Don't the Pentacostal dance around with snakes and speak in tongues? Any hoot, what is up with that? I don't remember Jesus dancing around with snakes or speaking in tongues, from the religious education of my mispent youth.
no...that is not typical in a pentecostal church. there are churches that have the pentecostal name that do that...but it's not the norm. "it is written: 'Do not put your God to the test.'"
Speaking in tongues is not from Jesus. It's from the Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit imbued the believers a little after Jesus' death. From Acts 2: And it goes on, but it's too long. You can read the whole thing here: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=51&chapter=2&version=31. I'm not sure what the genesis of the snake-handling is. But, given that the snake is the symbol of the devil, it isn't too hard to make up a theory.
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. That Holy Ghost is one tricky fellow.
I took a class from an incredibly erudite (Jewish) professor, fluent in Aramaic, Greek, the ancient written form of Hebrew, and several of the other semitic languages, including Arabic, who made a wonderful case that many things, the current manifistation of 'speeking in tongues' chiefly among them, are the result of people translating and interpreting from languages and cultures which they were not directly familiar with. (For instance, 10th century Irish Monks who'd never been to England, much less the Middle East, but were educated and fuent in many languages.) According to him, the original form of "speaking in tongues" bears no resemblance to the glossolalia of the Charismatics. In Acts, the people spoke in languages they didn't know, but were coherent, people understood what they were saying, and they didn't flop about in the estatic state of today. It would be like suddently being able to speak French. The other stuff reminds me of an epileptic sezure. IMHO, the Charismatics make the mistake of equating novelty, excitement, and internal ecstacy with religious signifigance. As MacBeth would say, "...it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Wikipedia rightly points to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis as the important counterpoint to the story in Acts.
this is my understanding of it, too. and it is as it is told in the New Testament. that believers were able to speak in languages they previously did not know to communicate what they saw with Jesus.
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. What a prankster, the OT God is!!!
I'd agree. I'm not a Charismatic (nor a Christian), I was just pointing out the origin to No Worries, in case he really wasn't aware.
I was not aware. I was just pretty sure Jesus did not talk in tongues (or better said that was not taught in the church of my mispent youth.)
