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Quote by N.T. Wright

“Far too much modern Christian prayer has insisted on words, on logic, on getting everything clear and out into the open. This is of course important and indeed vital--as one aspect of the whole. But prayer, if it is to be Christian prayer, cannot be a grasping at control. It is precisely a relinquishing of control--to the one who is capable of doing far, far more than we can ask or imagine. It is saying 'Thy will be done.' It is therefore appropriate that, at some times and in some ways, that prayer should pass beyond the merely rational and wordy and engage with God, as Paul says in Romans 8, at a level too deep for words.”

Quote by N.T. Wright

Book:Spiritual and Religious
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Spiritual and Religious

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N.T. Wright

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Speaking In TonguesPentecostalism
Book:They Speak with Other Tongues: A Skeptic Investigates This Life-Changing Gift
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“With no change in the tone of her voice, Lydia began to pray in tongues. And at that instant I felt--actually felt--a wave of warmth pass from her hands into my head and then swiftly down through my chest and arms. The sensation was of heat, but without the effect of heat: I didn't feel flushed or hot. It was like coming close to some immense source of heat, a blast furnace or a sun, that had no burning quality whatever.”

PrayerSpeaking In Tongues
Book:They Speak with Other Tongues: A Skeptic Investigates This Life-Changing Gift
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“One of the linguists reported that although he did not identify words, he felt that one prayer had been structured in much the same way a modern poem is structured. "Modern poetry depends upon sound as much as upon verbal meaning to get across its message," he said. "In this one prayer, I felt that although I didn't understand the literal sense of her words, I did catch the emotional content of what she was saying. It was a hymn of love. Beautiful." It was interesting, too, that although no language known to these men was recorded, they had frequently identified language patterns on the tapes. The "shape" of real language, the variety of sound combinations, infrequency of repetition and so forth, is virtually impossible, so they said, to reproduce by deliberate effort. Remembering Dina Donohue's parody of tongues-speaking, I had slipped onto the tapes two instances of pure made-up gibberish, one by our son, Scott, and one by Tib. They had tried to sound as much as possible like the tongues on the rest of the tape, but the linguists spotted the deception immediately. "That's not language," one man said. "That's just noise.”

Speaking In Tongues
Book:They Speak with Other Tongues: A Skeptic Investigates This Life-Changing Gift
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Speaking In TonguesTheophany
Book:They Speak with Other Tongues: A Skeptic Investigates This Life-Changing Gift
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“We have a friend who used to commute by ferry between Staten Island and Manhattan, in New York City. The trip took nearly half an hour and could have been a frustration in a busy day. But this man, David Wilkerson, used the time on the boat for prayer in tongues. He would start off by thinking of all the things he had to be thankful for. In a reversal of Bob Morris's sequence, he would review them one by one in his mind, in English, praising God for each one. Bit by bit, inside him, he would feel a mounting sense of joy. He was conscious of being loved, being taken care of. He began to glimpse pattern and design in all that was happening to him. And suddenly, in trying to express his gratitude, he would reach a language barrier. English could no longer express what he felt. It was simply inadequate for the Being that he perceived. It was at this point that he would burst through into communication that was not limited by vocabulary. His spirit as well as his mind would start to praise God. Inevitably, by the time David reached the Manhattan pier, a transformation had taken place. He was built up in body and in spirit. He felt emboldened, ready to tackle impossible tasks, invigorated and refreshed, ready to meet whatever the day had to offer. And this was often important, for David Wilkerson is a youth worker among street gangs in the New York slums--a job that brings him into contact with teenage dope addicts, child prostitutes, young killers and some of the most discouraging and intractable problems in the world today.”

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“In Paul's view, there seemed to be three principal ways in which tongues were of value: 1. In private prayer, tongues aided the speaker to praise God. 2. They let the speaker pray even at those times when he or she was not sure what to ask for. 3. And in public worship, when accompanied by another of the nine gifts, "interpretation," tongues provided a vehicle of direct communication between God and His people.”

PrayerWorshipSpeaking In Tongues
Book:They Speak with Other Tongues: A Skeptic Investigates This Life-Changing Gift
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