The Bible is our first authority for establishing and judging what is true, not a "regression".
Quoting from the Bible, or quoting from a Dictionary, bypassing expressing your own opinions directly and therefore taking responsibility for them, is in fact a cop out. It's a regression into mindless parroting and rhetoric. Here's the funny thing you and those who are Bible-only quoters seem to not want to take responsibility for. They are your opinions whether you want to admit it or not.
Never, can anyone say legitimately, "It's not my words, but God's words". No, it is your idea of what you think you are reading, and you expressing your opinion and then lying to yourself and others that it's not. Anything that you say God's word say, is only what you think and believe it says.
Read this:
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...-of-scriptural-authority.173975/#post-4168991
As the recorded word of God, it gives us a baseline to judge our experiences because God's word is eternal and He does not change.
Nonsense. First of all, God's Logos (Word) is Eternal. The Bible is not. The Bible is ink on pages, and it does and has changed. That is a simple fact. Do not mistake words on a page with the Eternal Spirit. To make a book God is one thing only. Idolatry. The correct term for this is Bibliolotry, the worship of the Bible as God. The Bible is fallible. Do you know anything about how it was created, edited, modified, voted upon in committee meetings, and all of the jazz that went into creating the book you mistake as God and shut yourself off from God in so doing?
Personal experiences are subject to flaws of understanding, or deception.
Interpretation of texts is no exception to this! It's pure fiction and self-deception that you think you can bypass yourself in what you are reading on the pages of that book. Nobody can. There is no absolute interpretation. None of it can be considered authoritative in the absolute sense. Don't lie to others or yourself it can.
Behind every false Christian belief system you will find someone elevating the word or experience of man over God's word.
Behind every false Christian belief is one that believes it isn't their own point of view, but God's word. "It's not my words, but God's!". That, is what is behind everything false in religion. A complete lack of humility to say "I don't know". To say "I don't know," is in fact the beginning of Wisdom, through which Truth may begin to shine. That only happens when you step down from the pulpit with the Bible raised high in your hand screaming, "It's not my words, but God's!". That's the very beginning of error.
This is the crux of where you go wrong.
You assume that just because someone is manifesting supernatural phenomenon that they must be getting it from the Holy Spirit.
I'm not assuming anything. You can see the evidence for yourself. There are no differences in the phenomena themselves, only in the surrounding rituals and belief systems. If you get gasoline from a BP gas pump, versus a Stop 'N Go pump, your car is still being powered by the same thing.
Besides, who the hell said tongues are "supernatural"? I didn't. Tongues is a human religious phenomenon. They happen in states of religious ecstacy. All of what people attribute it to is just simply their mythologies about it, such as saying they are spirits who hop into you; channeling dead relatives, magical language acquisitions to preach to people who don't know the Greek language, a sign you are saved..... or..... fast forward to modern time, "a breakdown of the synapsis of the linguist centers of the brain, etc, etc, etc.
Here's the thing. The phenomenon is the same. The "explanations" for it are different. You are hung up on your
explanation, your mythology, your way of viewing and understanding what they are. Since others in other religions don't share your mythology, to you "It must be something different!". No, hundreds of years ago when someone got the flu they believed it was due to "sin" or a "curse" or "bad spirits", etc. Now we know about germs and viruses. But the symptoms were
identical! It was not a different illness, just simply different explanations.
This is what happens when we worship our beliefs. We cannot see past them, and cannot see God in others. We only see the differences in how we believe, and therefore deny you have anything in common with them. That, to me, is what true
sin is. Truly falling short of the mark.
You did this when you tried to claim that pagan manifestations of other tongues, resembling possession accounts more than pentecostal tongues, is from the same Holy Spirit as the apostles at Pentecost experienced.
I think the story in Luke is mythological. It was his story, probably picked up from the myths of others, who like those in the Middle Ages believed the common cold was caused by spirits, trying to put a wrapper around cause and effect in mythological language. Very common thing to do. When you read Paul talking about it, written some 30 years before Luke wrote Acts, that was a practical discussion with it actually going on. And what I hear in that exchange is a little more light being cast upon it. And that light fits with what you see in all religions. The myth that is was "preaching the Gospel", is like saying a demon gave me a cold. That's not what the language supports in 1 Cor, nor the context of the discussion itself that was going on.
Nor does logic support it, for that matter! Why would God use a common religious expression as a "sign"? You want a real miracle as a sign for unbelievers, don't do what can and will be clearly mimicking what you see in these pagan temples! Just levitate the Christian 15 feet off the ground, then gracefully back down again. Now that would be a sign to unbelievers, alright!
I can just imagine the exchange back in Corinth. The Christian says "We have the truth, because see, we speak in tongues!" The pagan responds, "But we speak in tongues all the time up at the temple of Diana. How is that any different?" The Christian, using your argument responds, "
Because it is. Our's comes from the Holy Spirit, and yours comes from Satan". Well, color me unconvinced. If it's meant to be a sign, then why do something commonplace? "I shall show you a sign! Behold the moon shall rise and shine light tonight after the sun goes down!" That's not a sign at all.
Talking in tongues is not a sign to those who do it themselves! It certainly doesn't work to
impress unbelievers with much of anything at all, when they're used to seeing it happen all the time. "Oh look, he drinks water and eats food too, just like us. What's this he speaks of that being a sign to me about his God? How very odd he would think like this? We all drink and eat food."
Biblically we can establish you are wrong to assume that.
Biblically, shmiblically.
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You will only see in the Bible what your beliefs allow you to see. I read it differently, or at least understanding it differently as a whole than you do. I understand quite a lot about how people interpret things, and how they mistake their thoughts about something, as the reality of the thing itself. That's alright though, you're certainly not alone in this! That's why you have 30,000 plus Christian denominations all claiming they have it right and you're wrong. Welcome to the masses all thinking they're right because they read it in the Bible, mistaking the book for God himself.
Satan counterfeits and deceives:
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
Galatians 1:8
1 Timothy 4:1-2
2 Peter 2:1
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
Revelation 12:9
Funny, when I read all of these it makes me think of all these preachers who preach their beliefs as "God's Word". They deceive not only others, but especially themselves. They are these who appear as an angel of light, a messenger of God, holding the Bible in their hands saying, "It's not my word, brother, it's God's word!". "By their fruits you shall know them". Division is not a fruit of the Spirit.