What is the gift of speaking in tongues?
Scripture presents speaking with tongues as a power given by the Holy Spirit, first seen when the disciples were filled with the Spirit and began to speak in languages they had never learned. The commentators press two questions on it: what exactly was being spoken, and what was it for?
Real languages, not unintelligible sound
The most basic point in the commentary is that a "tongue" was a language — one the speaker had never studied, yet which listeners recognised as their own. One reference work traces the confusion back to a translator's addition:
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe expression "unknown tongue" is unfortunate, because it has led some to think the gift of tongues was a kind of unintelligible gibberish. The word "unknown" was added by the translators, where it should read simply "tongue." At Pentecost it was shown that the gift of "tongues" meant a person speaking a language he had never learnt, but which was immediately understood by those who knew it.
Yet the phrase kept a distinct name because the thing itself was distinct:
J. N. DarbyTo speak languages, or in different languages, is not at all the apostle's meaning. The divine gift, by which they spoke various languages without having learnt them, required a name of its own.
Why it came at Pentecost
The gift arrived at a moment loaded with meaning. At Babel God had scattered mankind by confusing their speech; at Pentecost He crossed those very divisions with the message of His grace.
William KellyThe judgment of God had inflicted these various tongues upon them, and completely broken up the ambitious project of joining together to establish a unity of their own through the tower of Babel. But the grace of God went out exactly where His judgment had placed them. If a crushing blow laid their pride in so many separate ditches, the grace of God went out to those ditches, and blessed them where they lay, raising them out of their fallen state.
The three occasions in Acts are read as markers of stages, not as a pattern for everyday life:
A. J. PollockThe second has to do with the introduction of the Gentile into the church of God. The gift of the Spirit, with the accompanying display of tongues, confirmed that the middle wall of partition was broken down, and that the Gentile had an equal place with the Jew in the body of Christ.
A sign aimed at unbelievers
Paul separates gifts that build up believers from gifts that act as signs to those outside. Tongues fall in the second class.
J. N. DarbyThe word of God itself makes this distinction when it says that tongues are for a sign to unbelievers, and prophesying is for believers (1 Cor. 14:22). This distinction is important, because nothing necessary for the conversion of souls or for the building up of saints can possibly fail; whereas it is easy enough to conceive that God should withdraw what was an ornament to the Church.
Paul backs this from Isaiah, and the argument cuts against pride in the gift:
William J. HockingBecause of the apostasy of the people of Israel, God would not speak to them in the language they could understand: "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." … Why should the Corinthians be so proud of tongues, which were given to catch the attention of unbelievers with something they did not understand, rather than to convince them of its truth?
Never given to everyone
Even in the earliest days the gift was not universal among Christians.
C. E. StuartHe who confounded human speech at Babel could, and did, enable some at Jerusalem to speak in languages they had not previously learnt. Some, we say, because even in apostolic days not all Christians shared in this display of the Spirit. … Paul himself spoke with tongues more than any of the Corinthians. He needed it for his work, and he tells us the purpose of it was to impress and attract unbelievers.
Where Paul ranks the gifts, tongues come last:
William J. HockingTongues, and their companion gift, the interpretation of tongues, are placed at the end of this list, showing their relative importance from God's point of view. The primary gifts are always those by which the church grows in love and faith and the knowledge of Christ.
The rule when Christians gather
In the assembly one test governs everything: does it help the hearers?
William KellyEdification, then, is the absolute rule for what is said in the assembly. No matter how astonishing the display of divine power that answers to the name of Jesus, if it does not build up, it has no rightful place there.
So a speaker without an interpreter was to stay quiet — and Paul preferred a handful of intelligible words to a flood of unintelligible ones:
C. H. MackintoshWe know that tongues had their value. They were a sign to unbelievers. But in the assembly they were useless unless there was an interpreter.
Whether it continues
Commentators in this collection hold that the gift served its purpose and lapsed, comparing it to provisions God withdrew once their occasion ended:
William J. HockingThere was no warning in the Pentateuch that the miraculous gift of manna would cease, but when the people entered the promised land it was no longer given. In the same way, the gifts of power were given at the beginning to establish the church as God's vessel of testimony on earth. … They passed away when the occasion for them passed away.
Summary
- Languages. A tongue was a real human language spoken without ever being learned — not unintelligible sound; "unknown" was added by translators.
- Babel. God scattered proud humanity by confusing speech; at Pentecost His grace reached men in the very languages that judgment had left them with.
- Sign. Tongues were a sign aimed at unbelievers, while prophecy was for believers — a distinction Paul draws from Isaiah.
- Last. The gift was never given to all, and Paul lists it last; the gifts that build faith and knowledge of Christ rank first.
- Edification. In the gathering only what builds up belongs, so without an interpreter the speaker stays silent — five understood words outweigh ten thousand unintelligible ones.