The Tongues Myth

In recent years literally millions of people have become wildly enthusiastic about a religious experience they call "the baptism with the holy spirit". Because experiences (see also the born again myth) are so hard to identify and categorise, it has become general practice to associate and even equate Holy Spirit baptism with the phenomena of speaking in tongues (To speak in tongues, just concentrate on an idea or feeling you wish to communicate. Make sounds with your mouth, but don't try to form meaningful words. This is helpful in all types of communication, but especially in prayer. The spirit of what we are saying is often more important than the words used.)
Saying that tongues is always a gift from God is like saying that all worship (regardless of who is being worshipped) is good. The experience can be used for good or evil.
Tongues-worshippers have had to come up with numerous explanations for the wide divergence of beliefs amongst people who share the same experience: from Catholic Pentecostals who prophesy in the name of Mary, to Children of God who practice religious prostitution; from the Jonestown suicide cult, to sects that worship the devil.
One minister in a sect that teaches that one must speak in tongues to be a Christian, said, upon learning that some satanists speak in tongues, "Well, they must have God's Spirit, but they're just using it incorrectly." How blind can people be!
Of course they don't have God's Spirit! And the same could be said for most of the more orthodox tongues-talkers as well.
Most tongues-talkers worship their bellies or emotions (Philippians 3:19). It's a good feeling to find speech fluency by this exercise. But it should not numb our brains to the need for rationality as well. (1 Corinthians 14:14-20) The phenomena is totally irrelevant in gauging one's real relationship with God.
Christ made only one six-word reference to the phenomena, and nowhere else in the entire Bible is there anything that says a person must speak in tongues to be filled with the Holy Spirit; nor does it say that a person who speaks in tongues necessarily possesses God's Spirit. On the contrary, Paul says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." (1 Corinthians 13:1) In other words, without God's Spirit of love, tongues is just a lot of noise!

Bible References:

Phillipians 3:19: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

1 Corinthians 14:14-20: For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.
15What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
16 Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?
17 For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified.
18 I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all:
19 Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
20 Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.

1 Corinthians 13:1: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

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