THE PURPOSE OF TONGUES, PART II
THERE’S NO GETTING around the sad fact that Charismatic Christians, especially those who speak in tongues, are often viewed as theological lightweights. “If only you had more interest in biblical truths,” some are inclined to say, “you wouldn’t spend so much time praying in gibberish that neither you nor anyone else can understand. It seems you are so infatuated with spiritual experience that you disregard or rarely worry about what the Bible actually says.”
I hope by now that you can see how misguided this is. My defense of the legitimacy of tongues-speech is rooted in and tethered to Scripture. If it isn’t, you should ignore what I say. I highly prize the mind and rigorous theological reflection, and this is in no way threatened or compromised by the fact that I daily pray and praise God in tongues. This leads us to our next question.
9. Is speaking in tongues a sign of anti-intellectualism or a sign that people are afraid of deep theological thinking?
While we must engage intellectually with all that Scripture says, we must at the same time be careful to resist what I call idolatry of the mind. Needless to say (or perhaps I do need to say it), I’m not suggesting the mind isn’t essential for Christian living. The mind is not our enemy. Our minds are to be constantly renewed (Rom. 12:1–2). It is through our minds that we understand who God is. There is no such thing as “mindless” Christianity. In fact, if you didn’t make use of your mind, you would have no idea what I’m saying right now or have any capacity to evaluate whether it is true or false! And when people minimize the mind or treat it as a threat to true spirituality, they often end up in either godless living or a cult, or both. So let me explain what I mean by “idolatry of the mind.”
What I have in mind (no pun intended) is the approach to Christian spirituality that argues nothing is of value unless it can be cognitively understood. And many of you are saying right now, “Yeah, that’s right.” Well, no, it isn’t. Again, many opponents of the gift of tongues insist that nothing is of value in terms of its ability to build us up spiritually into the image of Jesus that does not pass through the cerebral cortex of the brain. Any notion that the Holy Spirit might engage with the human spirit directly, bypassing our cognitive thought processes, is anathema to most Evangelicals. If it is to be spiritually profitable, it must be intelligible.
Now, in one sense they have a very good point. In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul is concerned with what happens in the corporate gathering of the local church. When all God’s people in a particular local congregation are gathered together, everything should be intelligible in order that all may be edified or built up. This is why Paul insists that if tongues is manifest in the corporate gathering, there must be interpretation. He never denies that something good and helpful is happening in the life of the person speaking in tongues. But he rightly points out that it is entirely unhelpful for others if they don’t understand what you are saying.
So we must recognize that there is a vast difference between the necessity of intelligibility for the sake of the entire body of Christ on the one hand, and on the other whether a Christian can be edified, blessed, and built up spiritually while speaking in uninterpreted tongues privately. Paul very clearly believed that tongues in the corporate assembly must be intelligible or interpreted for the sake of others who are listening. But he is equally clear that profound spiritual fruit is possible in the life of the individual believer when that person prays in tongues privately, when there is no interpretation.
Now, why do I say this? Several things in 1 Corinthians 14 lead me to this conclusion.
First of all, in 1 Corinthians 14:2 Paul writes this: “For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.” The lack of understanding applies not only to those listening but also to the person speaking in tongues. Yet despite this lack of cognitive understanding of what is being said, the person “utters mysteries in the Spirit,” and these utterances are obviously of benefit to the believer’s prayer life. If they weren’t, Paul would have prohibited the practice, which he didn’t.
Second, Paul says the person who speaks in tongues is truly praying to God (v. 14), praising or worshipping God (v. 15), and thanking God (v. 16). But he also says this can be done while his “mind” is all the while “unfruitful” (v. 14). By the word unfruitful he means either “I don’t understand what I am saying” or “Other people don’t understand what I’m saying,” or perhaps both. There is a strong likelihood that Paul is referring to his own comprehension or lack thereof. After all, he says, “My mind is unfruitful,” not “Your mind is unfruitful” or “Their minds are unfruitful.” In other words, Paul doesn’t understand what he is praying or how he is giving thanks or in what manner he is worshipping. But praying, praising, and giving thanks is most certainly taking place! And all this at the same time he lacks cognitive awareness of what is happening.
The immediate response of many is to say: “Well, if one’s mind is unfruitful, if one doesn’t understand what one is saying, then it is worthless. Why would anyone find benefit or blessing in something he doesn’t understand? Surely Paul’s response to his mind being ‘unfruitful’ is to stop speaking in tongues altogether. Shut it down. Forbid it.”
But that isn’t Paul’s conclusion. No sooner does he say his “mind is unfruitful” than he makes known his determined resolve: “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 Cor. 14:15, emphasis added). We know Paul is referring to praying and singing in tongues because in the next verse he describes giving thanks with one’s spirit as unintelligible to those who may visit the church meeting.
Many Christians are uncomfortable with reading Paul this way. They insist that if one’s mind is unfruitful—that is to say, if one’s mind is not engaged in such a way that the believer can rationally and cognitively grasp what is occurring—the experience, whatever its nature may be, is useless, perhaps even dangerous. Worse still, it might even be demonic. After all, if our minds are not engaged, what safeguards do we have against the encroachment of heresy? Subjectivism of this sort will serve only to diminish the centrality of Scripture in the life of the believing community.
I strongly disagree. If Paul had been fearful of transrational experience (which by the way is far and away different from being irrational), would not his next step be to repudiate the use of tongues altogether, or at minimum to warn us of its dangers? After all, what possible benefit can there be in a spiritual experience that one’s mind can’t comprehend? At the very least we should expect Paul to say something to minimize its importance so as to render it trite, at least in comparison with other gifts. But he does no such thing.
A brief word is in order concerning my use of the word transrational. It may have caught some of you by surprise. First, let me be perfectly clear: there is nothing beneficial in being irrational. To be irrational is to be illogical or simply wrong in the conclusions one reaches or the beliefs one holds. Christianity as a whole is in many ways mysterious in the sense that it exceeds the limits of our finite minds. We simply don’t perfectly and comprehensively understand everything. Only God does. Paul said as much in 1 Corinthians 13 when he conceded that “for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (v. 12). But one does not have to know something exhaustively to know something is true. Our knowledge can be accurate, so far as it goes, without being comprehensive. I know the truth of the incarnation, that “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). But I by no means understand all the immeasurable implications of this or even how it is possible for an infinite spiritual being to become a finite human being while remaining both infinite and spiritual.
So when I speak of something being transrational, I simply mean certain truths or experiences transcend our limited and altogether human intellectual capacity. They don’t contradict or exclude anything else revealed in Scripture. But they certainly exceed it. And my point is that there can be certain spiritual experiences that we can’t fathom or reduce to a nice, neat theological formula, yet they are profoundly beneficial and edifying in ways that we don’t fully understand. This is certainly the case when it comes to speaking in tongues in one’s private prayer closet.
I’ll have more to say about this later in the book, especially Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 14:14–19 and why this is rock-solid proof that he prayed in uninterpreted tongues in his private devotions. But for now suffice it to say that the apostle most assuredly believed that there was personal spiritual value in a practice that did not pass through the cognitive mechanism of his thinking brain.
Before leaving this subject, there is one more text that confirms my point. In Romans 8:26–27 Paul refers to an unusual experience of every believer in which the Holy Spirit “helps us in our weakness.” I’ll go into more detail about this in answer to yet another question later in the book, but clearly the apostle has in view a phenomenon that is not intelligible to us. He says that since we don’t know what to pray for as we ought, “the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26). If something is happening in us or on our behalf through the Spirit in such a way that it cannot be put into words, then clearly it is unintelligible. Words entail intelligibility. But this ministry of the Spirit either bypasses or in some manner exceeds our vocabulary and mental grasp. And yet it is obviously of tremendous spiritual value.
10. Is tongues-speech primarily directed to men or to God?
In an earlier chapter I answered this question, but in asking it again, I have something slightly different in mind. It is quite common in Charismatic churches for people to make use of tongues as a way of communicating, horizontally, a message to other Christians. One will often hear of a “message in tongues” that came during the course of a meeting.
But thus far it seems from what we’ve seen in Acts and 1 Corinthians that tongues is likely always either prayer, praise, or thanksgiving. In saying the person who speaks in a tongue “speaks not to men but to God” (1 Cor. 14:2), Paul is clearly telling us that tongues is a form of prayer. That is what speaking to God is! It is prayer, whether in the form of a request (petition), supplication, or intercession. As we’ll see later in the book, speaking in tongues, and in particular singing in tongues, is a form of worship or extolling God and His mighty works. (See 1 Corinthians 14:14–15 and Acts 2:11; 10:46.) Tongues-speech is also a way in which a believer can give expression to his or her heartfelt gratitude or thanksgiving to God for what He has done (1 Cor. 14:16). More on this later.
My point in directing your attention to these texts is to ask the question, Is it biblical to describe tongues as a message directed horizontally to people rather than vertically to God? I’ve already briefly alluded to the fact that when tongues in the corporate assembly are interpreted, they become the functional equivalent of prophecy.
That is to say, they serve to build up and encourage others in the same way prophecy does. But that doesn’t mean they are in every sense equal to each other. When I hear someone praise God or pray to God, I am encouraged and even on occasion rebuked for my own lack of zeal and confidence in God’s ability to answer. Are we not all blessed by the psalms, where David and others are recorded worshipping God and giving Him thanks? But these psalms are vertical in their orientation: they are directed to God, and we profit from them as we listen to or read someone else communicate to and with our heavenly Father.
So I’m not inclined to think of tongues as designed by God to function like teaching and prophecy. Tongues, instead, as already noted, is prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. That being the case, what we are hearing when someone speaks in tongues in a public setting is either their intercessory prayers or their worship of God. We should then expect the forthcoming interpretation to correspond to the tongues utterance. Otherwise we have good grounds for questioning if it is a genuine expression of the gift of interpretation.
If the interpretation of tongues is nothing more than prophecy, why bother with either tongues or interpretation if in the end we get what we otherwise, and more easily, would have gotten with a prophetic word alone? I agree that interpreted tongues function like prophecy insofar as they edify and encourage other believers (1 Cor. 14:5). But that is not to say that interpreted tongues are identical with prophecy. The latter would be true only if one assumes (and then proves) that tongues-speech is revelatory.
If what I’ve said is correct, it would suggest that the many so-called “messages” in tongues, ostensibly directed to people in the form of instruction, rebuke, or exhortation, have not, in point of fact, been properly interpreted. The correct equation would not be that tongues + interpretation = prophecy, but rather tongues + interpretation = prayer or praise or thanksgiving.
Having said all that, I should perhaps be more flexible in my understanding of what God can do through the gift of tongues. Is it possible that the Spirit can make use of a spoken word in tongues to convey a message of encouragement, counsel, instruction, or rebuke to another believer, or perhaps several believers? I think we should at least hold open the possibility that this can occur. But in doing so, it’s important that we at least acknowledge that if it happens, it does so without explicit biblical sanction.
I certainly understand and appreciate the concern that gives rise to this question. Often when I begin to pray or sing in tongues, I find myself asking the same question over and over again: “God, I have no idea what I’m saying. Do You? I suppose I can only trust that my utterances make perfectly good sense to You. You are, after all, omniscient!”
People ask me this question about tongues more often than most others. They can make sense of why they pray in their native language. They know what they need and have no problem putting it into words that both they and others would comprehend. But when people are praying in tongues, they have no idea what the content of that speech is. Or do they?
The only way I know to answer this question is to describe my own practice. I don’t have explicit biblical support for this, as if to say Paul or some other New Testament author says the same thing in some epistle. But given what I know of tongues and the nature of God, I think I’m on solid ground.
Before I pray in tongues, I rehearse in my mind—in English!—the many burdens on my heart. I identify people by name. I speak to myself of their needs and the love I have for them. If my heart is weighed down with the suffering and afflictions of people in my church, I try to mentally articulate them, and even on occasion speak them aloud. Of course, the first thing I do is then to pray in English. I may have a long list written down from which I operate. In any case, I pray as clearly and passionately as I can for as long as I can. But almost invariably I run out of energy. I run out of words. I run out of ways to give expression to their needs and my needs. I run directly into the reality that Paul mentions in Romans 8:26—I do not know what to pray for as I ought. I suspect that everyone reading this book, even those who are opposed to tongues in the church today, knows precisely what that feels like. It is frustrating. I often am overwhelmed with a sense of failure and both bodily and emotional weakness. What am I to do?
On the one hand, I put my trust and confidence in what Paul then says in Romans 8. He assures us all that the Holy Spirit happily compensates for our shortcomings and intercedes on our behalf with the Father, perfectly articulating in our place the needs we struggled to find words to express. Praise God for this glorious promise.
But I also respond to this problem by praying in tongues. Here is an example of what I typically say and do:
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the name of Jesus, Your Son and my Savior, and I do so in the power of the Holy Spirit. And I confess that I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t have anything left in my spiritual or intellectual tank. I’ve used all the words I know. My dictionary is depleted! But I believe I need to continue to pray for this person or that circumstance. So, Father, here is my prayer. Here is the working assumption on which I will proceed. I am going to trust the Holy Spirit to grant me words of a heavenly (or angelic) language that perfectly embody and express the inarticulate groanings and shortcomings of my heart. If You have laid these burdens on my heart and have stirred me to pray on behalf of myself and these many others, I will trust the Spirit to take the “mysteries” that I utter, the verbal expressions that I don’t understand, and shape, form, and craft them into the precise requests You enjoy answering. I confess that I don’t know what I’m saying when I pray in tongues. And honestly, Father, sometimes I fear that it might be as nonsensical to You as it is to me. But when that happens, I take myself in hand and rebuke my own soul and preach to my heart with the reminder that this gift You’ve given me is real and powerful and will be used by the Spirit to make known to Your heart what is on my heart. Thank You, Father, for hearing me in words of this heavenly language.
That’s when I launch into prayer in tongues. It doesn’t matter how long or short it may be. But in most cases it extends for a considerable period of time. In fact, almost without exception I find myself praying well beyond the limits of what I could say if I were speaking only in English. I will often be heard (unintentionally) praying in tongues while working at other tasks. I will pray in tongues in the shower, while getting dressed, during breakfast, while driving to work, as I fall asleep on my pillow, and at any and all other times as well. There is never an inappropriate time. And I never seem to run out of physical or spiritual energy to do so. Tongues is truly energizing. I feel exhilarated and refreshed instead of exhausted and depleted. Such is the power of the Holy Spirit when we pray in and through Him and the gift He has bestowed.
So is prayer in unintelligible and uninterpreted tongues in private a spiritually beneficial activity? By all means, yes!
There is one more passage in Paul’s discussion of this issue that should forever put to rest any concern about the substantive and spiritually beneficial blessing that comes from speaking words that one’s own mind does not comprehend. In 1 Corinthians 14:14–17 Paul states without equivocation his determination to both pray in tongues and pray in the language that he and anyone listening could understand. The former he calls praying “with my spirit” and the latter praying “with my mind.” He uses the word mind to convey the idea that he and others could understand what was being said. It’s important, says Paul, that we not only pray with the spirit (i.e., in tongues) but also with the mind.
Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying?
—1 CORINTHIANS 14:16
Now, notice carefully what is happening here. The “outsider” is a visitor to the service. Whether Paul intends us to understand this person to be a Christian or non-Christian is unclear. However, since he envisions this person saying “Amen” to your words of gratitude, it is probable that he has a born-again person in view. He also says this person can be “built up” if the individual could understand what you are saying.
But the primary thing I want you to see is that when you “give thanks” with your spirit, that is to say, in an uninterpreted tongue, you are truly giving thanks! There is substantive content to your words despite the fact that neither you nor the outsider knows what is being said. God knows what you’re saying. God hears your expression of gratitude. But it is far better that when you are in the presence of others in the assembly of God’s people, you “give thanks” with your “mind” so all can hear it, comprehend it, and say “Amen” in response to it.
Paul then adds this critically important statement:
For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up.
—1 CORINTHIANS 14:17
Do you see the importance of this? We are trying to determine whether it is beneficial, helpful, or meaningful to utter words in uninterpreted tongues, words your mind does not comprehend. Here Paul says, in effect, “Yes, by all means it is real and meaningful and substantive. You are truly saying ‘thank You’ to God. You are expressing heartfelt gratitude for all He has done and will do, despite the fact that your mind doesn’t comprehend it.” Don’t race past this verse! When you speak or sing in tongues in your private devotional life, you are truly expressing your appreciation to God for His grace, love, and providential kindness, among other things. Of course, should other people hear you do this in the absence of interpretation, they won’t benefit from it. That would require interpretation. But the fact that they can’t be built up doesn’t mean you can’t! You can, and you are!
So the answer to our question, once again, is yes! Speaking and singing in tongues in private, even without interpretation, is real communication, genuine worship, and authentic gratitude to God!
12. Is tongues also a way to worship God?
The simple and straightforward answer is yes, by all means. We see this from a handful of biblical texts. We’ve already taken note of what happened at Pentecost. There the disciples spoke exuberantly in human languages they had not previously learned and in doing so were heard declaring “the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11). To proclaim the many miraculous and merciful deeds God has done is to worship Him; it is to make known His gracious acts in delivering His people and in preserving them in times of trouble. The psalmist exhorts us to “sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works!” (Ps. 105:2). “We recount your wondrous deeds,” declares Asaph (Ps. 75:1), and he speaks for himself in saying, “I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds” (Ps. 77:12). Such expressions of praise and honor are found throughout the psalms.
This is what we also encountered in Acts 10 when Cornelius and his Gentile companions spoke in tongues. Whether they were “extolling God” (Acts 10:46) in tongues or merely did so in conjunction with their tongues-speech is unimportant. What we see consistently in these texts is that often when one makes use of his or her gift, either the content or consequence of it is the praise and worship of God.
When Paul tells us that the one who speaks in tongues addresses God, not man, this may well include more than prayer. Praise is, after all, no less God-oriented speech than is petitionary prayer. But there can be no mistake about the role of tongues as worship when we come to Paul’s description of his own personal practice. When he states his resolve to make use of tongues despite the fact that his mind doesn’t grasp what is being said, he includes this affirmation: “I will sing praise with my spirit” (1 Cor. 14:15). The word translated “sing praise” is from the verb psallō, which means to touch or strike the strings or chords of a musical instrument. Others render it “to play on a stringed instrument” such as a lyre (or in our day a guitar) or “to sing to the music of the harp.” 1
I’ll address this in more detail later, but for now be it noted that Paul’s gift of tongues took on more than one formal expression. He didn’t merely “speak” in tongues but often would “sing” in tongues as well. What he might say in the course of his prayers, he could as easily set to music and worship God in a more melodious and perhaps even poetic manner. There is, then, no escaping the fact that Paul viewed tongues as one way to sing his praises to God. The question we must now face is whether he believed this could or should be done in the corporate gathering of God’s people, not merely by himself but in unison with other gifted individuals. And if he believed this was permissible, did it require interpretation in the same way he insisted it must when it came to a spoken utterance in tongues? To that question we now turn our attention.
13. Is it permissible for people to sing in tongues in corporate worship?
One question I’m often asked, for which I don’t have a definitive answer, is whether it is biblically permissible to sing in uninterpreted tongues in a corporate setting. Many would immediately say no and point to Paul’s emphasis throughout 1 Corinthians 14:28, “But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God [presumably, in private].”
Of one thing I’m sure. If the corporate gathering in view is an official church service, the point of which is to edify other believers (see 1 Cor. 14:26), uninterpreted tongues is not permissible. This is what accounts for Paul’s demand for silence in 1 Corinthians 14:28. But people will often suggest possible exceptions to this rule. In certain Pentecostal denominations it is almost standard practice for the pastor or worship leader, at some point in the course of corporate praise, to encourage everyone present to sing aloud in the Spirit, that is, in tongues. Rarely if ever is this followed with interpretation. And how could it be? If dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of people are singing in tongues at the same time, it would be utterly impossible for an interpretation of each utterance to be given.
For example, Mark Cartledge, an Anglican theologian and scholar of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, describes his experience at three separate New Wine conferences in the earlier years of the twenty-first century, at which anywhere from five thousand to eight thousand people were in attendance. New Wine is a ministry outreach based in the UK and comprised largely of Anglicans who are committed to the contemporary validity of all spiritual gifts. According to Cartledge, there was typically a time when the worship leader would sing into the microphone in tongues and encourage others to do so as well. “It is interesting to observe,” says Cartledge, “that I have never heard anyone give an audible message in tongues followed by interpretation.” 2 The explanation given to Cartledge for this was that the gathering was too large to facilitate interpretation. Furthermore, the gathering was not a church service but a summer conference at which only believers were expected to be present. Might this, then, be an exception to the otherwise important rule that tongues always be followed by interpretation?
It is not uncommon in Charismatic church gatherings for the person leading worship to occasionally break from the song that all are singing in English (or in whatever language they all typically speak) and begin to sing in tongues on his or her own. No one else does. Sometimes it is hardly noticeable, but in most cases it is obvious what is happening. The leader will typically say that he or she was caught up in the euphoria of praise and very easily and naturally transitioned from singing in English to singing in tongues. Again, though, similar to what happened at the New Wine gathering, there is rarely if ever time given to ask for an interpretation.
What should we say if the gathering is one at which only believers are in attendance? What if the purpose of the meeting is not instruction or exhortation but praise and intercession? One of Paul’s concerns is that uninterpreted tongues will confuse any unbelievers who may be present. (See 1 Corinthians 14:22–23.) But if the meeting is, if you will, a meeting of believers, perhaps even a small-group gathering in someone’s home, that possibility no longer exists. In such settings the unintelligibility of uninterpreted tongues, whether spoken or sung, is no obstacle to achieving the purpose for which people have congregated and therefore would not violate Paul’s counsel.
This is by no means a definitive answer. I also realize it is in large measure an argument from silence. I’m only suggesting that we be cautious about enforcing the rules of 1 Corinthians 14 in contexts that Paul didn’t envision or in circumstances other than those that evoked his inspired counsel. What I’m saying is this. If a meeting was of a decidedly different nature and purpose from that which Paul assumes in 1 Corinthians 14—a meeting, for example, the overt aim and advertisement of which was not the instructional edification of the body, a meeting at which the presence of unbelievers was neither encouraged nor expected—the effect of uninterpreted tongues, against which Paul warns in this chapter, may well be a moot point (and I emphasize the word may). If there was a gathering of Christians exclusively for the purpose of worship and prayer, a gathering in which the circumstances that evoked Paul’s prohibition of uninterpreted tongues did not apply, would the prohibition stand? Perhaps not.