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Praying in Tongues
A Pentecostal Asks a Messianic Evangelical
A. Informal Dialogue Format
(The Pentecostal starts the conversation)
- Do you pray in tongues?
Um, yes, but mostly in only one...
- What do you mean?
Well I mostly pray in English, but occasionally I pray in Norwegian...
- No, I meant do you pray in unknown tongues?
How would I do that if I don't know it? Is there an extinct language or tongue you can speak like ancient Egyptian? And what would be the point unless at least two people speak it? I know God and angels speak all languages, but whenever they have spoken to someone anciently or today it's always been in their own language...like the angel who spoke to Joshua or God to Moses on Mount Sinai, they would have spoken Hebrew...
- No you don't understand my question...do you speak in tongues supernaturally?
Ooooh. No, though I would have liked to. When I was in the Ukraine and Bulgaria as a missionary that would have been really useful but fortunately there was always a translator at hand so I guess it wasn't necessary...
- No, I am talking about the supernatural tongues given to the first believers at Pentecost...
Aaaah you mean all the languages the first disciples spoke supernaturally which they hadn't learned so that Jewish visitors who had come for the feast from all over the Roman empire could understand them...?
- Yes!
No I have never been given that gift...Paul said it wasn't for everyone, just those God had given the gift to. I guess I haven't needed it. But I had a brother in the Anglican Church when he went to communist China in the 1970s to hand out Bibles. He could only spoke English and a bit of school-level French. When he in China, he was blessed to be able to speak Mandarin supernaturally once when on a train trying to communicate to a man who didn't know any English. He didn't at first even know he wa speaking Chinese!
- I am not talking about known languages....
Pardon? All the disciples who spoke supernaturally in tongues on the Day of Pentecost spoke many of the various languages of the Roman Empire. Look here in Acts 2: Parthian, Median Elamite, Mesopotamian tongues, Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Cappadocian, Pontian and the languages of Asia Minor, Phrygian, Pamphylian, Egyptian Cyrenian Libyan, Cretan and Arabic.
- Yes, but I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about all the tongues spoken AFTER the Day of Penetcost...
Ah, you're a Pentecostal?
- Yes!
So you have been given the gift to speak known languages supernaturally when you're evangelising? Like Mongolian or Albanian?
- Not me, personally, no.
Then why do you call yourself a Pentecostal if you aren't reproducing what happened on the Day of Pentecost?
- Some Pentecostals can do that.
Oh, really? How many...what sort of a percentage of Pentecostals?
- I don't know
50 per cent? More? Less?
- Very few.
So only a few Pentecostals are actually 'pentecostal' like my Anglican friend was briefly for a few minutes on one particular day in China.
- Anglicans aren't Pentecostal...they don't speak in tongues, or very few do.
But surely if they are doing what the disciples did on the first Pentecost, that makes them pentecostals? At least sometimes?
- No, no, Pentecostals speak in UNKNOWN tongues.
You speak in tongues that nobody understands??
- Yes!!!!
What would be the point of that? Then how can you communicate?
- We talk to GOD in unknown tongues because HE understands them.
You said 'tongueS' in the plural. There are lots of different unknown tongues??
- I guess...
You guess? If you're speaking in an unknown tongue, and another Pentecostal is speaking in a different unknown tongue, then wouldn't you two know you were speaking in different unknown languages?
- I don't understand...
Well, if I meet someone speaking Mongolian and someone speaking Albanian, I might not understand a word they're saying, but I can tell they're not speaking the same language. Both are unintelligible to me. Both are unknown languages or tongues.
- I'd never really through about that. It doesn't really matter, though, because God understands.
Wait, now I am confused. You say there's more than ONE unknown tongue - 'tongues' - just like there are lots of unknown languages to me on earth. I think there are about 7,000 or so languages here on earth. I can understand two of them well and maybe 5 or 6 partially. But most of them are completely unknown to me. There are 7,140 languages - or there abouts - because there are 7,140 groups of people who speak 7,140 unique languages. So who are the groups of beings who speak all the 'unknown tongues'?
- I don't know, Angels, I guess.
And God? Does He have His own language?
-I suppose so.
Then wouldn't all the angels be able to understand God's language since they're supernatural beings?
- Yes, I guess.
And if they're supernatural, why would there be lots of different angel languages? I mean, the only reason there are lots of human languages on earth is because of rebellion. Isn't that so?
- Yes, that makes sense. But what of the angels who rebelled? Perhaps they were cursed and now speak different languages?
I suppose that's possible although we aren'æt told that God cursed their speech. As far as we're concerned though, they speak all languages. Both faithful angels and rebellious angels speak all human languages, since they are supernatural and have had thousands of years to learn all languages. In every instance of angels speaking to human beings, of both godly and ungodly kinds, they speak in the natural language of the one they're either delivering a message from God to, or if they're demons, lies and untruths.
- Yes, that's true.
Unlike us who have to go through the laborious business of learning different languages, God and angels don't...because they're supernatural beings. So they're a bit different from us.
- Yes, I suppose so. Yes, that's logical.
Do you ever speak to God in English?
- Oh yes, all the time.
Me too. Does He ever answer you in English ... put thoughts into your head in English?
- Yes.
Have you ever had an angel speak to you?
- Personally, no, but I have heard demons whispering into my ear, trying to tempt me?
And did they speak in 'angelese' or in English?
-English.
Me too. I have heard angels speak to me and it's always been in flawless English.
- Yes
So God speaks to you in English in answer to some of your prayers?
- Sometimes, when He speaks audibly.
Right. Same here. So let me ask you another question: when you speak or pray to God in one of these 'unknown language' or 'tongues' which He gives you supernaturally, which He presumably understands, since you're being inspired to speak that way, does He speak back to you in an unknown tongue too?
- Er, no.
Why not? If you're talking to Him in some unknown language, which he has given to you supernaturally, then surely He must reply to you in that language too?
- Um, no, He doesn't....BUT He does enable interpreters to translate back to someone speaking un unknown tongues!
Interpreters??? That sounds very inefficient. Since you're able to speak unknown tongues, then surely you know what He's saying to you and could understand Him responding to you in that same tongue?
- No, He uses interpreters.
All the time?
- Well, sometimes, yes, but not always.
So when you get together with other Pentecostals and several or many or all speak supernaturally in unknown tongues, you don't know what you're saying? And they don't know what you're saying?
- Right
Well, isn't the purpose of a tongue or language to communicate?
- No, this kind of tongue is given only so we can commune with God!
So those who don't speak in unknown tongues can't commune with God? Like a devout Anglican or Baptist or Messianic?
- I didn't say that.
Ok, well, that's a relief because I know LOTS of born-again believers who aren't charismatics who commune with God, get personal and prophetic revelation, and are true Christians.
- Tongues is a private prayer language...
Which you don't understand and which God never speaks back to you in?
- You don't understand. It feels really wonderful and brings joy and peace!
Well, when I pray to God in English and He answers me in English it feels really wonderful too. So why is there a need to speak gibberish?
- The Bible says we are to receive the gift of unknown tongues! So it must be right!
Well, does it specifically say gibberish?
- It says 'UNKNOWN'.
Well, Mongolian is unknown to me, and if someone were to be supernaturally gifted to speak Mongolian, that language would be uknown to Him until an interpreter translated it for him. And even if an interpreter didn't come along, so long as I was ministering the Gospel supernaturally to someone who spoke Mongolian but not English, that would be OK. I wouldn't necessarily need to know, because the purpose would be to convert an unbeliever, not have a casual conversation. That's what 'unknown' means. That's what Paul says, isn't it? It's to communicate a prophetic world so the unbeliever will give glory to God!
- Well, all I know is I have been given this gift and when I pray in it privately I feel close to God and can worship Him in a special way.
Did Jesus ever teach us to pray that way?
- What do you mean?
Well, didn't He teach us how to pray to His disciples...you know, the Lord's prayer? He would have given that instruction in Aramaic (as that's what all the disciples spoke), the four evangelists recorded those instructions on prayer, and then it was translated in the ordinary way by translators over the centuries into thousands of languages over the centuries. A Mongolian can consult a Mongolian translation of the Bible and get Jesus' instruction on how to pray: "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name..." and so on. As I recall, that was a model prayer. It was the ONLY precise instruction He gave on how to pray, though we also have the example of how He prayed to Yahweh in the High Priestly Prayer in the Gospel of John. There was nothing about speaking in an unintelligible private prayer language in either of those two instances.
- Well, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit hadn't been given at that time...that came at Pentecost after He had ascended back into heaven.
You're saying that Jesus wasn't baptised in the Spirit??
- [silence]
You know He was after John baptised him in water. The Spirit descended upon Him like a dove. To suggest that Jesus could say or do ANYTHING imperfectly or not in the fullness is surely absurd.
- Yes, but He never gave them the fullness of the Spirit at that time...
Oh? As I recall, He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Spirit", did He not? So what you say is not true, but I know what you're getting at. He promised them another Comforter in place of Him...His physical presence among them...and that was given at Pentecost. But that was surely the power to effectively EVANGELISE. The disciples all speaking supernaturally in a foreign language on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 was a SIGN that the curse from the Tower of Babel had been reversed. And whilst the gift certainly happened again - the ability to supernaturally speak in foreign languages - and is still with us, it was not a gift given to all believers. It's a gift - a tool - to enable Evangelism when the one witnessing can't naturally speak the language of the one he's witnessing to. Paul says as much, like all the other gifts, such as teaching. It was never meant as a test of faith or an 'extra' baptism. Those who truly believe and are born again, are baptised in the Spirit THERE AND THEN.
Did you know that serious studies have been made on the 'tongues' that Pentecostals speak? Lots of recordings have been made of these 'unknown tongues' you claim is a heavenly language. Most of it is gibberish. It's dissociated speech with no vocabulary, no syntax and no grammer. It isn't what you would call a 'tongue' or 'language' at all. So to call it a 'tongue' or 'tongues' is fallacious. The rest ARE real languages but they're not what you think. Many of the REAL languages spoken by Pentecostals supernaturally are demons cursing local Pentecostal congregations!
- I don't believe you!
You'll find lots of case studies on my website. In fact, I have written more about this particular subject over the years than perhaps any other topic because I think it's important we get to the roots of this phenomenon. I knew of a man who was a Greek scholar and knew his New Testament off by heart. He was, I believe, an Anglican. He decided to test tongue-speaking and went around to various Pentecostal and Charismatic congregations. He would stand, like others in the congregation speaking in 'tongues', and recite a passage of Greek from the Gospel of John. Do you know what happened?
- No, what?
Every time an 'interpreter' stood up to 'interpret', the 'interpreter' got it 100 per cent wrong!
- [shocked expression]
You can't find a better test. You see, when a TRUE, natural tongue or language was spoken (like the koine Greek of the New Testament), those allegedly speaking or interpreting supernatural 'tongues' or 'languages' were confounded. They had - and have - no idea what they are doing. It's all subjective. Now to be fair to SOME Pentecostals, I have heard accounts - admittedly very rare - where someone was VERY EVIDENTLY speaking in authentic supernatural tongues. May I relate one such incident?
- Yes, please.
It occurred in Norway, in the capital, Oslo, in a Pentecostal Church. A Chinese man, an immigrant I believe, wandered quite by chance into a Pentecostal assembly room one Sunday drawn by all the singing. She knew no Norwegian but spoke some English. This was back in the 60's or 70's. The preacher was preaching his sermon in Norwegian, as usual. When the sermon was over, his 6 year-old son told his pastor-father that he has a word from the Lord and asked if he could speak. When his father agreed, he went up onto the stage and started speakinging in some unknown tongue. When the little boy was finished, nobody 'interpreted' him because nobody could. At the end of the meeting the Chinese man came to the pastor and thanked him in English for his sermon. 'You speak Norwegian?' asked the pastor? 'No,' replied the Chinese man, 'I heard the sermon from your son'. 'My son?' replied the pastor, confused. 'Yes,' said the Chinaman, 'your son spoke in perfect Mandarin! How comes he knows my language?' The pastor told him that his son didn't know any Mandarin Chinese and that he must have been speaking in tongues! He had preached to the Chinese gentleman supernaturally in his own Chinese dialect. As a rest of this evident supernatural outpouring, that man accepted Christ and became a believer! THAT, my friendm was true, biblical, tongues-speaking, and it was done by a little boy anointed with the Holy Spirit. A Norwegian brother, who is still alive, and who was a witness to this event, told me about it, and I now relate it to you.
- Wow! Halleujah!
Yes, indeed, Hallelu-Yah! Praise God!
- Wow!!
This does still happen but it is very seldom. I have heard similar stories from non-Pentecostals. The gift IS still exercised WHEN IT'S NEEDED. It was needed on that particular Sunday in Oslo. Father sent that Chinese man into that Pentecostal Church on that particular Sunday so he could hear the Gospel preached in his own language and be saved.
- That's a wonderful story!
Yes, it is! I know a Messianic who had a similatr experience when he was visiting the Caribbean island of Haïti. They speak Creole there, a kind of pidgin-French, and this brother was evangelising there. He turned up at the meeting only to find his interpreter had not arrived. He didn't know what to do. He spoke a little high school French, but Creole sounds nothing like regular French. Creole is a language that has evolved all on its own, a bit like the pidgin English spoken by the Papua-New Guineans. So the brother, after praying to Yahweh for help, began to preach in his broken French in faith. Instantly, the Holy Spirit took over and he began preaching in fluent Creole without him even being aware of it! He thought he was being aided to speak natural French! The congregation was delighted, some visitors were saved, and the believers there were hugely edified!
- Hallelujah!
Yes. I said I would be fair to you and I want to share one other piece of information with you, a verse from the Bible, which confirms what it is that Pentecostals like yourself do when you speak in dissociated speech which is not actually a language or 'tongue' but something more akin to little children making sounds before they can speak properly. May I share it with you? because what you do IS mentioned in the New Testament.
- Sure.
There's a Greek word for the kind of so-called baby-talk 'tongues' that you and other Pentecostals speak but it isn't a word used of languages per se. In Greek, actual languages, whether spoken naturally or supernaturally, are called glossai - I'm sure you've heard of the English word 'glossary' which is a list of words with their meanings. We get that from the Greek. Two different glossai words are used in the New Testament: glossolalia and xenoglossai but they are often used interchangeably. Pentecostals claim that their 'unknown tongues' translates the word glossolalia. In actual fact glossolalia is used in Greek in both religious and non-religious contexts. Paul uses the word commonly in the context of unbelieving Jews.
There is a special word in Greek for speaking unitelligibly as Pentecostals do. All other words refer to structured language, which Pentecostal 'tongues' is proven in most cases not to be. That word is battalogeo. It appears in Matthew 6:7 which reads: "When you pray, don't 'battalogio' like the heathen/pagans". Battagleo means 'stammer', 'stutter' or 'babble' which is what the pagan Corinthians did in Paul's day in their religious rites. You can learn more about the Delphic Oracle from my website. In other words, don't speak giberish or unintelligibly, which Paul says is useless, and he'd rather believers spoke one intelligible prophetic word than a zillion unintelligible ones. If you want to know what Pentecostals are doing when they blabber unintelligible words that mean nothing whatsoever, that's it.
- Are you saying it's demonic?
It can be, yes, or sometimes it's just random natural sounds of the kind used by infants. Either way, it's NOT a 'tongue' or 'language'. If it IS guided by a supernatural power - and it's not my place to generalise but to examine each individual occurrence as and when I encounter it - then it is NOT godly. It's something else, either fleshy or demonic. But it's NOT the 'tongues' exhibited in that story from Oslo I shared with you.
- Are you saying that Pentecostals aren't Christians??
Not those who are born-again, not at all. I'm saying that Pentecostalism, aside from being lawless, is 'Christianity PLUS'. I know lots of fine, born-again Pentecostals who have a genuine, passionate love for Christ, but in opening themselves to so-called 'tongues' are in fact simply opening themselves up to another form of lawlessness on top of their Christian experience. And whilst other believers may reject Pentecostal-like 'tongues' this doesn't mean that 'cessationists' (those who believe the spiritual gifts of the New Testament believers was only for 'then' and not 'now') don't open themselves up to OTHER false, lawless spirits. Any false doctrine, any religious lie we embrace, is opening ourselves up to a false spirit. There are thousands of them in the Body of Christ, alas.
- So why do I feel so good and full of worship when I speak in my private prayer language?
That's not for me to comment on, but for you to test and ask God about, based on what you now know. We are warned to be careful when it comes to being steered by the heart and our feelings. They are not necessarily barometers of truth. And remember it's possible to have all sorts of religious 'highs' that are counterfeit. If it IS counterfeit, then there will be numerous signs that it is, usually of an idolatrous nature. The devil is subtle and crafty. He loves to play on the emotions. Just because something FEELS good doesn't necessarily mean that it is. He can appear like an angel of light. He knows human psychology very well indeed and knows how to exploit our weaknesses.
- Have you ever considered that you might be wrong about 'tongues'?
LOTS of times. It at first baffled me that God could do so many genuine miracles through Pentecostals which I assumed, wrongly, validated their claim to be speaking in authentic 'tongues'. But Father showed me that it was usually their FAITH that enabled miracles to happen through them, remembering also that God does give the GIFT of working miracles to a few and that gift will still operate even if they apostacise. Were I to apostacise I would still retain my gifts because that's what I was BORN with - I didn't get them when I became a believer. That's an important and, I think, frightening key. It means that if I, or a whole denomination even, goes off the Way, the original gifting stll remains. I had a dear brother who was a gifted teacher and who taught me a lot when we walked as brothers. He eventually lost his faith and ended up, tragically, in the occult, but his teaching skills and gifting still remain, though now, tragically, they used to serve darkness.
So, yes, I have most definitely considered that I might be wrong, but each time I have been shown new aspects or angles to this whole question, my testimony has just been vindicated more and more. I DEFINITELY believe in the gift of tongues, just not the way Pentecostals, Charismatics and others understand and practice it.
Main Theological Points
A tongue is a language. A living language is speech which is understood by at least two or more people. A dead language is not spoken by anybody any longer.
I speak in tongues, I speak several languages - English very well, Norwegian quite well, Swedish sort of, German and French a little, and smatterings of other languages like Malay.
Every tongue or language has a vocabulary, grammar and syntax that can be systematically learned or taught. We use language to contemplate the deep mysteries of life.
Animals cannot do this. Humans are the only living creatures that speak a known language of this kind.
When the Bible speaks of 'tongues' or 'languages' it always refers to what I have been saying here. It never means gibberish or nonsense. Just as we in English have various words to describe nonsense sounds (e.g. gibberish, nonsense), so too do Hebrew and Greek.
Whether our native tongue which we know or a foreign tongue which we have not yet learned which may SOUND nonsense to us (in English, we may say, 'It's double Dutch' or 'It's all Greek to me'), that 'nonsense' is, in fact, a true language with vocabulary, grammar and syntax which can be systematically taught and learned. In Greek this is called GLOSSOLALIA from which we get the English word, a Glossary which is a list of words and their meanings or explanations.
Glossolalia NEVER means actual gibberish or nonsense for which there is a special word: BATTALOGEO. Battalogeo has no vocabulary, grammar or syntax. Babies making random sounds or Pentecostals/Charismatics speaking gibberish is BATTALOGEO - they are not speaking LANGUAGES or TONGUES, whether understood or unknown (foreign).
When in Acts 2 the disciples spoke in GLOSSOLALIA on the first messianic Day of Pentecost (Shavu'ot), they SUPERNATURALLY spoke KNOWN (to them) and UNKNOWN or FOREIGN (to them) LANGUAGES or TONGUES for the benefit of believers in Yahweh from all over the Roman Empire. They did not speak BATTALOGEO or GIBBERISH. They were perfectly understood by those whose languages they were speaking. No intepreters were requires because the purpose of speaking tongues supernaturally like that was to convince the listeners that Elohim/God was with the first Christians. And when they did this and spoke PROPHETICALLY at the same time, their listeners were converted to Christ!
The same thing happened in Acts 10:46 to some Gentiles in Caesarea when Peter and some disciples were in the home of a Roman centurion called Cornelius who had invited from friends along. Peter specifically declared that this was what had happened to them earlier, referring to Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 10:47). And though the languages and dialects are not listed in this second supernatural occurrence, that there were several is implied as Caesarea was a Roman garrison with soldiers and administrative staff from all over the Roman Empire who would have spoken a variety of languages in addition to Latin or Greek.
On both occurrences Elohim/God was showing that through the gift of the Ruach haQodesh/Holy Spirit given to the first Christians/Messianics, that He was reversing the curse pronounced at Babel as now all believers could understand one another. Later, in Corinth and elsewhere, Elohim/God called INTERPRETERS to supernaturally translate these various languages/tongues so that the whole of a congregation could be edified by the prophetic pronouncements given in polyglot assemblies such as Corinth. For Corinth was, like Caesarea in Israel, a cosmopolitan Roman colony in Greece. Both were important trading ports.
The gift to speak or interpret foreign languages or tongues, like other listed gifts in Scripture, was given by Yahweh to only a few select believers in a congregation, never to everyone. It was never a 'heavenly language' in the sense that it was a new language no one had ever heard before. It was not a special angel language given to humans either for such was not needed. Angels, as supernatural beings, speak all human languages.
When, one day, heaven and earth converge and unite as one in the RESURRECTION, those who are resurrected will be able to communicate in all languages, naturally, like the angels, and even telepathically. In the Millennium resurrected and unresurrected persons will mingle and many languages still be spoken. But at the end of the Millennium, when the earth is totally transformed, everyone will speak or telepathically communicate one language. No one know what language that will be, nor do we need to know.
If you speak gibberish, whether as a child (mere dissociated speach) or supernaturally (demonic), then in the case of the latter you are speaking falsely. Indeed, you are not, strictly speaking, even 'speaking' - what you are doing is creating disorder and chaos, and Elohim/God is not the Elohim/God of disorder, for "Elohim/God is not an Elohim/God of disorder but of peace, as in all the meetings of Elohim's/God's holy/set apart people" (1 Corinthians 14:33). Because BATTALOGEO is disordered nonsense, most who utter this false 'tongues' cannot control themselves and therefore break Paul's instructions to speak in turns and no more than 2 or 3 people. They all speak together in a mass of anarchy and confusion. They are disorderly and reflect the chaos of hell, not the order of Heaven.
If you are confused about what the Bible teaches about tongues/languages/glossalalia, please see the many articles on the website.
This page was created on 4 January 2025
Last updated on 4 January 2025
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