Sunday School - Teaching On Baptism (Cessationism) - Part 6

Prayer for Illumination and Opening Remarks

Exceeded. Lord, I bow to you again. We are assembled before you. You, Lord, fulfill that by your Spirit, as we look to your Word, ask the Father that you would show us Jesus Christ more clearly, that we would be called more towards his image, that we would be blessed for the worship of you, that we would receive the grace of the Savior, for such is true in all ages and all ages.

Through your Holy Spirit, we say to you, through the preaching and through the fellowship that we have, Father, bless us by your presence, in the name of Jesus, amen. Amen. Excuse me for a moment. This is a light bulb.

I'm not sneezing or excretory or anything like that. They're healthy. Just a little softness left over. We're going to have nothing to worry about. Last week, we saw that prophecy, and even apostleship, was a continual prophecy through the Church.

Remember that? There's that question, whether there were more prophets after the Old Testament? And whether there were more apostles than just the 12 that Jesus gave the curse of, which would be the 12, and then minus Judas, and then advocates of his 12, and then Paul, as one born out of time.

Now, those are the apostles, capital A, as Samuel put it. Now, the question was raised a couple of weeks ago, whether those were the only apostles, and whether there were more prophets in the New Testament during that time.

Who recalls what he said? What was the conclusion? He said this is how he concluded that. If you're here, give it a try. Let the teacher know you're listening. Now we'll put you on the spot. The conclusion was that there were more apostles than the 12, plus Paul, one born out of time.

And there were prophets continuing that same purpose of prophecy as in the Old Testament. Very much in the same manner of speaking, the same purpose of speaking, to reveal God's will. We didn't have words written about them, like the prophetesses of Philip, his daughters were prophetesses.

We don't know what they said. We know that they prophesied. That was consistent with the Old Testament, and that line of revealing God's salvific purposes for mankind. Also, apostles. We were able to distinguish that yes, there were more apostles than the 12, plus Paul.

We call them small a apostles, following the same ordinance of Christ. Now how did we come up with small a apostles? How did we distinguish small a apostles and that continuum of apostleship in the New Testament times from the catenate a apostles?

Do you recall? Right, that was one of them. How was he named an apostle? Not named by Christ. How was he an apostle? He was named by the church. He was affirmed by the church, set out by the church, not just in a casual way, but they laid hands on him.

You're in Colossians 13. They laid hands on him. That laying of hands was preceded by the Holy Spirit saying, set apart from Paul and Barnabas. And later in Scripture, Paul distinctly names Barnabas and some other people at this time as apostles.

Those were small a, but a continuing ministry of apostleship, still distinguishing the ones named personally by Christ who testify with eyewitness testimony to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Yes, so all apostles were prophets,.

Not all prophets were apostles. I'm sorry, I didn't think about it very carefully. I was an apostle a couple years ago. You did? Yes, I did.

Tell us about that. I asked him what made him an apostle. And he said, well, he was authorized to go out and start churches. That was their church's definition of an apostle. Okay. It's like the apostles went out.

And started churches. How did you feel about that? What was the material?

Were they right to call him an apostle? Well, I had never heard it before, so.

I blew it off, but yeah. In a.

Limited sense, I can kind of shrug and go, you know, I personally want to, as a pastor, name anybody an apostle. I feel that that ministry ended with the canon, as we discussed last week, when the canon was completely deleted.

But in a limited sense, okay, so the church sent somebody out to found a church, but that's what the apostles did do so many times. So in that sense, did anybody see The Apostle? The greatest American actor since Humphrey Bogart was Robert De Niro.

Did you see The Apostle? Probably not for the kids, but it's something I do. I don't have to be embarrassed by any of the parts of it. He plays a wildly charismatic son of a gun. Does a fantastic job with it.

And at one point, when he has to run for the law, all this stuff happens, and he's good to me, he decides that he's going to go found churches. But first, he has to be an apostle. And so he finds himself some white rose, and he's all by himself.

And he dips himself in the water, and he names himself, he anoints himself as an apostle. That's the kind of apostleship that we wouldn't agree with. We'd say, you know, I kind of take what will play.

That's a little side point.

And I think the ability to found a church and to appoint elders.

Usually we raise up elders. No one comes and says,.

Appoints you as an elder. That's a good point. I never covered that. That's a really good point. You're talking about New Testament authoritative apostles, yet to 12 appointed by Christ, wouldn't appoint elders.

They had that authority. Authorities with small apostles never seem to have to take it. That's a really good point. As we did last week, I want to cover a question that was asked. The question was asked of me after Sunday school.

When I talked about tongues last week. And I made the point, and I said that the apostles, especially Peter, what was their native language? It was Aramaic. And like everyone else in that world at that time, they also spoke Greek.

Virtually everybody was bilingual. Greek was the language of the day, like English. Even the Israelis in many countries, they speak their native tongue, but they also speak fluent English. I made that point.

And I was asked if that was really true. And I have restudied my position. And I want to put that out to you, because last week we started with a question that was brought to me and it led nicely into it.

It wasn't a non-sequitur. It was a good question. And it led into what we're doing. So I want to give you first my path. And then I'll give you my conclusion. The question was, when I said they spoke Aramaic, and as the sound of their voice went to the many people, it was translated in their ears into their native tongue.

That's what I said. So first, Acts chapter 2, verse 4, this was really the premise of the question that came to me. It said that the apostles spoke in other tongues, and the men from every nation under heaven heard them in their own language.

Okay? This is what the Scripture says. The apostles spoke in other tongues, and they were heard in native languages. The second thing is the reversal of battle ideas. And that's true. This is not new ground.

I didn't innovate that myself. I'm a very conservative. I'm a longstanding scholarship there. That the unity of mankind by the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is really the only unified thing we have, which is unity with each other, unity with God because of Christ, is a reversal of the disunity that was brought upon man in Genesis chapter 11 at battle.

Okay? Now, when I looked at this again, I just, and I didn't, this wasn't a question, but I just want you to understand that the reversal of the disbursement curse in Genesis 11 has a longer history than just the Pentecostal sermon.

If you read the Scripture, you go to Genesis 11, you have battle and disperse. God says that if we don't confuse our languages, nothing will be restrained from it. You recall that? And what's the next thing that happens?

In the very next chapter of Scripture, in Genesis 12, Abram is called out of his king and told to go to the land. This is really the beginning of the reversal of that curse. It has a long history, but it's not just at Pentecost.

It is beginning with Abraham or Abram at the time because in Abram, all the families of the earth were divided. You can check the Scripture where that goes. The Holy Spirit is received at Pentecost. Battle and even what we're about to eat are not undone so much as they are redeemed and their negative effects are nullified.

This is the reversal of the curse of Genesis 11. It has a very long trajectory. I would not say it's the unifying hermeneutic of all Scripture, but you can trace that line through the Scripture. The third thing I noticed is that what I said remember I said they spoke Aramaic and it was translated into native language.

What I said is it varies with some of our spiritual forebears. John Calvin. It's kind of a long quote, but bear with me because this has been a controversy I guess for quite a long time. John Calvin wrote, quote, something that they spoke not in diverse tongues, but that they all did understand that which was spoken in one tongue as well as that they should hear their natural tongue.

Some think that they spoke in diverse tongues, but they were understood this is what I said. I was going to remember the song that John Calvin was talking about here. Therefore they think that one and the same sound of the voice was diversely distributed amongst the hearers.

Another conjecture they have because Peter made one sermon in the audience of many gathered together out of diverse countries who could not understand his speech unless another voice should come unto their ears that that which proceeded out of his mouth.

He's talking about that other position now. Is there anything wrong with that position that Calvin says some people have? That's not Calvin's position. Did you hear anything about that? Because Peter made one sermon in the audience of many gathered together out of diverse countries who could not understand his speech unless another voice should come unto their ears that that which proceeded out of his mouth.

The problem is, like I said in the beginning, we know from extra-biblical evidence that everybody in that world spoke Greek. And we know that the Scythians, for example, spoke to their Carthian neighbors, who spoke to their neighbors, who spoke to their neighbors, and said, hey, we all hear this in our same language.

Now when the Carthians said that to the Scythians, he didn't say Carthian. The Scythians wouldn't have understood him. He said it in Greek. So they were hearing in their native tongues the language that they all understood, which wouldn't have been Greek, but they were hearing in their own language, in their own language.

So that's one of the problems with the position that some people had at the time that Calvin was. We must first note that the disciples spoke indeed with strange tongues, as Scripture says in Acts 2 .4.

Otherwise the miracle had not been wrought in them, but in the hearers, so that the similitude should have been false whereof he had mentioned before, neither should the Spirit have been given so much to them as to others.

So Calvin's making the point that the miracle is the speaking. They heard it in their own language, but the miracle, Calvin's making the right point, is the speaking. Matthew Henry says that the all heard in their own language must refer to all that were together.

They began to speak with other tongues, besides their native language, they all meaning all the apostles. They began to speak with other tongues, besides their native language, though they had never learned any of it.

They spoke not matters of common conversation with the Word of God, and the praises of his name, as the Spirit gave them utterance, or gave them as to speak. Those are two of our great hearers, Calvin and Matthew Henry.

Walter, on page 85 of the book that we're following for this curriculum, he would disagree with this. So, the fifth thing, that's one, two, three, four, the fifth thing in my little path here, where you're looking at my position, the men from the nations spoke a common language, a verse that is probably agreed, otherwise they could not have said to each other, and how is it that we hear each of us in our own native language?

It's chapter two of the native Acts. Okay? So, a couple of conclusions here for you. First, the apostles, whatever language they thought they were speaking, probably Arabic, maybe Greek, whatever they thought they were speaking, the Holy Spirit made them speak in other tongues foreign to themselves.

So, Peter was speaking in Perthian, or Scythian, or any of the other languages that I have there in Acts chapter two, listed all those peoples, representing all nations coming together. Okay? Whatever they thought they were speaking, that stuff was coming out of their mouth.

What was coming out of their mouth were those languages, that was Arabic. My second conclusion,.

I won't name the person who asked me to double-check myself,.

But I appreciate the riches of a real-life challenge and the respect with which she brought it but we're not going to be amazed here. Thank you for bringing up the question and paying attention to me.

We do have to double-check our positions. My view, they did an amazing thing, but it's too small for the miracle that God actually did that. So, I was asked to re-look at my position, I've checked my position, and I got it wrong.

They spoke whatever they thought they were speaking, it was coming out in those languages. And everybody who was hearing it heard it in their native tongue. Greek was readily available, but it wasn't there.

It was a miracle.

He thinks whatever he's speaking out comes another language. That's for that guy there. But he says, okay, now I've got to repeat it for that guy there.

It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, and I can't, I thought about that, but I can't explain that. But it says they spoke in other tongues, it's plural, I double-checked it, Greek, Peter, and actually all the others, but it seems to be the only thing he's speaking, and I can't quite figure that part out either.

Peter was speaking with other tongues, plural. They all were, all 12 of them. Was it coming out like a, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Is this a crazy thing we object to in the charismatic churches? We don't know.

But what we do know, Peter was giving glory to God, and we have, in a brief manuscript, not translated well into English, but we know what the sermon was, but how is it actually coming out? The way that sounded is I can't even begin to describe it.

I don't quite know what to do with that.

Can I add something? Please. Since each one was hearing them speak in his or her language, so it was more than one person speaking. I don't know if they were all speaking the same primitive terms or what, but it wasn't just one person talking during the four tongues.

Verse 7 says, are not all these who are speaking together. So at one point, there were multiple people speaking,.

Including Peter preaching. Now, that's the verse that had me convinced that they were speaking parallel, because you could hear the language like the southerner in this city speaking English, but what we could tell from the accent of isn't that a Mississippian?

I don't think. It's very difficult to put all those together if we want to describe what's actually coming out of Peter's mouth. But it seems like at one point, the 11th stopped and Peter took charge and he was preaching that sermon that we have as a scripture.

That's just a guess. Is it possible that Peter's sermon wasn't read after the miracle? That the sermon itself was not miraculous? I've thought of that. It's not real clear that would be my best position.

I was preaching through it. That's probably what I would have said. I think what I preached absolutely is what I would have said. I don't understand what she's saying. That all words, when tongues as a flame came upon them, and they were all speaking these tongues to give glory to God, that was all 12 of them.

Maybe a language-free 12? Maybe all of them speaking?

We just don't know. Why is it written down? What's written down is what Peter himself said.

The quotes are what Peter said, yes. We have to remember, though, that all 12 were speaking something that gave glory to God that attracted the attention. When Peter took over, it seemed like the other ones were silent, and we had that great Pentecostal sermon.

So, I've changed my position, I think, for your patience here. I just want you to know that we all have to check ourselves. I'm no scholar, but I think I'm fairly faithful as much as I am into scripture.

I check myself carefully on this in the original languages. I've read it several times. I've looked at some of the better lines that he has said, like the Old Covenants, and several other things. And I've changed my position, though I can't describe some of the questions he came up with.

You just can't describe it perfectly and say, this is exactly what happened. We do know that as all these Jews were passing by, we don't know if they're leaving after the Passover festival, or if they're going back for another round of something at Temple.

We don't know, but there they were. And also, all twelve of us are speaking. It catches their attention. They know that those guys are giving glory to God. They're hearing it in their own language, and they hear Peter in their own language.

It's a miracle. It has to do with now, it's the culmination of years of redemptive history of bringing the pen to that curse. So, we all okay with that? You understand we can't describe every jot and tittle in that text, but it was a great miracle.

Whether Tongues in Acts Were Human Languages

The question remains, should speaking in tongues be normative in the Church? Waldron, page 83, he frames the discussion in four questions. He says, first, were tongues human languages? Second, what were the rules about tongues speaking in the Church?

Third, are there tongues speakers today? And fourth, how should we explain contemporary tongues speaking? Is it normative? Are tongues human languages? It's something that Walter's book is on my desk there.

Were tongues human languages? Waldron gives several proofs that tongues in the early Church were known human languages. It has to do, they were clearly human languages, as we've talked about. All those people gathered around, they heard it in their own native tongue.

They heard it in their own tongue. In Revelation 5 -9 and 7 -9, one of the reasons why it refers to human languages. Now this is important. You remember what Pastor Holmes said about his early experiences in the Episcopal Church?

Do you remember what.

He said? I think he said that he felt bad that he wasn't getting it.

Yeah, because they had a class and they gave him syllables to repeat. It was almost like they wanted to put him in a class and he couldn't quite get it. So in Revelation 5 -9, they sang a new song saying, Were there you to take the scroll and open the seals?

For you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people from every tribe and language and people and nation. You made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth. So tribe and language, okay, and it's referred to human language.

The voice of many angels. Okay.

I think we're going to come to that a little bit. We don't know. I looked around verse 11, and.

The voice of many angels numbered myriads and myriads and thousands, and I'll sing with a loud voice according to the Lamb. He's understanding it. Is that what you were getting at?

No. Angelic language. The voice of the angels, what would they speak? They would speak angelic.

But John understood it because he said they were saying, Worthy is the Lamb. So he understood it.

No matter what others understood what was being spoken.

Yeah, I don't know what else to say about that. After this I looked at the great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and the Lamb, clothed in white robes with all branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

The point that brings us up is that these languages are human languages. These tongues are human, no tongues. Okay. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 1, this is an interesting one. I want to show you what Corinthians so many practices.

13 -1. Paul says, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, then I am a noisy gong and a reclaiming cymbal. So the tongues of men and of angels but have not love. Walter makes the point, he says that does not necessarily mean a heavenly language unknown down here.

Okay. The tongues of men and of angels. He's saying the angelic tongue does not necessarily have to be something that was only known in heaven and unknown down here.

Like when the angel, like when Gabriel talked to, you know, it was always, we assumed that it was in their language. We didn't see anything that had to translate. So when they talked, I could hear the people in the church there.

Right. And that's going to come up in the movie. Anticipate something. That's good.

There's a social thinking that the angels probably didn't experience the confusion of battle that the rest of the people did. So maybe there was some original universal language that they were still speaking.

Interesting.

Yeah. That's the law school. Now, I'll stick to 13 .1 and 1 Corinthians for a moment. Again, Paul and Walter. He says this. If I speak, and he makes a lot out of the if. If I speak, he pauses that it may be a rhetorical hyperbole.

If I were to do this. I'm not saying I do this. He's saying, but what if I did? If I did this, here would be the consequence of it. And that works pretty well with the Greek if you go back to that conditionless type of statement.

I don't want to go into a lot of detail about that, but it's really quite possible that the original language was the same here. That Paul is giving a hyperbolic rhetorical if. He also may be echoing a claim at the church as if to say, suppose that I myself speak with the tongues of angels.

So the idea here is that the Corinthians thought they had some special angelic language. They have an abidoo type of language. I don't mean to make fun. I can't make up a solution. He's saying, well, what causes to do what you're doing?

And he goes on to say, it's just confusion. It's not edifying. You're not following good work. God's not only called for confusion, but of order. So it's a big rhetorical if. If I were to do this. He's not necessarily saying he does do that.

It's kind of new to me. Any thoughts about that? I wonder if we're speaking to that way.

Go ahead. So in 13, it says, if I speak with the tongues of angels, the letter says, if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith, there are a couple of ifs.

Later on, if I give all, if I give away all I have, so if we kind of follow that,.

All these ifs are not true, or if we want that first one to be true, we kind of say that you're saying all the rest of them are possible, too.

That's not even very true. Yeah, and he goes on to say there are traditional ifs and a gorgeous point is well taken. You know, it says, if I move mountains. Thank you for bringing that up. Do you think if Paul had moved a mountain, it would have to be Mount Everest.

Let's say Mission Peak. One-tenth the size of Mount Everest. Let's say Paul had said move mountain and the mountain picked up the move ten feet from where it was. Do you think we would have that description?

I think we would. I'm proud of that because it touched the leper and he became clean. Those kind of miracles we would have. Jesus says if you told this male bird to jump up the tree to go into the sea.

Peter had never done that. He would have argued for silence.

So, that makes good sense of what Daryl said there. All those ifs are eternal.

And if you look at the whole sense of 1 Corinthians, where they get so much connection with so many religions, it's very, very possible that Baldwin's writing about the first if of 13, and what Daryl is saying, that's fine.

If I were to do this, what would be the result? Confusion. What if I could do one of these things that you guys are trying to do or pretending you're able to do? All these crazy things in Corinthians that have for centuries confounded us.

Baldwin's saying, I wouldn't be edifying it. You wouldn't be loving to it. That brings this whole thing together. Quick excursus. I've been asked at weddings to read from 1 Corinthians. And I won't do it.

I won't preach about 1 Corinthians. It drives me crazy. Do you know why? Who can teach Bible good? No, because a woman's rebuke loves crime. What are you people doing? Love is patient. Love looks out for your neighbor.

What are you people doing? 1 Corinthians 13 is a rebuke. So that's 1 Corinthians 13. I really like Baldwin's idea of love. I like what Daryl brought up too. The rest of us. 14 .2. 14 .1 is still 1 Corinthians.

Pursue love. We know why now. Pursue love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts. Especially if you may prophesy. Spiritual gifts we can have love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

That's the fruit of the Spirit. Desire the spiritual gifts from chapter 4 of Ephesians. To be a prophet, not a prophet speaking directly from God, but prophesying people from Scripture and bringing truth to them.

That sort of thing. It says, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts especially if you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to them but to God. For no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in his spirit.

He means that without an interpreter you're speaking not to me, but to you and God. Others are passive and uninformed. So if you have some special language, some special little thing that you're working with God on or God's working with you on and you're speaking out in a way that I can't understand are you showing love to me?

Would I be showing love to you? No. And the reason we can say no is because it's not edifying. It's not building us up. And that's got to be the purpose of all we do together as Christians. The observers are passive and uninformed.

If someone is to interpret as Paul insists they must know the language otherwise no one's edified. 1 Corinthians 12, 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. And that would be completely negated if we don't understand the good you're trying to bring to us.

I was thinking about this a little bit. More than a little bit, sorry. I was thinking about this. And I was thinking, well, how would that miracle work today in the church? It would be if do you know Chinese?

Christine all of a sudden was able to give glory to God in Chinese, a language that she didn't otherwise know. And we'd have an uninterpreted here. But then, you know, you have to go another step and this is just a human understanding perhaps a reformed view we have to develop as sinners.

I would have to trust that there's this language that I don't understand that she's speaking. It's being properly transmitted to me by the interpreter. It just gets more and more complicated as you improve it.

We live in the United States of America so we speak English and so forth.

But you would only do that if there was someone in here who only spoke Chinese.

Otherwise, what good would it do? It doesn't seem to make sense. I don't know about the whole thing because at Pentecost everyone also spoke the common language of Greek so they didn't need a translation.

But it would need somebody who at least spoke Chinese to be a message to them, basically. To do more of a bond to that person. Three people. One to speak it, one to hear it, and one to translate it.

But the translator doesn't sound like a miracle to me. God has given Christine Chinese because it's moving to give more to God. Who speaks Chinese? I'm not taking that. We get Daryl. He says he understands it and he's bilingual.

We'd have that person in the church. You see how complicated it gets. By the time you figure all this stuff out and correct all these Corinthians mistakes, it's time to go home. I'm not getting anything out of this.

My point is though, if it's known language as Walter Cruz, I think he's right. I've always thought that. The miracle, if it works to be in the church, would be someone who doesn't otherwise know the language.

All of a sudden, Daniel, has you studied Hebrew? A little bit. Did you speak Hebrew? All of a sudden, he can speak Hebrew fluently. I remember enough Hebrew to tell you. Who would you be trusting me to...

It just... I'm not for that. It'd be a mess. What'd you say? It'd be a mess. Is God the God of messes? We want to go on with this. Remember the question was are tongues normative in the church? We talked about all the reasons why they really wouldn't be.

See where this is going. 1 Corinthians 14 .21. In the law it is written This is referring back to Isaiah 28 .11. By people of strange tongues and by people of foreigners will I speak to this people and even then they will not listen to me says the Lord.

I quoted Paul in 1 Corinthians 21 and he's quoting Isaiah 28 .11. Isaiah 28 .11 is a judgment against Israel. It's speaking about the coming of Babylon to people who speak a different tongue. That's Babylon.

That's what we were talking about in Jeremiah 25 last week in the preaching. This afternoon it's Babylon against me. That's that nation that came against Jerusalem, conquered them and took them into exile.

Isaiah 28 .11 is the prophecy of that happening. It's a judgment against Israel. All Jesus says and I quote It is difficult to see how this citation is pertinent to Paul's argument or relevant to the subject unless the tongues spoken in Corinth were human languages.

So Isaiah 28 .11 is a judgment. He quotes it here. Why would he quote it here to the Corinthians? Is it to promote more tongues? No. It's a judgment. He's saying that what you're doing is really bringing judgment upon us.

And this is consistent too if you go back to that 1 Corinthians 11 and the Lord's Table. He's saying here's the problem with what you're doing and the Lord's Table. I'm paraphrasing. The problem is that you're eating and drinking what?

Judgment. Judgment is one of the themes that you find in this whole section starting in chapter 10. We're saying your actions are going to bring judgment upon you. This is why some of you are sick. This is why some of you have died.

Because of God judging you. And when he cites Isaiah 28 .11 which is impending judgment upon Judah. It's a judgment. It's difficult to understand that citation unless the tongues spoken in Corinth were human languages.

Again, quoting Paul's whole point in 1 Corinthians 14 .21 is bipartisan. You get to tongues for judgment. 1 Corinthians 14 .23 says if therefore the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders or unbelievers enter will they not say that you're out of your minds?

Yeah. They would. How can you like that? When you go down the street, you don't understand what they're doing. If Aldrich is correct, and I think he is, Paul is ordering them to discontinue practice and they'll bring down judgment upon them.

Our conclusion here in 1 Corinthians 1 Corinthians 1 .28 I keep forgetting I have it in my book for me. If tongues were four languages that could be interpreted then many if not most claims to the gift of tongues today are invalidated.

They do not even claim to be four languages. That Pastor Owens, where he was quote unquote taught on how to speak in tongues. It was a symbol to work over and over and over and eventually tongues would come out.

So if tongues were four languages that could be interpreted and the scripture would support that they were languages that were known that could be interpreted then most if not all claims of the gift of tongues today are invalidated.

Because the tongues as they're taught today are not and don't even claim to be four slash known languages. Everyone with me? Yeah. I really promise I don't see any eyes clouded over. I'll go back to the word normative.

Are you saying so we're saying it's not normal. Well. Are you saying that it can't happen? I won't ask my next question. Tongues. Are tongues four today and the class said I wasn't talking about tongues.

I'd say no. Am I saying it can't happen? I have a hard time saying it can't. Because we're in the bible. But I would say as we talked last week about apostleship, about prophethood, about the purpose of tongues.