The gift of Tongues has been a topic of discussion
for the Universal Church since the post apostolic era.
All agree that is was a supernatural gift granted by
God to the apostolic Church, but from the mid of the III century, when it disappeared
or fell in disuse, its appearance has been only occasional and isolated,
generally but not always, associated to dissident movements, like in the case
of Montanism.
Later in history, it reappeared with strength in
revival movements, like with John Wesley, Charles Parham, and William Seymour,
until finally extended to formal Churches like Assemblies of God, Wesleyan Methodist,
or Foursquare Churches; and also in sections of traditional Churches like the
Roman Catholic Charismatic Movement. However, most traditional non-charismatic
Christian churches, reject all supernatural gifts, and specially the gift of Tongues,
or Glossolalia, as useless and false, product of fanaticism.
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT THE GIFT OF
TONGUES
The NT clearly speaks of two different gifts of
speech given by God to his Church.
THE PENTECOST GIFT – ACTS 2:1-6
It occurred only once, at the Jewish Festival of
Weeks (Leviticus 23:16), when the Apostles, the mother of Jesus, and other
disciples, 120 in total (Acts 1:14-15), received the Holy Spirit in themselves
as our Lord had promised them (Acts 1:4-5). This gave the believers the ability
to proclaim the faith in different understandable languages to everyone who
listened to them (Acts 2:5-11), as a testimony that Jesus’s promise was open to
everyone who wanted to listen to it (Acts 2:38-39).
THE PRAYER IN TONGUES GIFT – 1CORINTHIANS
14:1-2
This is an ongoing gift that allows the believer to
pray to God with strange sounds and words (1Corinthians 14:2, 9; Romans 8:26),
which are expressed by the Holy Spirit directly to the Father, by-passing human
understanding, in order that the prayer may not be limited by our own minds
(Romans 8:26).
This gift it is not to be a known human language by
the subject, but it could be an ancient dead language, or angelic dialect (1Corinthians
13:1; 14:9-11), in order to trespass human intellect and not be contaminated by
our own limitations.
For this reason, this gift can have two uses: Personal
prayer, or prophecy.
During personal prayer, the believer prays to God in
private, and does not need to intellectually understand its meaning, but only
feel it (1Corinthians 14:4, 13-14, 28).
During Prophecy, the subject speaks a message in an unknown
language, but it gets interpreted by another person, to express its message to
the whole congregation (1Corinthians 14:5-6, 13, 27).
IS THIS GIFT TEMPORARY?
There are not ‘end of use’ date or sign given in
Scripture about supernatural gifts.
All supernatural gifts, like healing, liberation, or
even prophecy and tongues, were given as a sign to unbelievers and a blessing
to the Church (1Corinthians 14:23-25), and they still play that role today,
until the Second Coming. Only when the ‘perfect comes’, meaning the Kingdom of
Christ, will all supernatural gifts cease, as there will be no purpose for
them, and only Love will remain among the saints and the Trinity (1Corinthians
13:8-10).
But as in all cases, no gifts will be send to those
who have a premeditated attitude of unbelief and rejection; and all prophecies can
be falsified, therefore, they all must be judged under the supreme light of
Scripture.
Omar Flores.
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