Few subjects divide Christians like speaking in tongues. Some believe the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit ended with the apostles. Others believe they are for today. Even among those who believe they are for today, there is a difference: charismatics generally do not hold that tongues are the initial physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, while Pentecostals do.
Citylight Church is a Pentecostal church, and it holds that doctrine. But before asking what tongues are and what they do, three things need to be said clearly.
Three Things Tongues Are Not
Tongues are not required for salvation. Some teach that a person must speak in tongues to be saved. That is not true, and it comes dangerously close to heresy. Salvation is by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Never having spoken in tongues does not mean you lack the Holy Spirit. At the end of John’s Gospel, Jesus “breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22), yet the disciples did not speak in tongues until after He ascended. Everyone who believes the gospel is “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13). A helpful way to say it: there is an indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit that every believer receives at salvation, and an empowering ministry that comes with the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Tongues are not for a select few. The public sign gift of tongues with an interpretation is not necessarily for everyone. But the ability to pray privately in a language the Spirit knows is for every believer.
What Is Speaking in Tongues?
The story begins at Pentecost. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4).
People have long debated whether the disciples spoke real human languages or the kind of prayer language many Pentecostals know today. The rest of Acts 2 gives some clues.
Pentecost was one of the busiest feasts of the year in Jerusalem. Whatever happened in that room was loud enough to stop a crowd. Yet “each one was hearing them speak in his own language” (Acts 2:6), and they understood the content: “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11).
Try it with a room full of people. Ask everyone to shout the name of a different TV show at once, and you get noise. Ask everyone to shout the same show, and anyone can understand it. If a crowd of disciples had all been speaking different human languages at the same moment, the people below would have heard a jumble. One way to read Acts 2, then, is that the hearers were given understanding of what they heard: the first instance not only of tongues, but of tongues and interpretation.
Notice the second reaction too. “But others mocking said, ‘They are filled with new wine’” (Acts 2:13). Hearing a foreign language rarely makes anyone think the speaker is drunk. What the mockers heard did not sound like any language they knew.
Paul points the same direction. In the middle of his teaching on spiritual gifts he writes, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). And “one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 14:2).
Whatever the language, the more important question is what happens when a believer prays this way.
Tongues and Power
Before He ascended, Jesus promised, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). He promised power. When the Spirit came, what the disciples received was tongues. There is a real connection between praying in the Spirit and the power God gives for life and service.
Three Things Praying in Tongues Does
1. It connects you to the Holy Spirit’s intercession. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Whether or not that verse describes tongues directly, the principle is the same: there are things in your life you do not know how to pray for, and the Holy Spirit prays for you better than you can pray for yourself.
2. It bypasses the mind. “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful” (1 Corinthians 14:14). Prayer can feel like filling out a perfect report every morning, trying to think of every need and every angle. Praying in tongues takes that mental load off of you and places it on the Holy Spirit.
3. It builds you up. “The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:4). Some things happen in the gathered church. Others happen in the prayer closet. The present, active ministry of the Holy Spirit strengthens the person who prays.
Do You Need It?
You do not need it to be saved. You can go to heaven without it. But if there is any area of your life you want to see grow, you need the ability to pray in the Spirit.
That does not mean God is waiting to punish clumsy prayers. Paul says, “I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also” (1 Corinthians 14:15). God is merciful when we do not know how to pray as we ought.
Still, the way we pray matters. Jesus said, “whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). The Holy Spirit can pray precisely into needs you cannot see. You can pray for your children to know the Lord. The Spirit can pray against the very influence that is pulling them away.
Openly Spirit Filled
Citylight Church describes itself as openly Spirit filled: not obscurely, keeping the Holy Spirit tucked away in a side meeting, and not obnoxiously, either. Everything that happens around the gifts of the Spirit must build up the whole church. If you visit, you may hear someone near you praying quietly in tongues. That is part of who the church is.
If you have never received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, or you have struggled to receive, or you have felt disqualified, hear this: it is for you. You need it, and you can have it.