My brother and I used to play a trick when we were young. We used to catch someone’s attention and say something inaudible and see how many times we could get them to ask us to repeat what we’d said. “Jsjfvwej” “Hmmmm?” “Jsjfvwej” “What did you say?” “Jsjfvwej” “Pardon?”
The real trick was to say something that almost made sense but didn’t quite. “Did you take the jsjfvwej yesterday? Or where every word sounded distinct but it didn’t make a sentence. “Fourteen get the car in glasses.” We used to play it on my dad too. “Why can’t you articulate properly boy?”
Oh, what fun we had. Now – if you had to listen to a service leader, preacher, worship leader and person leading the prayers doing that all evening you’d be attending a church service in Corinth in the first century. 1 Corinthians 14.23; “If the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?”
Tongues of Men and Angels
Speaking in tongues is when the Holy Spirit enables you to say something in a language you have never learnt. It’s a spiritual gift. It’s a good gift. Verse 5 says “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues.” But it’s not the most important gift. When Paul makes a list of spiritual gifts, tongues usually appears right at the end. So someone might say, “So why are you speaking about it tonight if that’s the case?”
Well, first of all it’s in the Bible. That should be reason enough. But secondly, both in the New Testament and in our experience, tongues seems to be very often a beginner’s gift. It’s commonly the first of the more obviously supernatural gifts that follow the outpouring of the Spirit in Scripture and it’s my observation that it is the first gift many people receive.
What is this all about then? 1 Corinthians 12.10 talks about (note the language carefully) speaking in different kinds of tongues. What might that mean do you think? The answer is found, I believe, in 1 Corinthians 13.1 where Paul talks about human languages and angelic languages.
Human tongues are recognisable languages and dialects like Spanish, Russian, Cantonese and Serbo-Croat.
Here’s an example of that: Dave Bishop, who is a church leader in Bexhill, writes about an experience that happened in his church. After some teaching on the Holy Spirit one of the church leaders offered to take a new couple home. On the way they started chatting about what they had been hearing. The couple brought up the subject of tongues and said how confused they were. At that, a young man, who was a passenger in their car, leaned forward and said, “You don’t need to be so uneasy about tongues – it’s just like this.” And he started to speak out in tongues.
This shocked the couple. They just weren’t expecting anything so normal, that someone could just start and stop at will. They thought it might be some ecstatic and weird phenomenon. And then the husband asked if the young man knew what he had just said. “No, I don’t,” he replied.
Well, said the husband, I am from an Iranian upbringing and you have just spoken in broad Persian.”
So the young man asked, “What did I say?” And the reply was, “You have just said ‘the Lord is worthy. He alone is God. He alone is worthy to be praised.’”
So that is what Paul means by human tongues. It’s what you read about in Acts chapter 2 when 120 people, freshly filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, start speaking out in tongues and the thousands of people gathered there understand clearly what is being said as the wonders of God in their own languages.
I have heard several stories like this from reliable sources - Nicky Gumbel for example talks about a similar incident in an Alpha course in London when someone spoke out in Russian having no idea what she was saying, having never learnt that language. Somebody else understood the language and interpreted it as “My dear child, my dear child.” I have never actually seen anything like that myself. Has anyone here? …
I just want to say that I don’t think that this is what 1 Corinthians 14 is about. This seems to be more about angelic tongues than human ones. The tongues of angels, it seems, are not the sort of languages that you can learn by doing a Berlitz course.
It appears that human tongues are addressed to people and are inspired by God for powerful witness. Angelic tongues are addressed to God and are inspired by him for intimate worship. The language of angels is the language of praise; they constantly adore God around his throne. Most speaking in tongues we experience in church is of this nature and the interpretation will usually be words of praise. Not always, but often.
My Experience
My first encounter with speaking in tongues was, in fact, singing in tongues. I was a new Christian and I was at a Catholic Renewal Mass. Shortly after everyone had taken communion, two or three people started to sing out different but complementary melodies in a strange language. Others joined them one by one, adding new harmonies. Before long there were about 50 people producing the most otherworldly sound that was literally both weird and wonderful. Personally, I was a bit freaked out by it. I could see the look of pure joy on people’s radiant faces as they sang, but I just wasn’t prepared for it.
Not long afterwards I went to a Pentecostal church where in the middle of a time of open prayer someone started speaking out in a loud voice and a foreign tongue. The service leader waited until it was finished, then explained what had happened, and then asked if anyone in the congregation had an interpretation. After a few minutes someone spoke up and what he said was accepted as a rendering in English of what had been said.
I began to speak in tongues a few months after this. A guy offered to pray for me for the baptism in the Holy Spirit and that I would receive the gift of tongues. As he prayed I felt a strong outpouring of love and grace over me. I felt some sounds forming in my mouth but I didn’t have the confidence to speak them out, I was a bit self conscious, so I just stayed quiet. But when I went home and prayed on my own, I spoke the words out quite hesitatingly at first. And the strange thing is this; I only “heard in my mind” the first few sounds, just three or four syllables, but as I spoke them out, others followed. As I used the gift more regularly, the more fluent I became.
When my children started to talk they didn’t all of a sudden begin articulating in eloquent, flowing English. They started with one word and usually that word was “No!” But gradually, as time went on, they developed other words. They learnt the word “Mummy”, and several months later: “Daddy!” Language grows, and as people use language they develop it, and broaden the range of it. I think it is similar with the tongues of angels.
Since those early days, I have spoken out in tongues in church perhaps four or five times. When I do, I get a rising up of a tongue in my spirit that I feel I just need to release. But mostly, it is a prayer language I use more discreetly in praise and intercession. That is what Paul says it should mostly be in v2. “Those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God.” It’s mostly a prayer language.
What Value for the Church?
What should be the normal expression of tongues in church life? Should we be hearing tongues regularly in church? If so, why don’t we hear it more? Can we receive this gift if we don’t have it already? Should we use the gift of tongues, if we have it, whenever we pray alone? What does the Bible say about speaking in tongues?
Do you need to speak in tongues if you don’t already? Is there something wrong with you? No. Not all Christians speak in tongues. Some do, some don’t. It’s not even necessarily a sign of being filled with the Spirit. You can be filled with the Spirit every day and never speak in tongues.
So this being understood that there are no first-class Christians who speak in tongues and second-class Christians who don’t, let’s just have a quick rain check on our experience of this gift. How many here have prayed in tongues at some time? Keep your hands raised if you have spoken out in tongues in a church service in a way that was clearly audible to everyone else?
1 Corinthians12-14 show us that speaking in tongues was a normal and common experience in the church there. Though some of the details in this passage are a bit difficult to grasp, the main point is clear. Paul says here that he favours the gift of prophecy over the gift of tongues. Let me just read verses 4 and 5.
“Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves, but those who prophesy edify the church. I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy.”
The reason why Paul had to write 1 Corinthians 14 is because the gift of tongues was being used excessively in church; in their services everyone was shouting together in a long cacophony of unintelligible sounds.
They were tongues fanatics. On and on and on they went, working up a frenzy, babbling away all together in the language of angels (which to the angels was perfectly comprehensible, but to everyone there was like gibberish). So it’s a bit of a surprise that in v18 Paul says, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than you all.” So Paul liked speaking in tongues. He did it a lot. “But, in the church,” he went on, “I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.”
They’d gone way over the top in Corinth. They were so excited about it they said, “Oh, let’s do away with preaching, that’s dreary!” So instead of having a sermon everyone would stand up and speak in tongues together, and Paul said, in v9 “Look, this is hopeless.”
“Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air.”
Let’s go back to v2 where Paul writes, “For those who speak in a tongue, do not speak to people, but to God.” Speaking in tongues is mostly a form of prayer, and Paul says in verse 4: “Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves.” So it builds up the individual Christian. In v14, he goes on to say that it transcends the limits of human language: “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful”.
All of us are limited by human language. And sometimes we find ourselves frustrated that we cannot express what we describe as feeling deep down here. Sometimes, even in a human relationship we say, “I can’t find the words to express what I want to say.” And that is even truer about our relationship with God.
Sometimes we feel that we just don’t know how to express to God what we feel in our spirit.” And the gift of tongues enables us to express that without the limitation of human language. It doesn’t mean to say that we’re not thinking - we can be thinking all sorts of things that are on our hearts to pray about, but the mind is not having to go through the process of putting those prayers or praises into sentences of intelligible English.
The speaker, of course is in full control. He or she can start and stop whenever they wish, that’s why Paul can lay down rules here for how the gift is to be exercised. It’s not something that takes over your personality. It’s only in the demonic world where forces take people over. In the Christian, spiritual world, there’s always an element of co-operation between us and God and we can start and stop when we want, and therefore Paul lays down guidelines. This is why Paul says in v4 “Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves.”
On 5th April 1985 I was looking at a heart monitor and listening to nervous medical staff at the maternity unit of the Royal Free Hospital in London. I didn’t understand what was going on but it seemed that our first baby Anna had a slow heartbeat that was a cause for concern. I remember this feeling of dread and panic but at the same time desperately wanting to pray, but not knowing how to pray, and I have never been more grateful for the gift of tongues with which to pour out my heart to God. A great peace came upon me – and Anna was born with no complications shortly afterwards. “Those who speak in a tongue edify themselves.”
The gift of tongues is also powerful when praying for other people. Jackie Pullinger has a fantastic ministry amongst drug addicts, prostitutes and gangsters in Hong Kong. She wrote about the transformation that happened in her ministry as she began to use this gift.
In her book Chasing the Dragon she writes, “I prayed 15 minutes a day in the language of the Spirit, and still felt nothing as I asked the Spirit to help me intercede for those he wanted to reach.” It is significant that it wasn’t a feeling, it was something that she felt led to do and did out of simple obedience. “After about six weeks of this, I began to lead people to Jesus without trying. Gangsters fell on their knees, sobbing in the streets. Women were healed. Heroin addicts were miraculously set free. And I knew it all had nothing to do with me”.
It was also the gateway for her to receive other gifts of the Spirit. She wrote: “With my friends I began to learn about the other gifts of the Spirit and we experienced a remarkable few years of ministry. Scores of gangsters and well-to-do people, students and churchmen were converted and all received a new language to pray in private, and other gifts to use when meeting together. We opened several homes to house heroin addicts and all were delivered from drugs, painlessly because of the power of the Holy Spirit.”
What about v22-25? They are the most confusing verses in the chapter because they don’t seem to be coherent. There is probably something lost in translation.
The Message puts it all in contemporary terms.
“So where does it get you, all this speaking in tongues no one understands? It doesn't help believers, and it only gives unbelievers something to gawk at. Plain truth-speaking, on the other hand, goes straight to the heart of believers and doesn't get in the way of unbelievers. If you come together as a congregation and some unbelieving outsiders walk in on you as you're all praying in tongues, unintelligible to each other and to them, won't they assume you've taken leave of your senses and get out of there as fast as they can? But if some unbelieving outsiders walk in on a service where people are speaking out God's truth, the plain words will bring them up against the truth and probe their hearts. Before you know it, they're going to be on their faces before God, recognizing that God is among you.”
When it says “tongues are a sign for believers” it doesn’t mean a sign that God is real which is what we automatically assume. It means that tongues, without interpretation, are like a great big notice hanging in a church building saying “Are you new? Well, you guessed right – these people are seriously unhinged.”
Ending
I think I want to stop there because I’ve spoken long enough. But I think it would be good to ask God to give the gift of tongues to anyone who would like to receive it for the first time. If you want this gift, ask your Father for it. I think too, it would be good for those among us who have let the gift of tongues fall into disuse to say sorry “Lord, I want to fan into flame the gift you have placed in me, that I may enjoy you with deeper intimacy, praise with greater joy and intercede with an increase of power”…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 18th July 2010
