Talking to God in Tongues

Sunday children

It has received quite a bit of attention in the past week: why does Pentecostalism attract so many young people? What is there that is apparently attractive to many?

Vice – a American media company – published a short documentary about the Pentecostal movement under the title 'Sunday children'. The question is whether you can call this a documentary. It's a fairly superficial story.

However, various other media picked up on it:

• CIP with a report on December 14 and two days later another fifteen comments.
• Het Dutch daily newspaper on December 13
• The journalist Karel Smouter with a article about the Pentecostal movement on Vice.nl, which subsequently also became on CIP.NL discussed.
• In the talk show RTL Late Night on December 12, two people were sitting at the table who were also interviewed in the documentary of Vice.

In short, a lot of hassle about 'the Pentecostal Church' last week.

Now all these opinions don't really interest me, but I want to make a point, and that is about speaking in tongues.

Talking to God in Tongues: It Feels Like Drugs

Daniel van Deutekom was questioned about 'tongue language' at RTL Late Night. That's about it this clip.

 

We have already argued on this site that the so-called 'tongue language'[1] arises from opening oneself to the invisible world and is therefore nothing but an influence of demons. Furthermore, that it is experienced as special and positive and that this state of 'higher consciousness' can be reached in several different ways.

Well, in this clip, Daniel says some things that underline this. He is just honest about how he experiences things and says, among other things, the following [2].

• experience the faith through a physical experience to have with God;
• you sometimes experience a ecstasy
• the Holy Spirit touches people when we do it open up
• what you say in tongues I do not understand (“not always”, “often not”)
• you often get into a trance
• it's some kind of drug, so feels it does. Away from your earthly worries
• often you become revelations given, call it 'God stem’, things you can't know
• you have then as it were intimacy with God.

Now it will undoubtedly be the case that not every 'Pentecostal believer' experiences this or speaks about it in this way. But the way Daniel van Deutekom speaks about it does show the essence of it and that makes it clear again how we should assess the phenomenon. Moreover, you can expect that more and more people will plunge into this phenomenon in this way.

What the Bible says about it

Just briefly a few things the Bible says about these kinds of things

• We cannot experience God with our senses:No one has ever seen God” (John 1:18).
• We don't need revelations. “But you have the anointing of the Holy One and you know everything” (1 John 2:20)
• We can draw near to God in prayer or in praise, but it is not without and beyond our understanding. Paul says “” I will pray with spirit, but I will also pray with mind. I will praise with spirit, but I will also praise with mind” (1 Corinthians 14:15).
• Turning off the mind puts us in touch with the invisible world. “A man who wanders from the way of understanding will rest in the company of the dead.” (Proverbs 21:16). Our thinking protects us from the direct influence of the invisible world. If we stray from that road, we come into the company of the dead. That is the world of the ghosts, the shadows; the invisible world. What you find there is by the way 'rest', a state of harmony and peace.
• What is called 'intimacy with God' is described by Paul as 'communion with demons'. "(…) and I don't want you to have intercourse with the demons” (1 Corinthians 10:20).

Finally this. The God of the Bible is the God who speaks, full of understanding and wisdom. From the beginning (Genesis 1:3) He speaks in plain language. Even when He speaks through people – think of Moses and the prophets – He speaks intelligibly. And how close and clearly does God speak in His Son? He was the 'Word incarnate'. And how clear is God's Word, our Bible? They are God's Words that bring life and salvation and result in joy and praise (see for example Psalm 119).

Would this God, Whose mind is inscrutable and who speaks comprehensibly to men, now communicate with men in incomprehensible sounds and beyond the mind? That is impossible and is completely contrary to His character.

Those who are born of God know…

“(…) that we are of God and that the whole world lies in evil. But we know that the Son of God has come and has given us the understanding that we may know the True One; and we are in the True One, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, beware of idols. Amen”
(1 John 5:19-21)

 

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[1] That is incomprehensible 'gibberish', not an existing human language.

[2] I have italicized the characteristic words.