I have a question about speaking in tongues.

This is the first of what I hope will be many article on the Holy Spirit and Tongues. I hope you enjoy them.

Four passages where people received:
1.Acts2:1-11
2.Acts8:5-17
3.Acts10:44-48
4.Acts19:1-6
Another important passage:

ICorinthians14:1-19

Now, let's get started!

What Does The Bible Say About the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a gift. It is something that God has provided for us to help us in our walk here on Earth... and actually, it is someone Who has been sent here to be with us! It's not something someone made up a few years or decades ago to get people excited or make them fall down on the ground or something strange like that. In fact, Jesus Himself spoke of it! In Acts1:4-5, Jesus was speaking to His disciples after His resurrection from the dead, and He said that God the Father was about to give them a gift that Jesus had already mentioned to them (you can read one instance that Jesus told them about this gift in John14:16-17). Jesus called the "gift" He was speaking of being "baptized with the Holy Spirit."

You might think that Jesus was speaking of salvation when He said that. But He wasn't! For one thing, Romans10:9-10 says that salvation happens when you believe in Jesus and say so with your mouth. These disciples had already believed in Jesus! Their salvation was already in place. Also notice that in Acts19:1-2, Paul indicated that the people he was talking to had already believed, but asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit. If the baptism that Jesus had spoken of was salvation, then Paul's question would have been completely redundant!

One thing that always seemed to accompany the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is something called "speaking in tongues". The word "tongues" here means "languages"; you might say that at the United Nations Building in New York City, people of many races and "tongues" gather to discuss matters of international importance. That's what "tongues" means in this case, not that the person talking has two tongues in his mouth or anything else strange like that. :-> In fact, if you take a look at Acts2:1-4, you will find out that those very same people Jesus was talking to in the verse we read earlier from Acts chapter 1 started "speaking in tongues" as soon as they received the gift Jesus had spoken of! And we know also that the early Christians considered speaking in tongues a sign that an individual had received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit... in Acts10:44-46 it says that some Christians who visited a man named Cornelius knew that Cornelius's family had received the gift because the family members spoke in tongues. So we can safely say that when you speak in tongues, you will know that you really have received the gift Jesus spoke of, and have been baptized in the Holy Spirit!

A friend of mine used to deny that the "tongues" spoken of so many times in Acts and the rest of the New Testament were anything but an "earthly, ethnic language". He had gotten this idea by reading part of Acts chapter 2 and looking up the word "tongues" in a dictionary that defines the words from your Bible, which is written in English or whatever language you speak, by the definitions they had in the language the Bible was written in... Greek. Part of the definiton of the word translated "tongues" contained the phrase, "earthly, ethnic language", so since that dictionary said it he assumed that it was the case. But at the time the Bible was written, speaking in tongues was a very new thing... how could they expect to make up a word that meant "Heavenly languages from God that nobody else understands", and use it and expect anyone to understand what they meant? Instead they just used their word for "languages", and that was that. He also looked at Acts2:5-11 and assumed that the people who were speaking in tongues were speaking in the languages of all of the people who heard them. I think this is very unlikely. We can assume from a verse in the chapter before (Acts1:15) that there were probably about 120 people there when the Baptism in the Holy Spirit was given to them. Now, when the people said they heard them speaking in "their own tongues" they used the word my friend had looked up, which can be pronounced "dialektos". We get the English word "dialect" from that term. When we say "dialect", we don't mean a language exactly... we mean a specific way of using a specific language. People who live in the northern part of Germany speak German, and so do people who live in the southern part, but they speak slightly different dialects of German. The people in Acts chapter 2, who were from "every nation under heaven" (verse 5) all heard them speaking, not only in the language they spoke, but in their own specific dialect of that language! I'm sure it is possible that at the time of that event, there were less than 120 dialects spoken in the entire known world, since much of the world was unknown to them at the time, but I suspect that there were more than that. So, how could only 120 people be speaking in more than 120 dialects at the same time? They couldn't! I believe that the miracle that happened that day was in the hearing, not in the speaking. The fact that the people "heard them speaking" in earthly languages does not prove that they were actually speaking in those languages! Notice that ICorinthians14:2 says that when someone speaks in tongues, nobody understands him but God.

(Note: There have been incidents where someone who was "speaking in tongues" was heard by someone else in the room speaking in a language the listener knew but the speaker did not. I would classify this as an unusual form of prophecy, but not as speaking in tongues... though in many ways it is very similar to tongues.)

What Are These "Tongues" For?

So, if this language is something that nobody can understand anyway, what good is it? There are three very important reasons why you should speak in tongues:

1. It is a prayer and praise language.

ICorinthians14:2 says that when you speak in tongues, you are speaking directly to God. My pastor once made the analogy of an adult at home all day with a little kid who is just learning to speak. Hearing "da-da" and "ma-ma" and maybe, "coo-kie" <G> is cute for a while, but after a few hours of that, you're ready for some adult conversation! That's the way it is with God, to an extent; we are not and will never be at His level of understanding, but when we let the Holy Spirit pray to Him through us, we can talk to Him on His level. (God still desires us to talk to Him in language we understand, of course!) Another advantage of praying that way is that it goes directly to God without ever being interrupted or corrupted by what we think is right or best. Wouldn't it be great to always be able to pray God's perfect will, every time, and never wonder if we're saying the right thing or using the right words? Well, this is how we can do that! Later on in the chapter, verses 16-17 indicate that it is possible to praise and thank God in tongues.

2. It edifies you (it builds you up).

ICorinthians14:4 says that when you speak in tongues, you are edifying yourself. Judeverse20 says roughly the same thing in different words: the words translated "edify" in First Corinthians and "build yourself up" in Jude are the same thing. "Edify" is a big word that means make someone stronger. When you pray in tongues, God is making you stronger! See why I said at the beginning that the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is so important? Whenever you feel weak, like you can't do what you know God wants you to do, you can pray in tongues and you will become stronger!

3. It helps you pray when you don't know how to.

Sometimes something happens, and I know it's bad and I should pray about it, but I maybe don't know all of the details of what is happening, or maybe my emotions are too involved for me to pray fairly about the situation. (For example, if I thought someone was hurting a loved one somehow, I might want to pray for that person to die and leave my family alone! That's not what God wants, though.) When that happens, I can pray about it in tongues, and I know that the Holy Spirit will pray exactly the right things through me. Romans8:26 talks about this... praying about things that "words cannot express", or things that we as the people who are praying don't understand well enough to say. When it says the Holy Spirit "helps" us, it means that if you look at prayer as pulling on a rope, like a tug-of-war against the problem, then you're tugging, and the Holy Spirit is right behind you, tugging away with you. How can you lose? Also notice that ICorinthians14:14 says that when you are praying in tongues, your spirit is praying, but your mind doesn't understand what you are saying.

There are a number of other reasons why you would want to speak in tongues: for example, speaking in tongues reminds us that God is there with us. He is right beside us and within us, taking care of us. It helps us to rise above the sinfulness of the fallen world we live in and remember to live like Jesus would be living if He were still here in the flesh. But if all you ever got out of tongues is a better way to praise and talk to God, wouldn't that be enough?

How Do I Receive?

It seems like almost every time we read in the book of Acts about someone receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, they receive it a different way. In Acts8:18 and Acts19:6, people received the Holy Spirit by having hands laid on them. But in Acts2:1-4, nothing like that happened... they were just all in the same place! It doesn't even say they were praying, though I suspect that maybe they were having a worship service of some kind. Unfortunately, you and I are not together in the same place, and I can't lay hands on you through your computer screen either. But you do meet the conditions under which Cornelius's family received in Acts10:44... all they did was hear Peter preaching the Word of God! I don't think that there is a set way that people are supposed to receive the Holy Spirit; I think that if you want Him, he will come for you. But you've read the Word of God today, so you qualify according to the Bible to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit!

It's easy to read the verses and know that people way back in the Bible got the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues, but it's also easy to wonder if it's something that God wants every Christian to do, or only the ones in the Bible verses. Well, Acts2:38-39 is the end of the message that Peter spoke to that crowd of people from "every nation under heaven." Peter said in those verses that the gift of the Holy Spirit was for those people right there, for their children, for everyone who was far off, and for everyone that the Lord would call. I know I'm pretty far away from Jerusalem, and you probably are too... but even if you're sitting in Jerusalem right now, you're pretty far off in time from when Peter spoke those words nearly 2000 years ago! And if you've read this far, it's because you are interested... and if you're interested, it's because the Lord is calling you. You fit two out of four... not bad! God wants you to have the Holy Spirit! Do notice, however, that before those people received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, they had to receive Jesus as their savior.

Receiving the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a very easy thing. In fact, you may laugh at how simple it is to receive, and wonder why I put you through all these pages of scriptures just for that! I wrote all that detail so that you would understand what is happening and won't be scared when it does happen, because it can seem pretty strange if you don't know what to expect! I also want you to have a clear understanding of exactly what it is, in case someone asks you to explain it or even challenges you, trying to tell you it's not real or not in the Bible. You know now that it is clearly spelled out in the Bible; you know where to find it and why you do it. So now on to the doing.

You saw already that in one place, all the people did was hear the Word of God, and immediately they received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit! That may have happened to you as well while you were reading this... God is capable of working that way! But for most of us, it takes a little bit more than that... sometimes it's good to just pray and ask. We already know God wants us to have it, so we know we can pray for it and we'll be praying in God's perfect will! Read this prayer out loud, or if you like, make up your own prayer, asking God to baptize you in the Holy Spirit:

Lord, I want to thank you for what You have done in my life already. You saved me from eternal Hell, and I thank You for that. Today, though, I've read that You have another gift for me called the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. And I really need that power in my life! Father, please baptize me in the Holy Spirit, and let me start to pray in tongues right now!

Now comes the strange part. If you're not already speaking in tongues, there's a reason... you haven't opened your mouth yet! In Luke11:11-13 Jesus said that God wouldn't give you something bad when you ask for something good. Remember back in the Garden of Eden... the serpent was the Devil! When you ask for the Holy Spirit, you're not going to receive the Devil and be possessed. You're not going to receive a Big Fat Nothing either, like a rock when you ask for a loaf of bread. When you ask God for the Holy Spirit, you get the Holy Spirit! Acts2:4 says that they began to speak in tongues! Acts19:6 says that people heard them speaking in tongues! In ICorinthians14:18, Paul said that he spoke in tongues all the time! Do you see what I'm trying to say? The Holy Spirit guides you by supplying the words, but you are the one who has to speak. Don't speak in a language you know; open your mouth and begin to say the words the Holy Spirit lays on your heart. It might feel foolish at first, and it definitely is going to sound like nonsense... but remember that you are not supposed to understand it. God is!

You know it's in the Bible. You know that it's something you need, and you know that God wants you to have it. You've prayed for it, and though I didn't type it up for you to read, I've prayed for you too. Now it's time to receive! Open your mouth, move your lips, and speak in tongues!