Why I No Longer Need to Speak in Tounges

For the past month my mind was in a bit of turmoil on the subject of tongues.

 I remember first hearing about tongues by a teacher of mine that was part of the Holiness church when I was a Presbyterian.

I found it fascinating and wanted to try it for myself.

I would pray to God to bless me with the gift of tongues, but it never happened.

Then I went to the Charismatic church and I heard it spoken my second visit. I was in awe. I wanted to speak tongues so bad but it didn't happen.

Finally, after a year attending, it happened and I was filled with joy.

After that I prayed in tongues as often as possible.

But even during my time in the charismatic movement, I noticed some things that were a bit off.

People would pray in tongues out loud, they would before a large crowd without an interpreter. Which 1st Corinthians say is a no no.
(1 Corinthians 14:27-28)

When there was an interpreter, things were still off. Someone would say like they were saying the same five words over and over again, but the interpreter would give a long speech. Even then I wondered "How did you get that from that?"

After we left the Charismatic church and started to attend the Evangelical Baptist church, my family and I kept our praying in tongues private.

The church we were going to didn't necessarily have issues with tongues per se, but just ask not to do it aloud. It can cause division and distraction. We understood and kept it private.

When I met my husband, I let him know I was a firm believer in tongues... My husband on the other hand was a firm skeptic.

I waved it off at first. I thought "Well, he just never experienced it."

But he has. He's been in the Charismatic movement before and has seen people being "slain in the spirit" and "pray in tongues" and even then, after looking in the scriptures, he saw it was not Biblical.

I stopped bringing it up. As I was only using it as a private prayer language, I didn't see the fuss in it.

Even attending and then getting confirmed in the Anglican Catholic Church, I still had no issues with praying privately in it. But after attending the A.C.C., I noticed it kept getting infrequent. After my confirmation, it stopped all together.

Speaking in tongues didn't seem to enter my mind until last month, I saw a video by a Lutheran Pastor talking about Charismaticism on his channel called Worldview Everlasting.

In the video he explained about the beginning of the Charismatic movement (which only has been around since the early 1900's) and verses discussing that speaking in a "Heavenly Tongue" that sounds like gibberish is not exactly Biblical.

I was in shock. I talked to my husband.

My husband is a firm believer in tongues, but as he sees it, tongues has to be an actual language. The Lutheran Pastor even explained that the "Language of the Angels" that scripture at times refers to may actually be Hebrew. My husband even told me a story of a Friend of his Father's began to pray in Aramaic with two Arabian men. The friend nor my father in law heard the Aramaic, but the Arabian men heard it perfectly.

I did research on my own, but I still ended up confused. I came to the conclusion that speaking in tongues in a room full of people who all speak the same language is not Biblical. But I still wasn't sure about tongues as a private prayer language.

I didn't want to speak to someone who was one extreme of the argument or the other. I also wanted to speak to someone who KNEW their Bible.

There was one person I had access to that I knew that they knew their Bible cover to cover and knew how to dig deep.

The Archbishop of my church (who's office is located at my Parish. Thank God).

I set up an appointment with him.

When I finally got to sit down and talk with him, I was a bit nervous and rambling.

Though the Archbishop has never acted high above anyone, and is pretty laid back, at times, can make me a bit nervous.

This man is our Archbishop. The head of our church. Our Version of the pope. The highest authority in our church under God.

And yet he is one of the most approachable, easy going, and personable man I have ever met.

So I told him a bit of my background and asked him what his thoughts on tongues where.

I was mostly getting confused by scriptures 1 Corinthians where Paul was giving guidelines for the use of tongues (Guidelines that some in the Charismatic movement seem to like to ignore) but I was having a hard time trying to figure out if Paul was talking about tongues as the way I knew it, or foreign languages, as my Husband knew it.

He gave me a bit of context of the Corinthian church.

As he described it, the Corinths were eccentric. They were the Charismatics of the age. So Paul gave them some guidelines as to not go off the deep end.

He also explained to me that the way he saw it, that this language unknown to men is not Biblical.

This was the way he explained it to me in an email before we spoke in person:

" I do not think the idea of tongues as the neo-pentecostalists understand it is heresy. However, I also think the experience is not normative. The Corinthians, after all, were nuts. Where a church is sick, the charismatic movement can be a sign of health. Charismatics believe strongly in the reality of God, the power of God, and the goodness of God,  But by putting the premium on personal religious experience, the movement also tends to breed individualism, subjectivism, and factionalism. Where the Church is healthy and doctrine is balanced, therefore, the charismatic movement tends to be a problem. If you've benefited from it in the past, that's good. Your disappointment in most of the leaders you encountered is understandable - again, by emphasizing the individual and private experience, they set themselves up for a fall."


I told him about some of the major leaders of the Charismatic movement I had encountered and did research on and was almost heartbroken by what I found.

 But that is one of the issues I have with the Charismatic/ Evangelical movement. It quickly becomes about the individual leader and not the church on the who.

However, he also explained that maybe God lead me to that moment because at the time, I needed it.

As I mention in a previous blog, before I attended the Charismatic church, I was so close from walking away from God altogether and was ready to find another religion because I was doubting what I was raised to believe in and beginning to think I had it wrong this whole time.

The Charismatic movement saved me from leaving God. It was then when I truly started my walk with God. So, I needed to know God existed.

My Archbishop also explained to me that he believes that when we begin our walk with God, he gives us signs to show that he exists. But after a while he makes the signs infrequent because we need to be able to Walk by Faith and not by site.

I can't rely on that warm fuzzy feeling anymore because there are going to be those times when I still need to believe without relying on my feelings, but my faith.

It reminded me when I was covering my head full time. Covering one's head all the time is not a biblical command, however I was going through a transitional period to where I needed to remember God was always with me. After a while the headcovering became smaller then non existent outside church. Because I was walking by faith and no longer by feeling.


So, was I actually speaking in a language that God gave me or was it just some kind of gibberish

coming out of my own head?

Well, to be honest, I don't know.

And yet, I have peace about not knowing.

But I do know this. I know, that no matter what happens, God does exist, and he is with me always, even when it doesn't feel like it.

I also know that I don't have to "speak in tongues" in order to obey God and have a relationship with him.

I'm a big girl now, and I don't need daddy to hold my hand 24/7 to know that he still loves me and cares for me and is always watching out for me.

May the Lord be with you.