Is Speaking in Tongues still available today?

Every time you use the word "tongues" it is actually human languages (Acts 2). So speaking gibberish can neither be interpreted nor edify anyone. But you do not want to admit what the Bible actually says. You have created your own concept of tongues and that is not legitimate. There is no glossolalia in the Bible.

Linguistic analysis of modern "tongues" confirms that they are not actual languages.
"A very stringent study, which was carried out in the USA by Kildahl (a clinical psychologist) and Qualben (MD Psychiatrist), attempted to discover the real nature of the language of those who speak in tongues, commonly known as glossolalia.5
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1017-04992015000100002

The writers of this article did their own research: ...In carrying out our research in these churches, qualitative research methods were used to gather empirical data on the gift of speaking in tongues... During our visit to the churches that we studied we observed that believers, who were speaking in tongues, were acting and behaving in an unusual way. Some were falling down, crawling on the floor, and rolling over while others were beating their chests, clapping hands and shouting on top of their voices. The language they were speaking was incomprehensible, since it was made up of disconnected vowels and consonants.21... Few of our respondents claimed that they can interpret tongues. The majority of them said that no one has the gift of interpreting glossolalia. They said that only the Holy Spirit knows the meaning of tongues. Our observation was that those who spoke in tongues were inconsistent in their understanding of tongues. Some believed that tongues were meant to confuse the devil who cannot understand glossolalia, while others believed that tongues are meant to edify individual believers, to give them joy and deepen their spirituality...

I agree with you and is the same exact problem that I have about the whole thing. The fact that it can be so easily faked should make us SUPER careful when teaching or practicing. That's it, because of the amount of false tongues out there, we need to be hyper discerning about it. Personally between you and God, working out your problems and life, being guided by His Spirit, being drawn closer I can 100% see and wouldn't say a word against, but that's in no way what I see as an unbiblical use. When I have seen whole congregations "tongueing" at the same time in a chaotic roar, creating different classes in the body teaching that all who are saved can speak in tongues I see nowhere in scripture, nor can I think of a single way this behavior glorifies God or points the seeker to Jesus.

While I don't necessarily believe the popular version of tongues that fills churches today is what the bible speaks of at all, I do see enough room there to support the kind of tongues I've described above in a personal context working it out with His Spirit.
I see no room anywhere for me to tell anyone how to pray and work out their salvation with God. Not when I know so many I believe show His fruit and the fruit of being in Him that do pray this way to Him. I think that because of these reasons we as believers do need to have a lot of discernment when teaching or practicing these things.

I agree with all 4 of your points. But disagree completely with your interpretation of what was going on in Acts. These men where speaking in actual languages, it says each man understood what was being said. Many on your side of the debate imply onto the text that these men thought they were drunk because the tongues was like today and it just looked silly to them, but I think it was simply the JOY radiating from them, that over joyous Spirit. Then taking that to try to say God uses incoherent babble to "confound the wise" is a complete misuse of scripture in my opinion. This is suggesting almost that God is a mischievous trickster trying to fool somebody maliciously. I disagree with that kind of character existing in God.

I believe what we call tongues these days does not do any of the 4 points you laid down with the exception of maybe 4, halfway, and would be in spite of not because of. In my opinion.

See you take what's clearly described in Acts as men speaking to other men in languages they'd never learned, and the other men understanding them. Very clearly. Then you try to superimpose the modern tongues on top of it saying "see the thought they were drunk", completely ignoring and abandoning the very specific information that everyone understood everyone else. They didn't think they were drunk because they walked out doing what I just condemned as an unbiblical practice, and all came out speaking in there own personal language with no one understanding a thing being said. They thought they were drunk because every one of these people was just born again and proclaiming it in awestruck JOY!! So the way you just used this to defend the position that I have a misunderstanding, doesn't hold much water in my mind, if I'm honest.
It's you that's being way too lose with His word and imposing your view onto the text rather than letting the text lead you. In my opinion.

I say this with absolute respect because I LOVE the way you presented your side of the argument. Thank you very much, and I truly hope my tone seems as respectful to you as I want it to. I look forward to the next response, if you feel like responding. Thanks brother.

I'm at the point I don't care anymore; if someone wants to practice ecstatic utterances that's their business. You can't force anyone to believe like you do; it's foolish to try. I know what I believe though. I don't find any scripture that says in bold: "Sign gifts will end when the Apostolic age ends." However, I believe ecstatic utterances like we see today aren't the true gift of tongues. In my opinion it's all fake. But I wouldn't insult or denigrate anyone who wants to believe it; it's between them and God.

I think that we have to remember that when this happened at Pentecost, there were so many present to hear what was coming from the Holy Spirit through the Apostles, and that it was an actual, understandable language. I’ve done so many Bible studies but can’t remember which one covered this, however, we have to remember that God is not the author of confusion. The enemy loves this and he’s really good at it.

Paul uses 'tongues' to refer to tongues of angels as well, so just based on Biblical usage, the word is used to refer to both human and angelic languages. Even if you think angelic languages are fictional, the word is used for that concept. There was even a donkey who spoke to Balaam. A serpent spoke to Eve. If it says they spoke, that implies the use of language as well.

Foreign languages sound like gibberish if you don't know them. Try listening to Vietnamese. Like Paul points out, the one who speaks shall be a barbarian to you.


Linguistic analysis of modern "tongues" confirms that they are not actual languages.
"A very stringent study, which was carried out in the USA by Kildahl (a clinical psychologist) and Qualben (MD Psychiatrist), attempted to discover the real nature of the language of those who speak in tongues, commonly known as glossolalia.5
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1017-04992015000100002
[/quote]

The link is not working for me. I'm getting a 'This site can't be reached' error. Name of article and year is useful for helping people find papers. I have an undergrad degree in Linguistics and social science doctoral training in another field, and I've poked around at the older research a bit, but probably not this one. I'll put on my academic researcher/common sense hat and point out that based on the parameters shown in scripture, tongues are not falsifiable from a research perspective. If we accept the premise that linguists have identified the variables that are inflected for meaning in human languages, we have no idea what variables are inflected in angelic languages and whether human minds can identify these distinctions. For human languages, there are vowels, consonants, mori (e.g. vowel or voiced consonant length), and tone. What about angelic languages? We wouldn't know. There isn't any reason to rule out angelic languages based on I Corinthians 13 except the commentator's 'because I said so.' We should leave the door open for that. The concept of tongues of angels shows up in intertestamental literature in the Testament of Job, so the concept existed back then.

I also noticed one researcher arguing against tongues being a language based on a monotone high pitch used. I have heard people pray in English doing a monotone high pitch, too, and if he heard someone praying in their own language doing the same thing, he should apply the same reasoning that this wasn't a true language. Different researcher though.

That being said, I wouldn't rule out the idea that some 'tongues' could be people stringing syllables together, especially if there were no fruit of the Spirit and if someone were 'coached', prodded, or pressured to make some kind of noise and told they were speaking in tongues. I've seen some pressure aside.

And in addition to the linguistic research, we should also weigh historical accounts, where numerous people reported hearing languages they knew at Azusa Street and the other meetings of the Pentecostal movement, or else a language they spoke was identified as a foreign language. From what I've read and interviews I've seen, those included Armenian, a first people's language of Canada, Japanese, and Russian, possibly Bangla and other languages, and English in India. There have been numerous accounts of such things occurring since. I know of two books of collected accounts of such things. I've got one in my office that I haven't read yet. I have also spoken face-to-face with at least three people who spoke in 'tongues' and it was identified as a language someone present knew. I have interacted with at least two people who either had that experience or heard a language they knew in a foreign language.


Charismatic is a broad theological category like Calvinist or something like that, and there are a variety of beliefs. I've encountered the idea of tongues not being understood by the Devil among people in the Word of Faith movement. That doesn't seem to be the point of 'no man understandeth him' in context, IMO.

If these people did not know about interpretation of tongues, they probably were ignorant of scripture on the subject and quite possibly proper church order when it comes to speaking in tongues. Interpretation of tongues seems rarer. It seems to me, from my church experience, there used to be more of a church culture for allowing it. I spent many years in Pentecostal churches that I considered more orderly

If there were a church that used pressure and gimmicks to get people to make some noise and called it speaking in tongues, and a researcher concluded that it was just gibberish, and if he were right, that wouldn't mean that there is no genuine speaking in tongues elsewhere. The issue we are discussing is whether this gift is given, not whether or not there are fake instances.

Also, many people who speak in tongues do not roll around on the floor or get emotionally overwhelmed. That seems to be the case in most incidences in my experience. I disagree with defining speaking in tongues as 'ecstatic utterances' since people do not have to be in an emotional ecstasy to speak in tongues, and someone could speak in an emotional ecstasy without speaking in tongues.

Be that as it may, I do not see Paul warning us about fake tongues, psychologically-derived tongues that are not of the Spirit, or anything of that nature. So I keep that in mind if I were tempted to be overly critical of the style of an utterance. I don't know what tongues of angels sound like either. I also gather from the whole of I Corinthians 14, included verses such as verse 28 that it is possible to genuinely speak in tongues in a disorderly manner, so concluding that tongues are necessarily fake because of disorder is not inline with scripture. Paul even gave instructions for how to prophesy in an orderly manner. Why would he give these instructions (commandments of the Lord) if it were not possible to use these gifts in a disorderly manner?

Oh no! Not the enemy!

Just because you don't understand the gift of speaking in tongues is no reason to ascribe it to Satan.

BTW, ...

Acts 2:5-13, "Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven residing in Jerusalem. When this sound occurred, a crowd gathered and was in confusion, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Completely baffled, they said, “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that each one of us hears them in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and the province of Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own languages about the great deeds God has done!” All were astounded and greatly confused, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others jeered at the speakers, saying, “They are drunk on new wine!”

1 Corinthians 12:4-11, "Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different results, but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of all. For one person is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, and another the message of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another performance of miracles, to another prophecy, and to another discernment of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. It is one and the same Spirit, distributing as he decides to each person, who produces all these things."

Notice that a) speaking in tongues is a spiritual gift and b) another person interprets. That is altogether different from what occurred in Acts. Then, people heard their own languages. Here, interpretation is required, which is different than translation.

1 Corinthians 14:2, "For the one speaking in a tongue does not speak to people but to God, for no one understands; he is speaking mysteries by the Spirit."

1 Corinthians 14:14, "If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unproductive." If you think about this verse for a while perhaps you will understand God's gift of speaking in tongues, i.e., a spiritual language.

This is further explained in 1 Corinthians 14:18-19, "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you, but in the church I want to speak five words with my mind to instruct others, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue." (which doesn't instruct others).

I hope that you now understand the difference between a language that is understood by others, such as was spoken about in Acts, and the gift of speaking in an unknown tongue (a spiritual language given as a gift from God).

Personally... shortly after I was healed by Jesus in the hospital and changed from being an atheist to a believer, I prayed for the gift of tongues. I immediately began to "speak in tongues", i.e., I spoke a language that I did not understand with my mind. Clearly the Holy Spirit that I ahd received was communicating from within me to God.

I still speak in tongues many years later. In fact, when I pray, it is most often "in tongues", since the Spirit within me knows far better than my mind what needs to be communicated.

So what? It is still language.γλώσσαις glōssais.

Strong's Concordance
glóssa: the tongue, a language
Original Word: γλῶσσα, ης, ἡ
Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine
Transliteration: glóssa
Phonetic Spelling: (gloce-sah')
Definition: the tongue, a language
Usage: the tongue, a language, a nation (usually distinguished by their speech).

OK so the disciples in Acts who were speaking knew what they were speaking? OR did it say those men Heard them speaking in their own tongue?

Why would this question even come up in view of this: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other [languages]*, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:4)
*γλώσσαις glōssais = actual languages.

We must notice three things here: (1)they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, (2) they all spoke in other languages, and (3) it was the Holy Spirit who empowered them to do so supernaturally. Of course, the hearers heard the message in their own languages (about 15 languages and dialects).

I hope that you now understand the difference between a language that is understood by others, such as was spoken about in Acts, and the gift of speaking in an unknown tongue (a spiritual language given as a gift from God).

In the Book of Acts, the reason why the languages being spoken was understood, was 120+ people were speaking different languages, which would have been understood by the crowd. But considered an Unknown tongue to the one who is speaking it. In most normal Church setting circumstances there maybe 2 or at most 3 different languages present, so most of the time, tongues spoken would be unknown.

The only difference between the baptism of the Holy Ghost the 120+ received, and everyone else throughout history, was the hearing the sound of mighty wind (realize that this sound they heard was like a violent storm), the seeing of cloven tongues of fire, and feeling the tongues of fire sitting upon them. This Seeing, Hearing and Feeling the Holy Spirit, that God allowed at this time, was a one time event marking the Birth of the Church. But the actual Baptism of the Holy Ghost will not stop until Christ returns.

I already showed you that THERE IS NO SUCH THING as "unknown" in Scripture. That word is in italics and inserted by the translators. In fact I gave you a detailed post to prove this. Which means that you do not want the truth, and continue to claim that there are "unknown" languages.

Maybe I should stop using the word unknown, I just keep using because it's there. But the language they are speaking is unknown, at the very least just to themselves, but usually more in the congregation.

The only point that proves is how Strong's glosses the word. Paul uses the word in relation to tongues of angels. A dictionary written later cannot limit or change what words mean in the Bible.

It says they heard them speaking in their own tongue. It doesn't say they heard the disciples speaking something that they were NOT speaking in their own tongue.

Consider this verse.
Acts 2:22: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know”

Who reads that an concludes that the people heard the words, but that Peter did not speak them?

Why else do you think Paul insisted that there always be an interpreter? Interpretation of languages (not commonly spoken) was also a spiritual gift. ...to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:... (1 Cor 12:10). So Paul had every right and every reason to demand interpretation. But as I already posted on research done on glosslalia (modern tongues) the people speaking modern tongues said that no one can interpret glossolalia. So that should tell you something.

So far, I've found Nehemiah6 belaboring the point that 'unknown' was just added by the KJV translators as a bit annoying. (Almost) everyone here knows that and it doesn't make that much difference as far as the context is concerned because the people present did not know the language.

But every once in a while, I come across a Charismatic who thinks that tongues is some kind of code language, not a real language, that only God understands.

I don't see any reason to think that the I Corinthians 14 'tongues' were fundamentally different from the Acts 2 'tongues.' The situation is different. God having either the people present match with the tongue spoken or the tongue spoken match with that of the people present is different. Since in the church situation described in I Corinthians 14, no one understands, understanding has to take place through the gift of interpretation of tongues. One is an evangelistic setting, and the other is a church setting.

I see no reason to think that the tongues the people heard the disciples speak in were different from the tongues the disciples spoke in in Acts 2. It says they heard them speaking in tongues, so we can know that they spoke in the tongues the people heard.

I am a bit familiar with the history of Pentecostalism, and the idea of tongues as 'real languages' is the historical Pentecostal view. Pentecostals may allow for tongues to be tongues of angels because of I Corinthians 13:1, but if you read 'The Apostolic Faith', the newsletter of the Azusa Street revival, there are numerous accounts of people speaking in tongues and others understanding, not just there but from the numerous Pentecostal-type meetings springing up in various locations in North America and in other parts of the world. The historian Vinson Synan did interviews with two individuals who were at the Azusa Street Revival, and one of them talked how the people speaking in various languages drew people in, because they heard their languages spoken 'in tongues.' Val Dez's book 'Fire on Azusa' records this happening with Russian. 'The Comforter Has Come' records an incident. Pentecostalism is a big missions movement, too, and a lot of missionaries have had experiences. I spoke with someone who heard a Chinese villager speaking in tongues in English.

Some of the early Pentecostals thought they were going to just go out and preach in tongues, but that didn't work out, and exegetically, there isn't a good case for the idea that that is how speaking in tongues functioned. It gathered some attention in Acts 2, both amazement and mockery, but salvation came through the preaching of the word.

It should tell me that you need to do the following:

1. Exercise a bit of logic when reading research.
2. Get some more experience.


There are churches that are, IMO, disorderly, where people speak in tongues at the same time. There are also churches where the ground rules are that if you speak in tongues, someone else interprets. If that doesn't happen, you be quiet. I've even seen a very mild rebuke from the pulpit when there was no interpretation. Some would put blame on the speaker in tongues, that he wasn't moved to speak. But it says if there be no interpreter, let him keep silent in the church and let him speak to himself and to God, so if he shuts up when no interpreter speaks up, I think he's okay.

But there are people who take 'let him speak to himself and to God' to mean it's okay to speak in tongues right there in church as long as you don't address the assembly. I would interpret that to mean let him do so somewhere outside of the church context, (e.g. at home.) If everyone is speaking in tongues not too loudly, the unbeliever may still come in and say ye are mad. You also cannot hear other edifying speech (or singing) in the assembly and when we assemble, we are to speak and sing in such a way that edifies one another, according to I Corinthians 14. (This passage does not exactly line up perfectly well with the pulpit-pew-sermon tradition of many Protestants.)

Someone here posted an interpretation of tongues. I've witnessed hundreds of them. But it has probably been years since I have seen one in a large church setting. I grew up moving around a bit, but I remember tongues and interpretation in a 'Full Gospel' church, Assemblies of God, Church of God, and other Pentecostal meetings. I've seen it with house church people and at a non-denominational prayer gathering.

Seeker sensitive has done a lot of damage to church culture, and when you end up with a whole generation of pastors raised in that, they may not know how spiritual gifts are supposed to function. You also get some influence from Charismatic groups who are into 'covering' and such who come up with their own rules about how to handle prophecy which basically doesn't allow for it. And there are groups who teach that false prophecy is not a sin, who probably have more problems with false prophecy and therefore have an urge to shut all the prophesying down, even the real stuff... contrary to the 'commandments of the Lord' in scripture on the matter.

Your research didn't load, but if one research did not see interpretation in a given meeting or was with people ignorant enough to know about speaking in tongues but not the interpretation of tongues, or if he got the wrong impression, that doesn't mean no one can interpret speaking in tongues. If your researcher was ignorant enough about Charismatics or Pentecostals to know that interpretation of tongues is a thing, then that doesn't prove that interpretation of tongues never happens.

I agree with you, but some here disagree on what and when the Holy Spirit did.