The Gift of Tongues
A Riddle for the Logical Mind
Three verses. One logical answer. Can you find it?
-
Acts 2:6 (KJV) Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
-
1 Corinthians 14:22 (KJV) Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.
-
1 Corinthians 14:28 (KJV) But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.
Read all three. Lay them side by side. What must be true?
The prophet named the gift before it came.
Zephaniah 3:9 (KJV) For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD [Yahuah], to serve him with one consent.
- When the gift came, every hearer understood his own language. — Acts 2:6
- Tongues are a sign for those who do not believe. — 1 Corinthians 14:22
- With no interpreter, the speaker keeps silent. — 1 Corinthians 14:28
The gift of tongues is a real language that someone understands.
Note: "unknown" in 1 Corinthians 14 is italic in the KJV, added by the translators.
Why It Matters
The charismatic movement teaches that tongues are a heavenly prayer language, private and unknown. The first outpouring, at Shavuot, says otherwise: "every man heard them speak in his own language" (Acts 2:6). The word is dialektos, a spoken human language. Paul says tongues are "for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not" (1 Corinthians 14:22). And without an interpreter, "let him keep silence in the church" (1 Corinthians 14:28). Real languages, given as a sign to outsiders, under strict order.
Paul draws the sign from Isaiah 28:11: "with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people" (quoted in 1 Corinthians 14:21). In Isaiah, foreign speech was a warning to an Israel that would not hear. A sign meant for hearers cannot be private.
The word "unknown" in 1 Corinthians 14 is printed in italics in the KJV. The translators added it; no Greek word stands behind it. The modern practice began in Topeka, Kansas, in January 1901 under Charles Parham, and spread from Azusa Street in Los Angeles in 1906. Parham first taught that the tongues were real foreign languages for missionaries. Reports came back that the missionaries were not understood. After that, the teaching shifted to a "heavenly language" that no one could check.
This matters because Paul's test is understanding. "I had rather speak five words with my understanding... than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue" (1 Corinthians 14:19). A practice no one can understand cannot be tested, and Scripture commands testing: "try the spirits whether they are of God" (1 John 4:1). The Spirit produces self-control (Galatians 5:23), and "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Corinthians 14:32). Order is the mark of Yahuah's Spirit. Confusion is not (1 Corinthians 14:33).
In Revelation, "tongue" always means a people. The everlasting gospel goes "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (Revelation 14:6). Tongues were given so the nations could hear, not so a speaker could be heard by no one.