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*This is a companion post to Why I Believe Speaking In Tongues Is For Today

Recently, Allen Parr, a Christian YouTuber I follow and respect as a brother in Christ and fellow minister of the gospel published a video called Why I Stopped Speaking In Tongues and You May Want To Too. I don’t agree with all of Allen’s conclusions. But I believe he raised some valid questions about the Christian practice of speaking in tongues that you or people in your life might have as well, and I wanted to point you to some answers from the Bible, most importantly, and my personal experience as a Christian from Charismatic/Pentecostal tradition who prays in tongues regularly.

I laid the foundation for what I believe the Bible teaches about speaking in tongues and my personal experience with it in my blog, Why I Believe Speaking In Tongues Is For Today, so give that a read for context. But here are some follow-up questions, inspired by Allen’s video­, that I couldn’t dive deep into in my first blog on speaking in tongues.

1. Is it possible for all Christians to speak in tongues?

Not all Christians agree on this answer, but here’s what I see in the Bible. I do believe the ability to pray in tongues is available to any and every Christian.

In the book of Acts, we see several accounts of Christians having encounters with God–whether at salvation or afterwards–in which they experience either an initial or a renewed empowering of God’s Spirit. These experiences are often referred to in Scripture as being baptized with the Holy Spirit or filled with the Holy Spirit, and they result in a Christian receiving greater boldness to share the gospel, the ability to speak in tongues, and/or the ability to function in other miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit we find in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.

In each of those biblical accounts (Acts 2:1-18; Acts 8:14-18; Acts 9:10-19; Acts 10:44-46; Acts 19:1-7), it either outrightly says the Christians spoke in tongues or, for the two accounts that don’t explicitly say they spoke in tongues, there is an implication in the passage that they very well might have.

Acts 8:14-18 doesn’t say they spoke in tongues, but we do know some type of outward experience happened because Simon the sorcerer saw that the power of the Spirit was given when the apostles laid hands on believers and prayed for them. It makes sense to conclude what those believers in Samaria experienced was similar to what Christians experienced in the other biblical accounts when Christians has similar encounters with God.

In the apostle Paul’s salvation story in Acts 9:10-19, we see that Ananias prayed for Paul to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and while we don’t see Paul speak in tongues in that passage, Paul later admitted in 1 Corinthians 14:18 that he spoke in tongues. So, at some point in his Christian life, whether in Acts 9 or later, Paul received from God the ability to speak in tongues.

According to Scripture, it doesn’t seem to me like God is highly discriminate in which Christians He is willing to give the ability to speak in tongues and which ones he’s not. And in my experience, every Christian I personally know who has asked God for the ability to speak in tongues has eventually received it.

If you’re asking, “doesn’t 1 Corinthians 12:29-30 say, ‘not all speak in tongues?'” Actually, yes. That passage is talking about spiritual gifts used to edify the Church, not personal prayer only. Check out my other blog on tongues for more on the difference between practicing speaking in tongues as private, personal prayer (which we’re talking about in this post) and practicing tongues as a spiritual gift to build up the assembled Church.

2. Is okay to pray for the ability to speak in tongues?

Absolutely! In his video, Allen suggests there’s no Bible verse that says you can pray for any spiritual gift you want, but I see Scripture leading us to a different conclusion.

1 Corinthians 12:31 and 1 Corinthians 14:1 exhort Christians to eagerly desire and pursue spiritual gifts. In 1 Corinthians 14:13, the apostle Paul even seems to believe we can pray and ask God for spiritual gifts that we don’t have, in the case of this verse, the gift of interpretation of tongues. We also see Jesus teaching the disciples that we can ask God for the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and He answers those prayers (Luke 11:5-13). I love the way Sam Storms bears this concept out in his book, Understanding Spiritual Gifts.

The Bible teaches two things as being simultaneously true: the Holy Spirit distributes spiritual gifts to believers according to His will and we can desire and pray to God for spiritual gifts we don’t currently have actively working in our lives.

Why would God put these exhortations in His Word for us if there were not a very real probability that, if we ask God for the gifts and work of the Spirit in our lives, He will give them to us? So, if you want to speak in tongues (or another spiritual gift), you have permission from Scripture to ask God for it (here’s how).

3. Is it wrong for Christians to pray in tongues out loud together as a group?

Allen mentions he’s been in church environments where pastors or worship leaders would encourage the entire congregation to pray or sing in tongues to God together and those environments made him uncomfortable because he didn’t see scriptural support for tongues being practiced this way without interpretation. I’ve heard this objection a lot, and I partially agree with Allen on this point.

We do see a biblical requirement of interpretation placed on speaking in tongues, but only when a person is speaking out loud before a group in a corporate church setting (1 Corinthians 14:5, 13, 27). If you’re praying in tongues quietly under your breath at church or praying to God in tongues in your personal prayer time alone with God, it doesn’t need to be interpreted (1 Corinthians 14:28). 1 Corinthians 14:1-4 and Romans 8:26-27 show us that God understands what you are saying, and you are being edified spiritually, even though you don’t understand what you are saying.

1 Corinthians 14:20-25, Paul warns that if a nonbeliever or a believer uninformed about spiritual gifts is present in a church meeting, and people are speaking in tongues publicly without interpretation, they might think you’re crazy and they would not be edified because they can’t understand you.

But if you’re in some type of gathering with all believers and all those believers are to some degree informed about and familiar with the gifts of the Spirit, and/or there’s no one present in the gathering who is not yet a believer in Jesus then, biblically, there’s nothing wrong with a Christian praying out loud in tongues or a group of Christians praying or singing out loud to God together, each in their personal prayer language of tongues without interpretation.

You’re all just individually talking to God and lifting your voices to Him in prayer and worship together. And there’s biblical precedent for believers praying out loud to God together this way, even in English or whatever the earthly language you naturally speak may be (Acts 4:23-24). In Acts 2:1-4 and Acts 10:44-46 and Acts 19:1-7, when the Holy Spirit first filled those believers, they spoke in tongues in a group gathering with no interpretation recorded in Scripture and it didn’t seem to bother God too much.

Often, I’m in prayer meetings with fellow Christians who are informed about the spiritual gifts, and we might pray in tongues out loud together in addition to the prayers we pray individually and corporately in English during the prayer meeting.

When I’m worship leading, sometimes I invite the room to lift their voices together and sing their own spontaneous song of worship to God and either sing in the spirit (in tongues) or with the language they understand. But if I’m leading at an inter-denominational gathering, I would choose not to publicly encourage or practice singing in tongues in that moment, out of respect for the diversity of people and experiences present.

Paul’s instructions were about discerning and being appropriate to the environment, not discouraging Christians from praying in tongues together in any setting.

Head HERE to read Part 2

Resources:

• Every Person Filled sermon by Jabin Chavez
• Caitlyn Lutz’s blogs on tongues: Part 1 and Part 2
• Message series and book :The God I Never Knew by Robert Morris
• The Holy Spirit: An Introduction by John Bevere
• Receiving The Holy Spirit and His Gifts by Terry Virgo and Phil Rogers
• The Beauty of Spiritual Language by Jack Hayford

Let’s Talk: Did you learn something new about speaking in tongues in this study? Discuss this post in the comments below.