From: WINBROW@aol.com
Date: Fri Oct 13 1995 - 17:17:16 EDT
Tim Staker wrote,
>(It [tongues] may have been a sign to unbelievers in Paul's day, but not
now).<
Christer Stendahl writing in a collection of essays, The Charismatic
Movement, "The NT Evidence" (I cannot remember the editor and I evidently
loaned my copy) dealt with this passage in I Cor. 14:21-25. He noted the
quotation from Is. 28:11-12 and went back to the context of that quote. He
claimed that in Is. 28:10 Isaiah was imitating a foreign tongue by producing
meaningless sounds, SAV LASAV SAVE LASAVE KAV LAKAV KAV LAKAV SHEAR SHAM SEAR
SHAM (I don't have my Hebrew Bible so the transliterations may be off.).
Perhaps the first instance of "ecstatic speech?" He then said that Isaiah
was making the point that God speaking this was a sign to Israel not to
convince them but to prevent them from hearing. Paul is using sign in the
same way. Tongues are a sign to the unbeliever in the same way that the
gibberish in Is. 28:10 was to unfaithful Israel. This aleviates the problem
of conflict between I Cor. 14:22 and verse 23 which seems to say the
opposite.
Sorry I broke my promise, but what do you think?
Carlton Winbery
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