In the past two weeks I have received 8 questions about the gift of tongues. Here are my responses…
Q1: I have a friend who has the gift of tongues. He says he can pray in tongues any time he wants to. But it seems to be like if it was a gift from God he could only do it when the Spirit comes upon Him and gives Him the ability to do it. What does the Bible teach?
All gifts are subject to the control of the believer themselves. I believe that 1 Corinthians 14 is clear on this… 29 Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30 And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31 For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. 32 The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.
A prophet cannot control when and where they receive a prophecy, but they can control when to act upon that prophetic word, vision, or dream and speak it, which is the point of verse 32.
It appears the questioner considers tongues to be like prophecy, that the tongues speaker receives a tongue like a prophecy. But that has not been the experience of those who have this gift.
It seems that Paul sheds some light on this in 1 Corinthians 14.15… So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.
When it comes to the gift of evangelism, the gift of service, the gift of administration, the gift of teaching… you can do these whenever you want. Tongues is the same. If. you have the gift of tongues, you make a choice as to when to pray in tongues.
Q2: How can a person with the gift of tongues share their gift with the church? If they are limited to do so only when there is an interpreter present, but we don’t know who is an interpreter in our midst, how can they ever confidently share publicly?
I’m glad this one was submitted because for me, personally, when I have studied 1 Corinthians 14 and thought through how to apply it correctly in our church, this is the question that has vexed me the most, by far.
The question comes from seeking to apply 1 Corinthians 14.27-28 … 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God.
I mean it’s kind of a catch-22, isn’t it? Tongues speakers are commanded to share tongues publicly only if there is an interpretation, but how does one know there will be an interpretation? It certainly gives the one who speaks in tongues a cause for trepidation before publicly speaking in tongues if not causing them to never step out in faith and attempt it, even if they perceive that the Spirit is leading them to do so.
I see two possible solutions…
A- God may grant the tongues speaker himself the ability to interpret the tongue. That seems to be what Paul is suggesting in 1 Corinthians 14.13: Therefore let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret. I have never witnessed this firsthand. I have, however, heard testimonies of people who have done so. I heard one Christian talk about the ability to always know what they were praying in their tongue (even though they don’t know it word-for-word, they know the content of the prayer). But most of the time, the testimonies are about a rare occasion in which God gave them the interpretation of their own utterance in tongues. So, this is one possibility of how 1 Corinthians 14.27-28 is obeyed.
B-The second possible solution to this came to me from a discussion with our Harvest friend Matt Field. I asked him about it and he said that in his church background if a person spoke a tongue utterance out loud, there would almost always be an interpretation that would come to someone.
I wasn’t really satisfied with that answer so I pressed in and asked, “But how does someone know that they should speak out the tongue out loud, and how does someone know that they have the interpretation?” His answer required me to spend a lot of time in thought and reflection. He said, in essence, “You just know that God is telling you to do it. And you trust that if God is telling you to do it He is also preparing someone to interpret.”
After much thought and reflection it dawned on me that I come from a faith tradition where we haven’t placed much emphasis on learning to hear the voice of the Lord, apart form reading the Bible. But Matt comes from a faith background where the discipline of hearing the personal voice of the Lord in your life is taught, prayed about, cultivated, encouraged, and valued. When that spiritual discipline is developed, we grow in confidence in hearing the voice of the Lord and knowing when He is asking us to do something.
Q3: Do cessationist individuals or churches not see the Spirit working in their lives or their churches? From grieving the Holy Spirit to other comments, it kind of appears you believe they don’t see the Spirit working.
I apologize if I haven’t been clear on this.
So let me be clear… I definitely believe cessationist Christ-followers and cessationist Bible-believing churches DO indeed see the Spirit working in their lives and churches.
As for whether I believe these people GRIEVE the Holy Spirit, although I don’t remember using the word ‘grieve’ perhaps I did. I’d like to think I used the word ‘QUENCH’ because I definitely believe that refusing to believe in a portion of the Spirit’s true ministry will quench the Spirit’s work in that specific way. As to whether or not that grieves the Holy Spirit, I am not sure. I tend to doubt it.
Let’s look quickly at the times these two words and how they are used in the NT, in their context…
First GRIEVE… Ephesians 4… NKJV… 29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 30 And do not GRIEVE the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.
Now let’s look at QUENCH… 1 Thessalonians 5.19… Do not QUENCH the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.
These are the kinds of things that grieve the Holy Spirit… saying corrupt things, when we are bitter, and have wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, and malice.
But here’s what quenches the Holy Spirit… despising the gift of prophecy. Cessationists complete throw out prophecy for today… instead of testing the prophecies and holding fast to what is good. So I believe that they are quenching the Spirit in regard to the gift of prophecy.
This is why I tend to think that cessationism, which I view as an incomplete pneumatology (study of the Spirit), is not something that grieves the Spirit. I think quench is a much better word for it.
And let me be clear in how I think they are quenching the Spirit… in the areas of the miraculous gifts.
But this does not mean that I believe that they are not seeing the Holy Spirit work in their midst. No, let me say it again… I DO believe that they see the Spirit working in their midst in multiple ways.
There are plenty of cessationists who are living Spirit-filled lives and who are bold, active witnesses for Jesus and see lots of people saved (which is the greatest miracle of all).
I also believe that they see the Spirit working in their sanctification.
I believe that they see the Spirit working in answer to their prayers.
I could go on. So, yes, I believe that they see the Spirit working.
Q4 : Did tongues change from Acts 2 (Pentecost) to Corinth? If so, what is the Biblical evidence? From known languages in Acts 2 to private prayer or angelic?
No. True tongues are always a known language to someone, somewhere, whether it is a person who is present in the room, or whether it is an angel present, or whether it is another human language with no one present (angel or human) in the room. There is a mysterious element to it. It is unknown to the person speaking it and most of the time unknown to everyone else in the room.
Sometimes the Spirit prompts the person to speak it out loud, in the presence of others. This means one of two things: either (a) someone in the proximity actually speaks that language, as in Acts 2, or (b) someone in the proximity will be granted a gift of interpretation.
Q5: Why do tongues in Acts 2 seem very evangelistic but Paul seems to indicate its’s only for believers in Corinth? Why would Luke not mention this if in fact it was different? (Acts was written after 1 Corinthians)
The answer is found in comparing the scenarios. In Acts 2, the Spirit gave the apostles the tongues that were the native languages of the unbelievers present, which served to amaze them, getting their attention in order for them to hear the Gospel proclaimed in clarity and power. In 1 Corinthians 12-14, Paul is referring to most cases of tongues, in which the tongues would probably not be in the language of the unbelievers present. Therefore it is best that the gift of tongues not be shared publicly, unless an interpretation is given.
Share tongues in front of an unbeliever in a language that they know and it can be a powerful tool for evangelism. Share it in front of an unbeliever in a language that they don’t know and you can look like a nutcase, perhaps being a negative witness for the Gospel.
So if you have this gift, make sure you are being led by the Spirit when you share it publicly.
Q6: How can someone develop the gift of tongues without hearing others publicly praying in tongues?
This questions seems to assume that the only way a person can “develop” the gift of tongues is to be taught by some sort of method or process.
Because the pressure to speak in tongues is great in some churches and denominations and because the expectation is high for everyone to speak in tongues, there is often several measures taken to try to help people get the gift. People are told to open their mouth and just start babbling, or people are encouraged to mimic what they hear of others speaking in tongues. People are sometimes even slowly taught syllable-by-syllable how to speak in tongues. All these methods are used so that people are able to learn how to speak in tongues.
But I would caution against trying to “LEARN” the gift of tongues. Rather, I would encourage people to seek the Giver of gifts and let Him give something that is clearly supernatural. This way they will never doubt it is from God because they didn’t learn it from somebody else; it is truly given by the Holy Spirit. I think this will help eliminate some of the inauthentic expressions of tongues that is showy and quite frankly, unbibilical.
Q7: Much as 1 Corinthians 13 seems to be in context of spiritual gifts, it appears women being silent in churches has to do with gifts, specifically tongues and prophecy since that is what chapter 14 is discussing. Is this similar to men only preaching?
Let me speak to the first sentence here. I would say the questioner has made an excellent observation in that they have identified that the command for women be silent is in the context of the discussion about spiritual gifts.
Let’s look at verses 34-35…34 Let your women [wives] keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 35 And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.
It is my opinion that the proper interpretation of verses 34-35 is that Paul is telling the women to be silent specifically in the judging of prophecies. The judging of prophecies oftentimes involved some dialogue in which those judging the prophecy would ask questions of the person who perceived the prophecy from the Spirit. In Roman culture of that day women (wives) were not permitted (it was actually the Roman law, hence the end of verse 35) to question another man (someone’s husband) in a public setting. Therefore, it appears that the judging of prophecies were restricted to men, possibly the elders of the church.
It’s definitely not a comprehensive command for complete silence from women in the church setting. If that were the case, then Paul would be contradicting himself from just a few chapters earlier, where he is talking about women praying and prophesying in church: But every woman who prays or prophecies with her head uncovered… (1 Corinthians 11.5). The context of chapter eleven is also the church gathered and since the Bible does not contradict itself, we must deduce that this is further evidence that Paul is not making a comprehensive command for women to be silent in all church gathering moments and scenarios.
As for the question “Is this similar to men only preaching?” I don’t think so. The context of this passage is not about preaching. It’s about prophecy. While on the surface, I see the connection that might be made, contextually I don’t think there’s any connection at all.
Now some of my Bible-believing brethren have told me that they think that the gift of prophecy is actually preaching (how they arrive at that biblically, I have no idea). Some of these same men have said that they do not believe that it is right for a woman to preach. It seems to me that they have theologically tied themselves in a knot when it comes to 1 Corinthians 11.5… But every woman who prays or prophecies with her head uncovered…, not to mention Acts 21.9, where Luke writes, He had four unmarried daughters, who prophesied.
Q8: Why would tongues and prophecy not be welcome in the corporate assembly? It seems Paul was discussing the larger assembly rather than micro or small groups.
I think this question comes from my statement that here at Harvest we believe that tongues and prophecy would best be practiced in micro church settings, rather than during our Sunday morning congregational gathering (this meeting were are in right now… what we call MACRO church).
And we say that for what we believe to be valid reasons:
- We do not believe that the way we (American churches today) conduct congregational gatherings aligns with what the New Testament church looked like. God expects full participation in the church meeting: How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, EACH OF YOU has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification (1 Corinthians 14.26, emphasis mine). Make special note of the phrase EACH OF YOU. “Church” was never meant to be a small number of people contributing while the vast majority look on like an audience in a movie theater.
- We believe we have too many people in a congregational gathering to function in a way that the Word of God expects, as described above. It is well documented that New Testament churches had as few as a half a dozen in attendance all the way up to about fifty, counting children. This is why I have said on multiple occasions that once your micro church goes beyond 24 adults you should probably start thinking about birthing a new one. Otherwise I will become nigh impossible for “EACH of you” to bring a contribution to the meeting.
So in answer to the original question… Tongues and prophecy, practiced biblically, are welcome in the corporate assembly. We just happen to think that right now at Harvest, our LIFE groups, and definitely our future micro churches best represent the corporate assembly as taught and modeled in the New Testament, as opposed to our congregational gathering on Sunday morning, which we also have called macro church (commonly called the “worship service”).
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