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“What About Glossolalia? ”
(Mark 16:14-18 )
I. Introduction.
A. It is common for people to use biblical passages out of
context to justify their particular beliefs, and to be selective
in what they take from a passage to uphold, or deny, what
they feel is correct or not. So it is with Jesus’ words in
Matthew 16:17-18.
1. First, we must recall to whom these words were
spoken, and about whom the words refer. Verse 14
says: “Later He [Jesus] appeared to the eleven as
they sat at the table;. . .” The reference, here, is to
the apostles (minus Judas Iscariot, who was now
dead). Jesus’ words are directed, specifically to
these men, and Jesus commissions them to:
“. . . ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature.’” (verse 15).
2. The same group of eleven receive the “signs” that
will be for those who believe.
3. Beyond this, the “new tongues” of verse 17 are but
one of five such signs named in verses 17 and 18.
If a person claims this spiritual gift on the basis of
these words, then they should also be able to claim
the other four gifts mentioned here: to cast out
demons, to “take up serpents,” to be unharmed by
drinking poison or “anything deadly,” and to lay
hands on those who are ill, and heal them.
4. If you were going to claim one of these miraculous
gifts, why can’t you claim all of them?
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5. The book of “Acts” shows us the fulfillment of this
promise in the miracles done by the apostles
(Acts 2:43: “. . . and many wonders and signs were
done through the apostles”), and also done by those
to whom these gifts were given by the laying on of
the apostles’ hands.
B. These “wonders and signs” were given for a very specific
purpose: to confirm the truth of the words they spoke to
convict people of sin and lead people to obey the gospel
and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior
(Read Mark 16:20). They were not given as evidence of
the “baptism of the Holy Spirit,” or any “higher
experience” that made people more special, and more
spiritual, than their fellow-Christians. In fact, where in this
passage is the Holy Spirit even mentioned?
C. How, then, do we evaluate “glossolalia,” the term for
speaking in tongues? The word is a combination of two
Greek words meaning, literally, “to speak with the
tongue.” What did this represent in the early history of the
church? To what kinds of languages (“tongues”) does it
refer? Should we still seek such a gift today?
D. Modern glossolalia is based upon serious doctrinal error.
Those who teach it, and uphold it for people today, base
their beliefs on three foundations:
1. That Christian “completeness” comes only with the
reception of the Holy Spirit as a separate experience
after one is convicted and becomes a child of God.
2. That speaking in tongues is the initial evidence that
a person has received the Holy Spirit.
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3. And, that every Christian should greatly desire to
receive the “baptism of the Holy Spirit,” and expect to speak in tongues as a result of this “higher
experience.”
E. How do you counter such belief? With the only valid
source of information on all things spiritual: the Bible.
II. The Bible And Glossolalia.
A. What does the Bible tell us about glossolalia? Let’s start
with three points:
1. Completeness is in Christ. The indwelling of the
Holy Spirit is the result of a person’s being “in
Christ,” and we receive that common gift (that is,
the one all penitent believers have) at baptism
“into Christ.” Paul speaks to this in Colossians
(read Colossians 2:8-10). Dividing Christians
into those who have only Christ and those who
have the Spirit in addition to Christ, by a
separate, and supposedly greater, faith, demeans
both Christ and His work of redemption for all
mankind. In accepting this division of Christians
we take the focus away from the cross and place it
upon an experience some have and others do not.
2. Second, the tongue-speaking found in the Bible
(specifically in “Acts”) was not given as evidence
of certain peoples’ greater spirituality, but for a
different purpose.
a. It indicated the approval of God at different
points in the progress of the gospel and the
growth of the church.
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b. On Pentecost, tongues were one of three
“signs” (wind and fire the others) which
marked the beginning of the new covenant
and drew people together to hear the gospel
(Acts 2:5-6; read).
c. At Caesarea, God made known the inclusion
of the Gentiles as part of those saved by grace (Acts 10:47: “ ‘Can anyone forbid
water, that these should not be baptized who
have received the Holy Spirit just as we
have?’”).
d. At Ephesus, tongues marked an end of the
ministry of John the Baptist. It came upon
the Ephesians only as the result of Paul’s
laying hands on the twelve who had just
been baptized into Christ (Acts 19:4-7).
e. In each case, the miraculous ability to speak
in tongues was given to groups of people,
not to individuals who themselves sought
such a power, and the speaking was in an
intelligible language then in current use.
And, there were other “signs” besides
speaking in tongues.
f. There is no indication in “Acts” that such
signs were to be regarded as permanent, and
there are references to the presence of the
Holy Spirit without any indication that
speaking in tongues was a part of it
(Acts 4:31; 7:55; 9:17; 13:52).
3. Third, instead of teaching that every Christian
should expect to speak in tongues and that
something is lacking in one’s spiritual life with-
out this “sign”, the Bible teaches just the opposite.
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a. Paul emphasizes that every Christian has the
Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 12:13: “For by
one Spirit we were all baptized into one
body – whether Jews or Greeks [Gentiles],
whether slaves or free – and have all been
made to drink into one Spirit.”) Verse 10 of
I Corinthians 12 tells us that people received
different “gifts” from God in that early
church. Not everyone had the same gift
(or gifts) of the Spirit: No one should be
made to feel inferior because he or she
doesn’t have any particular gift
(I Corinthians 12:15-16).
b. Based on the evidence of Paul’s statements
in I Corinthians 12, we cannot maintain that
speaking in tongues is a necessary evidence
of the reception of the Holy Spirit, or that
only those who exhibit such a gift have the
Spirit.
B. The modern emphasis upon tongue-speaking is really based
upon a thoroughly non-biblical foundation. If the base for
something is wrong, then how can the experience itself be
valid?
III. The Nature Of Modern Tongues.
A. Pentecostalism today views glossolalia primarily as a
special “prayer language” which, in their words,
“bypasses the mind” and is not understood by the speaker.
One Pentecostal writer, Dennis J. Bennett, says that,
“speaking in tongues enables a person to speak or pray to
God without interference from any human source,
including himself, without the mind or emotions or will
intruding into the picture.”
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B. It is maintained by those who believe in modern tongue-
speaking that glossolalia is a real language, but that it may
be an “ancient dialect,” or an “untranslatable dialect” of the
language. But, doesn’t this contradict Paul’s insistence on
both rationality and intelligibility?
(Read, I Corinthians 14:7-16).
C. Glossolalia, its advocates maintain, is superior to ordinary
language in prayer precisely because it does not involve the
mind. As one wrote: “What blessing can it be to pray
when you have no idea what you are praying about?” His
answer: “Actually this is one of its greatest blessings –
the fact that it is not subject to the limitations of your
human intellect.” (Larry Christensen, cited in “The Holy
Spirit In Today’s Church,” Erling Jorstad, ed.).
1. But, this in itself raises serious questions. How can
we even know we are praying to God, if we are not
involved with our own mind? And, how can we be
sure we are praying acceptably to God if we,
ourselves, don’t know what we’re praying?
2. How can we ever be sure that our prayer does not
fall into a category Paul addressed in
I Corinthians 12:3: “Therefore I make known to
you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls
Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is
Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”?
3. When Jesus taught His disciples about prayer, He
said it should be both thoughtful and meaningful:
“And when you pray, do not use vain [meaningless]
repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that
they are heard for their many words” (Matt. 6:7).
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4. Following the model of prayer Jesus gave to His
disciples (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4), does not
permit us to abandon a vital part of our being (the
mind), but requires the whole of our being to
participate. Jesus did not teach that we simply were
to have God, the Spirit, substituting for us, praying
to God, the Father. The Father desires the prayers
of human beings offered to Him.
5. When we consciously come to God, humbled with
the knowledge of our own need and God’s
greatness, and we struggle to express our reverence
and need to the Father, we are praying as Jesus
taught. This is real spirituality, not a strange
collection of sounds of which we, nor anyone else,
has any understanding.
D. The glossolalia of today is a pseudo language, made up of
new sounds put together without meaning and imitating the rhythm of real language. It’s no more valid or understandable than other “made
up” languages – such as magical incantations, or the “pretend language” of children
at play.
1. If the tongues spoken today are actual languages (as
was definitely true on Pentecost), or can be
interpreted (as Paul spoke of in I Corinthians), then
modern interpreters should be able to agree on the
meaning, or modern hearers should be able to
understand what is said by their own knowledge of
a language.
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2. As an experiment to test these ideas, John Kildahl
(“The Psychology Of Speaking In Tongues,” 1972)
played tape-recorded examples of glossolalia for
several people who claimed to have the gift of
interpretation. He found that, “in no instance was
there any similarity in the several interpretations
given by the interpreters who claimed to do a literal
translation of the tongue-speech.”
a. One interpreter said a certain example of
glossolalia meant the speaker was asking for
help in deciding whether to accept the offer
of a new job, while another said the speaker
was giving thanks because he’d recovered
from a serious illness.
b. When confronted with these contradictions
for the same instance of tongue speaking,
the interpreters said that God had given
them different interpretations of the same
speech. The one speaking, as usual, had no
idea what the “words” meant.
IV. Conclusion.
A. If modern glossolalia is not to be believed, and if the Bible
is our source and guide on all spiritual matters, then what
does Paul mean in I Corinthians 14:39, when he says,
“Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and
do not forbid to speak with tongues.”?
1. This statement, first, shows that tongues, as
discussed in I Corinthians 12 and 13, were, in
the first century, a genuine gift of the Holy Spirit,
able to convey real spiritual ideas and capable of
being interpreted (I Corinthians 14:5).
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2. Because of problems arising over the misuse of
tongues, some in Corinth were possibly trying to
suppress them altogether. Paul says, in his
discussion of spiritual gifts, they should neither
be sought, nor forbidden.
3. Today, we are not forbidding people to do what
Paul permitted when we deny the validity of
modern glossolalia. Unlike the tongues of his time,
present-day tongue-speaking has no content.
Instead of forbidding people to use a genuine
spiritual gift, we are trying to persuade them not to
engage in self-delusion.
B. But, based upon I Corinthians 13:1, could the tongues of
today be the language of angels?
1. Paul does not say that he, or anyone else, ever spoke
in the “tongues . . . of angels.”
2. What he says is that “if” (though) he had the gift of
speaking all languages, human and angelic, but did
not have love, it would only amount to so much
noise.
3. In the Bible, whenever angels are recorded as
speaking to people, what was said was always
intelligible. If the glossolalia, today, is the language
of angels, since those who claim this gift speak
differently from one another, does this mean, then,
that every angel has a different language as well?
When tongues “cease” (I Corinthians 13:8), will the
language of angels also cease (the glossolaliasts say
this will happen when Christ returns)?
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C. We simply cannot escape the fact that the tongue-speaking
of Pentecost was of actual languages spoken at the time. It
was not mere noise, or sounds, or something like speech.
Nor can we overlook the fact that, after Pentecost, all such
speaking was able to be interpreted so that people would be
edified by the use of the gift. (“For God is not the author of
confusion but of peace, as is all the churches of the saints.”
I Corinthians 14:33).