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Originally Posted by Ohio
Had to laugh at this one. I find it interesting that a proper interpretation of tongues -- a bona fide gift of the Holy Spirit -- could be " pitchforked" by the entire congregation as hay, straw, or stubble. Another feature seems to be that the tongue-message seems to mimic the general ministry of the church. In my congregation, there is no "hell-fire" kind of sermon, and hence, none of the tongue-messages nor their interpretations are of the "hell-fire" kind. All the ones I have heard are the "blessing" kind of message.
It's actually the only part of the service which appears spontaneous and open to the members to initiate. Perhaps I am wrong. These tongue-messages and their interpretations could be planned for.
From my limited observation, tongues have 3 purposes --
- General praise and worship. This is both public and private.
- Messages given in meetings, which require someone to interpret.
- Gospel preaching, like in the book of Acts. I have not seen this.
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Suggesting that it is just hay, straw or stubble might be a little harsh. But they were mostly sure that it was not for them personally, but for some backsliding or never-saved person in their midst. And "backsliding" is a significant problem in a group that follows the Arminian thought on salvation (you can lose it).
Virtually all of the tongues that were not simply part of that jabbering during prayer times fell into category 2. And they sounded like the warnings of an OT prophet. Sometimes prefaced by phrases like "Ye, my people" and the like.
And no matter what, you have to remember that I am slightly more than 40 years removed from the AOG, so despite the rather uncanny ability to remember details of long-past events, we are really working on "long past" at this point.