The Holy Spirit and “Tongues” 

1 Corinthians 14:20–25 (ESV) —  Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.  In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”  Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.  If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds?  But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all,  the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

We took a brief, one-month interlude from my series on the Holy Spirit in October’s newsletter and instead shared an article that I wrote for The Ambassador magazine on Donatism. This month, however, we are back to discussing the Holy Spirit and His work among us. We’re picking up right where we left off two months ago, and we’re discussing the Holy Spirit and the gift of “tongues.” 

The Gift of Tongues Given At Pentecost

Last article we noted that one of the miracles of the first Christian Pentecost was that all the assembled believers were given the power to proclaim the Gospel in other languages, and all the people that came to see what was going on heard the Gospel in their own languages. This was the fulfillment of a prophecy given through Isaiah:

Isaiah 28:11–12 (ESV) —  For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people,  to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.

Last article we talked about how the miracle of Pentecost was actually the start of the curse of Babel being repealed. God had used languages as a barrier between nations to interrupt their idolatry. Now, God’s people were again being united, but across linguistic lines, just as Isaiah foretold. 

The mighty works of God were proclaimed in Jerusalem for all the world to see and understand. Some believed, repented and entered salvation (Acts 2:41). Others scoffed and treated the Gospel proclamation like the ramblings of a drunk person (Acts 2:13). Still, the fact that the Gospel was proclaimed in every language was an incredible miracle. 

At Pentecost, for the unbeliever who listened, the Gospel proclaimed in their tongue was the power of God that moved them into their salvation (Romans 1:16). The Holy Spirit worked through the proclamation of the Word to add some 3,000 souls to the book of life. For the hard of heart and unbelieving, that same proclamation was gibberish. 

The thing is, though, the speech of the disciples was not unintelligible drunken ramblings. Just because some of the scoffers there called it that doesn’t mean any of it actually was. In fact, it seems quite clear from Acts 2:5-12 that all the people in the crowd could find at least 1 person that was preaching in their language. 

There was nothing preached on that first Pentecost that was not able to be understood by at least 1 other person there. 

The Ironic Translation Issue Around The Word “Tongues” 

In contemporary American Christianity, the word “speaking in tongues” has taken on a meaning that is unbiblical. The Bible uses the words “tongue” and “tongues” to speak of language that is understandable by the person hearing it, yet according to some teachers and self-anointed prophets, the Greek word “tongue” can also mean unintelligible gobbledygook. Their teaching that “tongues” can mean speaking gibberish has given rise to a widely held sentiment that “tongues” means “speaking in gibberish.” 

The “gift of tongues,” as the Holy Spirit gives it, is definitely not “speaking in gibberish,” though. In both Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 14, the Holy Spirit has made it clear to us that “tongues” is literally the ability to communicate the Gospel to other people in their own language, in a fashion they understand. 

First Corinthians 14 is the Holy Spirit telling the people of Corinth not to speak to each other in unintelligible speech, but the widely held false doctrine of what “the gift of tongues” is has led to a widely held misreading of 1 Corinthians 14. 

The irony of all this is incredible. “The gift of tongues” is the ability to translate across languages, yet in many congregations the very definition of “the gift of tongues” is being grossly miscommunicated.  

The More Tragic Irony: Tongues Build Up

There is, however, a more tragic and destructive irony here, and it’s found in how this wrong idea of “tongues” is used in congregations. 

As we talked about in the last article in this series, the gift of tongues was given to proclaim the Gospel into all the world. It was a Holy Spirit-given gift to empower the Kingdom of God for the work of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19). When the real gift of tongues is on display, it’s a mark of the Holy Spirit being at work among God’s people. We see this in Acts 2, Acts 10 and Acts 19. Never, however, in the Bible is the word “tongue” associated with a language that no one listening can understand. 

Never, that is, unless the “tongue” being spoken in is not given by the Holy Spirit. Admittedly, Paul talks about people speaking “in tongues” that no one understands but God (1 Corinthians 14:2), but he goes on to say that that type of “tongues” doesn’t build up the congregation (1 Corinthians 14:3-5). Thus, this type of “tongue” is not a gift of the Holy Spirit at all.  

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are given according to God’s will (Hebrews 2:4, 1 Corinthians 12:11) for the upbuilding and good of the congregation (1 Corinthians 12:4-7, 14:10-12, 14:17, Ephesians 4:11-13, 1 Peter 4:10). If your “gift of tongues” divides rather than builds up and unites, it is not a mark of the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life. It is, in fact, a mark of the opposite. 

The true “gift of tongues” proclaims the saving Gospel to a people group other than your own. That is the only kind of “tongues” that marks the Holy Spirit working among you. 

It’s true that people empowered by the Holy Spirit might be miraculously proclaiming the Gospel in a language they themselves do not understand. In Acts, there seems to be a fair bit of surprise around the fact that that specific person is speaking that specific language. All three occurrences of “tongues” in Acts seem like people are speaking a language that was previously foreign to them, though it should be admitted that the text doesn’t conclusively say that. 

Paul, also, gives us the idea that perhaps the person speaking in tongues doesn’t always fully understand the proclamation. 

1 Corinthians 14:13–14 (ESV) —  Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret.  For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. 

Paul’s “mind” might be unfruitful when “praying in a tongue” because he doesn’t understand the words being spoken. One of the blessings of knowing that the Holy Spirit is all-knowing is that we know He hears our prayers, even when they are simply a wordless scream or a shed tear. He searches our hearts and He Himself prays for us with groanings that are beyond words (Romans 8:26). Still, just because the Holy Spirit can read our otherwise unintelligible thoughts and feelings does not mean He desires that to be our primary form of relationship. 

1 Corinthians 14:15–17 (ESV) —  What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.  Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying?  For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.

True “tongues” build up the faith of another, or call them to come to faith. It’s possible that you might not understand the language, but if no one else understands it either, it’s not building up someone else and it’s not, at all, a gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s something else, and it’s most likely something dangerous. 

So you see again a cruel irony in the contemporary use of the word “tongues.” “Tongues” are supposed to only serve the life of the congregation, and they must be understandable to others. The widely held understanding of “tongues” is exactly the opposite. The false teaching teaches that unintelligible gibberish is a personal sign of your salvation, when unintelligible speech is either a sign that you are faking it or you are dabbling in spiritual depths and with spiritual powers that no Christian should risk meddling with. 

Congregations that demand their members speak in tongues, either as a sign of their salvation or maybe just as a sign that they’ve reached some higher level of faith, have lost the plot entirely and are running contrary to the teachings of 1 Corinthians 14. Worst of all, in their quest to open the doors to anything that feels overtly spiritual, and in their drive to encourage spiritual practices in a way that is unbiblical, they are actually opening their hearts and minds to spiritual powers other than the Holy Spirit. 

This is dangerous, and this is why we should be very careful about accepting the teachings of anyone who willingly misrepresents Scripture. Remember, all this danger comes simply from playing games with the definition of “tongues.” 

The True Place of Tongues: Evangelizing The Nations

The experience of the first Pentecost shows that if someone thinks a group of people is mumbling nonsense, they are not going to be successfully evangelized. The Holy Spirit through Paul echoes that same teaching. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 14:21 Paul quotes the very same prophecy from Isaiah 28 that was fulfilled at Pentecost, and in that chapter we’re taught 2 other things: 

1. “Prophecy” is Paul’s term for the Gospel proclamation to the congregation of believers. “Tongues” is his term for the Gospel proclamation being made to “outsiders” (1 Corinthians 14:22).

2. Unbelievers will think we’re insane if our version of “tongues” is just babbling like a drunk person (1 Corinthians 14:23). 

“Tongues” are actually not meant to be kept inside of a closed congregation. In fact, taken as a whole, Paul says it’s far better to just preach in the natural language of the congregation rather than having to interpret (1 Corinthians 14:5, 19). Paul doesn’t forbid “tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:39), but in his desperation to get the Corinthian church back on track, he also wanted them to get back to clearly preaching the Gospel. First Corinthians 14:2 should not be taken as Paul admitting that “sometimes we allow people to speak gibberish that no one understands in the congregation.” Paul admitted that this was happening, but then spent an entire chapter of 1 Corinthians warning the Corinthians that they needed to quit that. 

The reason Paul didn’t “forbid tongues” is because the mission of reaching the world for Christ is still ours. That mission will often involve trying to figure out how to communicate the Gospel across linguistic barriers. 

This task would be utterly impossible for us alone. The Holy Spirit has empowered His missionaries, for millennia, to speak across ethnic and linguistic divides and spread the Gospel. Paul was one of those missionaries, so it only makes sense that Paul would clarify to the Corinthians that “he speaks in more languages than any of them” (1 Corinthians 14:18). Sometimes the Holy Spirit grants this gift to us miraculously, as we see happen in Acts on at least 3 occasions. Sometimes the Holy Spirit gives the gift of tongues through the sweat and tears of learning a foreign language. Regardless of how the gift is received, when it’s used to call lost souls to Christ, it’s a mark of the Holy Spirit in action, just like it was at Pentecost.