TONGUES (the gift)

Tongues is a gift of speech that the New Testament lists among the assembly’s gifts as “different kinds of languages” and “various kinds of languages” (1 Corinthians 12:10, 28). Linguistically, the Greek word behind “tongues” is glōssa, whose ordinary sense is “tongue” or “language”; the plural in these passages is translated “languages.” The text places the gift alongside workings of miracles, prophecy, healings, helps, and governments (1 Corinthians 12:10, 28), and asks, “Do all speak with various languages? Do all interpret?” (1 Corinthians 12:30). One way to read that question is as expecting the answer no: not every member receives every gift.

The text says, “He who speaks in another language edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the assembly” (1 Corinthians 14:4), and Paul writes, “Now I desire to have you all speak with other languages, but even more that you would prophesy. For he is greater who prophesies than he who speaks with other languages, unless he interprets, that the assembly may be built up” (1 Corinthians 14:5). The stated aim is corporate edification: “seek that you may abound to the building up of the assembly” (1 Corinthians 14:12), and when the church comes together, a language and an interpretation belong among the psalms, teaching, and revelations so that “all things be done to build each other up” (1 Corinthians 14:26).

The gift also has a devotional dimension in the text: “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also” (1 Corinthians 14:15). Publicly, the contrast with prophecy is sharp: if all prophesy and an unbelieving or unlearned person enters, “he is reproved by all, and he is judged by all” and “the secrets of his heart are revealed,” so that he worships God and declares “that God is among you indeed” (1 Corinthians 14:24-25). The letter also sets an end to the gift: “Where there are various languages, they will cease” (1 Corinthians 13:8).

Christian traditions differ over how to read these texts. Cessationist traditions commonly take “they will cease” in 1 Corinthians 13:8 as indicating that tongues ceased with the close of the apostolic age; Pentecostal and charismatic traditions treat the gift as continuing and stress 1 Corinthians 14:5. Some traditions identify tongues chiefly with existing human languages, while others read the gift as a devotional speech whose public use requires interpretation (1 Corinthians 14:5, 26). These are confessional and interpretive differences, not a single uniform Christian reading.

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.