Speaking in Tongues and the End of the World

Okay, I'm going to be stepping on some toes here.  I've got two topics for this entry.

First:  When is Jesus coming back?

Answer:  Please STOP making predictions of when He's coming back!  If you're making predictions, you obviously have not read what Jesus Himself said:


"However, no one knows the DAY or HOUR when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.  Only the Father knows."

Matthew 24:36


Y'all, not even Jesus Himself knew when, only the Father!  If Jesus didn't even know when His own return was going to be, how the hell do you know?  Sorry, but sounds like arrogance to me.


Now that I've gotten that out of the way, the real topic I wanted to focus on:  speaking in tongues.  I've got a real bone to pick with people about this, and I'm going to try to be nice about it.  How people define speaking in tongues today is not how it was in the Biblical times.  When you see someone speaking in tongues today (or the popular belief in it) they are rambling unknown words and, let's be real here okay?  Jibberish.  No one has any idea what that person is saying!  1 Corinthians 14:33 says:


For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.  As in all the churches of the saints.


If God is not a God of confusion, why would the "language of the angels" confuse those who are listening?  You know who is the master of confusion though?  Satan.  If you're going to claim to speak in tongues and it's in an unknown language to everyone around you, be careful because you may speaking in the opposite language (though I lean more on the side of jibberish).

The whole speaking in tongues thing really got to me for a while.  Here I've been a follower of Christ for over a decade, and I've NEVER been able to speak in tongues.  I knew other Christians who did, and they'd say "Just pray and ask God to give you the gift of speaking in tongues."  I did for a long time and nope, never got it.  This made me question my own salvation.  If I'm asking God to help me speak a language only the Holy Spirit knows, and yet I still can't, what does that make me?  I now know the answer and the answer is today's definition of speaking in tongues is not the same as in Scripture.

This doesn't mean speaking in tongues has died out though.  I heard a story once of a friend of my parents who went to Turkey (I think on a missions trip).  He didn't know Turkish, yet when he started praying for a guy there, the guy was like "How were you able to pray in my language?"  This friend didn't know Turkish, yet somehow he was able to speak it!  THIS is what speaking in tongues in the Bible really is.

You look at where it first started:  Pentecost.  When the apostles started speaking in tongues, it wasn't some unknown language no one knew about.  No, they were speaking in languages they didn't know, but the people who heard them understood what they were saying.  They were speaking KNOWN languages by those who heard them.  This is what true speaking in tongues is.  Nowhere in Scripture do you see speaking in tongues being how it is defined today.  Remember:  God is not a God of confusion.  If no one knows what you are saying, you are NOT speaking in tongues.