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The Holy Spirit: What is the purpose of the Gift of Tongues? – OpentheWord.org

The Holy Spirit: What is the purpose of the Gift of Tongues? – OpentheWord.org


Holy Spirit portrayed as a Dove, French Ministry of Culture
Credit: GO69, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Hi, my name is Dean Smith and in this podcast, I want to talk about one of the more controversial Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gift of Tongues.

A friend, Jim Marteniuk, told me about his intriguing encounter with tongues a few years back.

But before I tell that story, let’s define the gift of tongues. It is a gift that allows people to speak in a language they do not know through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can also provide a gift of interpretation through which these tongues can be interpreted.

Tongues can come in basically two forms. It can appear as an actual human language which is what happened on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell upon 120 disciples of Jesus. That group poured into the streets of Jerusalem miraculously speaking in languages they did not know. People were hearing them speaking in their native tongue and because of that miraculous display, 3,000 people were saved that day.

But Paul also mentions in 1 Corinthians 13:1, that tongues can be an angelic language, which no one would understand unless someone with the gift of interpretation was in the room.

When Jim had his unusual tongues experience, he had been a Christian for a couple of years and was living in North Battleford, a small city in Northern Canada.

This is the same place where the 1948 revival broke out, which brought us teaching on the Tabernacle of David and the laying on of hands.

On Friday nights, Jim often went out with John Stewart, his church’s youth pastor, to share their faith in the community.

They had gone to Bruno’s a restaurant in the city, which has since closed, and were sharing their faith with a group of young people. When the group left, an East Indian couple, who were sitting at a nearby table, said they overheard their conversation and wanted to hear more about God.

They were professionals. The husband was a doctor and also taught classes at university and his wife was a psychologist.

As John and Jim shared their faith, the wife asked if they happened to be some of those crazy people who spoke in tongues.

When John said they were, the husband replied, “Well, I speak five different languages why don’t you speak in tongues for us?”

John quickly volunteered Jim to do it. Jim said he was caught a bit off guard by this and responded that he wasn’t sure he could, but John said let’s pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help.

When Jim started speaking in tongues, he immediately realized that it had changed and he was speaking words that he had never said before.

They noticed an immediate reaction from the East Indian couple, whose eyes widened. They were noticeably shocked by what they were hearing. When Jim finished, the couple immediately asked if he had been trained in linguistics.

Surprised by this response, Jim said no and then asked what had happened.

The husband said that Jim had spoken in a Tamil dialect and when John asked what the Holy Spirit had said through Jim, the husband abruptly answered, that “it was none of their business.”

The couple left shortly after that.

Jim and John were as shocked by what happened as the East Indian couple. Jim actually contacted the husband a few times after this encounter to encourage him to embrace Christ. but he wasn’t sure if he ever did.

Today, the gift of tongues defines the Charismatic movement and is arguably the most controversial of the nine spiritual gifts that Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 12, which includes prophecy and gifts of healing, among others.

Even the East Indian couple brought up those ‘crazy people who speak in tongues.’ But surprisingly, the gift of tongues can even be despised by charismatics, who actually believe in spiritual gifts.

A good friend of mine, Peter, who God has used in the spiritual gifts tells of the first time he spoke in tongues.

Peter was saved in a charismatic church, and shortly after committing to Christ, he moved away for a few months.

While he was gone, the church went through a Charismatic renewal resulting in regular expressions of the spiritual gifts during services.

During the first service Peter attended when he returned home, someone spoke in tongues. Peter had never heard this before and said it sounded strange. After the service, he asked what was going on. When he was told it was tongues, because it sounded so weird, Peter immediately reacted saying, he would never speak in tongues.

But that all changed a few months later while he was worshiping during a service and suddenly strange words started pouring out of his mouth.

He immediately stopped singing and after the service talked to the pastor about what had just taken place.

The pastor asked Peter to demonstrate what had happened to him and over the next several minutes he said the gift of tongues exploded out of him and he thought it was going to blow down the walls. He thought he was going to blow down the walls of the church, it was so powerful.

Though no one laid hands on him, Peter believes he was filled with the Holy Spirit during the worship service and despite his preconceived ideas about the gift, he was now speaking in tongues.

I have since heard several testimonies of people mentioning their experience with explosive tongues and I have had others tell me that at times their tongues have become almost militant at time. I suspect these types of tongues are similar to what happened on the Day of Pentecost.

So what is the purpose of this spiritual gift?

It’s obvious by what happened on the Day of Pentecost and to Jim Marteniuk, that the gift of tongues has uses in evangelism. But does it have a purpose other than that?

The Apostle Paul says it does and in 1 Corinthians 14, he warns the Corinthian church that multiple people speaking in tongues at the same time during a church service can bring confusion, resulting in non-believers concluding that they are “insane” in verse 23.

To counter this, Paul limits the expression of the gift of tongues during a public service to a maximum of three people speaking one at a time, provided there is an interpreter, someone with the gift of interpretation.

If there is no interpreter or if three people have already spoken, Paul says in verse 28 that people should only speak in tongues to themselves. You can still speak in tongues but don’t speak so loudly that others can hear it.

These limitations suggest that the gift of tongues is largely intended for personal use and if that is the case, what are the purposes for this gift?

First, tongues can build us up spiritually.

Paul writes that quote “The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself;” 1 Corinthians 14:4. unquote

The Greek word translated edifies speaks of construction either building something completely new, adding an addition or repairing a damaged dwelling. The same word is used when Jude adds that we can build ourselves up in our faith, by praying in the Holy Spirit in verse 20.

The gift of tongues can not only bring a greater release of the Holy Spirit in your life, it can also repair emotional or spiritual damage.

In 1 Samuel 30:6, we are told that David encouraged himself in the Lord after his men threatened to kill David because they blamed him when the Amalekites kidnapped their women and children while David and his men were away at a conflab with the Philistines.

Though David obviously didn’t speak in tongues, he was depressed and fearful and found a way to encourage himself in God.

When we go through similar difficult times or challenges, the gift of tongues can repair emotional damage and even deal with depression caused by the words of others.

In 2011, a study headed by University of Albany anthropologist Christopher Lynn and reported in the American Journal of Human Biology found that speaking in tongues may help people deal with stress.

In the study, the researchers examined the stress markers reflected by cortisol levels in the saliva of 52 Pentecostals living in New York City.

They analyzed the cortisol levels of all churchgoers on Sunday and found them to be high indicating higher stress levels. When they tested them again on Monday, the cortisol levels were significantly lower indicating lower stress levels which Lynn attributed to speaking in tongues during the Sunday service.

Secondly, tongues can function as a form of prayer.

Paul writes, “For the one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people, but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries” (1 Corinthians 14:2).

Later in that same chapter, Paul adds in verses 14 and 15, “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unproductive. What is the outcome, I will pray in the spirit.”

A friend of mine had an interesting thing happen to him. During a time of prayer, a friend, who he hadn’t seen for probably 15 years came to his mind, as he was speaking in tongues. And then he felt this unusual urge to continue speaking in tongues for an extended period and he believed he was actually praying in tongues for his friend.

For the next week or so, whenever he prayed this person would come to his mind and he would speak in tongues.

Though it seemed that the Holy Spirit was using his gift of tongues to pray for this friend, he had no idea why or what he was praying.

However, a few months later he discovered that this friend had gone through a difficult coinciding with the period the Holy Spirit was praying for him through my friend’s gift of tongues.

But we also need to understand how the gift of tongues works. Paul says “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays,” which Paul also refers to as praying in the spirit.

According to the Bible, we are composed of a spirit, soul, and body. Our spirit is a separate entity which is essentially who we are. Our body is that physical contraption we live in and our soul, which is our mind, will, and emotions, is how our spirit expresses itself within our physical body.

Normal prayer requires us to use our minds. We think and we pray. However, when we pray in tongues, Paul says it is our inner spirit that is praying, not our mind.

And this is what showed up in neuroimaging scans conducted on the brains of people speaking in tongues.

According to a 2006 article in the New York Times, entitled: “A Neuroscientific Look at Speaking in Tongues”, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania scanned the brains of five women as they spoke in tongues and then sang Gospel songs.

Basically, they studied the blood flow in their brains which reveals which parts of the brain were being used as they spoke in tongues compared to when they sang.

When these people spoke in tongues, the scans showed a drop off in the usage of the frontal lobes which is where we do our thinking and is used prominently when we speak or sing.

Secondly, there was also a drop off in the area responsible for language even though they were speaking and thirdly there was also reduced activity in the ‘left caudate’ which is the area responsible for emotional and motor control which suggested that the women had ceded control when they spoke in tongues.

This is exactly what Paul said was happening when he said our spirit is the one initiating the tongues and the mind is essentially bypassed.

Thirdly Speaking in Tongues has a vital role in spiritual warfare.

Paul talks about praying in the spirit in another passage, Ephesians 6, the great spiritual warfare chapter where he talks about principalities and powers and putting on the armor of God to fight the demonic realm.

He closes off this spiritual warfare teaching by encouraging us to “With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the Spirit” (verse 18).

Again he talks about praying in the spirit or speaking in tongues, but this time he talked about specifically in the context of spiritual warfare.

In fact, Paul encourages us to ‘pray at all times in the Spirit.’

While he encouraged us to pray with our minds and with the gift of tongues in 1 Corinthians 14, when it comes to spiritual warfare Paul emphasizes praying in tongues.

This spiritual warfare connection may explain what seems to be an additional feature of tongues, encryption.

In today’s modern tech world, we have several communication programs that allow us to secretly communicate with other people, such as Signal and Telegram, which come with end-to-end encryption.

This means without the proper deciphering code nobody intercepting these messages would be able to understand them.

This is essentially what happens to a person when they speak in tongues when Paul says, “in his spirit, he speaks mysteries” (1 Corinthians 14:2).

These mysteries which we speak through tongues can, of course, be understood by God.

Though our mind can’t comprehend what is being said, it also makes me wonder if Satan has the same problem.

In Daniel 10, we read how Daniel, who was in captivity in Persia, understood that a war was brewing in the heavens in verses 1 to 3 and entered a time of prayer and fasting about what was taking place.

Three weeks later, after he prayed and fasted, an angel showed up telling Daniel “from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words” (verse 12).

The verse says that Daniel’s words were heard, and it seems to imply that the angel had also heard them. However, it took three weeks for the godly angel to deliver the message because the Prince of Persia, a demonic angel, hindered the godly angel from delivering the message.

Though the message was eventually delivered after Michael the archangel stepped in to help, it shows that Satan can hinder prayer.

But as I read this story, I wondered if the demonic realm also heard Daniel’s prayer which gave satan time to prepare and strategize on ways to hinder the delivery of the answer.

But if you pray in tongues, it is a mystery. The demonic realm has no idea what you are praying about or even who you are praying for. The Holy Spirit could be using you to pray for a pastor in Africa, a family member, or perhaps the leader of your church.

This makes it difficult for fallen angels to hinder these prayers.

The fourth thing that tongues offer is powered-up worship.

Paul writes “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unproductive. What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also;”

Then Paul says in the very next verse, “I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the mind also” (1 Corinthians 14:14-15).

Since praying in the spirit refers to tongues, we must conclude that singing with the spirit is singing in tongues. Paul was singing or worshipping God with the gift of tongues.

Some have even suggested that the ‘spiritual songs’ mentioned in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 could also refer to singing in tongues.

In recent months, I have found myself increasingly doing this during worship services. At times, I sing the words, but at other times, I sing along in tongues, but I do it softly to myself so I don’t disrupt others.

As I do this, I sense a greater release of the Holy Spirit in my life, which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

When we sing in tongues, we exalt God in ways we could never do in English and this is important because the Psalmist writes that “God inhabits the praises” of his people (Psalm 22:3).

I believe singing and speaking in tongues can bring a greater release of the Holy Spirit in our personal lives and as well during church services.

So in conclusion, if the Holy Spirit has given you this gift, I encourage you to use it more. If you don’t have the gift, you may need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and should ask believers from a Charismatic Christian church to lay hand hands on you and pray for you.

If you have already been filled with the Holy Spirit and don’t have this gift, then follow Paul’s advice and earnestly desire and pray for this spiritual gift.

Thanks again for joining me on this podcast, and I will catch you again.



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