SPEAKING IN TONGUES: Part III

1 CORINTHIANS 14 CONTENTIOUS VERSES

In the previous discussion on the matter, I gave a brief background that lies behind the discourse of chapter 14 and I concluded by pointing out the importance of asking three questions in an effort to understand Paul’s discourse on the issue of tongues. Here are the questions that I thought matter in this case:

• Are the tongues in the discourse of Chapter 14 Existing Ethnic Communicative Languages (EECL) or not languages altogether? Is there a difference between Tongues and Languages?
• Are the tongues in the discourse of Chapter 14 Cognitive Ethnic Languages (CEL) but suffering from the lack of translation and interpretation or squarely a phenomenon of ecstatic utterances and emotions in church?
• If they were heavenly/angelic languages and the speaker is an interlocutor with a heavenly agent, is it a Communicative (Intelligible) Speech (CS) when the speaker doesn’t know what they are saying but insists that they are angelic tongues and they are communicating?

According to me, if we understand verse two, then the three questions are ably answered.

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.

The Greek word for TONGUE in this verse as we saw in the first presentation is Glossa which means Intelligible Language. So what Paul is talking about here is an (EECL) not some unknown and non-existent language in the geography of the world. Glossa does not mean anything beyond the physical tongue in the mouth and the languages we know. While in the Bible there is Glossa, in modern churches we have what is known as Glossolalia.

The term “Glossolalia” is an English word constructed from two Greek terms: the noun Glossa (tongues/Language) and the verb Laleo/lego (to speak/speaking). Nowhere, however, in the New Testament does Apostle Paul or any other writer make such a compound word to mean the gibberish tongues of modern-day Pentecostal churches.

This term Glossolalia was introduced by a British scholar Frederick W. Farrar in his book when he wrote:

“The glossolalia, or “speaking with a tongue,” is connected with “prophesying”–that is, exalted preaching–and magnifying God.” (The Life and Work of St. Paul. London: Cassell and Company. 1897 (originally published in 1879). Pg. 53)

Despite the fact that Glossolalia literally would mean speaking EECL, the authors of this deception interpret it as “unintelligible ecstatic utterances,” like Yekerebashadababa…boboyekerebanda barayebadada..yikoraya…shishishishiii…etc. If it is applying terms to the phenomenon of tongues, the best suiting term would be Xenoglossia.

Xenoglossia is a supernatural ability on a particular person that enables her/him to speak fluently a language the speaker has never learned. This fits well in all the New Testament incidents of speaking tongues (Acts 2:1-11, Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:1-7). What we see in these texts are select believers speaking in authentic foreign languages which they previously had not learned. To defend glossolalia using the Bible is theologically blasphemous and reasonably untenable.

The second confusing part of this verse is the last one that says: “for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.” Our vernacular Bible translations render the English term, UNDERSTANDS for the Greek Akuoei, but while Akuoei might mean to hear or understand, in the context of 1Corinthians 14, Akuoei means just to hear.

Apostle Paul urges believers to use their native languages in their individual/same ethnic group private worship for self-edification while no one else hears them but not in the public worship services where everyone is and can hear what they do not understand.

There are two reasons for concluding that akuoei in this discourse is restricted to HEARING (sound) and not UNDERSTANDING (meaning):

Firstly, Paul quickly brings in a comparison between tongues and prophesy (both fall under the three categorical divine distributions in chapter 12:4-6) and bases his comparison on edification (14:3-4). One is blessed with a tongue not of his origin to edify those foreigners around, there and then. Another is blessed by the gift of interpreting a language of a foreigner speaking amidst people not of his race.

Tongues are for edification beyond self. What Paul is saying is that if you are actually a Roman convert in the congregation do not be heard-speaking (vocalise) your Aramaic in the presence of both the Jewish and Greek converts who are uneducated (Vs. 16= idiotes) in the same dialect.

However, the divine power to speak in tongues (Xenoglossia) as in all other New Testament incidents (Acts 2:1-11, Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:1-7) is a reality and whenever God sees fit it manifests. Apostle Paul tells us that when a Munyarwanda missionary finds himself in the audience of Chinese unbelievers, the manifestation of the endowment of tongues might occur and he preaches in Chinese.

Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers (converts), but for unbelievers (potential converts) 1Corinthians 14:22. It was EECL that Apostle Paul boasted about when he said: I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all: (1Corinthian 14:18) and we saw him doing so in Acts 21:37-40; 22:2, 25-29. To Paul, some of the languages he spoke are those he learnt in school, but we all know that no linguistic school gives fluency, it is God-given. And that is what Paul was boasting of.

Secondly, Verse 2 says those who speak in tongues do not speak to men but to God. If this is so, why do we need a tongue not on our world map to communicate to the same God we have always spoken to in our native or learned languages? Why do we speak unknown tongues and when asked, we argue that it is a special heavenly language that the devil cannot even understand? Listen, folks, a sovereign God does not have to disguise anything from anyone, not even the devil.

The reason Government intelligence bodies use signs, encrypt and decrypt messages in their spying missions is because they are afraid of the enemy camp to reverse the mission. Unless we are saying our infallible God is vulnerable to the devil in terms of communication and sometimes he has to hide his words from the mighty Devil.

Woe unto us, if we and the God we pray to have to hide and disguise our conversation lest the mighty devil interrupts and ends everything. It is blasphemous to argue that you and your God have to speak in secret in fear of the Devil.

Another point is that: They speak mysteries in the Spirit. To who are these tongues mysteries? Are they mysteries to the Devil who was born in heaven and spoke the heavenly language (Job 1) or mysteries to the speaker himself (man praying)? If they are mysteries to the speaker himself, how then do you pray without understanding what you are praying for? How can you ask for what you don’t know?

Right here, we see that akuoei does not mean understanding as many translations put it. Because Paul introduces other statements under this discourse and uses another word (Nous) which properly means understanding as opposed to akouei when he says:

I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. (Vs. 15).

There is no way you can pray without your understanding. And if we insist that those who pray in the Spirit are not the ones praying but they are overtaken by the Spirit of the Lord (as they call it), then both man and God are foreigners to each other according to Vs. 11. If Churches speak in these gibberish voices, isn’t it then a sign of strange gods different from the God we know?

Finally, in this verse answering the question about CEL & CS, we ask: if those who pray mysteries through tongues do it in the Spirit, how audible can one be in the Spirit? Because according to Paul, there is no speech-voice without meaning (Vs. 9-11). In Verses 5, 13, 26-27 Paul insists that tongues, whether of Angels (1Corinthians 13:1) or human must be interpreted and he concludes by saying:

But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God. (1Corinthians 14:28).

This explains the Biblical way of doing mysteries in the spirit as opposed to the audible unintelligible voices we hear in churches today.

The argument that these are mysterious angelic languages is self-defeating for two reasons:

1. What we see in 13:1 Paul being sarcastic or being Hyperbolic to convey the importance of love above all things. He is not confirming that there are angelic languages for the Bible has not told us about that anywhere. Angels do not have a language, Angels speak the language of the audiences they are sent to. And that is what is consistent throughout the Bible.
2. If then these are Angelic languages then, it should be Angels speaking and not speaking through human beings for nowhere in the Bible did an Angel speaok to an individual through the individual himself verbally. Again it is satirical to say that heaven does not understand your language and therefore they impart their language for you to say what they can understand yet, since time immemorial, heaven has been communicating to the world.

Friends, buy a Bible, read it and if you cannot understand it, ask God to help you through his trained men. Do not do anything, not in the word of God.

God bless you, I invoke Truth, Reason and Faith

Pr ITM WHITE
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Ministries (John 4:24)