Question

In Acts 2:4 and 1 Corinthians 12, it talks about the tongue as a spiritual gift.  My question is, "How is the tongue supposed to be used today, and how can we misuse it?"

Answer

It is very clear in Acts 2, that God gave to the Apostles the ability to speak in languages that they did not know.  As a result, it says, people were hearing in all different kinds of languages, the wonderful works of God.  Now, I believe that the purpose of that gift was to establish the fact that a supernatural presence, a supernatural message, was to be proclaimed.  It call the attention of everyone who was hearing this. 

Some of the people concluded that they were drunk because it was early in the morning, but it collected the people around the phenomena of that wondrous ability to speak in those languages which they didn't know--that was a Holy Spirit miracle.  Then when the crowd was all gathered, Peter stood up and preached in a language that everybody understood and in his own native tongue the gospel of Jesus Christ and 3,000 people were saved and the Church was born.

I see in that then that the tongues were a sign, a sign of the miraculous power of God.  A sign of supernatural presence which drew the people together and made the message that was preached more powerful, more acceptable, more authentic in their eyes.  So, in that occasion we see it clearly as a sign that God was speaking and when God got their attention, then came the message of the gospel.  By the way, if you follow that through, I believe "tongues" probably occurred in Acts 8 even though it doesn't say that, but where you have the church moving out into Samaria, and then in chapter 10, definitely occurred when the church moves to the Gentiles, and then later on in 19, when John the Baptist's disciples were brought into the church, you have it again. 

I believe in the Book of Acts the reason that you have the "tongues" repeated again is because every time the next dimension of people were added to the church it was important that they have the same phenomena so that they would know that they were being added to the same body.  So that the sign given of the Day of Pentecost was repeated at each new phase of the church.

Do you remember that the gospel was to go forth and they were to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the world?  When the gospel came to the Samaritans there was the same phenomena; when it came to the Gentiles there was the same phenomena; when those who followed John the Baptist were brought in, they saw the same phenomena.  Peter came back and reported (you remember) to the council that "on the Gentiles came the same thing that came on us."  So as the Lord built the church they had this same sign, the same supernatural sign so that the Jews would not think that they received something special that Samaritans and Gentiles didn't get.  So, it was a sign gift.

Now you come into 1 Corinthians 12-14, it is still a sign gift but it was being perverted in the Corinthian Church, and I believe that it was being mixed and mingled with a lot of ecstatic speech that was a part of the pagan religion of that day.  It was still (if it was used properly) to be a sign gift. 

Paul, then in 1 Corinthians 12-14 regulates it.  He says how it is to function, he first of all introduces it as a gift in chapter 12.  He tells at the end of chapter 12 that it is an unimportant gift.  In chapter 13 he says "love" is much more important.  In chapter 14 "edification" is much more important.  He says, "Women are never to exercise it.  It is never to more than two or three people.  It's never to be without interpretation."  But it doesn't change the nature of it--it was a sign gift--a sign of the presence of God and a sign that God was about to speak so that when the speaker spoke they would know it was from God. 

In that sense it is a sign that we don't need any more because when a speaker speaks today we know whether he is from God or not by how he is consistent with Scripture.  I don't need "signs and wonders" to attest to a prophet--if he sticks with the Book I know he speaks for God.  But in that day when there was no New Testament to compare him with, God gave, as it says in 2 Corinthians, "the gifts of an apostle, and signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds" (12:12). 

So, "tongues" was a sign gift (and I am giving you a condensed version, again you can get the book on "Tongues."  I hate to keep saying that, but it there available if you want one--pick one up "on me.").  But the gift of "tongues" was a sign gift. 

Now, I believe it has ceased.  I believe that it has passed away.  1 Corinthians 13, "Whether there be tongues they shall...(and it uses a reflective form of the verb) . . . cease by themselves."  I believe when the end of the Apostolic Era came--tongues ceased.  I believe that you can chronicle through the history of the church the cessation of tongues--they didn't exist, except in aberrant forms. 

It was revived in the early part of the 1900's and brought back in as if it were some legitimate gift--it is my conviction that it has no place in the church today--no place.  It was part of the "Signs of an Apostle," such as healing, and the gift of miracles, which I see as "dunamis" (Greek) or the gift of "power"--that is, to cast out demons on the spot--at will.

So, I think that it was one of those temporary gifts that passed away, was used to signify the spokesman for God who were speaking, so that the people would know they spoke for God, which we now know by whether they stick with the Word. 

Now you say, "Now, what is it that people are doing today?"  Well, I think, the people who are speaking in what they call "Tongues" could be explained in many ways:

1.  I think much of it is learned behavior, just learned behavior--they learned how to do it.  They are in a group that does it, in fact, I have heard it in many places around the country, I have listened to it on tape.  When I was working on the book I got involved in studying some of the reports of it, and it is very interesting that much of it is the same language and the same repeated symbols--it is a non-language, but it is very often learned behavior. 

2.  It can also be explained as sort of mental perocisms (sp) where you sort of flip out in a sort of self-hypnotic situations.

3.  Some of it can be demonic.

There are other explanations, but I see that it has ceased from a Biblical viewpoint, and has no function in the church today.