QUESTION AND ANSWER

How important is the Gift of Tongues?

This is an important question to a great number of people whose lives are often frustrated because they do not speak in tongues and have been told that they should do so. I am encouraged because neither my wife not I has this gift, but three of our children do!

But let us look at what the Bible says.

I Corinthians Chapter 12 has this to say. Not everyone speaks m tongues, but it is an important gift;. as important as the gifts of healing or of interpretation. Whether that is exactly what Paul meant to say I am not sure; but he puts the gift of tongues in a list of gifts which not everyone necessarily has but which nevertheless the whole Church needs.

So it is an important gift and one for which to give thanks if you have it. ( A dear friend of

mine never used his tongue on public, but employed it when he wanted to praise the Lord in his private prayer time). On the other hand, it is certainly not as important as the gifts of which Paul speaks in Chapter 13, namely Faith, Hope an Love.

The Bible answers out question, then, very plainly.

But perhaps it is important also to hint at one or two problems behind this question.

Some people believe that the tongues on the day of Pentecost were not an unintelligible language only meaningful to those with the gift of interpretation, but real languages which the people present from many nations could recognize as their own mother tongue in other words that this great event was a kind of reversal of the Babel story in Genesis 11. If this is so, then there are references to two kinds of tongues in the New Testament. The other kind of tongue appears to be the one mentioned in I Corinthians - a tongue which is understood only by those with the gift of interpretation, and a gift which is only to be used in public when there is an interpreter present. On the other hand there seem to have been cases when a foreigner has found that the tongue is his own native language.

But let us not forget my friend and recognize that, for many people, this gift is a help to worship - in the same way that the great collects of the Payer Book are to me.

John Pearce, the author of this piece, is the Rector of Limehouse in the diocese of London.