The supernatural ability of speaking in tongues was one of the miraculous, spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit gave to early Christians, along with gifts such as healing, working miracles, prophesying, casting out demons, taking up serpents, drinking deadly poisons, etc. (1 Cor. 12:7-11; Mark 16:17-18). What can we know from the Bible about speaking in tongues?
Tongues were actual, known, spoken languages in the first century. Upon the first occasion when tongues were spoken in the New Testament, God defined them. When the apostles “began to speak with other tongues” (Acts 2:4), “everyone heard them speak in his own language” (2:6; cf. 2:11)—the “language in which [they] were born” (2:8). Tongues were real, comprehensible, native languages spoken by those who had never studied them.
Tongues had a defined purpose of converting unbelievers. The Holy Spirit revealed that “tongues are for a sign…to unbelievers” (1 Cor. 14:22). When early Christians “went out and preached everywhere,” the Lord was “working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs” (Mark 16:20; cf. Heb. 2:3-4). Unbelievers could be convinced of the validity of the message preached when they heard it proclaimed in a language not native to the speaker.
Tongues were designed by God to have a limited duration and to cease in the first century. The Spirit affirmed, “tongues…will cease…when that which is perfect has come” (1 Cor. 13:8-10). Early Christians had “part” of divine revelation while the New Testament was still being written. When the completed (i.e., perfect) revelation of Christ’s New Testament had come (John 16:13; 2 Pet. 1:3; Jude 3), the miraculous “part” (spiritual gifts) would be “done away” (1 Cor. 13:10).
If the Holy Spirit is still empowering Christians to speak in tongues today, then such would be (1) real, known languages (not unintelligible sounds), (2) controlled with only two or three taking turns (1 Cor. 14:27-32), (3) imparted only by the hands of a living apostle (Acts 8:14-19; 19:6), and (4) only one of all other miraculous powers still occurring, including healing, working miracles, casting out demons, taking up serpents, drinking deadly poisons, raising the dead. Most of all, if the Holy Spirit is still empowering Christians to speak in tongues today, then such would unequivocally confirm that we do not have the completed revelation of God, which Scripture insists that we do (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:3; Jude 3).
Like all other miraculous gifts, tongue-speaking fulfilled its God-given purpose of confirming the spoken word, which we have in written, completed form today. According to the Bible, the gift of tongues ceased in the first century.