Do you believe that people can speak in tongues?

Question

My preacher at church started talking in tongues. I am not sure if I believe that really can happen. What do you think and what exactly does that mean?

Answer 1

That means he is full of the Holy Spirit

Answer 2

People of certain denominations do believe that speaking in tongues is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Only you know what your specific church teaches. I believe that God has given us the free will to believe or disbelieve what we see or hear and make out own decisions. I would suggest that you look inside yourself and decide if you believe the preacher was speaking in tongues and whether you even believe in the practice.

Answer 3

Once upon a time I studied this stuff. From what I've read, the Day of Pentecost in the Bible occurred when many people from many lands were gathered together. They all spoke different languages and were not able to speak the same language as the Galilaean apostles. The miracle was that suddenly the apostles, who knew the gospel, could speak in these foreign languages and tell each person in their own language about Jesus and repentance, etc. The purpose of the miracle was not for someone to stand up and babble incoherently in order to show off how "spiritual" he was; the purpose was to educate those people who did not speak the same language.

Anyone who stands up in church and starts babbling in a language no one there can understand is not part of a miracle; he is just showing off. I recall the Bible says some pretty specific things about show-offs, too.

Answer 4

It is biblical. Found in 1 Cor. 12:1-31 and 1 Cor. 14:24
This speaks of the "gifts of the Holy Spirit" People can speak in tongues but it is a gift. NOT everyone gets this gift. Does it mean you are not blessed by the Holy Spirit if you can't? NO! It just means you don't have that particular gift. Although speaking in tongues is supposed to be done in "private" it can be spoken in church as a PERSONAL prayer. The ONLY time tongues are supposed to be spoken as a public message is if and only if there is an interpreter present. That is another gift from the Holy Spirit.

Answer 5

A Person who had spoken in tongues for the first time reported: “I felt a burning all through me, and chills and great beads of perspiration, a trembling and sort of a weakness in my limbs.” Associated with the tongue-speaking experience, there is often unusual behavior that some find disturbing. For instance, “one girl nearly choked on her own saliva as she stretched out on a chair, her neck resting on the back of it, her heels on the floor, her legs stiff.” During one congregation meeting “a man somersaulted from one end of the church to the other.”
My Oh My..Somersaulting & God... Thats too Much.

Answer 6

I'm not going to tell you what you should believe, only what I believe.

I believe in tongues. I believe that the Holy Spirit sees fit to grant some people with the ability to speak in tongues, and it can be a very powerful ministry tool, but I think people take it too far and try and force tongues on others. I don't believe tongues means babbling incoherently. That's just a self-fulfilling thing, in my eyes, like some people with stigmata. But there are some instances, like in Acts 1 and from friends' experiences, where my friends have prayed for a person on mission trip in English, but the person heard them in Spanish (He didn't speak English. They learned this later when they found an interpreter).

To sum up, I believe in tongues, but not like most people see them, like babbling and such.

Answer 7

You mean when people babble in what seems to be one or more different language(s)?

It can be faked, it has always been claimed as a holy power (possession) and it seems very shallow to me.

Speaking in tongues is traditionally defined as a holy power taking temporary possession of a mouthpiece and making it speak in many languages simultaneously to reach as wide an audience as possible.

If a god or deities or spiritual power has to use a mouthpiece to keep the religion alive and then use a cheezy trick to induce credibility and belief in the mouthpiece... is that really a religion you want to be involved with??

Religion or spirituality or whatever helps you to make sense of life & reality has to be personally felt and cherished. If it doesn't touch you deeply and make you think, then it's propaganda (like a tv commercial). No one person can define for you... it's in you and you know it. If you're a skeptic like me, then a lot of the crap handed out by religions doesn't make sense.

Find something you can believe in, then follow it. If it's different or weird, who cares?? As long as its not hurting anyone else or you, then it's no worse than anyone else's dogma (is the spirit of God in Lava lamps & how do you know it's not?)

Me, I believe in what I believe. No one else tells me what I feel is important or what I must believe is true. Everyone has a small piece of the true word, but no one seems to be able to put it all together.. Maybe life is a GREAT BIG PUZZLE!

Go find out!

Answer 8

This is practiced by a minority of churches. If it is done in a church, there is supposed to be someone there to interpret it. If there is no one to interpret it, it should not be done, according to the bible.

Our baptist church does not do this.

It plainly states in the bible that the gift of tongues is one of many gifts people can have, and it is not required in order to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit enters into all saved persons, whether they speak in tongues or not.

I interpret the references in the bible concerning speaking in tongues to be talking about being able to speak in foreign languages. That was a wonderful gift at that time, so that the Gospel could be spread to other lands.

Answer 9

MOST PEOPLE WHOSAY THEY SPEAK IN TONGUES, SPEAKS IN A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE,GETS A SPANISH OR GERMAN OR ANY OTHER LANGUAGE BIBLE, LEARN SOME WORDS FROM IT AND THEN SPEAK IN A DIFFERENT TONGUE.
BUT THE BIBLE SAYS THIS:

*** Is “Speaking in Tongues” for Today’s Christians? ***
*** g78 3/8 pp. 26-27 Is “Speaking in Tongues” for Today’s Christians? ***

Those early Christians were not speaking in “unknown tongues,” nor “angels’ tongues,” nor were they using unintelligible speech as a form of prayer to God, as “Pentecostals” do today. Instead, they were speaking foreign languages. Thus, Vigouroux’ famed French Dictionnaire de la Bible (Dictionary of the Bible) correctly says about what happened on the day of Pentecost: “It was not a question of made-up languages, nor just of inarticulate cries, nor of rapturous exclamations, nor of figurative and enthusiastic expressions, but of languages known and spoken by other men, the use of which the Holy Spirit temporarily communicated to certain faithful ones.
Those who think Christians should speak in “tongues” might be very surprised to read in the Bibles that many of them carry that the apostle Paul specifically said that miraculous speaking in tongues would not always continue. He wrote: “Whether there are tongues, they will cease.”—1 Cor. 13:8.

It might also surprise many “Pentecostals” to learn that not all early Christians spoke in “tongues.” Paul wrote to the Christian congregation in Corinth: “Not all speak in tongues, do they?”—1 Cor. 12:30.

In fact, it seems that the congregation in Corinth was actually attaching too much importance to the matter of tongues. Paul wrote to them not to do so. He asked: “Brothers, if I should come speaking to you in tongues, what good would I do you . . . ?” unless he explained what he said in tongues in language they could understand. He said that, like musical instruments, the voice should not give “indistinct” sounds. We should not speak “into the air.” Speech should be “easily understood,” he said, so that those present would know “what is being spoken.”—1 Cor. 14:6-9.

Answer 10

Yes I believe people speak in tongues all the time. During the day of pentecost that is how people spoke, but in Acts the bible says when anyone speaks in tongues, there should be an interurpter. Speaking in tongues is a gift from God, but a lesser gift. Jesus is the greatest gift.

Answer 11

Speaking "in tongues" meant being able to speak in another language. I think this is true because how else would people in other countries who spoke other languages learn about the resurrection?