Speaking in tongues is one of many spiritual gifts that are identified in the New Testament. It is the miraculous ability to speak in languages that were previously unknown to the speaker. There are some debates on whether the gift continues today and in what forms it may take.
The main body of text that informs our understanding of this gift is Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 14. There are several other references to glossolalia within the book of Acts but the main literature can be found in these two chapters.
For those that believe the gift has continued it is generally considered to manifest in two ways:
Speaking in human languages
Speaking in angelic tongues
How to receive the gift of tongues?
Scholars agree that the ability to speak in tongues was a miraculous gift that accompanied some believers. There is no definitive guide in the New Testament on how to receive any spiritual gifts (see my article on spiritual gifts). However, there are three trains of thought on this matter:
Pentecostalism - the teaching that we are baptised by the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in tongues, just as they did as Pentecost.
Charismatic - the teaching that these gifts (charisma in Greek) are available today but not all believers will speak in tongues.
Cessationism - the teaching that these tongues, along with others, were for a limited time and are not available for believers today.
The historical teaching of the church is that these gifts have ceased. However, in 1900 the conversation was revived by students of a teacher named Charles Parham. In the following years, William J Seymour would go on to study beneath Parham and then begin the Azusa Street Revival in 1906. They taught a new doctrine that the associated sign of receiving the Holy Spirit was the manifestation of spiritual tongues in the believer.
This view point is widely criticized and most charismatic teachers that believe in the continuation of the gift will distance themselves from that doctrine. If you are a Christian believer and have not yet received the gift of tongues, then do not worry. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians that not all speak in tongues and that's to the benefit of the whole body:
Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
(1 Corinthians 12:30)
If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
(1 Corinthians 12:17-18)
What was the purpose of speaking in tongues?
In the fourteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul writes to them on how they should use their gift. In this chapter he also writes the purpose of the gift of tongues:
In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.
(1 Corinthians 14:21-22)
These verses suggest that the gift of tongues is to fulfill something that is written in the Law. Paul is referencing the Old Testament and specifically he is referring to Isaiah 28:11-12. Isaiah prophesies that there will come a day when God will use foreign tongues to speak to the people and they will ignore his word. When we combine this with Paul's revelation that these strange tongues are a miraculous sign not for believers but unbelievers the point becomes clear:
Some consider the gift to also be useful as a private prayer language. There is little biblical support for this interpretation and Paul seems to suggest the opposite:
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.
(1 Corinthians 14:14-15)
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