GIFT OF TONGUES

The dominion and power of Almighty God can be told in many languages apart from our own.  This is why I pray the OUR FATHER also in Aramaic, Latin, and Spanish.

The languages of today should evolve from those introduced by God to humanity in the first miracle of tongues at Babel.   The miracle was for three purposes:  1)  to underscore the vanity of ambition,  and  2)  to repopulate the other regions of the Earth, and  3)  to unite them for the Glory of God.

The same miracle was repeated in Jerusalem at the Feast of Shavuot (or Jewish Pentecost) as the Holy Apostles assembled for the feast in the Upper Room.  Acts 2 described the descent of the Holy Spirit on each of them in the form of Tongues of Fire, a phenomenon not mentioned in Genesis 11.  At Babel, the Lord God simply said:  ”Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other”.   And the people began talking nonsense to one another, as the new languages were acquired by them that became their own.   Learning the new languages was instantaneous thus miraculous.

At Pentecost, the Holy Apostles were heard preaching in languages not their own.  These new tongues include the regional languages of Iberia, Turkey, Persia, Rome, Africa, Arabia and India where the Holy Apostles were reported to have preached the Gospel of Jesus.  Yet it was also probable that they too learned other languages as purported by claims that Peter and Paul made it to Britain, Andrew to Scotland, James son of Alpheus to Ireland, and John to the Gauls.

These miracles were enshrined in many Christian Hymns and Prayers such as this one:

When the Most High came down and
Confounded tongues of men at Babel,
He divided the nations.
When He dispensed the tongues of fire,
He called all to unity;
And with one voice
We glorify the Most Holy Spirit

Are the miracles at Babel and on Pentecost the same or equal to the “speaking in tongues” of the Charismatic Movement?  It is not.

The so-called speaking in other tongues are utterances of strange words that disappears as the session is ended and are generally incomprehensible to the attendees without the translator.

We are created with a divine spark and endowed with intelligence to fulfill our destinies.  We convey ourselves by intelligently speeches which are understandable and learnable.  We need not go into a trance to acquire new tongues but we go to school which is the intelligent way to acquire them. Falling into a trance could be dangerous because there are situations wherein demons could join in and control us to blaspheme.

Cases of  demonic possessions have been reported while trancing and this account is one of those:

“On this question of speaking in tongues, I was told many years ago of someone who was at a charismatic meeting and they had a session of speaking in tongues. Some people stood up and began making strange, almost animal-like noises, like barking. Then one person stood up and began speaking in an unknown language. Then another stood up and shouted out: ‘Stop him, he’s blaspheming the Mother of God’. Apparently, the man who had interrupted had worked as a scientist in South America and had recognized the language the other person had spoken in as an Amazonian native language. Indeed, the person speaking it had been blaspheming the Mother of God.” (Quoted verbatim from Orthodox Sources)

Charismatic leaders have gone too far in their trade.   In a Charismatic Conference in June 1997, Kevin Ranaghan, a Catholic Charismatic pioneer told 7,500 Catholics that “barking like dogs and oinking like pigs is a true manifestation of the Holy Spirit.”  

Before Kevin’s time, the former Bishop of Manchester Msgr. Ronald Knox said:   "TO SPEAK IN TONGUES YOU HAD NEVER LEARNED WAS, AND IS, A RECOGNIZED SYMPTOM IN ALLEGED CASES OF DIABOLIC POSSESSION." Msgr. Knox was ordained in the Church of England before he became a Roman Catholic priest two years later.  

Reports on dangers of the Charismatic Movement abound worldwide among Christians and Catholics alike.  Noted pastor Shane Montgomery had this to say:

“The Bible even warns against the common practice of "praying in tongues" because the understanding is not there (see I Corinthians 14:14-15).  We must agree with Paul when he said, "in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue", I Corinthians 14:19.  This "speaking in tongues" movement is being used by Satan to unite non-Biblical churches, even churches that do not preach the gospel.  Beware!”

Speaking of tongues in the case of the Holy Apostles was a gift from God, then a necessity of the early Church.   This is no longer true today so that   missionaries have to spend time learning new languages so they can continue on preaching the Gospel.  Amen.