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What is the gift of tongues?
Tongues in the Book of Acts
The answer to this question is plain from the Scriptures: the gift of tongues is the ability, given miraculously through the Holy Spirit, to speak in a language that you do not know. This is how it is on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit rested on the disciples in the form of a tongue of fire. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance... And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.” [Acts 2:4,6]
When all the people from every corner of the world were gathered together in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit gave this incredible gift to the disciples of Jesus so that the promise of Jesus would be fulfilled, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” [Acts 1:8]
The gift of speaking in different tongues follows the apostles (at least Peter and Paul) through their work recorded in the book of Acts. The giving of the Holy Spirit and the miraculous signs that followed (including speaking in tongues) are all connected to the apostle's hands. “And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.” [Acts 19:6] The one example of speaking in tongues before the apostolic laying on of hands is Acts 10, when, as the last in a string of miracles to convince Peter that the kingdom of God belongs also to the Gentiles, the Holy Spirit descends on the crowd to which Peter is preaching. [Acts 10:44-48]
Tongues in Corinthians
The gift of tongues is further expounded in St Paul's first epistle to the church in Corinth, chapters 12 , 13 and 14. It seems that through Paul's apostolic work the church had received the gift of tongues, and that now that gift was being misused. (This seems to be a common problem for the disciples. Remember Simon the magician who wanted to buy the Holy Spirit? [Acts 8:17-19]) The governing passage in this section of Corinthians is 12:12 where Paul talks of the purpose of the Spirit's gifts. There is one body with many members, so there are many gifts but only one Lord, one Spirit, and one church. The Corinthians were using the gift of speaking in different languages not to unify the body, but to tear it apart, for, says Paul, “if I don't know the meaning of a language, I shall be a foreigner to him who speaks, and he who speaks will be a foreigner to me.” [1 Corinthians 14:11] In such misuse the people who know each other and speak the same language were being driven apart (remember God' judgment at the tower of Babel). Therefore, if you use the gift of tongues in the divine service, there must be an interpreter. [1 Corinthians 14:13]
The gift is properly meant for those outside the church, the unbeliever, that they might hear the Gospel of the Lord Jesus in their own language. “Therefore tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers.” [1 Corinthians 14:22] Just as the unbelievers gathered on Pentecost in Jerusalem and heard the preaching of Jesus in their own language, those around Corinth (a major international sea port in the Mediterranean) could hear the preaching of Christ.
Paul says one other thing concerning tongues that we ought to take mention of in this section, “Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.” [1 Corinthians 13:8] Paul promises that tongues will cease. Paul, of course, doesn't say when, but the Lord's church has almost always understood the gift of tongues to be one of the unique signs connected with the apostolic ministry, and that when the apostolic age came to an end (with the canonization of the Scriptures and the death of John), tongues also ceased.
Tongues in their Modern Manifestation
Even if the Holy Spirit still gave the gift of speaking in tongues today, it is nothing like the ecstatic tongues that we see and hear of in the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches today. These modern groups understand tongues not as a human language (as the Scriptures describe them), but as the 'language of angels,' a language that only God can understand. So their speaking in tongues is a speaking of gibberish. No one from anywhere can understand it because it is not a real language. I've heard the explanation that because it is not a real language, the devil cannot understand it, and therefore cannot block the prayers from being answered.
Of course there can be no 'interpretation' of sounds that are not a language, and so when churches try and follow Paul's injunction concerning the necessity of interpretation, the interpreter is acting more like a prophet, receiving the meaning of the sound directly from God. The whole thing is a terrible mess, a taking of the words of the Scripture and filling them with pagan practices. This is made worse by the fact that some churches make speaking in gibberish the very sign of salvation, saying that unless you've been whacked by the Holy Spirit so that speak mumbo-jumbo, you cannot be sure that you've been saved. A more dire confusion of the Law and the Gospel is hard to find.
Conclusion
We thank God the Father that He gave to Jesus' apostles the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues and other sign and wonders that followed their ministry, so that the church could be established on their trustworthy words and preaching. We thank God that He has preserved their preaching for us, and has seen to its publishing into most every tongue (even English, a language that, at the time of Pentecost, would be spoken for more than a thousand years), and that He continues to send to us His Holy Spirit so that we, through the preaching of the apostle's and prophets, are built up into the Lord's church, rejoicing in His gifts of life, salvation and the forgiveness of all of our sins.
Pastor Wolfmueller
Pentecost, 2006
For further study concerning the gift of tongues...
Isaiah 28:11,12; Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2; 1Corinthians 12-14