What the New Testament describes
The practice first appears at Pentecost in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit fills the first disciples and they praise God in languages the international crowd in Jerusalem can recognise. Tongues appear again in Acts 10 and 19, each time marking the Spirit's arrival among a new group of believers. The fullest discussion comes in 1 Corinthians 12 to 14, where Paul treats tongues as one spiritual gift among many. There the gift seems less like known foreign languages and more like a Spirit-prompted prayer language: the speaker “utters mysteries in the Spirit”, is personally built up, and should stay quiet in public worship unless someone can interpret.
What it looks like in practice
In a typical Pentecostal or charismatic setting, tongues might surface as quiet murmured prayer during sung worship, as private devotion at home, or occasionally as a spoken-out message followed by an interpretation. It is not a trance. Practitioners describe remaining fully aware and able to start or stop at will; Paul assumes the same when he instructs speakers to take turns. If you visit a Pentecostal church in Britain, perhaps an Elim or Assemblies of God congregation, or a charismatic Anglican church shaped by movements like New Wine, you may hear it. Nobody will expect you to join in.
Where the traditions stand
- Pentecostal. Classical Pentecostal denominations, including Elim and the Assemblies of God in Great Britain, hold that tongues is available to believers today, and many teach it is the initial evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit.
- Charismatic. Since the 1960s the practice has spread into the Church of England, Catholic, Baptist and independent churches. Charismatics value tongues but rarely treat it as compulsory or as proof of anything.
- Cessationist. Some Reformed and conservative evangelical Christians hold that miraculous gifts served to authenticate the apostles and ceased once the New Testament was complete. They are not denying the Spirit; they simply read the evidence differently.
- Catholic and Orthodox. The Catholic Church accepts the charismatic renewal as a genuine work of grace while insisting gifts be tested and ordered. Orthodoxy tends to be reserved, prizing the quieter disciplines of prayer.
- Open but cautious. Probably the largest group in British pews: Christians who believe God may give any gift he pleases, and who are content that this one has not come their way.
What Scripture itself insists on
- Love comes first. 1 Corinthians 13, the famous wedding reading, sits deliberately in the middle of Paul's teaching on gifts: tongues without love is noise.
- Not everyone speaks in tongues. Paul asks rhetorically, “Do all speak in tongues?” and the expected answer is no. It is a gift, not a grade.
- Order matters. Public tongues should be interpreted, and everything done “decently and in order”.
- It is prayer, not performance. The gift is directed to God, for the strengthening of the one praying and, when interpreted, of the church.
Honest questions
- Is it real language? Linguists who have studied glossolalia generally find it is not a known human language, which fits Paul's description of praying with the spirit rather than the mind. Believers would add that its value lies in communion with God, not in syntax.
- Could it be self-generated? Sometimes, no doubt, as with any religious practice. The biblical test is fruit: does the person's life show love, joy, peace and self-control?
- Am I a lesser Christian without it? No. The New Testament's consistent measure of the Spirit's work is Christlike character, not any single gift.
If you are curious
Read 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 in one sitting, then Acts 2. Visit a church where the gift is practised and watch how it is handled; healthy congregations will be unembarrassed but unpushy. And whatever your conclusion, let the doctrine of the Holy Spiritbe bigger than this one question: the Spirit's chief delight is to make Jesus known.