The Gifts of the Holy Spirit: - Vital Christianity

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THE GIFT OF TONGUES
(GLOSSOLALIA)
(I Cor. 12:10,28,30; 14:2-5, 27-28,34-35,40)
Purpose: Edification of the church (and personal edification)
Definition: ‘The special ability that God gives to certain members of the body of Christ to
speak to God in a language they have never learned and/or to receive and
communicate an immediate message from God to His people through a divinelyanointed
utterance.” 85
Description: The capacity to speak in a language one has never learned. It was not always
used in the apostolic church as the vehicle of preaching to people of other
languages, but rather as a channel of direct worship and adoration.
History: Tongues per se is not necessarily of God. Tongues have occurred in non-Christian
contexts in both the past and the present. The earliest account, produced about 1100 B.C. in
Byblos on the Syrian coast, describes Wenamon, a young worshiper of the pagan god Amon.
While Wenamon was sacrificing to his gods, Amon seized him, possessed him and made him
produce frenzied speech.Both Plato (427-347 B.C.) And Vergil (70-19 B.C.) mentioned similar
phenomena involving glossolalia (glossa—“tongues,” or “language” and laleo—to speak). Such
ecstatic phenomena have also occurred among Muslim dervishes in Iran. Eskimos in Greenland
and pagans of Tibet and China. Tongue has been and is also a part of the worship of the Mormon
cult. 86
Comparison between the glossolalia of I Corinthians and that of the Acts of the Apostles:
I Corinthians
Acts of the Apostles
1. Tongues understood only when interpreted No interpretation evident or needed
(14:28) (2:1-13)
2. Purpose is edification of the assembly and/or Purpose is validation and confirmation
the person speaking (14:13-19,26-27)
of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
(2:1-16; 10:44-48;19:1-6)
3. No special circumstances involved (ch 14) Occurred in special circumstances—
on the day of Pentecost and when an
extension of Pentecost was needed
(2:1-13; 10:44-48; 11:15-18)