What is the gift of speaking in tongues? Is it for today?

The gift of speaking in tongues is a spiritual gift, given by the Holy Spirit, in which a person speaks words they did not learn and often do not understand. Scripture describes it two ways: as real human languages understood by hearers (Acts 2), and as a form of prayer and praise directed to God that needs interpretation to benefit a gathered church (1 Cor 14). Is it for today? Yes. Scripture nowhere announces an expiration date, and the Spirit still gives gifts to his church as he wills, so we receive this gift with thanks and use it in the order Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 14.

What the Bible actually says about tongues

Tongues first appear on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit fills the believers, and they begin "speaking in other languages" (Acts 2:4). The crowd from across the empire is stunned because each person hears the wonders of God in their own native dialect. Here the gift is unmistakably real human language, a sign that the gospel is breaking out beyond Israel toward every nation.

Paul gives us the fullest teaching in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. He lists tongues among the gifts the one Spirit distributes as he alone decides "which gift each person should have" (1 Cor 12:11). He describes a person with the ability to speak in tongues who is "talking only to God, since people won't be able to understand" without interpretation (1 Cor 14:2). And he sets firm boundaries for public worship: no more than two or three speakers, one at a time, and always with someone to interpret, "so that the whole church can be strengthened" (1 Cor 14:26-28).

Two threads run through it all. The Greek word here is simply glossa, meaning "tongue" or "language." And love, not the gift itself, is the point. Without love, Paul says, even the most dazzling utterance is "a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" (1 Cor 13:1).

Is the gift for today? Yes

Yes. The Spirit who filled the church at Pentecost has not retired, and the gifts he gives remain for the church today.

Paul writes that tongues "will cease" when "the time of perfection comes" (1 Cor 13:8-10). When is that? The next verses answer: "we will see everything with perfect clarity" (1 Cor 13:12), the verse whose footnote renders the Greek literally as see face to face. That is the return of Christ, not an event already past. Until then we know only in part, so the gifts that serve the church in this age remain. Paul even commands, "don't forbid speaking in tongues" (1 Cor 14:39), and he tells the church to desire the spiritual gifts (1 Cor 14:1).

Brothers and sisters who are faithful to Scripture differ on some details of how each gift works, for example whether tongues always accompany baptism in the Spirit. Paul reminds us that the Spirit distributes the gifts as he wills (1 Cor 12:11), and what unites us all is the order of 1 Corinthians 14: edification, interpretation and love.

What about the confusion and the abuses?

Much of the heat around speaking in tongues comes from misuse, and Paul saw it coming. The Corinthians had turned the gift into a status symbol, a spiritual trophy that made the public meeting chaotic and unwelcoming to outsiders (1 Cor 14:23). His correction is bracing: in church, "I would rather speak five understandable words to help others than ten thousand words in an unknown language" (1 Cor 14:19).

A few myths deserve naming. Tongues are not proof you are saved; salvation rests on faith in Christ, not on any gift (Eph 2:8-9). Tongues are distributed as the Spirit decides, not earned or demanded (1 Cor 12:11). And tongues are not the measure of spiritual maturity; the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience (Gal 5:22-23). A quiet servant who has never spoken a syllable in tongues may be far closer to Christ than the most fluent speaker in the room.

What this means for the way we live

Paul's pastoral aim is clear and freeing: pursue the gifts that "strengthen the whole church" (1 Cor 14:12). The Spirit gives gifts not to decorate us but to build others up. So the right question is rarely "Do I have the flashier gift?" but "Am I using what God has given me to serve?"

And we hold our convictions here with grace. A church should neither idolize tongues nor police the conscience of those who seek them. If God grants the gift, receive it with thanks and order it by love. If he does not, you lack nothing essential, for you already have the Spirit himself.

Every true gift points past itself. The same Spirit who came at Pentecost was poured out because Jesus had ascended in triumph (Acts 2:33). At Babel, human language was scattered as judgment on our pride; at Pentecost, the curse began to reverse as the Spirit gathered the nations to hear one gospel in their own tongue. Tongues, then, are a small foretaste of that final day when every language under heaven will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.