Yes. Speaking in tongues both in Acts and 1 Corinthians was the supernatural ability to speak in earthly foreign languages not learned by the speaker. It was not a heavenly devotional prayer language nor ecstatic speech. It is often argued by many tongues-speakers that tongues in Acts involved languages, but the tongues in 1 Corinthians were ecstatic supernatural prayer language. With this conclusion they try to justify their tongues which are not languages. There is no difference between the tongues in Acts and in 1 Corinthians – both were the gift of languages. Several indications in the text gives unmistakable insights into what is meant by tongues. Please look at the evidence presented and evaluate them carefully.

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1. The Greek word glossa (“tongue”) is used 20 times in 1 Cor.12-14. It is always used of a language or speech. When it occurs in the plural form glossai it denotes different languages (1 Cor.12: 10, 28, 30:  “various kinds of tongues,” meaning, different languages). Paul compares tongues to real languages. “There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of languages in the world, and no kind is without meaning” (1 Cor.14:10). The Greek word genos, translated “kinds” denotes a family, a nation, a race, a kind, sort or class (W.E. Vine, Complete Expository Dictionary, 342-43). The reference here is to language families or groups (e.g. there are many kinds of fish, but they are all fish. There are many kinds of languages/tongues in the world, but they are all known languages. The Holman Christian Standard Bible consistently translates glossa in Acts and 1 Corinthians as “language,” making the actual meaning clearer).

 

2. The word dialektos in Acts 2:6 also indicates languages or dialects (the word dialektos occurs about six times in Acts and in each occurrence it refers to a known language or dialect). A list of foreign languages that were spoken also are mentioned in Acts 2:9-11. The tongues in the book of Acts were not meaningless utterances, but they were means of conveying a meaningful message – “in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God” (Acts 2:11). “….each of us hears them in his own native language” (Acts 2:8, NIV).

 

3. In Mark 16:17 when the Lord said “they will speak with new tongues” the reference is to the ability to speak in earthly foreign languages not previously learned - languages totally “new” to them. The fulfillment of the Lord’s prediction took place fifty days after the resurrection – on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2). In Acts 2:4 “other tongues” mean they spoke in languages different from the normal language they were used to. “The new tongues,” kainos, of Mark 16:17 are the “other tongues,” heteros, of Acts 2:4. These languages, however, were  ‘new’ and ‘different’, not in the sense that they had never been heard before, or that they were new to the hearers……they were new languages to the speakers, different from those in which they were accustomed to speak” (W.E. Vine, Complete Expository Dictionary, 430-31).

 

4. Paul states that tongues need to be “interpreted” (1Cor.14:5, 13). Why did Paul always connect the gift of tongues with the gift of interpretation? Because the gift of tongues is the gift of languages and it needs to be interpreted in order to clarify what was said. “Interpretation of tongues” definitely suggests translation of a real, known language; to translate from one language to another. Only meaningful language can be interpreted.

 

5. Paul’s quotation of Isa.28:11-12 in 1 Cor.14:21 uses the word heteroglossois (“strange tongues”). In the context of Isaiah, the “strange tongues” refer to the actual language of the Assyrians, Israel’s captors. 1Cor.14:22 (“tongues are for a sign”) proves that the Corinthian tongues were also similar to the Isaiah tongues quoted in 14:21, namely REAL LANGUAGES.

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6. The Greek verb laleo (“I speak”) is used several times in 1 Cor.14 (2, 4, 5, 6, 13, 18, 23; see also 1 Cor.12:30: “speak with tongues”). Laleo means to speak or converse in intelligible terms; yes, to speak in a language. The word is never used for mere sound or noise. Nor is it used of unintelligible gibberish. In Acts 2:4, 10:46 and 19:6 (the three occurrences of tongues in Acts) Luke uses the exact same term for speaking in tongues. It is the same word used in Mark 16:17 (“they will speak with new tongues).

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7. The word eusemon (“easy to be understood,” “clear,” “distinct”) used in 1 Cor.14:9 (“speech that is clear”) primarily denotes distinct, clear to understand speech. Paul reminded the Corinthians that they have a responsibility to speak understandably and clearly for the edification of the church. “For you will be speaking into the air” (14:9b) – if your speech is not intelligible you will lose all the qualities of effective communication. Don’t simply produce a noise or sound. I wonder whether the Corinthians were trying to imitate the gift of tongues by producing some muttering or mumbling, just some unintelligible noises.

 

8. Tongues consists of words; it was not gibberish or speaking of unclear syllables. Listen to what Paul said: “……I desire to speak five words with my mind…….rather than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Cor.14:19). Tongues were rational utterances. Words communicate meaning. It is essential for meaningful communication. A word (logos) is “a word, saying, or rational utterance of the mind…..being as the correlative of reason” (R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, 312).

 

9. Luke and Paul were co-workers. Paul does not say that the gift of tongues in Corinth was different from that experienced on the Day of Pentecost and other instances in Acts. Likewise, Luke who wrote Acts (A.D.61-62) 5 years after Paul wrote 1 Corinthians (A.D.55-56) did not indicate that there was a difference between the tongues in Acts situation and the one in Corinthian church. Many people erroneously assume that 1 Corinthians was written long after Acts and the tongues mentioned in Corinth is different as it is from a later period in church history. Absolutely wrong! Tongues throughout Acts (A.D.33-62) were real languages and 1 Corinthians was written during the same period (A.D.55-56). If the tongues in Acts and Corinth were different, the Holy Spirit would have somehow indicated it through the inspired writers. Luke and Paul used the same exact terminology for tongues as there was no essential difference between the tongues in Acts and Corinthians. All the available evidence in the NT suggests that Luke and Paul regarded tongues as meaningful and intelligible languages. They did not classify them into different categories.

 

10. In the Book of Revelation the word “tongues” is mentioned in relation to the earthly human languages associated with the various nationalities and races (5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15).  In Mark, Acts and Corinthians “tongues” has exactly the same meaning. It always means a language. There is no reason why anyone should change the meaning.

 

11. The early Church Fathers and the Reformers understood the gift of tongues as the supernatural ability to speak genuine foreign languages that the speaker had not learned.

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12. The earliest Pentecostals believed that the gift of tongues is the supernatural ability to speak in genuine foreign languages.  Charles Fox Parham (1873-1929), the “Father of the modern Pentecostal Movement” was convinced that the biblical gift of tongues consisted the ability to speak in languages the speaker had never learned. Agnes Ozman, a student at Parham’s Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, was the first to speak in tongues. She reportedly spoke in the Chinese language and she also claimed that she wrote in tongues (see John MacArthur, Strange Fire, 19-28).

 

13. The addition of the word “unknown” which is found six times in 1 Cor.14 (“unknown tongue” (2, 4, 13, 14, 19, 27) in the KJV is without support in the original text. Please note that the word “unknown” is in italics, which means that it does not occur in any Greek manuscript but was supplied by the translators. Paul did not write that the tongue is unknown. Did the KJV translators add the word unknown, knowing that a language unknown to the speaker was meant? Anyway, a language cannot be unknown to everyone.

 

All the exegetical, contextual and historical evidence leads me to this conclusion – the tongues in Acts and in Corinthians are the same, real languages. All the usage of “tongues” both in Acts and Corinthians refer to the ability to speak in genuine foreign languages the speaker had not learned. There is no warrant for changing the meaning of tongues in 1 Corinthians from its meaning in Acts. Scriptural and linguistic evidence establish beyond doubt that real languages are meant by the word “tongues.” The gift of tongues was the ability of some (not all) believers to speak in authentic foreign languages which they previously had not learned (The NIV margin adds “languages or other languages) in Acts 2:4, 11; 10:46; 19:6 and throughout 1 Cor.12-14).

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Understanding the gift of Tongues as human languages was the predominant view even among the early Pentecostals. They also believed that this was a miraculous gift given for world evangelization. But since the so-called tongues exercised by those who claimed to have this gift did not correspond with any known languages, they were forced to give another explanation of two types of tongues - one consisting of languages and the other a devotional prayer language for self-edification. This seems a very artificial distinction without any biblical warrant. The Bible nowhere makes tongue-speaking anything other than known languages. Even the Charismatically lenient theologian Wayne Grudem finds this conclusion obvious and unavoidable. “In the New Testament passages where speaking in tongues is discussed, the meaning “language” is certainly in view (Systematic Theology, 1069).

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Historically, the Church has always believed that the gift of tongues is the supernatural ability to speak in foreign languages previously unlearned by the speaker. It is the modern Charismatic movement that has concluded through an experiential theology that the gift of tongues encompasses something other than speaking in genuine foreign languages. This may be because they could not prove that the “modern tongues” consist of real languages. The theory of private prayer language is suspect because it is subjective and there is no objective guideline to test and verify it. Anyone can speak in unintelligible gibberish and also imitate it. People in cultic groups and false religions also speak in gibberish.

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W.A. Criswell makes a very important observation about tongues from the history of the church. “In the long story of the church, after the days of the apostles, wherever the phenomenon of glossolalia has appeared it has been looked upon as heresy. Glossolalia mostly has been confined to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But wherever and however its appearance, it has never been accepted by the historical churches of Christendom. It has been universally repudiated by these churches as a doctrinal and emotional aberration” (Quoted by John MacArthur, Strange Fire, 137).