In 1 Corinthians 14 the apostle Paul spends some
time teaching the church in Corinth about the spiritual gift that is commonly
known as speaking in tongues.
TERMINOLOGY
In the phrase ‘speaking in tongues’, ‘tongues’ just
means ‘languages’. So in modern English, ‘speaking in languages’ is actually a
much better way of referring to this gift. And in modern English versions of
the Bible too ‘speaking in languages’ is a better translation of the Greek.
Nevertheless, because the phrase ‘speaking in
tongues’ is so widely used, I will stick with this term in this article. And
when referring to an individual example of using this gift, I will use the term
‘speaking in a tongue’.
WHAT THIS
GIFT IS
When someone speaks in a tongue, they speak in a
language that they don’t understand with their mind. The person’s spirit
connects with their mouth to form words that have meaning, but their mind is
not involved.
Paul describes this situation in the context of
prayer in 1 Corinthians 14:14:
‘For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays,
but my mind is unproductive.’
THE
PURPOSES OF SPEAKING IN TONGUES
In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul refers to two purposes of
speaking in tongues.
Tongues for
strengthening the individual Christian
First, he says that this gift is used for personal spiritual strengthening.
In verses
4-5 he states:
‘4
The person who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the person who
prophesies builds up the church. 5
Now I wish that you could all speak in tongues . . .’
Paul is explicit here that speaking in a
tongue serves to build up a Christian who uses it. And he is clear that he
would like all believers to be able use this gift for this purpose.
Similarly, in v. 18 he says:
‘I thank God that I speak in tongues
more than all of you.’
Again, Paul stresses the usefulness of
speaking in tongues for the purpose of personal spiritual strengthening.
Tongues for strengthening the local church
The second purpose that Paul gives for speaking in tongues is to strengthen the local church.
In v. 5 he tells his readers:
‘The person who prophesies is greater than
the person who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church might
be built up.’
Here Paul is thinking of a situation where
someone speaks a message from God in a tongue and then interprets the
incomprehensible language into language that those listening can understand. The
result will be that the listeners are built up in the faith.
Similarly, in v. 13 he tells his readers:
‘Therefore, the person who speaks in a
tongue should pray that he can interpret.’
And then in v. 27 he says:
‘If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be
two or three at most, in turn, and someone should interpret.’
This use of speaking in tongues referred to
in verses 5, 13 and 27 is really the equivalent of a prophecy. In a prophecy, a
prophet speaks a message from God to the listeners in language that they can
understand. In a tongue plus interpretation, the same result is achieved in two
stages. A Christian speaks a message from God out loud in an unknown language,
and then either the same believer or another interprets this into
understandable language.
This is all extremely mysterious. Personally,
I have no idea why God would ever want to use this method of tongue plus
interpretation, when it might seem that a simple prophecy would suffice.
INCREASE
IN ACCEPTANCE OF THIS GIFT
I think in most of church
history, the majority view among Christians has been that God ceased giving the
gift of tongues at some point in the first century.
A big change came at the
beginning of the twentieth century, however, with the origin of the Pentecostal
movement. Since then, an increasing number of believers have accepted that God still
gives this gift today. In fact, I think it would be right to say that at the
present time a sizable majority of evangelicals worldwide accept that God still
gives this gift.
Nevertheless, there remain
more than a few Christians who deny that He does this, and they use various
arguments to try to make their case.
I believe that God does give
the gift of tongues today, and in what follows I will argue for this position.
BIBLICAL TEACHING
When thinking about any topic, the most important thing to do
is see what the Bible has to say about it. Scripture is our God-given ‘Manual
for the Human Life’, and what it teaches is key. So we will begin with this.
1 Corinthians 13:8-10
A good place for us to start is 1 Corinthians 13:8-10.
Here the apostle Paul states:
‘8 . . . if there
are prophecies, they will be done away with. If there are tongues, they will
cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when what is complete comes, what is partial will be done
away with.’
In this passage Paul is referring back to the gifts of the
Spirit he has been talking about in chapter 12. He clearly believes that a time
will come when speaking in tongues, prophesying and other gifts will no longer
be used. And he seems to imply that this will happen ‘when what is complete
comes’.
Those who claim that God no longer gives the gift of tongues
(and some other gifts of the Spirit) today often argue that the time Paul is
referring to when he says ‘when what is complete comes’ is the point at which
the New Testament was completed.
This, however, is simply not a credible interpretation of the
passage. ‘When what is complete comes’ is certainly not referring to any
experience that can be found in this world of ours. Rather, it has in view a
time after Jesus has returned to earth.
The context of verses 8-13 confirms this. In these verses,
Paul contrasts a present state and a future state. The present state involves
knowing in part and seeing indistinctly. The future state, which begins when
what is complete comes, involves knowing fully and seeing face to face. Paul is
clearly contrasting the present experience of Christians with our future state
of existence. So ‘when what is complete comes’ is definitely referring to a
time after Jesus has returned to the earth.
Therefore, when Paul says that partial things like speaking
in tongues will be done away with ‘when what is complete comes’, the most
natural way of taking his words is that this gift will continue until Jesus
returns.
It is true that Paul is speaking very concisely here. And it
is true too that his main focus in this passage is not on precisely when the
gifts of the Spirit will cease being used. I am not saying that this passage
proves outright that God still gives the gift of tongues today. But Paul’s
words certainly fit better with this gift continuing until Jesus returns than
ceasing centuries ago.
1 Corinthians 14:1
Another verse that points in the same direction is 1 Corinthians
14:1. Here Paul instructs the Christians in Corinth:
‘Pursue love, and eagerly desire spiritual gifts . . .’
The ‘spiritual gifts’ Paul refers to here certainly include
the gifts he has listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, one of which is speaking in
tongues.
The first thing to note about the command to desire spiritual
gifts in 14:1 is that it must have applied to all Christians in around 55 AD,
when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. Clearly, this command was given to all the
Christians in Corinth. And there is no reason whatsoever for thinking that Paul
or God would have wanted anything different in other churches at that time. We
should therefore have no doubt that when Paul wrote this letter God wanted all
Christians to eagerly desire spiritual gifts, including the ability to speak in
tongues.
Next, we need to give due weight to an argument from
probability:
If we consider the rest of the New Testament, it contains
hundreds of commands that would have applied to all Christians at the time they
were written. I am not aware of a single one of these that no longer applies to
Christians today.
If it is correct that every other NT command that applied to
all Christians at the time of writing still applies today, then, all other
things being equal, it is highly probable that the command in 1 Corinthians
14:1 also still applies. And if it applies today, then we can infer that God is
still giving spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues.
Even if I am mistaken and there are a few NT commands that
applied to all Christians when they were written that no longer apply today,
the number of these is surely very few. So the argument from probability would
still carry some weight, although admittedly not nearly so much.
Acts 2:16-18
Another
relevant passage is Acts 2:16-18. Here Peter, referring to the speaking
in tongues that occurred on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was
given, quotes the prophet Joel:
‘16
But this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
17 “And it will be in the last days”,
says God, “that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and
daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men
will dream dreams. 18 Even on my
slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they
will prophesy.”’
Peter is saying that the events of
the day of Pentecost are the beginning of the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy in
Joel 2:28-32. Joel prophesied that God would pour out His Spirit, says Peter,
and this has now come into effect.
This passage refers explicitly to
prophesying, visions and dreams. I will say something about what the passage
suggests about these things before moving on to talk specifically about
speaking in tongues.
First, we need to note the time
reference in this passage. It says that God will pour out His Spirit, and
prophecies, visions and dreams will take place, ‘in the last days’. The last days here is the period of time that
began with the giving of the Spirit and will end with the return of Christ.
When this passage says that God will
pour out His Spirit ‘in the last days’, and that this will involve prophesying,
visions and dreams, the most natural way of taking the words is that these activities
will take place throughout the last days. If they occurred only in the
first century, then the pouring out of the Spirit in the way that the passage
describes would only have happened in the very first part of the last days. And
that does seem a rather awkward interpretation of the text.
Furthermore, to think that prophesying,
visions and dreams no longer occur today also fits poorly with what we know as ‘salvation
history’.
This is a term that refers to how
God’s overall plan for human beings has unfolded in various ways in different
periods of history.
For example, the calling of Abraham
and the giving of the Law at Sinai involved radical new departures from what
had come before.
Later, the ministry of John the
Baptist brought something radically new, as did the earthly ministry of Jesus.
The day of Pentecost was also a huge
change from what had come before. On this day the Spirit was given, in
fulfillment of Old Testament promises of the New Covenant.
Crucially, however, since Pentecost
there has been no critical point in salvation history. We are still in the same
New Covenant era that began on that day.
In view of this, it would be
unexpected, to say the least, if God no longer spoke through prophecies,
visions and dreams. After the Spirit had descended on the day of Pentecost,
this would be like Him deciding to partially reascend to heaven part-way
through the New Covenant era.
There are two good reasons, then, for
thinking that prophesying, visions and dreams continue today. First, ‘in the
last days’ most naturally suggests this. And second, today we are still in the
same period of salvation history that began on the day of Pentecost.
Of course, the revelation that God
gives in prophecies, dreams and visions today is not remotely on a par with
biblical revelation. Nor does it have universal application. Instead, it just
concerns specific situations that individual Christians or individual churches
are facing at the time.
Although v. 17 makes no explicit
mention of speaking in tongues, it makes sense to think that what this verse
implies about prophesying, visions and dreams it also implies about the gift of
tongues as it is described in 1 Corinthians. There are two reasons for this:
First,
speaking in tongues is precisely the thing that leads Peter to quote Joel’s
prophecy. It is true that the kind of speaking in tongues in
Acts 2 is not exactly the same as either of the kinds of tongues mentioned in 1
Corinthians 14. And it is true too that the day of Pentecost was a unique event.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that it is tongues that leads Peter to refer to
God’s pouring out of His Spirit.
Second, the
pouring out of the Spirit that Joel prophesied surely involves all the gifts of
the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. And speaking in tongues is on that
list.
It is
reasonable, then, to think that what the verse implies about prophesying,
visions and dreams it also implies about the gift of tongues as it is described
in 1 Corinthians. So, because the verse most naturally implies that
prophesying, visions and dreams continue throughout the Christian era, the same
is true of speaking in tongues.
Acts 2:16-18,
then, counts as biblical evidence that God still gives the gift of tongues
today.
The Longer Ending of Mark’s Gospel
Another relevant text for our
purposes can be found in the so-called ‘Longer Ending’ of Mark’s Gospel.
We know that in the first centuries
of the church, this Gospel circulated with a number of different endings. The
earliest surviving copies of Mark end at Mark 16:8. However, most old copies of
Mark contain the Longer Ending that a majority of English-speaking readers of
the Bible will be most familiar with, ending at what is known as Mark 16:20. There
are also old copies that have a variety of other different endings.
In the Longer Ending there is a
passage that refers to speaking in tongues. The text that is commonly referred
to as Mark 16:15-18 reads as follows:
‘15
And He [Jesus] said to them [the eleven], “Go into all the world and proclaim
the good news to all creation. 16 The
person who has believed and has been baptized will be saved. But the person who
has not believed will be condemned. 17
These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will expel
demons, they will speak with new tongues, 18 with their hands they will
pick up snakes, if they drink anything poisonous it will in no way harm them,
and they will place their hands on those who are ill and they will get well.”’
Discussion of which ending or endings
of Mark should be considered Scripture is complex. Personally, I prefer the
view that this passage shouldn’t be regarded as Scripture. But I don’t want to
get into a long analysis of the issue here.
Instead, let’s look at this passage
under two scenarios, firstly assuming that it is Scripture and secondly
assuming that it isn’t.
So, first, let’s suppose that the
passage I have quoted should be regarded as Scripture.
If we do this, it should be clear
that the passage strongly implies that speaking in tongues is something that continues
throughout the Christian era:
In v. 15 Jesus refers to evangelism
in ‘all the world’ and ‘to all creation’. So from His point in time He is
clearly thinking about evangelism that will continue on long into the future
around the world.
Therefore, when in verses 16 and 17
He refers to ‘the person who has believed’ and ‘those who have believed’, by
far the most natural way of taking His words is as a reference to Christians of
all times and places. Those who say that in these verses Jesus is speaking only
of Christians living in the first century or thereabouts are taking an
extremely unnatural interpretation of the text.
Verse 17 says that speaking in
tongues is a feature of those who believe. (This doesn’t mean that it is a
feature of all who believe, simply something that many Christians do.) So,
because those who believe are Christians of all times and places, speaking in
tongues is something that we can expect to be a continuing activity of the
church.
If these words are Scripture, then,
this passage strongly implies that speaking in tongues is something that we
should expect in every century of the church.
Second, let’s suppose that this
passage is not Scripture.
If we do this, it still seems
reasonable to regard the passage as quite strong evidence that speaking in
tongues continues throughout the Christian era:
Importantly, there is no doubt that
in the last 2000 years large numbers of Christians have understood the passage
we know as Mark 16:9-20 to be part of Scripture. In fact, it seems highly
likely that most believers have
regarded this passage as Scripture.
The vast majority of these Christians
have known nothing about early copies of Mark or even that this Gospel once
circulated with a variety of endings. Most, or at least very many, Christians
in the last 2000 years have been led to believe that Mark 16:9-20 is Scripture,
and they have accepted this in good faith.
It is surely very unlikely that God
would have allowed so many Christians to have an ending of Mark’s Gospel that
misled them. If He had, then through no fault of their own they would have been
reading as Scripture something that was actually misdirecting them. But we
would expect God, in His love, not to have allowed this to happen.
So even if Mark 16:9-20 is not
Scripture, it makes sense to think that it contains good Christian teaching.
We saw above that if we take this
passage as Scripture, it strongly implies that speaking in tongues is something
that continues throughout the Christian era. Therefore, even if we don’t take
the passage as Scripture, because it apparently contains good teaching it still
supplies us with quite a strong piece of evidence that we should expect
speaking in tongues today.
Hebrews 2:3-4
One passage that is often said to show that God no longer
gives the gift of tongues is Hebrews 2:3-4, where the author writes:
‘3 . . . how will
we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? This salvation was first
announced by the Lord, and then it was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, 4 while God added His testimony by
signs and wonders, various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed
according to His will.’
Those who say that the gift of tongues has ceased often argue
in this way:
In this passage the author wants his readers to understand
what an enormously important thing the Christian message of salvation is. To
help him make his point, he says that in the time of the first generation of
Christians God testified to the truth of this message by signs, wonders, miracles
and gifts of the Spirit. However, if the author believed that these things
still occurred at the time of writing, we would expect him to have concentrated
on God testifying to the message by them in the present rather than in the past.
Therefore, this passage strongly implies that gifts like tongues no longer
existed at the time of writing.
It is certainly true that the author’s intention in this
passage is to stress how important the message of salvation is. And I do admit
that this argument isn’t one that should be quickly dismissed. Nevertheless,
there are a few points to make here.
(1) The passage is too indirect and brief for us to reach
clear conclusions on what the author believed about the existence of tongues and
other gifts at the time of writing.
(2) It is possible that the author felt that after mentioning
Jesus and the first generation of Christians, he had done enough to make his
point.
He begins by telling them that no less a person than Jesus
began announcing the message. And then he goes on to say that people who heard
Jesus themselves were the ones who passed on the message to the author and the
readers. He also notes that God accompanied this passing on of the message with
miracles and gifts of the Spirit to help validate it.
Maybe, having said all this, he thought that he had said
enough to make his point that the message of salvation is extremely important. If
so, then potentially he could have chosen not to move on to speak about the
time of writing, even if he was aware that God was still giving gifts of the
Spirit like tongues in his day.
(3) I think it is quite possible that at the time this letter
was written, miracles and gifts of the Spirit may have been a lot less common
than they were earlier in the first century. And this could have motivated the
author in Hebrews 2:3-4 to focus on miracles and gifts among the first
generation of Christians.
I will say something about the frequency of tongues
throughout church history in part 2 of this article.
(4) In Hebrews 6:5 the author refers to Christians generally
as people who have ‘tasted . . . the powers of the age to come’.
This could well suggest that gifts of the Spirit like tongues
were ongoing at the time of writing.
(5) Even if this passage does more naturally seem to suggest
that the gift of tongues had ceased at the time of writing, it is still the
case that several other passages most naturally suggest that this gift has not
ceased, as we have seen.
Summing up
There are other Bible passages
that have some relevance for the topic we are considering, but I have given the
most important of them. The above discussion has shown that on balance the Bible fits better with the position that God continues to give the gift of speaking in tongues than with the view that He ceased doing this long ago.
The
second and final part of this article can be found here.
See also:
A Time to Avoid Speaking in Tongues
Every Christian Should Desire the Gift of Prophecy
God Wants to Use Christians in Miracle Work Today
Baptism in the Holy Spirit Takes Place at Conversion
