One of the things that I constantly marvel over in today’s
New Testament church is the widespread confusion over Tongues. The Apostle Paul
wrote in his first letter to the church at Corinth:
“Now concerning
spiritual gifts, brethren, I do
not want you to be ignorant.” 1
Corinthians 12:1 NKJV
I find it so interesting that the very thing that the
Apostle Paul said that he did not want the church to be ignorant about; seems
to be the very thing that most people in the church are ignorant about. When I
was attending Rhema Bible Training Center in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma back in the
80’s Rev. Kenneth E. (Dad) Hagin used to tell us that there were two reasons
for this ignorance:
1.
No Teaching
2.
Poor Teaching
If we have no teaching on a subject, we will be ignorant on
that subject. If we have poor teaching on a subject, we will also be ignorant
on that subject. Both are bad, and both are prevalent in the church today
regarding Tongues.
It has been my observation over the last thirty-seven years
since I was first filled with or baptized in the Holy Spirit at fifteen years
of age, that most of the confusion stems from the fact that most folks don’t
recognize or understand that there are two different manifestations or
operations of Tongues in the New Testament:
1.
Your
Prayer Language (what I call ‘Private Tongues’) – used in prayer and
worship for your benefit. (Special note
this type of Tongues can also be interpreted)
2.
The Public
Gift of Tongues (what I call ‘Public Tongues’) – which must be interpreted
by either you or someone else who has the “Gift of the Interpretation of
Tongues”.
Let us first deal with your prayer language or ‘private
tongues’:
“And they were all
filled with the Holy Spirit and began to
speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Acts 2:4 NKJV
“For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but
my understanding is unfruitful. What is the
conclusion then? I will pray with
the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also
sing with the understanding.” 1
Corinthians 14:14 & 15 NKJV
In Acts chapter two on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy
Spirit was first poured out fulfilling Joel’s prophecy and beginning the Church
Age we see that it says speaking of those that those who were gathered in the
upper room who were obedient to the Lord’s command in Luke 24:49 to wait to be
endued with power by the Promise of the Father; “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance.”
Notice that this manifestation of Tongues that these folks
displayed has no mention of any Interpretation. Now if Tongues always needs to
be interpreted to be in order by the teaching of some; then these folks who
birthed the church were out of order. Now if we take the account in context we
will find that they were speaking of “the wonderful works of God.”
So this was a manifestation of Tongues that was not
interpreted and was used to give glory to God. If we look at what Paul said in
1 Corinthians chapter fourteen we find that the Apostle Paul is talking about praying
in Tongues…then he calls it Praying with the Spirit and Singing with the
Spirit.
Notice that Paul said that when I pray in a Tongue, my
spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful, or does not understand what I
am saying. One of the lies that the enemy has used against praying in Tongues
goes something like this: “Well that is just gibberish; you don’t even know
what you are saying.” WELL DUH! Paul clearly stated that I would not understand
what I was saying when I prayed in Tongues, but that my spirit was praying. Sometimes
I think this translation of this verse can help us in our understanding:
“For if I pray in an
[unknown] tongue, my spirit [by the Holy
Spirit within me] prays, but my mind is unproductive [it bears no fruit and
helps nobody].” 1 Corinthians 14:14
Amplified Bible
Notice in the Amplified it brings out that my spirit by the
Holy Spirit in me prays. So even though our mind may not have understanding of
what we are praying, we are praying by the Holy Spirit within us. Notice this
was first manifested in Acts chapter two when the Holy Spirit was poured out.
Also notice Paul’s conclusion in verse 15: “What
is the conclusion then? I will
pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing
with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.”
Paul said that he would pray with the spirit, (tongues) and
pray with his understanding as well as sing with the spirit (tongues) and sing
with his understanding. Notice that Paul made this determination which means
that he controlled both operating by tongues that which he did not understand
as well as operating from his understanding. From our text in Acts we see that
it was the Spirit who gave the utterance, but the individual believers were the
ones that did the actual speaking, or we could say the Holy Spirit gives the
ability to operate this way but we must still open our mouth and give voice to
that prompting within us. It does not say that the Holy Spirit spoke…they did.
Paul did not say that the Holy Spirit prayed, he said that he prayed by the
Holy Spirit (enabling him).
Now we will deal with the Public Gift of Tongues:
“…to another the
working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of
tongues.” 1 Corinthians 12: 10
NKJV
“In the law it is
written: ‘With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people;
And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,’ says the Lord…How is it then,
brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things
be done for edification. If anyone
speaks in a tongue, let there be
two or at the most three, each
in turn, and let one interpret. But if
there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak
to himself and to God.” 1
Corinthians 14: 21, 26-28 NKJV
In these two texts of Scripture we find Paul giving
instruction on the Public Gift of Tongues. Notice here in both texts it
stresses the importance of the Tongue being Interpreted (special note that it is an interpretation not a translation, which we
don’t have time to teach on here) where when the Prayer Language was talked
about there was no such mention. So it is imperative that any Public Message
given in Tongues MUST BE INTERPRETED! Tongues & Interpretation working in
tandem equal the Gift of Prophecy…Tongues & Interpretation of Tongues does
it in two steps; Prophecy does it in one step.
Did you notice that Paul quoted Isaiah 28:1 saying that God
would speak to men through this Manifestation or Gift?
“For with stammering lips and another tongue He will
speak to this people.” Isaiah
28:11 NKJV
God chooses to speak to men through this Public Gift of
Tongues. Whenever we come together Paul says that everyone should participate with
something to share and that some would have a Tongue and some would have an
Interpretation. Again he stresses that if there isn’t an Interpreter the
message in Tongues should not be given. A
Mike Rule…NOT a Bible Rule is: “If you can’t give the Interpretation yourself…Don’t
give the Message!” If this was adopted it would solve a lot of issues and
problems.
The last point I want to tackle regarding the Public Gift is
where it speaks of two or at the most three and each one in turn. Most who
teach this interpret it to mean that there should only two or at the most three
messages in Tongues in a particular meeting. Allow me to submit to you
contextually that is an incorrect interpretation. All the through this whole context
Paul is speaking about people using words like ‘each one’; so why would he all
of sudden shift his focus from people to the number of messages? I submit to
you that he is speaking in terms of two or three people allowed to give
messages; there is no limit to the amount of messages, and each one in turn
with it being Interpreted.
Finally, this is by no means an exhaustive study on the two
different manifestations of Tongues. There is much more that could be shared,
but the purpose of this Blog was simply to try and remove some of the confusion
that is so prevalent in the Church regarding Tongues because folks are trying
to make the rules that apply to the Public gift to the Prayer Language and vice
versa. If we could just those two things we will go a long way towards eliminating
the confusion over Tongues.
