What Does it Mean to “Speak in Tongues”

To another divers kinds of tongues. That is, the ability to speak in languages previously unknown to the speakers. The nature of this gift is determined by the account given in Acts 2:4-11, where it is said, the apostles spoke “with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance;” and people of all the neighbouring nations asked with astonishment, “Are not all these that speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born?” It is impossible to deny that the miracle recorded in Acts consisted in enabling the apostles to speak in languages which they had never learnt. Unless, therefore, it be assumed that the gift of which Paul here speaks was something of an entirely different nature, its character is put beyond dispute. The identity of the two, however, is proved from the sameness of the terms by which they are described. In Mark 16:17, it was promised that the disciples should speak “with new tongues.” In Acts 2:4, it is said they spoke “with other tongues.” In Acts 10:46, and 19:6, it is said of those on whom the Holy Ghost came, that “they spake with tongues.” It can hardly be doubted that all these forms of expression are to be understood in the same sense; that to speak “with tongues” in Acts 10:46, means the same thing as speaking “with other tongues,” in Acts 2:4, and that this again means the same as speaking “with new tongues,” as promised in Mark 16:17. If the meaning of the phrase is thus historically and philologically determined for Acts and Mark, it must also be determined for the Epistle to the Corinthians.   Continue at Eric T. Young

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