Question: Praise Gospel Hawker, am a born again Christian and I have a spiritual challenge. All my friends are equipped by the gift of tongues and when they are praying and sometimes preaching they speak in unknown tongues. When I ask them what they were saying they say; they don’t know, it was the Holy Spirit that had overtaken them and they were speaking heavenly languages. Pastor how Biblical is this? And do I have a spiritual problem myself?
Response: Let me start with the last question; NO you don’t have a spiritual problem. You have a bible study problem just like those Pentecostal friends of yours.
Dear Pentecostals, it is true that the Holy Spirit equips the church with spiritual gifts and one of them is tongues. However, it is also true that the Holy Spirit (who is God himself) always in his business of revealing himself starts with what we know to teach us what we don’t know. When it comes to speaking in tongues, therefore, God works with existing languages, not unknown ones.
If God wants to communicate to the Banyarwanda, he cannot use angelic language. In fact, if a Muganda speaks to an audience of Banyarwanda, he needs a translator or interpreter (1Corinthians 14:13). If a Muganda in an audience of Banyarwanda insists on speaking Luganda and does not translate or interpret, then that Muganda is speaking not to us but to God. And all he says is a mystery to us. This is what Paul says in 1Corinthians 14:2:
“For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.”
I have been to church and in that moment of prayer people burst into a gibberish speech patterns, and when you ask them about it, they call it an experience of being anointed by the Holy Spirit. This kind of experience is not biblically supported. Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that when God takes charge of our lives, he disables our reasoning capacity and switches off the basics of language and communication.
In other words, God does not possess us, he instead inspires us. It is the demons that possess us and captivate our reasoning capacity. We vibrate, speak in unknown tongues and all sorts of charismatic gestures. So the next time you see that in your local church, you better be sure of either of the two facts:
- It is either a demon in charge, or
- It is stage managed to influence and convince people that in your church there is the power of the Holy Spirit.
What we see in the Bible is that it is true the Holy Spirit can gift us with the gift of tongues but these must be world known languages (There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning; 1Corithians 14:10). We shouldn’t assume that a God who is omniscient (knows all things) needs to be communicated to in a specific language in prayer. We cannot assume that our earthly problems can be communicated in heavenly language.
Whoever argues that the Holy Spirit empowers us with heavenly languages and blasphemes God in a sense that God and his people have to hide something from the devil in encoded language so that he (devil) does not sabotage. Something that puts the Devil in charge of our communication with God.
All the Angels from heaven sent to men on earth did not speak in unknown tongues. The Angels who visited Daniel spoke with him in the language he understood. The angel that visited Joseph and Mary spoke in the tongue they understood, and the list is endless. Friends, the tongues that the Bible talks about are world known languages by tribe and sociology.
In all incidents of speaking in unknown tongues, it was a person of a different tribe speaking in another tribe’s language for purposes of communication and edification. It was not RABAKARABANDASHA, YOGOBOROBA BABABABABA…SHINDAKASHIIII.
When you read Acts 2, the disciples who were Palestine Jews and knew no other language, spoke and preached in different dialects of all the tribes that had gathered at the Pentecost. The Bible says that the people from other nations HEARD (Acts 2:6-8) in their own native tongue (i.e., language). What they actually experienced that day was HEARING IN TONGUES.
Acts 2:9-11 mentions sixteen different nations which were present on the Day of Pentecost. Acts 2:8 plainly states that each man HEARD the Gospel in his own native tongue in which he was born. How does this compare with the Charismatic speaking in tongues today that makes NO SENSE TO ANYONE regardless of whether they are praying or not?
We read in Acts 2:8-11,
“And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”
So none of the Apostles, or any of the New Testament saints, ever spoke in some unknown Heavenly jibber-jabber; but rather, in their own native language.
The term “speaking in tongues” is often misunderstood. It is somewhat a misnomer. When the Bible mentions “speaking in tongues” it is referring to hearing in tongues. When the Gentile converts spoke with “tongues” in Acts 10:46, it was the same Greek word for “tongues” as in Acts 2:4 (“glossa,” meaning, “the language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations.”). It was a KNOWN earthly language.
The same Greek word is used by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:18,
“I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all.”
However, Paul had the GIFT of tongues. Look at the tongues Apostle Paul was gifted by:
As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, “May I say something to you?” And he said, “Do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian, then, who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” Paul replied, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city; I beg you, let me speak to the people.” And when he had given him leave, Paul, standing on the steps, motioned with his hand to the people; and when there was a great hush, he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, saying: (Acts 21:37-40).
Paul was fluent in different languages. Many people today are gifted in being able to learn several different languages, and that is the power of the Holy Spirit. Many people live with people who speak different languages and die without learning or even speaking those other languages. Some people have even gone to school but still, cannot speak English while there are those who have never gone to school but speak English fluently.
Now, this brings me to the Pentecostal deception that everybody can speak in tongues and that speaking in tongues is a sign of genuine conversion and faith. Speaking in tongues, just like other gifts is not for everyone. Look at what the Bible says:
to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. (1Corinthians 12:10, 28).
So you shouldn’t doubt your salvation or your faith because you are not speaking in tongues or even babbling like every other person around you. The gift of the tongue is not a test of salvation or having the Holy Spirit.
Apostle Paul spoke languages he studied and those he never went to school to learn. The miracle of Acts 2 is that the disciples, who were Palestine Jews, (without exposure) preached in languages they have never learnt. This is what the Bible teaches about speaking in tongues. What we see in some Pentecostal churches today is a resurrection of historical pagan worship exercises.
Prof. Walter J Veith in his book; The History of Tongues writes:
“Ecstatic language was a common form of worship in pagan temples. It was well established in ancient Byblos (1100BC). Plato (429-347BC) mentions it as a phenomenon in his time. He (Plato) tells us that a person under divine possession received utterances and visions that the receiver did not understand”.
In his book the Charismatic Movement, Dr. John R. Rice writes:
“Some Christians talk in tongues. So do some Mormons, some devil-possessed spiritists, heathen witch-doctors in Africa and Asia. Ages ago many heathen religions talked in tongues. It is not of itself necessarily Of God”
So the gift of tongues by the Holy Spirit is legitimate foreign existing language (1Corithians 14:21).
You do not make up words that are not coherent and corresponding to any existing dialect in the world anthropology and attribute that to the Holy Spirit. If you do that or your church does it, then it is demon possession but not a spiritual gift.
God bless you, I invoke Truth, Reason and Faith in Jesus name
Am Pr. I.T.WHITE
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 