.

I’ve known where you stand and I am not surprised by your position. I guess that the coming months and next couple of years in the SBC will mark out where our convention stands. This is not a battle I am interested in fighting, but it is something that I believe Scripture teaches. It is the cessationists that are pushing an exclusionary position, which is sad to me.

Again, thanks for the dialogue.

First, sorry for the lateness of getting back to you. I had a wedding at 6pm and came home out of energy completely. Sunday was a busy day as we went over to a church member’s house for lunch. When we got home I only had an hour to rest before I had to be at a meeting.

I believe we will have to agree to disagree where Scripture concerns PPL. As for your last question I would like to answer it with a caveat. My answer in no way is a personal slam on anyone because of a disagreement. I am merely stating my heart.

No. I could not in good conscious cast a ballot for anyone that holds your perspective to be in SBC leadership or missions. The reason is this is not what I understand the SBC as a whole believes. Allow me to define your perspective. One with your perspective not only believes the Bible allows for this doctrine, but one would also practice these doctrines and teach them. If one holds to this perspective but does not practice it or advocate the teaching of these doctrines, I could cast my ballot for such a one. However, I would be very cautious of doing this. The reason would be that if one holds to this perspective but agrees not to practice it or teach it, that would seem to me a disunity of conscience. I certainly could never agree to not advocate something I believed Scripture taught just to have a position in the SBC.

I love you Brother, but that is who I am.

Blessings,
Tim

1. praying in/with the Spirit (1 Cor. 14:14,15 – PRIVATE; Eph. 6:18; Jude 20)
2. speaking in different kinds of tongues (1 Cor. 12:10,28)
3. speaking in tongues (1 Cor. 12:30)
4. speaking in the tongues of men and of angels (1 Cor. 13:1)
5. speaking in a tongue not to men, but to God (1 Cor. 14:2)
6. uttering mysteries with your spirit (1 Cor. 14:2)
7. praying in a tongue (1 Cor. 14:14)
8. singing with your spirit (1 Cor. 14:15 – a possibility here is that the singing in tongues would be unintelligible – this might be related to the “spiritual songs” in Eph. 5:19 and Col. 3:16, although this seems unlikely to me)
9. praising God with your spirit (1 Cor. 13:16-17 – this is such that no one else can understand what you are saying).

Private Prayer Language (PPL) is not mentioned in Scripture as a name of the phenomenom. That is actually something that I think Baptists made up, because Pentecostals call the experience praying in tongues or praying in the Spirit. So, if the problem is with the term, o.k. What do you think the Bible is talking about when it gives 9 descriptions of tongues/prayer language?

Also, the Bible never says “Rapture,” or “Trinity,” but we believe in those doctrines. I appreciate your heart and your desire to be convinced by the Scripture, Tim, but it seems that you have your perspective and you will not be moved. That is fine. I afford you that and respect you greatly.

But, would you still say that there is not room in SBC leadership or missions for someone who holds my perspective? That is the issue and there lies the danger.

I always like debating with you because you are so compassionate in your arguments as well as being passionate about your beliefs. Your history lesson is very insightful and I will say that I missed it on Brother Wade’s blog. Thanks for the insight.

Having said that allow me to address a couple of items that I believe points to assumptions that I feel is being overlooked in my argument. First, your statement; “Actually, the list of known references to Tongues, a heavenly language, prayer language, or whatever you want to call it is quite a bit longer.” This is the area that I say you cannot place PPL together with estatic utterances. The references you point to in history does not at any place speak about PPL. This is my point. PPL is an added doctrine to be used synomously with estatic utterances by Third Wave doctrine. This is my whole point. PPL is a later doctrine that came to us within the past 50 years. It is not a separate doctrine, it is just renamed in order to make the Pentecostal doctrine of tongues more palatable for mainstream Evangelicism.

Second, you refer to me as your favorite cessationist. I really am glad to know that I am someone’s favorite something.:>) I do not consider myself a cessationist. A cessationist is one that says God cannot do it again because the certain gifts have no further use. I am one that says God can do it again, but what has been pointed to as these gifts is not what the Scripture refers to. Therefore, I am one of those things that Brother Bart Barber spoke about in a previous post. I know that by this statement I now fall into the area that you described where you take issue. But, that is where I am.

I do try to have a consistent hermenuetic, thus I must use Scripture to filter everything. I also have other disciplines that I use in order to maintain balance. Scholarship, History, Science, all of these disciplines must be used as we study Scripture, but Scripture is the final filter.

Also, the passages of Scripture you refer me to deals with public worship. The Corinthian passage, as you know, was Paul’s response to the Corinthians abuses in worship. Also the other passages you reference, to me, does not expressly mean that praying in the Holy Spirit is necessarily a PPL.

Brother Art,

I must say your Josiah principle has given me some thought. However, I must say Josiah brought back the Word of God. Before him the Word of God was not even mentioned. It was a revival of God’s Word, not a new principle. That is just how I see it. Also your references to the camp meetings of the great awakenings were phenominal. I believe you are referring to the “slaying of the Spirit” when people would fall while the preachers were preaching. That does cause concern in the debate, however, I believe it will take me more research to be able to properly respond.

I must go now, but will respond. I have a wedding to do at 6pm and it is no2 4:52. My wife is in the next room yelling GET READY!.

Blessings,
Tim

Art,

“If the Word of God, long ignored, now read carefully opens our eyes to that which is long past forgotten, what then?”

Great prose! Sounds like something from Lord of the Rings!

Tim,

I can’t believe that a Baptist is making arguments on the meaning of Scripture from the assumed silence of church history! What has the world come to? ;) Seriously, I appreciate your heart and always enjoy our dialogue. You’re my favorite cessationist to debate because you are always respectful!

I’ve seen this list before, but Tim Cook reproduced it on Wade’s blog a while back. Actually, the list of known references to Tongues, a heavenly language, prayer language, or whatever you want to call it is quite a bit longer. Here it is:

150 AD – Justin Martyr refers to tongues-speaking as practiced in his day in his Dialogue with Trypho, “If you want proof that the Spirit of God who was with your people and left you to come to us, come into our assemblies and there you will see Him cast out demons, heal the sick and hear Him speak in tongues and prophesy.”

before 200 AD – Iranaeus in his treatise “Against Heresies” speaks of those “who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages.”[1]

circa 200 AD – Tertullian referred to the “interpretation of tongues” as a “sign”, examples of which could be produced in his day “without any difficulty”.[2]

circa 350 AD – Ambrose, in his work “Of the Holy Spirit,” mentions the “gift of tongues” as being given in his day by “the Father”.[3]

circa 390 AD – Augustine of Hippo, in an exposition on Psalm 32, discusses a phenomenon contemporary to his time of those who “sing in jubilation”, singing the praises of God not in their own language, but in a manner that “may not be confined by the limits of syllables” [4].

1100s – Hildegard of Bingen spoke and sang in tongues. Her spiritual songs were referred to by contemporaries as “concerts in the Spirit.”

1300s – The Moravians are referred to by detractors as having spoken in tongues. John Roche, a contemporary critic, claimed that the Moravians “commonly broke into some disconnected Jargon, which they often passed upon the vulgar, ‘as the exuberant and resistless Evacuations of the Spirit’” [5].

1500s – The French Prophets: The Camisards also spoke sometimes in languages that were unknown: “Several persons of both Sexes,” James Du Bois of Montpellier recalled, “I have heard in their Extasies pronounce certain words, which seem’d to the Standers-by, to be some Foreign Language.” These utterances were sometimes accompanied by the gift of interpretation exercised, in Du Bois’ experience, by the same person who had spoken in tongues. [6]

1600s – Early Quakers, such as Edward Burrough, make mention of tongues speaking in their meetings: “We spoke with new tongues, as the Lord gave us utterance, and His Spirit led us” [7].

1800s – Edward Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church. Edward Irving, a minister in the Church of Scotland, writes of a woman who would “speak at great length, and with superhuman strength, in an unknown tongue, to the great astonishment of all who heard, and to her own great edification and enjoyment in God” [8]. Irving further stated that “tongues are a great instrument for personal edification, however mysterious it may seem to us.”

Early Pentecostalism – Earliest Pentecostals believed that their speaking in tongues really was
xenoglossia[9].

But, I really don’t put my faith in that. I put my faith in God’s Word. The clear reading of the text, along with an understanding of the context leads me to believe that God gifted the Corinthians and others in the early church with an ability to pray with or in the Spirit, which 1 Cor. 14 clearly denotes as a prayer language (1 Cor. 14:14-15; Eph. 6:18; Jude 20).

I don’t know why this is so difficult for people to accept, unless it is because of an anti-supernatural bias that has been passed on from The Enlightenment, Modernism, and Scottish Common Sense Realism. The idea that Tongues cannot be real because I’ve never seen it is a dangerous view to have. God’s Word must me our guide, not our experience. We’re doing what we accuse the Charismatics of.

For those who say that the modern experience of tongues is not what they see in the Bible, I must take issue. How do you know? We could just as easily say that the modern experience of faith is not what we see in the Bible unless we sell all we have and give it to the poor, or unless we gouge out our eye if it causes us to sin. We must have a consistent hermenuetic.

Let me ask just one question: Do you use the same hermenuetic with tongues that you use with women in ministry? I agree with the SBC hermenuetic on women in ministry because it employs a clear reading of the text and it ascribes to the Biblical context. I do the same thing with the tongues passages and I am considered out of the mainstream. Honestly, it is hard for me to think that our cessationists friends are not picking and choosing the doctrines that they enjoy and the ones that they want to scuttle based on preconceived ideas.

Just some thoughts.

Salient and insightful comments – thanks.

Tim,

I understand what you are saying. The lack of recorded history of this theology does raise the question of church tradition.

A few thoughts about that:

1) Are you counting a Biblical reading inclusive of PPL/ecstatic utterance as part of your historical evaluation? To what degree are the Scriptures themselves used to inform the history of their own interpretation?

2) That there has been no controversy debated within the early church fathers means that it was not controversial. It doesn’t meant it didn’t exist. Ecstatic utterance (either privately or with an interpreter) may have been routinely practiced, but not recorded. Absence of evidence regarding the early church fathers and ecstatic utterance is not the same as evidence of absence. I am not arguing that Clement and Origen spoke in tongues, but that we can not know one way or the other and their silence on the subject is merely that. It is, therefore, an ill fit as foundation for exclusion.

3. The canon most certainly is closed. I am afraid that the argument for a closed canon can be used both ways. It is just as easily used by continualists to say that an appeal to church tradition is pursuit for authority beyond the Scripture and indicts your argument.

4. What about the Josiah principle? If the Word of God, long ignored, now read carefully opens our eyes to that which is long past forgotten, what then?

Now this is an argument for PPL to be made. I, myself, argue it on principle, as I do not participate in glossolalia.

5. What of reports of all manner of ecstatic behaviors during the 1700′s, 1800′s and so on during the camp meetings of the great awakenings?

I bring this up just as a side note to your comment, but just having lived a few miles away from the Red River Meeting House for about a decade. This was the birthplace of the Second Great Awakening and home to many “charismatic” experiences in its day. It is a very interesting place, I must say.

Again, this is just a side thought and is in response to your dating citations, not the heart of my thoughts. I just remembered some of the history of that place and thought I would throw it in.

First, sorry it took so long to get back with you. I had to check on our old house and am also officiating a wedding ceremony this evening so I had to do the rehearsal, thus the length of time in responding. Also, if you hate mis-spelling I am sure my comments drive you crazy sometimes.:>) That is a notorious error of mine.

First, I would say I cannot see Biblical proof for PPL. I am not saying that others do not look at the Scriptures, (Romans 8, & 1 Corinthians 14) and derive from them a PPL. What I am saying, and basing it on the thinking of Craig Keener, PPL is another way of saying the Gift of Tongues of the Pentecostal movement from 1901. My assessment comes from looking into early Church Fathers writings (not that I am an avid reader of the early Church Fathers, again I am relying on others far more intelligent than I) and throughout the rest of Christendome. PPL cannot be found in historical theological debate. Estatic utterances can be found but not PPL. If we believe in a closed canon, we cannot believe in new Biblical doctrine that has not been discussed within the past 2000 years regardless of the advances of technology, or how much more intelligent we may become. For example, if they were to find the third and even fourth letters that Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church in one of their digs, it could not be added to our Bibles as Scripture. I do not care if you convinced me 100% it was Paul’s writing, it would not be Scripture. Thus, the PPL I do not see as Biblical. Estatic Utterances, Yes, I believe in a Biblical Gift given by the Holy Spirit which is known as tongues. What I have seen as estatic utterances today is not what the Bible terms the Gift of Tongues.

Blessings,
Tim