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What Does the Bible Say About..Disproving Speaking in Tongues?

Give me scriptural proof against "Speaking in Tongues"

Answer

I can't give you scriptural proof against "speaking in tongues." I can, on the other hand, show you scriptures that show that people spoke in tongues.

I must point out that when the Bible talks about speaking in "tongues" it is talking about speaking in human languages that the speaker did not learn in the normal way. It does not refer to speaking in some unidentifiable language or string of linguistic gibberish. Read, particularly, Acts 2, which is the first recorded instance in the Bible of the phenomenon. There it explains that each person who heard the apostles heard their own language, not some unknown and unknowable language.

The modern concept of "speaking in tongues" is generally that of ecstatically stringing together a bunch of syllables from one's own language and calling it an unknown language. Linguists have pointed out that such a tongues speaker never uses syllables from any language except those with which he is familiar. That is, a native English speaker who knows Russian may combine English and Russian sounds to make his "tongue," and a speaker of Swahili and Arabic may combine those languages, but they never use sounds not common to one of their known languages. If it is a truly different language from God there should be sounds either from no known language or from some other human languages unknown to the speaker.

I must also point out that Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 that speaking in human languages that the speaker gained miraculous knowledge of was to end when "that which is complete" had come. Grammatically he could not be talking about Christ's return, the judgement, or heaven. Most likely he was talking about the completion of the New Testament scriptures, what James 1:25 calls the complete law of liberty.

It is easy to determine from the scriptures when the gift of speaking in tongues ended. In Acts 8 we find that Philip was unable to pass on the miraculous gifts that he had received by the laying on of the apostles' hands. In verse 18, the writer points out that the gifts could only be passed on through the laying on of the apostles' hands. Therefore, the gift of speaking in tongues would necessarily die out less than a generation after the death of the last apostle. Unless there is a 2000 year old apostle running around laying hands on people without their knowledge, the gift of speaking in unlearned human languages no longer exists today.

To recap the scriptures:
Acts 2: speaking in tongues was speaking in understandable human languages
1 Corinthians 12-14: the gift existed, but was to be done away with sometime before Christ's return
Acts 8:18: the gift could only be bestowed by the laying on of the apostles hands, and so ended about 1900 years ago.

You are so wrong and I totally disagree.

The Bible says, "That this promise is for you and your children and for as many as the Lord our God shall call."

Let me ask you a question has God stopped calling people? No He has not!

The Book of Acts is the only Book in the Bible that does not come to an official closing---we are living the 29th chapter of Acts and Speaking in Tongues is very real today.

Jesus is the Holy Ghost Baptizer not Paul and He my friend is the Same yesterday, today and forever!

Answer

If you "totally disagree" with me, does that mean you are claiming that nobody in the New Testament could speak in tongues, since I said they could? If, on the other hand, you don't "totally" disagree with me, then perhaps you may be open to answer some questions that I pose below.

The passage you quote, Acts 2:39, says nothing about speaking in tongues. The promise that Peter had just made (verse 38), was "Every one of you repent and be immersed in the name of Jesus Christ for remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The promise was the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Grammatically, this is most likely to be interpreted as "the gift which is the Holy Spirit." This is the gift of the indwelling of the Word of God, not the "gifts" (plural) of the spirit that Paul writes about in 1 Corinthians. Not everybody was promised those gifts, and they did not automatically accompany immersion. This is obvious from Acts 8.

If the book of Acts has no official closing, then neither do any of the other historical books of the Bible because history is ongoing. Neither does the book of the Revelation, because Christians are living in the New Jerusalem, the church, today. (And yes, there are even those among the churches of Christ who will disagree with that interpretation of the Revelation.)

I do not, and have never denied, that speaking in tongues, in the modern sense, is very real today. I have seen it. What I have not seen is speaking in unlearned human languages, as described in the New Testament. If that kind of speaking in tongues is very real today it raises some important questions. First, by what process does one become blessed with the gift, since the apostles all died almost two millennia ago and only they could bestow the gifts (Acts 8)? Second, why do people put so much emphasis on what Paul deemed the least important of the gifts and not desire instead the other gifts, such as prophecy or healing? Third, can someone be saved and never possess the gift of speaking in tongues, as was true in the New Testament, or are you adding a requirement for salvation that was never included in the New Testament writings?

I agree that Jesus is, as you put it, the Holy Ghost Baptizer. I never claimed Paul was. But just because Jesus is the one who immersed in the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with whether people speak in tongues today. That immersion appears to have happened only two times, at least as recorded in the Bible. It happened to the apostles on the Pentecost after Jesus' ascension. Peter says it did not happen again for ten years. After it happened to Cornelius, Peter said, "Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost." (Acts 11:16) If it took ten years for him to be reminded of the words of Jesus on the matter, apparently it had not happened again in that ten years. So the immersion in the Holy Spirit was not something that happened to everyone when they were immersed for forgiveness of sins. If, as you seem to claim, everyone was to be able to speak in tongues, then it has nothing to do with the promise of immersion in the Holy Spirit. (Since it happened once when the Jews first entered the church and again when non-Jews were brought in, it would appear that it does not need to happen again since there are no other groups to bring in.)