A real gift of the Spirit, active today, given for prayer and for building people up. Here is what Acts and Paul actually say, and what they never said.
What does the Bible say about speaking in tongues? It says tongues is a genuine gift of the Holy Spirit, first poured out at Pentecost, and it belongs to the church in every generation, including ours.
Paul treats it as prayer to God that builds up the one praying, and in a gathering he wants it interpreted, orderly and ruled by love. He never makes it a badge, and he never tells the church to stop.
Below are the passages behind that, the verse used to argue the gift has ended, and the question that has hurt many believers: do you have to speak in tongues to have the Spirit?
Luke records tongues three times in Acts, and each time it marks a door opening.
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”
Acts 2:4Jews and converts from across the Roman world hear the wonders of God in their own languages (Acts 2:6 to 11). These were real languages, recognized by the people who grew up speaking them.
While Peter is still preaching, the Spirit comes on Cornelius and his household. Peter's companions are astonished, “for they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God” (Acts 10:46). The door stands open to the nations.
They had not even heard there was a Holy Spirit. Paul baptizes them in the name of Jesus, lays hands on them, and “they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:6).
Each scene is a threshold: Jews, Gentiles, and followers of John brought into the full story of Jesus. Tongues in Acts announces one new people with nobody left outside. I have walked through the day of Pentecost verse by verse, and the wider arc is in a summary of the book of Acts.
Luke does not record tongues every time someone believes. About three thousand are baptized in Acts 2:41 with no mention of it, and in Acts 8 Simon sees something happen when the Samaritans receive the Spirit, yet Luke never says what. That silence matters later.
The tongue in your mouth, and by extension a language. It covers both the tongues of fire and the other tongues in Acts 2:3 to 4.
Speech addressed to God that the room cannot follow unless someone interprets (14:2, 14:5).
The word alone does not settle whether every tongue is a human language. Paul's phrase “the tongues of men or of angels” in 13:1 leaves room for more.
Corinth was a gifted, messy church, with people talking over each other and some treating tongues as proof they were more spiritual. Paul answers in 1 Corinthians 12 to 14, and his answer surprises both sides. I unpack the line If love fails it was never love in its own study.
He does not shut the gift down. He puts it in its place, and the place is an honorable one. Tongues sits in a list of many gifts, every one given “for the common good” (12:7). I have laid out that whole list in the gifts of the Spirit.
Anyone who speaks in a tongue “does not speak to people but to God.” They “utter mysteries by the Spirit.” It is prayer that builds up the one praying (14:4).
In the gathering, prophecy is preferred because everyone understands it, unless the tongue is interpreted. Then it serves the whole room.
“I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.” The man correcting the abuse practiced the gift more than anyone.
Two, or at the most three, one at a time, with someone interpreting. With no interpreter, the speaker keeps quiet in the church and speaks to himself and to God.
“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”
1 Corinthians 14:39 to 40Hold both halves of that sentence. A church that forbids tongues has disobeyed the first half. A church where tongues becomes a show or a pressure point has disobeyed the second, and without love it is only a clanging cymbal (13:1). The private side, praying with the spirit in 14:14 to 15, has its own page on praying in tongues.
Paul regulated tongues. He did not retire it. Prayer to God in private, interpretation in public, and love over all of it.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
The best known argument that tongues has ended comes from 1 Corinthians 13. Here it is at its strongest.
“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.”
1 Corinthians 13:8 to 10The King James puts verse 10 as “when that which is perfect is come.” Many sincere cessationist teachers read it this way: the gifts were partial revelation, “the perfect” is the completed New Testament, and once the canon was finished tongues and prophecy stopped. Some add that the gifts confirmed the apostles and ended with them. Not every cessationist leans on this verse, but this is the version most people have heard. I answer the wider system in cessationism.
“The perfect” is the finished Bible. Once Scripture was complete, the partial gifts were switched off.
Two verses later Paul says what he means: now a reflection in a mirror, then face to face; now I know in part, then “I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (13:12). No book does that.
Perfect, complete, mature, full grown. In 13:10 it stands against what is “in part.”
A chapter later Paul uses the same word for grown up thinking, where the NIV says “be adults.” His picture in 13:11 is a child becoming an adult, not a missing book arriving.
Sound of Heaven holds that every gift of the Spirit is active today, tongues included. The canon reading of 1 Corinthians 13:10 is wrong. Paul is not setting a date for gifts to stop. He is telling a proud church that its gifts are partial and its love is permanent.
We have to be honest in the other direction too. We hold that the end of the age came in the first century, with the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 as its covenantal climax. Some who share it argue AD 70 was “the perfect” and the gifts ended then. We reject that. The gifts belong to the new covenant age that Pentecost opened, and that is the age we live in. Peter said the promise was “for all who are far off” (Acts 2:39). The covenant transition did not close the door Pentecost opened. It confirmed it.
Paul's measure is plain: partial knowing gives way when we know fully, even as we are fully known. Until then, the partial gifts are still in your hands.
History agrees. Irenaeus, writing in Gaul around AD 180, said “we do also hear many brethren in the Church, who possess prophetic gifts, and who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages”. The gift outlived the apostles.
In 1 Corinthians 13:12, how does Paul describe what completeness will be like?
Paul defines completeness himself: face to face, knowing fully. That describes knowing God, not owning a finished book, which is why the canon reading struggles with the very verse that explains it.
Here are the main answers, stated fairly.
Many Pentecostal churches teach that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a distinct experience after conversion, and that tongues is its first outward sign. The Assemblies of God states that this baptism is witnessed by “the initial physical sign of speaking with other tongues”. The case rests on Acts 2, 10 and 19.
Many Spirit filled believers hold that tongues is a good gift worth asking for, but not the required sign. They point to 12:30, “Do all speak in tongues?” and to the Spirit who “distributes them to each one, just as he determines” (12:11).
Tongues belonged to the apostolic generation and has ended. Every believer receives the Spirit at conversion, with no outward sign expected.
The Pentecostal view deserves more respect than it often gets. It noticed what much of the church had forgotten: in Acts, when the Spirit came on people, others could tell.
Where it overreaches is in turning a pattern into a rule. Luke describes three scenes with tongues and others where he names nothing, and Paul expects the answer no when he asks whether all speak in tongues. Any case built on what Luke does not say is an argument from silence, in either direction.
Here is where Sound of Heaven stands. Tongues is good and worth seeking, and we pray for people to receive it. Paul wrote, “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues” (14:5), and we would too. We do not make it the test of whether someone has the Holy Spirit, and we never use it to rank anyone. Romans 8:9 says that anyone who belongs to Christ has the Spirit of Christ. For more, see the baptism of the Holy Spirit and when you receive the Holy Spirit.
Some of you were told you were not really filled, or not really saved, because you had not spoken in tongues. Some were pressed at an altar until something came out. That was not the Spirit's way, and it was not your failure.
You are not a second class believer. If you want this gift, ask freely, with no deadline and no audience. Jesus said the Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13). If it has not come yet, nothing is wrong with your faith.
Paul spoke in tongues more than anyone, yet in church preferred five intelligible words to ten thousand in a tongue (14:18 to 19), which suggests much of his praying in tongues was private. Praying in the Spirit in your car on the Northern State or at your kitchen table is exactly what 14:2 describes.
When a tongue is spoken to the whole room, someone interprets so everyone can say amen (14:16). With no interpreter, the speaker prays quietly to God (14:28).
Paul warns that if everyone speaks in tongues and outsiders walk in, “will they not say that you are out of your mind?” (14:23). Nobody is coached, rushed or put on display, and the first time guest is kept in mind.
That is the pattern we hold ourselves to. If you would like to see it, plan a visit.
Freedom in private, order in public, and love as the measure of both.
Every time tongues shows up, it points somewhere else. At Pentecost it points to Jesus, raised and exalted, pouring out the Spirit He promised (Acts 2:33). In Caesarea it points to a Savior for the nations. In Corinth, Paul points it past itself to love, “the most excellent way” (12:31).
Tongues is not the goal. Jesus is. A church that speaks in tongues without looking like Jesus has missed Paul's point.
If you have this gift, use it with love. If you want it, ask without fear. If it was pushed on you, you are welcome here as you are.
For related reading, see who the Holy Spirit is, what prophecy is in the Bible and what we believe, and if you would like someone to pray with you, send a prayer request.
Tongues is a real and present gift of the Spirit, given as prayer to God and, when interpreted, as a word for the church, never to be forbidden, never a test of anyone's faith, and always under the rule of love.
Curious, hungry for the gift, or sore from how it was handled elsewhere? Send a question or a prayer request and someone at Sound of Heaven will reply.
The Bible presents speaking in tongues as a real gift of the Holy Spirit. It first appears at Pentecost in Acts 2, where believers spoke known languages, and again in Acts 10 and 19. In 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 Paul describes it as prayer to God that builds up the one praying, to be interpreted when spoken aloud in a gathering. He says do not forbid it, and practice it in order and in love.
Yes. Sound of Heaven believes every gift of the Spirit is active today, tongues included. The gifts belong to the new covenant age that Pentecost opened, and that is the age we live in. Paul's instruction in 1 Corinthians 14:39 is do not forbid speaking in tongues. Reading 1 Corinthians 13:10 as the completed Bible does not fit Paul's own explanation, which is seeing face to face and knowing fully.
Not necessarily. Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 12:30, "Do all speak in tongues?" and the question expects the answer no. The Spirit distributes gifts as He determines. Yet Paul says he would like every one of them to speak in tongues, so it is worth asking for. Classical Pentecostal churches teach tongues as the initial sign of Spirit baptism. We encourage people to seek the gift, but we do not treat it as the test of whether someone has the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 2 the disciples spoke languages the crowd recognized, so no interpreter was needed. In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul describes tongues that no one present understands without interpretation, spoken to God rather than to people. Paul's phrase about the tongues of men or of angels in 13:1 leaves room for tongues that are not any known human language, which is why many see two expressions of one gift.
Yes. Paul writes that anyone who speaks in a tongue speaks to God and utters mysteries by the Spirit, and that it builds up the one praying. He says he will pray with his spirit and with his understanding, and he thanks God that he speaks in tongues more than all the Corinthians. Private prayer in tongues needs no interpreter, because it is addressed to God.