Gift of Tongues

I've never seen you go there before Bob. For, where is the faith, where is the confidence to receive His voice such as '' it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, ,'' (Acts 15:28)? You seem to have a very short leash on what forthtelling may occure, seeing the Apostle DID put the judging party ''others'' in plural. Please understand, I'm not faulting confirmation, as most all word of knowledge comes strapped to confirmation. But don't limit the 'forthtold' message from all wholesome 'encouragement'.

I'm still trying to get up to speed on all the jargon.... I assume that forth telling is predicting future events?

What does confirmation consist of?

Is word of knowledge simply explaining a certain point of scripture, or is there more to it than that?

Hi Hornetguy, "forth telling" is more like "speaking forth" rather than "foretelling". A prophetic word CAN be a foretelling of a future event but it's definitely not limited to that. Propheteia (the Greek root word prophesy comes from) basically means "speaking forth (by) the will of God".

We see different examples of prophesy being used in the NT. One example is Simeon and Anna confirming that Jesus was the Messiah when he was presented at the temple as a baby (Luke chapter 2).

Another example is 1 Tim. 4: 14, where Paul reminds Timothy not to neglect the gift that is within him, which was given through prophesy and the laying on of hands by the elders.

Yet another example is 1 cor. 14: 24-25, where an unbeliever comes to a church meeting and the "secrets of his heart are made manifest; and falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you" (I have personally experienced a less-dramatic version of that situation).

I can give some personal examples of prophesy and words of knowledge if you are interested, if so just let me know! 😎 But for now, it is late and I need some sleep 😴.

Thanks for the reply... yes, I would be interested in hearing personal examples... I'll look forward to that tomorrow, perhaps?
Thanks again...

Well, it could come to you from anyone really, mine which were not numerous, I must say were and have a lasting peace I still sense many years forward. But to your question (hope to hear 'Snackersmom' exp. as well), confirmation is a spoken message given to you by someone you know has no way of knowing the details you only are privy to. And a perfect stranger can generate the most convincing ones you will ever hear with God's peace as well. What level of peace am I speaking of? Beyond comparison of anything on earth. It is a living and glorious peace packed with stability, not delirium. You know you are in the moment of being blessed.

Possibly, you may be thinking that isn't always possible to know the WOK since we don't really have a clear definition of it. Well, don't go feeling too isolated with that viewpoint, as all of us have to taste for ourselves the vision of faith along with all the gifts, be it receiving or disseminating. But since the lack of definition by faith remains so slim (faith, another gift of the Spirit) and has us wondering a bit, how do we know when we are witnessing the WOK gift and not the words of self-willed, high-minded ambition?

There are clues. In Phil 2:3 we should give pass to "lowliness of mind" and ''consent to wholesome words'' 1Tim 6:3 as God will also minister peace with those things said. I am convinced in saying the word of knowledge is a type of the word of prophesy (real time message) used in more personal encounters, again, as God ministers either peace or strong confirmation. He is able to bring these to pass.

Beyond this, my most memorable WOK happens in God's presence in Pentecostal Churches.

You're welcome! I didn't know all that about propheteia and what it actually meant until a few years ago when I was studying for a youth group lesson. Before that I thought prophecy only pertained to foretelling future events, but after some study and cross-referencing I realized that is not at all the case. 1 Corinthians chap. 14 is a good general overview of the gifts and how they are SUPPOSED to be used in church, though in my experience it is very rare to find a church that practices and follows those guidelines. It is quite possible that you have experienced the gifts in your own life already and didn't recognize them as such because in practice they aren't usually as "flashy" as most would-be "prophets" would have us believe . Anyways, personal experiences:

I think these would fall under "word of knowledge", which best I can tell is a sudden insight into a situation:

I supervise multiple high-school students at work. They're a great group and I absolutely love working with them, but one recent hire was giving me trouble. He was always angry, didn't listen, and was starting to take his issues out on the other workers, which I obviously couldn't have. I was praying about what to do because I had tried to correct him and he was only getting worse, and I REALLY didn't want to fire him because all his friends would know what happened and I wasn't sure he could handle the rejection. While I was praying for an answer I heard "He needs encouragement". That's all. It surprised me, because everyone was telling me I needed to get tougher on him and/or give him the axe. But I figured I would give encouragement a try. So I started looking for any excuse I could find to say something encouraging. At first it was really hard to find anything praiseworthy, but me and Jesus managed somehow. And I started seeing improvement almost immediately. After about 2 weeks I was pretty sure I wouldn't need to fire him. And after about a month his behavior had improved to the point that it wasn't even hard to find things to praise him for. He worked for me for several more years before leaving for college, and by then I had almost forgotten how rocky things started out....he was like a different person completely. I still see him on occasion when he's in town to visit his parents and I am so proud of him I can't even say....God did a great work! I'm so thankful He told me what I needed to know rather than let me do what I thought was right. His ways are SO much higher!

Another "word of knowledge" example was a time I woke up with a heavy burden for someone I had met online. They were recently saved and we had talked a good bit about spiritual matters. I couldn't get the person off my mind and felt a sadness/heaviness for them, so I prayed and listened for a bit. After maybe 5 minutes I heard 4 words that kinda rattled me. They pertained to an issue with the person that I wasn't aware of, but God knew. I prayed some more about what to say and do with the information, then checked with another spirit-filled Christian to confirm and make sure I was on the right track (I didn't want to upset the friend if the leading was wrong). They did confirm it and I contacted the friend with the issue and told them what was up. They were scared at first, but said that the 4 words were true, it pertained to an issue they had struggled with since childhood. Since I had also prayed about how to "fix" the issue, I told them that info as well and apparently it was dealt with completely that very day. I think just knowing that God knew and cared about it went a long way towards healing, really....but it all works together for good .

This post is pretty long..... I have more examples if you want to hear them, just let me know and I'll do another post!

I appreciate your reply... that helps explain some of this. I had always assumed that prophecy was more "future telling"... although I also had read some commentaries that talked more about the word of knowledge concept, even though that particular phrasing wasn't used.
And, yes, I have had a few instances of "insight" into situations that have worked out well... these seem to happen when I somehow manage to get out of my own way, and just listen... the old "what would Jesus do" attitude...

Personally, I don't know if we are ever given "future telling" by the Spirit.... I DO think that we can sort of predict how events are likely to turn out, but that is based on our life experiences and gained knowledge more than anything else.

To clarify, I also believe that the Spirit will give us knowledge when necessary... some people might refer to it as a "gut feeling", but I firmly believe that the Spirit will guide us, even protect us when necessary.

A quick anecdote.... growing up, we had an inside swimming pool that was enclosed between the house and the separate garage. My parents' bedroom was on the other side of the wall of the pool room. My dad told me that he instantly woke up one morning about 2 o'clock... immediately got up and went out into the pool room. He said the hanging heating unit for the pool room was glowing red hot... it had somehow malfunctioned. He said it was not making any noise, or any weird smells, just glowing, about to explode. He quickly shut the power off to it, with no further damage done.
He told me that was most assuredly a "God thing"... there was no reason for him to wake up... even so, he said he instantly was awake, and knew to go out and check on the heater.... I am convinced the Spirit moves in our lives in ways we cannot comprehend... and in many ways that we CAN comprehend.

True! Now one day I was led to stop and confess to a pair of non-Christians of "His divine appointments" in my life, to which one of them also revealed; "I know what your talking about." From then on, I have assumed a bit different outlook concerning God's impartiality in handling His creation.

You're welcome....if you do a search on the words "prophesy" and prophecy" in the Bible and read them in context I think it will be more clear..... worked for me anyway .

It does sound like you've had the Holy Spirit at work in your life. For some reason we've come to expect charismata to look like a big flashy ostentatious thing, when in reality and true practice it seldom is...... maybe because the loudest "charismatic" voices are big on show and drawing attention to themselves? And then they come across as fake and off-putting, because that's exactly what they are .

Regarding future-telling, I will share one story-

Years ago I had a dream where I was reading an email from a friend, and the friend was telling me something very upsetting and life-altering that had just happened. The dream kinda rattled me, but I kept it to myself. A few weeks later the friend told me something happened that tied in with what I read in the dream email. But I still kept the dream to myself. About a month went by, the situation progressed and I kept in mind the outcome that the dream revealed, but didn't share it with anyone. Then it happened..... I checked email and instantly felt like I was in a time-warp, because I was reading the very message that had been in the dream a month or so earlier. Even the wording lined up as completely as I remembered it. At that point I shared the dream with the friend, and they said they found it oddly comforting, even in light of the very upsetting situation. I didn't really get why it was comforting to him but God knew it would be.

Anyway....no idea if that counts as "future telling" but it never felt like anything bad or weird, and it did comfort my friend in his distress.

Some things are meant to be told by the will of God, and some not. Thank you for your words of encouragement!