TwIsTeD ToNgUeS or Speaking in Tongues?

Over the years I have been in Pentecostal and Evangelical churches that have had a humongous emphasis on speaking in tongues.  You'll hear them say, "Pray in the spirit" or "The spirit intercedes when you don't know what to pray for?" using  Romans 8:26 as reference:

Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  

They have told me that I should desire to speak in tongues and offer to pray for me.  However, what I read in scriptures is that our desire should be to prophesy not speak in tongues.

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. 1 Corinthians 14:1

What is speaking in tongues?

It is speaking in any of the world's 6500 languages without being taught.  Some have said that when the high priest went into the Most Holy Place to atone for the sins of the people there was a special language between him and God so that the devil wouldn't understand. Often when it is a gift there is another person present with a gift of interpretation that can understand what is being said.  I have heard testimonies of someone being lost in foreign countries unable to speak the language but momentarily speaking in the language getting them back to safety.  I heard another testimony of an unbeliever overhearing someone speaking in his rare native tongue with a message from the Lord, and coming to the knowledge of the Lord through that experience.

There is a group of Christians, particularly but not limited to Pentecostals, with the belief that speaking in tongues is essential to salvation.  The basis being Acts 2:1-4.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Many believers start arguing that speaking in tongues is a gift that is not imparted to all of us, but those who believe speaking in the spirit is essential for salvation are not referring to the gift.  They are referring to a different type of tongue.  The different kinds of tongues spoken of in the bible is the gift of tongues, singing in tongues of angels (1 Corinthians 13), and tongues for prayer (1 Corinthians 14:2). 

How Pentecostalism started

Let me give you the historical background of how praying in tongues began as Pastor John MacArthur explains in his book Strange Fire:

It was the dawn of the 20th century, in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 1901. A group of Bible school students had come together hours earlier for a New Year's Eve prayer service.  But even though it was long past midnight, they were still there--earnestly seeking to experience the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  All of them desperately hoped for something amazing.  Over the previous weeks, the students had been intently studying portions of the book of Acts.  They were particularly interested in what the apostolic record taught about the baptism of the Holy Spirit-an experience that, in keeping with their Wesleyan Holiness background, they believed took place subsequent to conversion.  Their study eventually centered on the miraculous phenomenon of speaking in tongues, which the students concluded was the true sign of Spirit baptism.  They observed how the apostles had spoken in tongues on the day of Pentecost, as well as Cornelius in Acts 10 and John the Baptist's former disciples in Acts 19.  And they wondered: if tongues-speaking was a sign of the Spirit's presence in apostolic times, maybe the same was still true at the outset of the twentieth century.  By the time they gathered for a prayer service on NYE they had all arrived at the same two conclusions--namely, speaking in tongues was the sign of the Spirit baptism, and the gift of tongues was still available to them to experience.  So with heartfelt determination, they pleaded with God to be baptized by His Spirit.  Their teacher, a Methodist Holiness minister named Charles Fox Parham, had encouraged them along these lines.  And now they were eager to experience the Spirit's power firsthand.   Sometime in those early morning hours, something extraordinary happened.  One of the students, a young woman named Agnes Ozman, asked her teacher to lay hands on her and pray that she would receive the Holy Spirit.  She began speaking in the Chinese language and was unable to speak English for 3 days.  When she tried to write in English to tell of her experiences she wrote in Chinese.  After that, at revival meetings, more than 20 different languages were reported being spoken by fellow students and this is the beginning of the Pentecostal movement.

What Is A Response to the Holy Spirit

When we look at scriptures, speaking in tongues is not the only response to the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:4-11: 

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.   There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.  Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.  To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy,to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

These Pentecostals argue that if you don't immediately speak tongues upon salvation it is because it is a progressive experience between repentance, baptism, and finalized by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by tongues.  It is an inference made by a small minority.  When there is too much meaning to a particular scripture it is called hyper literalism.  Reading into something that is not there.   You can search the scriptures, but you won't find one verse that says, "One must speak in tongues to be saved" or "Tongues is essential to salvation."  The only requirement is found in the core verse of the bible John 3:16, "For God so loved the World He gave His One and Only Son, that he who believes will not perish but have eternal life."  It doesn't say, "For God so loved the world He gave His One and Only Son, that he who believes, then speaks in tongues, then gets baptized will not perish but have eternal life!"  Revelations 22 does, however, say that anyone who adds to the Word will receive plagues and he who takes away will not receive the tree of life.

A study on speaking in tongues.

There have been tape recordings done on the technical term for speaking in tongues, glossolalia.  They always turn out to be strings of syllables, made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more haphazardly but which nevertheless emerge as word-like rhythm and melody.  It is indeed like a language in some ways, but linguists have found they are not a language. (Tongues of Men and Angels, William Samarin).

Charismatics have argued that it is a gift of receiving your own spirit language.  Each is unique to the person.  As one pastor instructs, "When you ask for the Holy Spirit, you may have a syllable bubbling up, or rolling around in your head.  If you will speak it in faith, it will be as if you open a dam, and the language will come forth. (Drawing Near, John Bevere)

Speaking in tongues as a demonic spirit

On the flip side again, the devil is able to mimic and counterfeit things of the spirit. Hinduism for years has had the practice with the Kundalini spirit-a releasing of a cosmic energy, that happens when a serpent untwists itself in you. In the occult, kundalini has been a common practice for over 1,000 years, but in Asian religions, its history has goes back to 4,000 year. They have the concept that this phenomenon is to release “the power of the serpent” that resides in every person. The physical experience is exactly the same in tongues and kundalini. When the power of the serpent comes out, frequently the person makes involuntary sounds and their bodies begin to make movements out of their control (as is slain in the spirit). (The Stormy Search for Self, Cristiana y Stanislov Grof)

In Conclusion

I don't disagree that speaking in tongues exist.  There are some serious praying, God-fearing, bible beating Christians that can not speak in tongues.  Then there are proclaimed Christians that are living in sin, not bearing fruits, that claim to speak in tongues.  Personally most of the time when I hear people speaking tongues around me it sounds like a lot of baa ba ba baa ba and rolling of the 'r's.  It all sounds the same.  I speak 3 languages and am around many more.  There is a distinct difference between hearing languages and someone speaking in tongues.  I do believe there are many Christians that truly believe they are speaking in tongues that are not. The only person that knows is the omniscient Lord.  He is the only one who knows who is speaking in tongues.  He is the one that will make the judgment call as to whether it is necessary for salvation.  I do believe that our salvation is being worked out until the day we go home.  Speaking in tongues alone is no guarantee of salvation just as a person who doesn't speak in tongues.  The one true indicator is those who have repented and are bearing fruit as a result of their transformation.