Should Christians Speak in Tongues? Three Kinds of "Tongues" in the New Testament

Few topics in the New Testament generate more confusion — or more heat — than "speaking in tongues." For some readers it conjures images of orderly missionary work; for others, ecstatic worship services; for others still, something best left unexamined. And underneath it all sits a centuries-old question: do gifts like this still happen today, or did they belong only to the earliest church?

Here's a clue that often gets missed. Much of the confusion comes from a single translation choice. So before we touch the debate, let's start with the word itself.

"Tongues" Just Means "Language"

The English word tongues sounds archaic and a little mysterious. But the Greek word behind it — glōssa — simply means "language." (The longer term scholars use, glossolalia, is built from it.) That's worth pausing on, because the strangeness we feel is partly a quirk of older English. When the New Testament talks about "tongues," it's talking about languages.

That single observation does a lot of work. It takes some of the mystique off the topic and lets us read the relevant passages more plainly. And once you read them side by side, something interesting emerges: the same word is doing more than one job.

In fact, a careful reading suggests the New Testament uses glōssa in at least three distinct ways. Distinguishing them is the key that unlocks much of the debate.

Three Uses of One Word

1. A Sign at Pentecost — Languages as Proof and Bridge

The first and most famous appearance comes at Pentecost, in Acts 2. The believers are filled with the Spirit and begin to speak:

"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 (ESV)

What follows tells you exactly what kind of "tongues" these were. A crowd from across the Roman world gathers, astonished:

"...And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians — we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." — Acts 2:8–11 (ESV)

This is known human languages — Parthian, Median, the rest — spoken by people who hadn't learned them. The effect was twofold. It served as a sign that something extraordinary was happening, and it communicated the message across a language barrier. Picture someone raised in one small rural town suddenly speaking fluent languages from a dozen distant regions. The miracle authenticated the speakers and carried their words at the same time.

You might call this the "sign" use of tongues: real languages, given for a moment, both to point to God's work and to spread it.

2. An Interpreted Gift in Gathered Worship

The second use shows up in Paul's letters to the church in Corinth — a congregation that, by all accounts, did a lot of this and not always wisely. Here, tongues appears as a gift exercised in the assembly, but with a crucial condition attached: it must be interpreted.

Paul lays out the rule plainly:

"If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God." — 1 Corinthians 14:27–28 (ESV)

The logic is about the good of the whole gathering. An unintelligible utterance, however sincere, doesn't help anyone who can't understand it — so Paul insists that in public worship it be paired with interpretation, so the church is actually built up. This is why he caps the whole discussion with a principle worth memorising: "everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way" (1 Corinthians 14:40).

3. A Private Prayer Language

The third use is the most debated, and it's where readers often dig in on both sides. Within the same chapter, Paul seems to describe tongues not as public proclamation but as private prayer:

"For 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 (ESV)

And a few verses later:

"For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful... I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue." — 1 Corinthians 14:14, 18–19 (ESV)

Read those two statements together and a tension appears. Paul says he does this more than the famously expressive Corinthians — yet in church he'd rather say five words people understand than ten thousand they don't. So where is all that praying happening? The natural answer is: not in the public assembly, but in private.

Some readers connect this to two other passages. In Romans, Paul describes the Spirit helping us pray beyond our own words:

"...the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." — Romans 8:26 (ESV)

And Jude offers a brief instruction:

"But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit..." — Jude 1:20 (ESV)

On this reading, a private prayer language is what happens when someone is so overwhelmed by what they're praying for that ordinary words fall short — and the result strengthens their own faith. It's worth saying clearly: thoughtful Christians disagree about whether these passages all describe the same thing, and we'll come back to that humility in a moment.

The Big Debate: Did the Gifts Stop?

This brings us to the question that hovers over the whole subject. Broadly, there are two camps.

Cessationists hold that gifts like tongues, prophecy, and healing were tied to the era of the apostles. They functioned as "sign gifts" that authenticated the apostles' authority and message; once the apostles died and the New Testament was complete, the argument goes, these gifts ceased (hence the name).

Continuationists hold that these gifts continued past the apostolic age and remain available to the church today.

Notice how the three uses we've traced sharpen this debate rather than settling it. If "tongues" at Pentecost was a one-time, sign-bearing event, that's different from a private prayer language described as ongoing in Corinth. People can land in different places partly because they're weighing different uses of the word. Reading the passages carefully doesn't end the disagreement — but it does make it a more honest one.

A Word Worth Sitting With

There's one verse that both camps have to reckon with, and it cuts against treating the topic as settled:

"...do not forbid speaking in tongues. But all things should be done decently and in order." — 1 Corinthians 14:39–40 (ESV)

That pairing is striking. Paul refuses to ban the practice — and he refuses to let it run wild. The posture he models is a balanced one: neither shutting the gift down nor letting it create chaos.

It's a helpful frame for anyone trying to navigate this. When spiritual gifts get abused, people tend to swing to one of two extremes — disorder (anything goes) or denial (shut it all down). Paul's letters chart a third path: discernment. Verse 40 guards against disorder; verse 39 guards against denial.

Two Clarifications the Text Offers

A couple of further details help keep the picture accurate.

First, the New Testament doesn't present tongues as a universal mark of every Christian. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul asks a string of rhetorical questions, each expecting the answer "no":

"Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?" — 1 Corinthians 12:29–30 (ESV)

Whatever one concludes about the gift, Paul's own framing is that it isn't given to everyone.

Second, the Bible offers more than one indicator of the Spirit's work. Some traditions treat tongues as the sign of being filled with the Spirit. Others point out that the book of Acts repeatedly links the Spirit's filling to something else entirely — bold witness: "you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses" (Acts 1:8). These are the kinds of distinctions sincere readers continue to weigh.

Holding It Honestly

So, should Christians speak in tongues? The honest answer is that faithful, Bible-loving people have reached different conclusions — and the New Testament itself uses the word in ways flexible enough to fuel the conversation. What the text does seem to ask of us is care: to notice that "tongues" can mean a Pentecost sign, an interpreted gift for the gathered church, or a private language of prayer, and not to flatten the three into one.

Whether you're a lifelong Christian wrestling with your own tradition's view, a seeker trying to make sense of a confusing topic, or simply curious about what these ancient texts actually say, the same posture serves well: read the passages closely, hold your conclusions with humility, and let the distinctions do their work. The goal isn't to win the argument — it's to understand the text on its own terms.

Curious how a particular verse fits the bigger picture? That's exactly the kind of question worth bringing to your next study session.