Filled with the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost
ACTS 2:1-4 ( NIV)
2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.
Acts 2:37-41
(NIV)
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day
Tom Rohr of Rogers, AR is praying and then it happened. Surrounded by other voices, his mouth began to move on its own, and a form of speech — what Rohr calls his "prayer language" — came out.
The 2000 Charismatic Catholic Conference in Springdale was Rohr's first attempt to speak in tongues, but it filled him with peace, and he felt God's love, he said. "Speaking in tongues was something that in¬trigued me but not something I felt I needed really," he said. "It wasn't something I would consciously pray for." Now Rohr uses his prayer language daily, of¬ten silently to speak with Jesus.
"I really feel like it's made me grow closer to Jesus because I've extended my trust. When I pray in my prayer language, I really don't know who it's for or what it's for, but I get a sense that I am being very effective in my prayer."
In Christian churches all over the world, speaking in tongues — or glossolalia — is prac¬ticed fervently by many who, like Rohr, con¬sider it an integral part of their faith.
Sociologist Margaret M. Poloma, a professor at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, and author of Main Street Mystics (due out next month from Rowan & Littlefield, $26.95), has studied the phenomenon for two decades. She said speaking in tongues is a mystical experi¬ence that brings one into a deep connection with God.
"I think people are hard-wired for these types of religious experiences," she said. "Religion has codified religious experience,
and this is different. It's a mystical experience. "For many people, it's very meditative. I think it can be very therapeutic, very cathartic."
Glossolalia is a central part of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements, which now have 500 million followers worldwide, according to David Berret, editor of the World Christian Encyclopedia.
The movements share very similar theolo¬gies, but charismatics typically belong to an¬other Christian denomination or are nonde¬nominational and use the term charismatic to avoid confusion with formal Pentecostal church¬es, such as Assembly of God, said Poloma.
Modern glossolalia traces its roots to a Pen¬tecostal church that came to public attention in 1906 through the Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, a congregation that ministered to the socially and financially oppressed in the area.
As glossolalia spread across the country, it was viewed with fear or disdain by more tra¬ditional churches for decades. But by the 1960s, it was beginning to be practiced in mainstream congregations.
Still, some traditional church members called it dangerous emotionalism, a distraction from God. Others called
it heresy. But for those who practiced glossolalia, they said it was a return to the earliest Christian experience.
Using a private "prayer language" to speak directly to God is one of three types of glos¬solalia, as it is understood in Pentecostal or charismatic theology, explained Bob Fant, pas¬tor of First Assembly of God in Springdale.
What Rohr experienced at the conference might have been a second form of glossolalia, where speaking in tongues is the initial sign of rebirth in the Holy Spirit, Fant said.
A third form of glossolalia involves a mes¬sage being delivered and requires an interpreter, either the speaker himself or another, to explain "It says in the Bible in [1 Corinthians 14:27-28] that if the message is given in tongues then there should be an interpreter and if there is not, then they should really just stay quiet," he said.
In his own services, Fant said he's sure to give a short expla¬nation of what speaking in
tongues is for newcomers before using it in his sermons, where he often interprets it himself.
BACK TO THE BEGINNING
It started at Pentecost.
On that day, 50 days after Je¬sus Christ's resurrection, the Holy Spirit was let loose among the early Christians, like a rush of vi¬olent wind. According to the bib¬lical version, recorded in the book of Acts, the church was forever changed.
In 1 Corinthians 12, the Apos¬tle Paul describes the Holy Spir¬it's effect on believers: Some of those touched were made wise or given spiritual knowledge. Some were filled with faith or were able to perform healing. Still others could work miracles, speak prophecies or discern spiritual truths.
Finally, other believers began speaking in various tongues that the hearers were able to interpret. Some who witnessed the event wondered at its meaning, while others sneered, saying the Chris¬tians were "drunk on new wine."
At the racially integrated Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street, the birthplace of Pente costalism, congregants said they were experiencing the Holy Ghost in the same way as that of the early Christians.
According to the Assemblies of God Web site, the Los Ange¬les Times sent reporters, and on
April 18, 1906, an article appeared that described the participants in the "new sect" as
"Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane person could
understand.... They claim to have `the gift of tongues' and to be able to comprehend the babel."
THE 'COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS'
In the 1960s, as glossolalia crossed from smaller Pentecostal churches into the mainstream denominations, several psychologists began clinical studies hoping to understand it.
One book often quoted by scholars of glossolalia is The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues, written by psychologist John P. Kildahl and published in 1972. Kildahl put to rest anxious questions of whether glossolalia was a mental disorder, as some psychologists thought. Instead, he concluded that glossolalia gives practitioners a sense of wellbeing and inspires in them greater confidence and conviction.
Most speakers of tongues have experienced deep life crises,Kildahl wrote, and are usually comfortable with a strong external authority.
He also did a study of the interpretation of tongues by recording several glossolalia samples, then asking people who professed to
have the gift of interpretation to explain the recorded phrases. Kildahl said there was no consistency among the interpretations given.
But Akron sociologist Poloma said Kildahl misses the point of glossolalia when he expects a literal translation.
"Essentially, it's a prophetic word, not a literal interpretation. That's why someone might speak in tongues-for
three minutes but the translation takes only a short time. Speaking in tongues is another way of knowing. It's not
cognitive ... it's spiritual," she said.
Polorna, herself a speaker in tongues, said the communication that occurs between speaker and interpreter
during glossolalia is rooted in psychologist Carl Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, a level of the
psyche shared in common by all humanity.
"These people know how to walk, if you will, in the collective unconscious," she said. "And they don't just do this
occasionally, they do it as a community. Dream interpretation can come from the same source. I think children
have a lo t of these intuitive abilities but it gets trained out of them. In glossolalia, there is a sense of the
transcendent."
In Kildahl's study, he con¬cluded that the biggest challenge glossolalia presents the modern church is possible division between those who speak in tongues and feel it is the most valid form of religious expression and those who do not practice glossolalia and feel that charismatic Christianity is strange and possibly offensive.
WIDESPREAD ACCEPTANCE
The practice has come a long way since the early days in California. Evidence of the practice is present in almost every Christian denomination now
_ Glossolalia is divisive only when-it is treated as a public spectacle, Bishop Larry Maze of the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas said.
"I understand it to be a gift of the spirit," he said. "After the charismatic awakening of 1907, it became a not unknown thing. I suspect that you'll find that [phenomenon] in every church."
Sister Miriam Burns, a nun and religion instructor at St. Paul the Apostle School in Pocahontas, began speaking in tongues at her convent in 1979. At first, she was told by church leaders that she must stop because of the suspicion and fear it might cause. It wasn't until several years later that she was again allowed to engage in glossolalia openly at her convent.
That attitude of suspicion against glossolalia has changed so much that Pope John Paul II has endorsed the Catholic charismatic movement and encouraged its growth among church members through conferences such as the one Rohr attended.
Burns said she uses her prayer language more now than ever be¬fore. "When I am praying in my prayer langu4ge, I'm saying a prayer that is totally unselfish. It's the best prayer I could say at that moment because it's the Holy Spirit speaking through me."
James Lumpkin, pastor of the Word Aflame Fellowship in Little Rock, said he feels that speaking in tongues is the starting point of any new life. A physical baptism in water must be companied by a spiritual, baptism in the Holy Spirit to make person reborn in Christ, he said.
"It's a thrilling experience, to say the least," Lumpkin said. "We believe that gifts of the spirit are for everyone but not everyone will have the same gifts. The body of Christ is meant to expe¬rience these things."
A MATTER OF SURRENDER
It's no accident that the tongue is the body part that the Holy Spirit uses to work God's will, said Jerry Whitley, pastor of First Pentecostal Church in Bryant.
"The tongue is the most unruly member of your body, and if God can control your tongue, then he has control over you," he said. "You have to be broken to speak in tongues. Brokenness is just a complete surrender to God. It's a sense that 'Everything I've done in my life up 'til now has failed' and you trust God to give you strength."
LUMPKIN AGREED
"You have to reach a point where you will surrender the reins of your life to the Lord," he said. "You have to kind of put things in His hands, and I think that requires a person filled with the Holy Spirit."
(An article written by Christopher Spencer-Arkansas Democrat-Gazette – September 20, 1993)
