To some it sounds like the strangest thing in church; to others it’s the most precious. Either way the honest question is simple: is it actually in the Bible, or is it emotional excess? The answer is that it is deeply, repeatedly biblical — and clearer than most people think once you let the texts sort out what it is.
Where it begins: Pentecost
— Acts 2:4
On the day the Church was born, the Spirit was poured out and the believers spoke in languages they had never learned — and the international crowd in Jerusalem heard them in their own tongues (Acts 2:6-11). It was not gibberish; it was utterance given by the Spirit.
In fact Pentecost was, in effect, God’s own proving ground for the gift. He had gathered devout Jews to Jerusalem “out of every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5) — a crowd whose homelands Luke names one by one, from Parthia, Media and Mesopotamia to Egypt, Libya, Rome, Crete and Arabia (Acts 2:9–11) — and each of them heard the newly Spirit-filled believers declaring “the wonderful works of God” in his own native language. No one could dismiss it as babble: the hearers themselves, from a dozen and more nations, were the living proof, because the languages were their own. God authenticated the gift at its first outpouring before the whole known world.
Babel, reversed
And there is an older echo here, too remarkable to miss. At Babel, mankind in its pride built a tower to make itself a name, and God came down to confound their one language into many, scattering them over the face of the earth (Genesis 11:7–9) — tongues as judgment, and division. At Pentecost the multitude was again confounded (Acts 2:6, the very same word) — but now the confusion ran the other way. The same instrument that had scattered the proud at Babel now gathered people out of every nation around “the wonderful works of God,” and three thousand souls were added in a single day. What once divided the world in judgment, God turned to unite it in grace. Pentecost is Babel reversed. And it did not stop there.
The recurring sign of receiving the Spirit
Luke records the same thing each time the Holy Ghost is first received, among very different people:
- Jerusalem — “began to speak with other tongues” (Acts 2:4).
- Cornelius’ house (the first Gentiles) — “they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God” (Acts 10:46). This is what convinced Peter and the brethren that the Gentiles had received the same gift.
- Ephesus — “they spake with tongues, and prophesied” (Acts 19:6).
In Acts, speaking in tongues is the audible evidence that a person has received the Holy Ghost — the sign the apostles recognized as the Pentecostal experience repeating. (For how this fits the new birth, see The New Birth.)
The gift in the church — and in private prayer
Paul devotes three whole chapters (1 Corinthians 12–14) to tongues as a continuing ministry, and he distinguishes its settings:
- In the assembly, tongues are to be accompanied by interpretation, so that the whole church is edified and not confused: “let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church” (1 Corinthians 14:27-28).
- In private, tongues are devotional prayer that builds up the believer: “He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself” (1 Corinthians 14:4); “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also” (14:15).
Paul is no skeptic here: “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all” (14:18); “I would that ye all spake with tongues” (14:5); “forbid not to speak with tongues” (14:39). He regulates the gift for order — he never discourages it.
Clearing up the misconceptions
- It isn’t mindless noise. At Pentecost they were real languages; and Paul insists on order, interpretation, and edification (1 Corinthians 14:40).
- It isn’t a badge of superiority. Love is greater than any gift (1 Corinthians 13:1-3); tongues without love is “sounding brass.”
- It isn’t the only gift. The Spirit gives many gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7-11). Apostolics hold tongues as the initial sign of Spirit-baptism, while the ongoing ministry-gift of tongues is distributed “as he will.”
- “Tongues of men and of angels” (1 Corinthians 13:1) — sometimes a known human language (Acts 2), sometimes a language unknown to the speaker.
“But haven’t tongues ceased?”
Many hold that the sign-gifts passed away with the apostles, citing 1 Corinthians 13:8–10 — tongues “shall cease” when “that which is perfect is come.” But Paul defines “that which is perfect” in the very next verse: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (13:12). “Face to face” is seeing the Lord at His coming, not a finished book. And it would be strange indeed for Paul to command “forbid not to speak with tongues” one chapter later if he believed the gift was about to vanish. The gift continues until we see Him.
The promise is still open
Peter closed his Pentecost sermon with words that reach past that first crowd:
— Acts 2:39
The same Spirit, with the same sign, is still being poured out on “as many as the Lord our God shall call” — which includes you.