It is also used with the second meaning, referring to a specific language which is spoken by a particular people. For example:

" And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood OUT OF EVERY KINDRED, AND TONGUE, and people, and nation; '' (Revelation 5:9)

"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, OF ALL NATIONS, AND KINDREDS, AND PEOPLE, AND TONGUES, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;" (Revelation 7:9)

" And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again BEFORE MANY PEOPLES, AND NATIONS, AND TONGUES, and kings." (Revelation 10:11)

As a matter of interest, the word "glossa" is also used with these two meanings in the Greek version of the Old Testament, known as the LXX. This is not to imply that the LXX is inspired ... it is certainly not inspired! But it shows that the people who translated the Hebrew text into Greek clearly understood the word "glossa" to have these two meanings.

Some examples where the Greek word "glossa" is used in the LXX version include Proverbs 15:2 ("... TONGUE of the wise"), Proverbs 12:19 ("... a lying TONGUE"), Genesis 11:7 ("... go to, let us ... confound their LANGUAGE"), Isaiah 35:6 ("... and the TONGUE of the dumb sing") and Isaiah 66:18 ("... I will gather all nations and TONGUES").

These verses show that these two meanings of the word "glossa" are well recognized.

There are NO OTHER meanings to this Biblical Greek word "Glossa."

The word ALWAYS means either:

1. The literal tongue in the body, the organ of speech; or

2. A specific language which is spoken by a specific group of people.

The word is also used in descriptive expressions, when other things are "COMPARED TO" a literal tongue ... e.g. in Acts chapter 2 where the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit appeared like ... "divided TONGUES like as of fire" (verse 3). But such uses of the word clearly have literal tongues as their reference point.

Translated into modern English the word "glossa" either means "a literal tongue" or it means "A LANGUAGE".

In 1611 A.D., when the KJV was being translated, the word "tongue" was the common word for "language".

Keep in mind that the English language has absorbed and taken up many words from many different sources. In this particular case, both the words, "language" and "tongue", are derived from the same Latin word "LINGUA". The word "TONGUE" has entered the English language by way of the Old High German "zunga" (modern German "Zunge") and the Middle English "tunge" (brought to England by the Anglo-Saxons). The word "LANGUAGE" entered English by way of the Old French word "langue", brought to England by the Normans.

The Anglo-Saxon word "tongue" retained its literal meaning as the organ of speech, in addition to meaning a language (e.g. the Anglo-Saxon TONGUE). The Norman (linguistically French) word "language" was used only with the meaning we are familiar with, i.e. the words used and understood by a considerable community of people.

When we look at the 1611 A.D. King James Version, we see that the translators definitely favoured the Anglo-Saxon word "tongue" over the French-Norman word "language". For example John 5:2:

" Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep [market] a pool, which is called IN THE HEBREW TONGUE Bethesda, having five porches.'' (John 5:2)

Here the Greek word "Hebraisti" is translated as "in the Hebrew TONGUE". In the New Revised Standard Version this word is simply translated as "in Hebrew". Notice that in the Greek text there is actually no word for "tongue".

This favouring of the Anglo-Saxon word "tongue" is also seen by how the KJV translators translated another Greek word in the New Testament. That is the word "DIALEKTOS", from which we get our English word "dialect". The word "dialektos" is used six times in the N.T.. All six of those occurrences are in the Book of Acts. Only once did the translators render this word as "language" (i.e. Acts 2:6); the other five times they translated it as "tongue" (Acts 1:19; 2:8; 21:40; 22:2; 26:14). In the last three of these references this word is used in the expression "Hebrais dialektos", literally "the Hebrew language or dialect".

Keep in mind that this word "dialektos" never refers to a literal tongue. It is a word that specifically means "a language", yet the KJV translators rendered it as "tongue".

The point we should notice: It should be quite clear that when the KJV translators used the word "tongue", to them this word really meant "A LANGUAGE", unless they wanted to refer to a literal tongue.

"SPEAKING IN TONGUES"

Apart from a few brief isolated references, this matter of "speaking in tongues" is only discussed in TWO DIFFERENT CHAPTERS in the New Testament. Those two chapters are Acts 2 and 1Corinthians 14.

"Speaking in tongues" is NEVER referred to in any of the epistles (Paul's epistles as well as the General Epistles) outside of 1 Corinthians. It simply never featured in instructing any of the New Testament congregations, apart from the Corinthians. And THE ONLY REASON why this matter is mentioned in this particular epistle is because THE CORINTHIANS HAD A BIG PROBLEM WITH "SPEAKING IN TONGUES"!

To understand this subject fully, let's first examine all of the isolated references to "speaking in tongues" and THEN we can focus on the places where it is discussed in greater detail ... Acts chapter 2 and 1 Corinthians chapters 12 - 14.

GENERAL REFERENCES TO "SPEAKING IN TONGUES"

Outside of 1 Corinthians and Acts chapter 2 there are only three references to this. Let's examine all three places.

" And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; THEY SHALL SPEAK WITH NEW TONGUES; '' (Mark 16:17)

This statement is only recorded in the Gospel of Mark. In the parallel account in Matthew 28:18- 20 this detail is not mentioned.

What Jesus Christ was saying here is: "... they shall speak with new LANGUAGES". Christ was speaking about "KNOWN LANGUAGES", which were spoken by gentile nations. This was needed in order to take the gospel "into all the world" and to preach it "to every creature" (verse 15). Without preaching in "new languages" they would not have been able to reach other nations.

The next reference to speaking in tongues is:

" FOR THEY HEARD THEM SPEAK WITH TONGUES, AND MAGNIFY GOD. Then answered Peter, " (Acts 10:46)

What happened here was as follows: the Apostle Peter and a number of other Jewish Christians had gone down to Caesarea to the gentile Cornelius and his extended family. Peter and all of the Jews had a racial bias against gentiles. At that point they did not yet understand that God would also call gentiles into His Church. But Cornelius was already repentant and therefore God wanted to make clear beyond any doubt that He would also give His Holy Spirit to gentiles when they came to repentance.

Since Peter would have been reluctant, because of his racial bias, to baptize a gentile, THEREFORE God simply gave His Holy Spirit to Cornelius before baptism ... to settle the question once and for all that God was indeed going to call gentiles into His Church. Giving the Holy Spirit first made it impossible for Peter to refuse baptism, which Peter understood (verse 47).

However, the receiving of the Holy Spirit is not something that is normally physically discernible. THEREFORE, in order to make this quite clear to Peter and to all the other Jews present, God gave these gentiles the ability to "speak with tongues".

What happened here?

That should be quite easy to understand. What would have been the most convincing way for God to show these Jews that He was calling these gentile Romans into His Church? God simply gave Cornelius and the other gentiles involved in this event the supernatural ability to speak fluent Hebrew! Whatever Peter and the other Jews knew about Cornelius, one thing they knew was that this gentile couldn't speak Hebrew ... and certainly not with the correct accent! Therefore, when all these gentiles suddenly started speaking fluent Hebrew and quoting from the Old Testament Scriptures, this was irrefutable proof that God was in full control here.

There was no "interpreting" of any kind needed here. ALL of the Jews in Peter's party ... "HEARD THEM ... MAGNIFY GOD"! All of the Jews present understood every word that these gentiles were saying when they ... "spoke with tongues". It was unmistakable.

The only other isolated reference to speaking in tongues is found in Acts 19:6 :

" And when Paul had laid [his] hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; AND THEY SPAKE WITH TONGUES, AND PROPHESIED. '' (Acts 19:6)

Here Paul had come to Ephesus where he met some people who had been baptized by John the Baptist. Racially these people were Jews who had been in Palestine at some time during John the Baptist's ministry. About 12 men were involved in this incident (verse 7). Upon enquiry Paul found out that these people, although very sincere, didn't even know that there is such a thing as "the Holy Spirit" (verse 2), and therefore they obviously had not received God's Spirit. So Paul explained to them the function of John's baptism, that it was only preparatory to the message Jesus Christ brought. Once they understood this, these people were immediately baptized again, this time on the authority of Jesus Christ (verse 5).

Now this event was about 20 years after they had originally been baptized by John. For the past 20 years of their lives these people had been sincerely trying to live as John had taught them. But they had never possessed God's Spirit. NOW they were baptized again. To encourage these people themselves and to make very clear to them that this was different from what had happened to them 20 years earlier, God gave these people the supernatural ability to speak a different language. Very likely this was also Hebrew. Keep in mind that by the time of the New Testament Hebrew as a spoken language had been replaced by Aramaic. Many Jews no longer spoke Hebrew; they spoke primarily Greek and Aramaic. That would very likely have been the case with these Jews who lived in Ephesus.

Whether it was Hebrew or whether it was some other language in which these 12 men started to speak, they started to "prophesy" (verse 6). This does not mean that they started making prophetic predictions. What it means is that they gave something like "inspired sermons" ... correctly quoting Scriptures (probably in the original Hebrew language in which they had been written) and soundly putting the Scriptures together, in such a way that Paul and his group were left in no doubt that God was indeed working with these men. Also, these men themselves could understand that this was different from what had happened to them 20 years before.

Right, that now leaves us with exactly two sections of Scripture to examine.

ACTS CHAPTER 2 gives a clear description of exactly what happened on the Day of Pentecost in 31 A.D.. This section makes quite clear exactly what is involved in "speaking in tongues", or "speaking in a language other than the one we normally speak".

IN 1 CORINTHIANS the Apostle Paul is addressing MANY problems which existed in that particular congregation. One of those problems was that the Corinthians really desired to speak in tongues. This is something many people there really WANTED to do very badly. And therefore in chapter 14 Paul specifically CORRECTS the Corinthians about this subject.

So now let's look at Acts chapter 2.

THE DAY OF PENTECOST IN 31 A.D.

On the annual Holy Days there would be Jews from all over the Roman Empire in Jerusalem. For many it would have been the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to the Temple of God there.

When the Day of Pentecost came around, the 120 disciples (Acts 1:15) who were the result of Christ's earthly ministry were all gathered together. It was still only around 9:00 a.m. in the morning, the third hour of the day (Acts 2:15).

Suddenly God gave His Holy Spirit to all 120 people in this group. God drew attention to this event by announcing this giving of the Holy Spirit through a mighty rushing wind (verse 2). Then God gave a VISIBLE manifestation in the form of a fire-like divided tongue which sat upon the head of every individual who received the Holy Spirit on this occasion. That was an unmistakable sign to the people involved. Those who received God's Spirit this way KNEW that they had received God's Spirit and they also KNEW everyone else who received God's Spirit at the same time. How long these fire-like divided tongues remained visible is not mentioned. However, it didn't last all that long. They didn't walk around for the rest of the day with this flame sitting on the top of their heads.

Understand this!

The VISIBLE manifestation of the giving of the Holy Spirit was intended as a witness to the 120 disciples themselves! They were left in no doubt that Jesus Christ had fulfilled His promise to send the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). But this visible manifestation was NOT intended as a witness for people at large! To them the visible giving of the Holy Spirit had no particular meaning or significance ... seeing these "flames" on the heads of people would have been meaningless to them.

To the people at large the real witness was THE INSPIRED SPEAKING of these men. It is what Peter and the other Apostles SAID that was a witness to them, as well as THE WAY it was said.

So the 120 disciples received God's Spirit and ...

"And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, AND BEGAN TO SPEAK WITH OTHER TONGUES, AS THE SPIRIT GAVE THEM UTTERANCE. '' (Acts 2:4)

This was a fulfillment of Mark 16:17, which we looked at earlier.

What happened here is that they began to speak in OTHER KNOWN LANGUAGES WHICH THEY HAD NOT KNOWN BEFORE! Suddenly they could speak different foreign languages.

Notice this account very carefully.

There were Jews from all over the Roman Empire, and even from areas outside of Rome's influence, in Jerusalem for this particular Holy Day.

"And there were dwelling at Jerusalem JEWS, devout men, OUT OF EVERY NATION UNDER HEAVEN. '' (Acts 2:5)

They were ALL Jews! But they lived in many different countries. This means that THEIR FIRST LANGUAGE was the local language of the area in which they lived. In addition to this, many would have also spoken Greek, and possibly even Aramaic. For most of these people the language they were most proficient in and comfortable with was the local language of the area where they lived ... this was the language they spoke every day of their lives.

So when these 120 disciples started to all speak in foreign languages, a large crowd gathered very quickly. And because the people in this crowd were fluent in many other languages, they very quickly realized that these men here were speaking in well over a dozen different languages.

Notice verse 6:

Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, BECAUSE THAT EVERY MAN HEARD THEM SPEAK IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE. (Acts 2:6)

This statement is further elaborated upon in the next few verses. But let's be sure we clearly understand what we are being told here.

VERSE 6 TELLS US THAT THERE WAS A MIRACLE IN THE HEARING!

Here we have the very first example ever in the New Testament of "speaking in tongues" ... and EVERYBODY present CLEARLY UNDERSTOOD EVERY WORD that was said, because he heard it in his own native language. Earlier I already mentioned that the word translated as "language" in this verse is the Greek word "dialektos".

THIS IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND!

Here were a group of men "speaking in tongues" (Greek glossa) (verse 4) and the people around them heard them speak in "KNOWN LANGUAGES" (Greek dialektos) (verse 6)!

THIS IS THE VERY FIRST EXPLANATION IN THE NEW TESTAMENT REGARDING WHAT THE SPEAKING IN TONGUES IS ALL ABOUT ... AND IT MAKES CLEAR THAT "SPEAKING IN TONGUES" AMOUNTS TO SPEAKING IN DIALECTS, KNOWN LANGUAGES, "DIALEKTOS"!

The next few verses elaborate on the statement in verse 6. The people could see that the apostles were all Galileans, whose accent was normally easily recognizable.

" And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not ALL THESE WHICH SPEAK Galilaeans? '' (Acts 2:7)

The next verse again is a clear explanation of what is involved in "speaking in tongues". Notice:

" And HOW HEAR WE EVERY MAN IN OUR OWN TONGUE, WHEREIN WE WERE BORN?" (Acts 2:8)

Here the Greek word translated as "tongue" is again "dialektos". This shows us clearly that the King James translators viewed the two words "tongue" and "language" as totally interchangeable ... in Acts 2:6 they translated "dialektos" as "LANGUAGE" and two verses later they translated the same word as "TONGUE". But the Greek word itself clearly refers to known spoken languages.

The next few verses list some of the languages in which people heard the Apostle Peter and the other apostles speaking. These known languages included (see verses 9-11):

• the Parthian language;
• the language of the Medes;
• the Elamite language;
• the language of Mesopotamia;
• the language of Judea;
• the language of Cappadocia;
• the language of Pontus;
• the language of the province of Asia;
• the language of Phrygia;
• the language of Pamphylia;
• the Egyptian language;
• the language of Libya;
• the language of Cyrene;
• Latin, the language of Rome;
• the language of Crete;
• the Arabian language.

Verse 11 sums this list up as follows:

" Cretes and Arabians, WE DO HEAR THEM SPEAK IN OUR TONGUES THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD. '' (Acts 2:11)

Very clearly this was a miracle in the hearing as well as in the speaking. This section also brings out THE PURPOSE for this gift of speaking in tongues. That purpose is to help people understand the truth of God in their own native languages. The purpose is to facilitate understanding!

There is nothing in this account in Acts 2 that justifies any form of speaking gibberish!

Let's summarize this experience that took place on the Day of Pentecost in 31 A.D..

1. The Apostle Peter spoke in a known language. We have his words recorded for us here in Acts 2:14-36.

2. EVERYONE understood every word Peter said ... but people from different geographic areas (where different languages were spoken) SIMULTANEOUSLY heard Peter speaking in the own native languages.

3. These people, in turn, were able to ask Peter an intelligent question (verse 37), to which Peter then gave an answer (verses 38-39). Again, everyone present would have heard Peter's reply in their own native language ... they didn't all just say: "hey, what has happened? Why have you now switched over to speaking Greek or Aramaic?" For the people to suddenly all have only heard Peter speak in Aramaic (or in Greek) would have been an anti-climax; as if the first part had been nothing more than "a show" to entertain people.

4. It is VERY CLEAR from this section that "speaking in GLOSSA (i.e. tongues)" amounts to "speaking in DIALEKTOS (a known language or dialect)". That is evident from comparing verse 4, which uses the word "glossa" with verses 6 and 8, which use the word "dialektos".

5. At no stage in Acts chapter 2 is it implied that the speaking in tongues involved uttering sounds that some in the audience could not understand as clearly known words from clearly known languages. Everyone understood and there was no need for any "interpreters".

Right, this summarizes the "Pentecost experience". Any experience today which claims to be of the same type as what happened back then in 31 A.D. must be evaluated by these same criteria.

This brings us to 1 Corinthians.

SOME BACKGROUND TO 1 CORINTHIANS

In this letter the Apostle Paul corrects the Corinthians for many problems. In fact, the main purpose for this letter was to correct wrong ideas and wrong practices which the people in Corinth held to or practised.

Specifically:

• they had divisions over which ministers to follow (chpts. 1-4);
• they condoned an adulterous relationship (chpt. 5);
• they were taking one another to court (chpt. 6);
• they had questions about sex, divorce and remarriage (chpt. 7);
• the things sacrificed to idols (chpts. 8-10);
• suitable hair-lengths for men and women (11:1-16);
• some kept the Passover incorrectly (11:17-34);
• they desired impressive spiritual gifts (chpts. 12-13);
• some misused the matter of speaking in tongues (chpt. 14);
• some rejected the idea of the resurrection (chpt. 15).

So, apart from the closing comments in chapter 16, the entire letter is devoted to correcting and explaining these ten subjects.

It is helpful to understand that in chapter 14 the Apostle Paul is addressing a specific problem which existed in Corinth. THE WAY Paul explains this subject reveals to us the problem that existed. Further, we should be able to see that Paul's discussion of spiritual "gifts" in general in chapters 12-13 was intended by Paul to lay the groundwork for what he was going to explain in chapter 14.

Written by: Frank Nelte
(Originally titled Should you be "Speaking in Tongues"?)