Two Kinds of ‘Tongues’: Angelic language (Spiritual) and Human Language (Earthly)

I have never spoken in tongues and so do not present here a predisposed agenda.

It might repulse you, the reader, to even think of receiving the gift of speaking in spiritual tongues, but whether you agree or disagree with Paul’s letters to the Churches – Paul’s Spirit-led outlining of the proper conduct for speaking in spiritual tongues (a Spiritual prayer language, not just God’s gift of speaking other human languages, as what happened at Pentecost) – your personal stance does not change the fact that Paul himself said HE spoke in Spiritual tongues more than any other person within the Church entity under his charge.

Do not confuse your disdain for ‘anything out of the ordinary’ (what you were taught by humans) with what scripture teaches. Scripture teaches, through Paul, the spiritual gift of two types of tongues – two types of linguistic-based Spiritual utterance and understanding: Holy Spirit-compelled linguistic communication with God (where, even as we pray, we do not naturally understand the words we are saying); and the Spiritual gift of speaking and understanding a non-native earthly human language (that is, spontaneously speaking, with no foreknowledge, some other non-learned human language so that others will, in their native tongue, understand God’s truth to them through you/me).

Please Pray for My Friend!

To All Truth Behind Reality Readers:

I ask you to please pray for my close personal friend. This is an urgent ongoing request for those of you who have faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you in advance!

Todd Beal

Gospel-Centered Expectations

by Timmy Brister

Source: timmybrister.com (Gospel-Centered Expectations)

I received this article in my email and wanted to pass it along to all of you. Mr. Brister’s insight here means a lot to me personally. God is more than the very best I could possibly expect. His personal word to us, the Bible, has every thing one could imagine to keep anyone, from any walk of life, personally and spiritually challenged and growing for an entire lifetime. That is the essence of what Mr. Brister explains in his following article:  Gospel-Centered Expectations.

Job 40:6-8 Translation Comparisons

I grew up with the KJV, submitted myself to God in 2004, and bought my first carefully chosen Bible (ESV) in 2007. I often joke that there is more ‘black’ in that Bible from my personal notes than there is ink from the publishers. I literally devoured that Bible.

In 2011, I heard my pastor reading from a translation that was unfamiliar to me. I looked up the wording on Biblos.com’s parallel Bible and discovered she was using the NASB. After doing a ton of research and comparing passage after passage with the ESV, I bought the NASB Study Bible. Hands down, it is my translation of choice – overall. I say ‘overall’ because, for the majority of the time, it most accurately reproduces the underlying intended meaning of the original Biblical language. But for those rare instances in which the NASB fails to reveal the full naked meaning I seek other translations to fill in the gap.

A good example of when I turn to other translations:  I love the Book of Job, and my favorite part is chapter 40 to book-end because it holds tremendous personal meaning for me. The NASB fails to capture the personal/spiritual significance of the original, idiomatic cultural meaning of the phrase, ‘gird up your loins’ (Job 40:6-8). The idiomatic cultural meaning of the phrase ‘Gird up your loins’ means ‘Put your big boy pants on’, and in this particular case the ESV simply nails the translation with ‘Dress for action like a man’.

I compared Job 40:6-8 between the translations Gary Zimmerli mentioned in his most excellent post, “The NKJV and the ESV”, and then highlighted each key phrase with a different color to show how it uniquely differs from translation to translation.

Thank you, Gary, for giving an honest look at this translation topic, perfectly marrying your subjective take with true objectivity – a most rare find these days.

My translation of choice by highlight color:

Yellow:  ESV

Green:   NASB

Purple:  NASB; NKJV

Grey:     NONE:  I think the better translation/interpretation would be, “Will you condemn me to justify yourself as righteous”.

 

 

ESV:  Job 40:6-8

The LORD Challenges Job

6 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

7 “Dress for action^a like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
8 Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?

 

NASB:  Job 40:6-8

God Questions Job

6 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm and said,

7 “Now gird up your loins like a man;
         I will ask you, and you instruct Me.

8 “Will you really annul My judgment?
         Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?

 

NKJV:  Job 40: 6-8

6 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: 7 “Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me: 8 “Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified?

 

NIV 1984: Job 40: 6-8

6 Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm:

7 “Brace yourself like a man;

I will question you,

and you shall answer me.

8 “Would you discredit my justice?

Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

Elizabeth’s Quest for Truth

My constant mission for Truth Behind Reality is to deep dive behind what we normally accept as reality.

Most of us too readily accept the people and events in our lives at face value. We are satisfied with skimming the surface without ever going deeper than our presumptuous conclusions. Sure, we may dive deep into someone or something, but we do so based only on our initial presumption that what we want to believe is true and everything else is false. That makes us closed-minded. Something is either true or not true whether we believe it or not, even if we believe it with our whole heart.

This past week I have had the privilege of talking to Elizabeth Carter here on Truth Behind Reality. She is a 71 year old lady whose lifelong passion for discovering and understanding truth – not presumptiously but authentically and deeply – is unusually similar to what I have described in My Story.

Please read her story below (originally a comment on the Truth Behind Reality post, “Does Truth Exist?”).

Thank you Elizabeth.

Todd Beal

Elizabeth’s Quest for Truth

I have dedicated my life to seeking truth. I have no idea why it has been the most important thing in my life, all of my life. I often seemed to be the only person I knew who actually believed there was such a thing as absolute truth and made the effort to find it.

The search was as important to me as breathing. It was not something I decided to do. It was something I had to do. Actually it has been more important to me than breathing, because when I find some truth, I am willing to die for it rather than compromise such a pearl of great price.

My life has been spent on the quest and I am 71 now. It has been a frustrating and richly rewarding journey. I would not have missed it for this world; I have found a better world.

When I was very young and started the search, I started in church. The churches compromised the truth and I could not understand how a group of people who claimed to believe in Christ did not believe what the Bible said about Him. They did not believe in miracles. They were very “educated and scientific” in the 1950’s and looked for rational and scientific means to explain away the miracles. By the time I was 19, I knew for certain that they did not believe what they were professing to believe and I looked elsewhere.

I would find something that seemed good and true, but as I studied it and considered it I would find deep flaws. The New Age is all about Magick and Miracles but no one tries to explain them away. As long as God and the Bible are omitted, it seems a person can believe anything without repercussion. Absolute Truth stands the test; it does not fall apart on closer inspection.

Words [in the New Age teachings] were deliberately changed and used to confuse us. God was not the God of the Bible, but whoever they decided God was. They believe that man is God and man creates God in his own image. I spent a lot of my study time finding out how they were defining words that seemed familiar but had entirely different meanings than I had supposed. I have read thousands of books in my search.

After many years of searching I came back to the Bible, the One Book that matters, and found that I saw Scripture very differently at 50. I told God that I would read the Bible and accept it as true; if I did not understand it, then I would assume it was my immaturity and not His need to do things my way. It changed my life. He began to show me things in Scripture that I had never been able to understand before. It is a very supernatural book. I know now that miracles really do happen and I am willing to admit that the fact that I cannot explain how God does things does not make God unable to do them. I just have more to learn and further to go on my journey. I enjoy the journey now.

The most difficult part was realizing how much we have been lied to and how often and by so many. We have been born into a world filled with lies, taught them in our homes, schools, churches and governments and coerced into agreeing with them if we want to succeed at high levels. I was horrified. I literally felt sickened and disgusted by what I discovered. For a while, I thought it might destroy me because everything in my belief system was being taken apart and found to be based on these lies. I was overwhelmed.

I held on to Scripture and learned to depend on the Holy Spirit to guide me through it all. Truth would replace the lie as each was discovered. Fear receded as love and life flowed into me.

After many years of delving into this, I can deal with it better now. We really do live in a fallen world and I accept it now instead of thinking that evil could not exist; I know it can and does exist. The Bible says how evil this world is and I finally had to accept the fact that God knows what He is talking about.

Learning the truth and standing up for truth is a demanding quest and has been the best possible use of my life. I happily anticipate my future and love to see what He has planned for me today and forever.

– Elizabeth Carter

I Wish I Could Change My Past

You cannot fix your past. Yesterday will never change! Only you can change, and along with you, so does your future.

Todd Beal

Live Without Regret

Tomorrow is not today, today is not yesterday. So why think this moment the same as your next, as if it cannot change? We do, because our days are interconnected. Make the most of them – live life without regrets, so long as you Live Life to avoid them.

Learn, Change, Live.

Todd Beal