Have we so lost our spiritual moorings in the Scriptures that now we are blown about by every strange wind of doctrine? Why is it that the church fathers, the Reformers and the Puritans did not struggle with this very simple, very clear issue? Yet today we who claim the inerrancy and sufficiency of God’s Holy Word must go back to even consider this? I speak in reference to the controversy of a “private prayer language.”
The propagation of the gospel cannot be separated from sound biblical doctrine. We are urged by Christ to beware the leaven of the Pharisees (that is, their doctrine) as a little leaven pollutes the whole loaf. There is nothing as sad as going on the missions field to find brothers and sisters in another country teaching unscriptural foolishness, which they have learned from so-called missionaries from the United States. This is shameful to the name of Christ.
The two primary words which are translated in the New Testament as “tongue(s)” (dialectos and glossia) are defined by the Greek Lexicon as “dialect” and/or “language” and in every occurrence in the Scriptures, refer to a known, human language. One needs only to examine the specific languages spoken by the apostles at Pentecost to see this. There is no gift given by the Holy Spirit that is not intended for the edification of the whole Body. Furthermore there is not one example in the Scriptures of anyone ever using a “private prayer language.”
This is extrabiblical and therefore heretical. I am not surprised that a few individuals could be swayed by this doctrine of demons, but I am shocked and appalled that this is even an issue considered fit for debate among those who have historically held to a strict scriptural orthodoxy.
Barry G. Carpenter
Florence, Ala.
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