Tongue

"Tongue" in Scripture names the physical organ of speech and, by extension, human speech itself and the language a people speaks; in the New Testament it also names a gift given by the Holy Spirit. The underlying words carry the same range: Hebrew lashon and Greek glōssa both mean the organ, and both are used for speech and for a language or people-group, so context rather than vocabulary decides which sense is meant.

The wisdom literature treats the tongue chiefly as a moral instrument. Proverbs says that in a multitude of words there is no lack of disobedience, while the one who restrains his lips does wisely (Proverbs 10:19); that he who spares his words has knowledge and is even tempered (Proverbs 17:27); and that whoever guards his mouth and his tongue keeps his soul from troubles (Proverbs 21:23). The claim in these verses is not that speech is bad but that it is consequential, and that restraint is a form of understanding.

The same word marks the divisions and the gathering of humanity. Isaiah 66:18 pictures a time when God will gather all nations and languages and they will come and see his glory, and Revelation 7:9 describes a countless multitude out of every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and the Lamb. In the New Testament the tongue is also the vehicle of the Spirit's action: at Pentecost those filled with the Holy Spirit began to speak with other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability (Acts 2:4), a pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh that Peter reads as the prophecy of Joel (Acts 2:16–17) and as the work of the exalted Christ who has poured out what was seen and heard (Acts 2:33). Paul lists different kinds of languages among the Spirit's gifts, alongside the interpretation of languages (1 Corinthians 12:10), and again among the roles God has set in the assembly (1 Corinthians 12:28).

Christian traditions differ most on that gift. Pentecostal and charismatic churches hold that tongues continue as Spirit-given speech, often distinguished between a private devotional use and a public utterance that requires interpretation. Reformed and other cessationist traditions hold that such gifts belonged to the apostolic era and have ceased, while many evangelicals read the tongues of Acts 2:4 as recognizable human languages given for mission. On the ethical teaching about the tongue in Proverbs, and on the vision of every language gathered before the throne, these traditions broadly agree.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.